“NINE MILLLION BICYCLES”, THE WORLD and HUMANITY:
The Mission of TheChinaForum.com
There are nine million bicycles in Beijing sings the enigmatic Katie Melua, whose single, Nine Million Bicycles, immediately became a top 10 hit in the UK after it was released in September 2005. China is indeed everywhere these days. Yet, apart from seeing the movement of consumer goods on the surface of the world’s economy, how much does each of us really know about China and understand the ways China is and will be influencing our lives as consumers, employees and, more profoundly, citizens in the global village? |
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The purpose of TheChinaForum.com is to provide a platform for open discussion about these momentous questions on a global scale as well as to build a reservoir of facts and knowledge on China, to which everyone – wherever you are – can have instant access.
Before I invite you to browse the pages of theChinaForum.com and to participate in online discussions on any China topic that is interesting to you, I would like to draw your attention to both the hard and soft sides of the China coin.
The hard side: China as a global economic force. In one way or another, almost everyone has experienced the impact of China’s rise in economic terms. China is where the world is investing; China is where affordable consumer goods are coming from. China means new market opportunities, but at the same time it is bringing about huge job losses in traditional industries. China means money but it also means that in the process of making it your treasured values will be challenged.
With the help of TheChinaForum.com, I hope you will better understand these extremely intricate, dynamic relationships, and, as a result, find ways that will help you achieve business success and, more generally, allow you to stay in tune with China’s economic rise rather than feel threatened by it.
The soft side: China as a keeper of world peace. The soft side rarely attracts the masses’ attention, but it will become more and more important. Imagine that, apart from the Iraq war, the USA were at the same time fighting another war with North Korea as a result of North Korea’s failure to comply with its demands on the immediate abandonment of its nuclear efforts.
What would the state of the world have been, now that we know building a new Iraqi state is many times more difficult than destroying an old Iraqi government and that without peace in Iraq, there is hardly any peace in the world?
Yet, despite regarding China as a threat to the world’s power balance (whether it is a threat to or a keeper of world peace, few seem to care), the USA has been fortunate to have China play a pivotal role in bringing North Korea to the negotiating table. Surely, at this critical moment of mankind, China has contributed to world peace.
For many senior US officials, their logic is that power is equal to aggression, and, therefore, as China becomes more powerful, it will become more aggressive. Isn't it time that we need to seriously explore the truth of this logic and understand China better?
In January 1988, seventy-five or two-thirds of all Nobel Prize winners gathered in Paris and made a manifesto, which began by asserting that if mankind was to continue to survive in the 21st century, it had to look back 2,500 years and absorb the wisdom of Confucius.
Despite the grand assertion of the top scientists of our times, few have heard of it let alone understand the “why”, “what” and “how”. It is my belief that, through TheChinaForum.com, we can advance our understanding and share our findings across the world.
As Nine Million Bicycles continues:
We are twelve billion light years from the edge I'm warmed by the fire of your love everyday So don't call me a liar Just believe everything that I say There are six billion people in the world We're high on the wire |
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In broad strokes, China, the world and humanity are the themes of TheChinaForum.com, which I hope you will be interested in joining our journey of exploring.
Wei Wang
Founder