Chinese-born American intellectual elite Min Luo has one foot in China and one foot in America. Over the past thirty years, he has watched the growth of both countries. I first had asked him to enumerate the present-day challenges of China (Interview Part Five).
Now I asked for a similar evaluation of the U.S. Perhaps fearful of offending this American, he didn’t lift his hand to enumerate the challenges. In fact, he danced around the question for a while.
“The U.S." Min said. "I’m thinking there are many sides that are very good—the living standards, the people, everybody has a car, doesn’t matter if you have a good or bad one, if you drive a good car, I don’t care. We don’t judge people—what you wear, what you drive, if you play golf or not.
“In China, it’s still not like that. For example, if you’re running a business you better buy a good car. If you don’t drive a good car, are you sure you have the capability to run your factory?
“In China there’s much more status. What kind of bag do you carry? What kind of car? Watch? Shoes? If you dress the part, people will pay attention to you. If you dress like what I do today nobody really pay attention to you.”
Min told me a story—apparently common-- about how his friend was approached by an acquaintance asking for money. Because the acquaintance was driving a Mercedes, Min’s friend agreed to supply the loan. When the acquaintance was unable to repay, Min’s friend said, “Then let me have your car.”
“To me, personally, I think there are many good things in the U.S. We can enjoy life a lot more. It’s a peaceful life. Peaceful meaning quiet, meaning you go to grocery store, you don’t see a lot of people. In China, everywhere you go, there’s lot of people.
“Honestly speaking, the (U.S.) people, generally speaking, are more polite than in China. I’m not saying China is not polite, but certain people are not polite.
“I think the life in U.S. is much better. I think the education—I still prefer the U.S. education. The kids in the U.S. are much happier than the kids in China. Actually we have a word for it—Yanguan: 'Bright Sunshine.' The kids in the U.S. are much more sunshine than the Chinese kids.
“The U.S. offers a much better life than China, but I see the U.S. also has a lot of challenges…”
(We were getting down to business. While he proceeded to enumerate several points, he did not raise his fingers to do so, instead speaking in a gentle voice—ready at anytime to back off. )
“Number one, before the U.S. leaders destroy something, they should have a solution. We think we can do anything we want to. For example, invade Iraq. We can just send our military to another country. A lot of U.S. people think this is natural. They are a dictator. They are the people we don’t like. We can do it. I think that’s one thing in my mind, I don’t think it’s good.
“You look at the world, like the Middle East. There’s so many issues. We’ve got to be thinking, ‘We create the issue, but why we didn’t fix it? Why did we make it worse?’
“So now people probably thinking—like at least when Saddham Hussein was there, the world was safer. You can call him a dictator, killing his people. But if you do statistics, today probably kill much more people than at that time.
“So why the U.S.—do they think about this? Do we blame ourselves? I don’t think the U.S. government actually criticizes themselves. Nobody really think about it. Why did ISIS happen?
“Another good example is North Korea. Do we like North Korea? I don’t like North Korea. They make their own people so poor. Some people starve to death. But should we invade North Korea? Should we get rid of Kim? Before we do that, we better be thinking of what solution we have. If you invade, how are we going to make sure that the whole country’s people mind will be changed?
“For example, like ISIS, they have their own religion. You can give them your religion—Christian or Baptist or whatever—but will they take it? No.
“North Korean people have been living under Communism for so long, they already have their mindset. Even, in China, I personally think --even in China if people ask me, ‘Min, would you want to have the U.S. Democracy in China today or would you want to have the current government?’ I have no hesitancy in saying I want China to have the current government. I don’t want the U.S. Democracy in China. Why? You can have your Democracy that you have been having for the past 200-300 years. You’ve been gradually growing for many years, step by step. You’ve been trained. But China-- the people’s mentality--if you give me everything, if you give me free speech, free elections, I’m not to that level yet.
“I like the U.S. system, and I believe in the long-run the Democracy system will win. I want the U.S. system to win. No, seriously. I’m not kidding. People are living much happier in their life. In China, I feel people are not as happy as we are. But, today, I don’t think we can give that system to China. Every country—they need to make change gradually. They need to grow into things in their own time.
“Like North Korea. I don’t think we should let them just stay the way they are. I think we should be friendly with them. Let them open their country. Just like China. China is the perfect example. Why China changed so much? Because people had a chance to study abroad and travel abroad. They had the chance to buy things from foreign countries. They opened the doors and saw, ‘Oh, this is good.’
“Nobody’s stupid. When you see the good things, you start to change.
“For people who really closed their mind, if you criticize them, you beat them, it doesn’t help. But if I be friends with you, help you to open the door….
“North Korea –the U.S. government sanctioned them, doesn’t talk to them, everything they do wrong we criticize them. On the other hand, if you have starvation, I help you with some food. I don’t criticize you as much but I start to feel some kind of relationship. I take the guard away so they say, ‘Ok, I’ll start to open my country a little bit more.’ Open, open, open more. Gradually change.
“So Number one: if we want to do something, we need to be thinking of the solution first.”
(…to be continued. Next: The U.S. is Not the Middle Kingdom.)
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