the usa's debt dwarfs china's debt ..., page-25

ah, the Mao period.
I don't think China has officially started to publicly look at the dark side and dark patches of that period yet. But the two generations who lived through those years are still alive and many of them, especially the students who were sent to the countryside to receive re-education by the peasants, are still very active in the economic and political fields. I also lived through the later part of that period (I was bone in 1962) so remember a lot of those. My grandfather and my mother spent two years moving through different places away from home basically as beggers just to survive during the great leap forward years. My father was sent to labour camp and nearly died. Was my mother/father/ bitter? no! Am I bitter knowing all these and remembered the cultural revolution years? no! Would any of my family members prefer to have western style elections? No! We still love Chairman Mao. There is this delusional concept amongst many observers, observers whose worldview is fundamentally based on the development of the western world with origins in ancient Greek/Roman/European civilisation, that if China does not change to confirm with their ideas, will eventually collapse. Wrong!
To understand China, go live in China, experience the changes, know how the system works and adapts. At least John Naisbitt tried to look at the world through the eyes of many Chinese, seek out facts, many facts. What makes his view on China more relevant is perhaps the fact that his earlier bestseller book "megatrends", "Megatrends 2000" accurately predicted what are to come.

Megatrend: Warner Books 1982
Although first written mainly to an American readership, Megatrends proved to be true in anticipating major shifts for the whole world.
More than 9 Million copies were sold in 58 countries, and it was on the New York Times Bestsellers list for two years, mostly as #1. Twenty years after its publication, Christoph Keese in the Financial Times looked back:
Once a decade, sometimes more often, a book about the economy is published that becomes a bestseller immediately and changes the relationship of people to economics. His predictions were astoundingly precise though predictions, as Mark Twains one-liner says, are especially difficult if they are about the future.

Megatrend 2000: William Morrow 1990
Published in 1990, the #1 New York Times bestseller Megatrends 2000 was a run-up to the new millennium. It describes what was beginning to shape the 21st century, including the Rise of the Pacific Rim, the dawn of the Age of Biology, The Triumph of the Individual, the emergence of the Free Market Socialism, a Religion Revival, Cultural Nationalism, and the Booming Global Economy of the 1990s.The accomplishment of this book was to identify clear patterns beneath the confusion, to chart a meaningful course through our future, and to focus on the contributions each individual can make.

Can any of those China doomsayers/bashers match John Naibitt's achievements in predicting future development?