A HEALTHY, PEACEFUL WORLD….I tend to run into an imaginary scenario that seems so real it raises goosebumps:

Everyone has disposed of their nuclear arms and has arrived at a peaceful live-and-let-live leaderless world until one pops up with glee and announces he is the winner, leader-tyrant  of Earth….

I was reminded of this fantasy which I had already scrubbed clean when I came across “Xivilisation,”  an article in the April 29th 2023 issue of the Economist:

China’s leader, Mr. Xi Jinpin,  recently proposed that “civilizations can live in harmony.”    In other words, the Economist observes,  “the West should learn to live with Chinese communism.  It may be based on Marxism, a Western theory, but it is also the fruit of China’s ancient culture.”  Under the Global Development Initiative (GDI)  in 2021 Mr. Xi pledged at least $4bn towards helping poorer countries with everything from public health to cutting  carbon emissions.  Sounds pretty good?  Then in  2022 he proposed the  Global Security Initiative (GSI), calling for  a “common, comprehensive. co-operative and sustainable  approach to building international security.”

Mr. Xi suggested the latter two months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  As the Economist reported, “the GSI was announced at a virtual dialogue, organized by China’s communist party, of leaders of about 500 political organizations from more than 150 countries.  Upon President Biden’s co-hosted second Summit for Democracy days later, China was not invited.  Xi was quoted as saying “The practice of stoking division and confrontation in the name of democracy  is in itself a violation of the spirit of democracy.” (He’s got us there.)

“Countries need to keep an open mind in appreciating the perceptions of values by different civilizations,” he said,  “and refrain from imposing their own values by different civilizations and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation.”

In 2022 a think-tank in Sweden reported that the share of the world’s population living in autocracies has risen from 45%  in 2012 to 72% last year.  But wait…

I remember something about Tianenmen Square!     Considered a watershed event, reaction to the protests set limits on political expression in China that have lasted up to the present day.^[28] The events remain one of the most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China.  According to Wikipedia,  censorship in the People’s Republic of China is mandated by its ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is one of the strictest censorship regimes in the world.^[1] The government censors content for mainly political reasons, such as curtailing political opposition, and censoring events unfavorable to the CCP, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, pro-democracy movements in China, the Uyghur genocide, human rights in Tibet, Falun Gong, pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Xi Jinping became the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (de facto paramount leader) in 2012, censorship has been “significantly stepped up”.^[2]

The government has censorship over all media capable of reaching a wide audience. This includes television, print media, radio, film, theater, text messaging, instant messaging, video games, literature, and the internet. The Chinese government asserts that it has the legal right to control the Internet’s content within their territory and that their censorship rules do not infringe on their citizens’ right to free speech.^[3]

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TODAY’S ELDERS

I was surprised to read today, in the same issue of the Nation, that some folks over fifty have been connecting on the internet just like some of us did in the past, when younger. One difference however, is that when there is a connection, at least one of them pays money. Didn’t that use to be the job of a Madam?

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better…    Sydney J. Harris    https://calendar.com/blog/