LETTER

Editorial on China        

What an interesting and thoughtful editorial on China, “Afraid of which big wolf?” For rear-focused minds, it evokes the memory of Tiananmen Square in 1989, and the history of this should not be forgotten. We should realize that it was also the time of the “Fall of the Soviet Empire”, and when China was reckoning with its own past.  I quote from an earlier letter: “President Xi learned from the fall of the Soviet Empire, and propelled China to become an economic powerhouse. We do not have to search for long, just look around, even garlic today is a ‘Product of China’.”

What our neighbours to the south do not understand is that life is more affordable with cooperation. A lot has changed in thirty years; we cannot afford to live in the past and wrestle the windmills of ideologies. Our challenge is to look to the future, to clean the air of all sorts of pollutants, to solve the refuse of our making, cleanse the water of plastics and medications, chemicals, metals, etc., before we assume a new stage in evolution -- homo plasticus.

It is time to restructure our own way of thinking, in respect to each other, to reflect who we are:  humanity.  Solutions will be found in understanding that all life is interconnected and intertwined (re: M/M Sculpture) within the chain of life. Take the lesson from Aesop. Honour our dead, but live for today and tomorrow and after.

As for President Trump, he might have achieved more without the constant accusation of “Russian collusion”, and if he made a deal with China, would he be blasted with “China collusion”?  But he is a rational businessman, not afraid of changing his mind, so he might even change his slogan to “ Let’s make humanity great “, and engage with the realities of our time, not yesteryear’s.

Rasto Hlavina, 

Pontiac