A Biblical Seven Years
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes:
As I sat in my seat at the Bird’s Nest, watching thousands of Chinese dancers, drummers, singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony, I couldn’t help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; we’ve been preparing for Al Qaeda. They’ve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And we’ve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones.
The difference is starting to show. Just compare arriving at La Guardia’s dumpy terminal in New York City and driving through the crumbling infrastructure into Manhattan with arriving at Shanghai’s sleek airport and taking the 220-mile-per-hour magnetic levitation train, which uses electromagnetic propulsion instead of steel wheels and tracks, to get to town in a blink.
Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country?
POSTED COMMENTS: 4 Responses
Why anyone pays attention to Friedman is beyond me. He’s a flatulent triumphalist. The real question is what planet he lives on. He spends too much time in the morning preening himself while trimming his moustache to be taken seriously.
Snapshots are a second in time. The big picture in China is different and Friedman knows it. Seems he only lives in the city center - look around Friedman, 99% of China never saw the mag-lev, much less had a ride in it.
Friedman has a point. America’s infrastructure is positively third world compared to a lot of the new stuff in China — and it’s not just in Beijing and Shanghai. Chengdu’s airport is nicer than pretty much any airport in the US.
Yes, most Chinese don’t get to see their new flashy infrastructure, but at least China’s government is going to great efforts to build it. When was the last time a new airport opened in the US? Immigration at LAX feels more like Cambodia than the United States.
That said, Friedman is a hack who has a reputation for overstating EVERYTHING. I would take him with a grain of salt.
Friedman had some original thoughts before he fell in love with his own voice about a decade ago, culminating in the membership in the “liberal hawks” group in supporting the Iraq war.
But this piece is not without its merits. He certainly sensed the problem of making room for a rising China. Olympics was meant as a showcase for the results of 3 decades of almost uninterrupted development, but it is the potential it demonstrated that should make everyone ponder.