Pearls of Sino-wisdom from China Writers’ Group member Dongping Han

Amazon.com: Dongping Han: books, biography, latest update

Background from another CWG member:

The Canadian husband of a Chinese lady who belongs to a Chan Buddhist (Zen) temple and is a friend of mine helped me out today shopping, since I am recovering from surgery on my wrist. During the course of our hour or so together, my Canadian friend informed me of many ‘interesting’ things. I’m posting this since he is a well informed person. I asked what sources of information he has, and he says he gets it from more than one source. He did mention the Wall Street Journal and China Daily, which he takes with a grain of salt.  

He lived in China for several years where he met my Chinese friend, now his wife.

• Xi Jin Ping is going to be gone soon, since he is very unpopular
• He has gotten rid of most of his opposition.
• Most Chinese are not happy with how things are going in China
• Chinese long for the most recent past leader, Deng Xiao Ping. (I reminded him that DXP was leader about 40 years ago, and was not the one who was escorted out of the recent Party Congress)
• China’s economy is in terrible shape, due to overbuilding and way too much debt.
• Lots of people are getting out of China for political and economic reasons
• The Belt and Road Initiative is a failure financially as well as diplomatically
• Either Russia or China will stab the other in the back, since they have never been allies, but instead adversaries during their long history
• Same goes for North Korea and Russia, since their cultures are different and incompatible
• Russia has only been able to hold together in the face of a threat.
• Russia’s army is in a disastrous state due to the ‘senseless, vanity’ war initiated by Putin
• Both Russia’s and China’s economies are in bad shape
• The Chinese Yuan has not bottomed out yet, it will be a few more months before that happens
• Because of the war Russia initiated, it has lost all soft power around the world.
• China likewise has no soft power status
• Russia will split apart due to its internal conflicts

Dongping Han’s reply,

To me the information you got from your Canadian friend is as biased as most western media, if not more. 

I grew up in China and have been doing research in China, and I can tell you that Xi Jinping has been the most popular leader in China after Mao passed away.  Deng Xiaoping and others were popular among former landlords and other elements suppressed by Mao, but they are no more than five percent of the population, but for the workers and farmers, Xi represents the best things for them.

I live in the U.S. and last fall I travelled to 13 countries in Europe, Middle east, and Asia as a professor on the Semester at Sea, and last summer, I was in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China for about two months, I would argue that the economic situation everywhere was very bad, which I think it was a good thing.  There had been too much meaningless consumption and development.   The world needs to slow down a little bit to give mother earth an opportunity to recover.   

Economically China is struggling as well.  But compared with any other places, China is doing much better.  Its people have enough to eat, have a roof over their heads.  What else does a normal person need to be happy?   Half of the Chinese people are farmers who can grow everything they need to survive.  They do not pay taxes to the state and local government.  If they knew what is going on in other parts of the world, they should be the happiest people in the world. 

My follow-on comment,

I think he works for Falungong. About the only thing he left out was organ harvesting!