The Merger of Chinese History with Western Civilization

Focusing on the results of 1985, this chapter starts with the negative aspects of recent Chinese performance. The CIA suggests that China can do well by pursuing indirect controls, such as taxation and monetary policies that influence interest rates. The many years of reading and reflection have now crystallized into the conclusion that the hardships and discomfiture that China has endured over the past hundred years are the necessary steps within a full-scale reconstruction in preparation for the merger of Chinese history with Western civilization. Chinese history of the past hundred years also involves mass movements of different kinds, although not exactly on a par with the international war fought on a global scale. Albert Feuerwerker, for one, in his account of Shen Xuanhuai points out that China's failure in providing forced savings for industrialization in the nineteenth century allowed the Japanese to move ahead.