H.G. Well’s interesting message is that human beings may not be able to save themselves from a technologically superior foreign invasion, but established societies and culture are more enduring than technological superiority. Wells is suggesting an invasion by a technologically superior force does not eradicate a society but changes it.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
“The War of the Worlds”
Author: H. G. Wells
Narration by: Christopher Hurt
H. G. Wells (1866-1946, English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian.)
“The War of the Worlds” is an odd book. Published in 1898 when the British Empire was near the height of its global power and prestige. It shakes the foundations of world hegemonic ambition. Listening to the book in the 21st century, it has relevance but in today’s hearing it seems too long and melodramatic. Giant fighting machines, heat rays, black smoke chemical weapons, city panic, and refugee flight are too familiar in today’s world. The shock value of a Martian invasion is lost. However, in the reality of a horrific war by Russia on the Ukrainian people, America’s bombing of Iran’s citizens, and Iran’s brutalization and torture of its people make “The War of the Worlds” as important and relevant today as when it was written.
H.G. Well’s Martian Invasion
Most of Wells’ book appears to say an invasion by technologically superior Martians will dominate the earth. What Wells shows is that technological superiority is not enough to conquer the world. As the British army and its weaponry fail to defeat the Martians, Earth’s natural pathogens and environment is shown to seriously challenge Martian’ survival. Technological superiority is not enough to win a war. A combination of nature’s pathogens and human resistance are challenges that suggest, despite technological superiority, singular societies ultimately prevail. History shows that eternal domination of an independent distinct society is unlikely to prevail. A distinct society may change from the influence of an invasion, but it does not disappear, it adapts. Glasnost is evidence of that truth when the former nations that were part of the U.S.S.R. reestablish themselves as independent societies that do not entirely abandon the influence of Russian domination. Native tribes that lived in what became the United States retain much of their social identity despite America’s English occupiers.
H.G. Well’s interesting message is that human beings may not be able to save themselves from a technologically superior foreign invasion, but established societies and culture are more enduring than technological superiority. Wells is suggesting an invasion by a technologically superior force does not eradicate a society but changes it.
One remains skeptical of Landemore’s solution, but America and other purported democracies need to wake up to unequal representation in government rule.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Politics Without Politicians (The Case for Citizen Rule)
Author: Hélène Landemore
Narration by: Hélène Landemore
Hélène Landemore, (French professor of political science at Yale University. Received a PhD from Harvard with a thesis on the idea of collective intelligence.)
Hélène Landemore has a radical idea to replace professional politicians like those leading America, Great Britain, and her home country of France by a random selection of citizens to become their government’s legislators. Landemore is obviously an accomplished and well-educated person, but her idea of reform is a problem of scale and the faults of human nature. The complexity of managing any form of nation-state’ government requires more than inexperienced leaders whether elected or arbitrarily chosen. Her weak example is the ancient government of Athens. The size of Athen’s population was miniscule in comparison to today’s democratic countries. Athens is hardly a reasonable comparison to 21st century democracies. However, Landemore notes a fundamental truth about modern democracies.
The fundamental truth of Landemore’s political idea is better representation of the population needs to be created for democracy to survive and prosper.
Governance certainly requires more than deliberation. However, the solution cannot be arbitrary selection of representatives. There have to be fundamental qualifications for those who can represent their economic constituencies. They cannot have a criminal record, and their qualifications must conform to the characteristics of the constituency which they represent.
Capability and accountability become murkier with elected representatives that are inexperienced.
As popularly elected managers of people and bureaucracies, one’s ability to be re-elected may be the best measure of qualification for office. The length of a representative’s term would be limited based on equal representation and an age limit based on an annual mental competency assessment by a board of physicians beginning at age 65. One may argue voter representation would improve over time with popular re-election by those who continue to vote for the person they have chosen to represent their needs, subject to the age 65 competency assessments. This is a controversial issue but with the availability of social security in America, this seems a responsible way of assuring competent constituent representation.
One should keep in mind that ambition is not always bad because people like Lincoln, FDR, Mandela, and Havel were driven personalities. However, poor representative elections of the mostly financially secure and privileged undermines equal representation. Professional politicians elected by wealthy supporters encourage corruption, self-serving legislation, and detachment from the general population. But critics argue that in large societies some form of political specialization is unavoidable, just as medicine requires doctors and law requires lawyers. The question may not be whether politics can exist without politicians, but how politicians can be more representative of all; i.e., including the rich, poor and those who have chosen to be or are inadequately educated.
Presidents can be corrupt, self-serving, and detached. In theory, checks and balances by a wider swarth of Congressional representatives would counter polices of a corrupt President.
Scaling of a more representative body would be the greatest challenge to democracies like America, Great Britain, and France. Potential elected representatives who know or can learn how to assemble interested participants in governance must represent their constituency. The big “ask” of these new representatives is that they also work to gain some understanding of foreign policy, government military action, budgets, international trade, and pandemic management. Legitimacy of a constituency representative would be tied to elections that are central to the demographic interests they represent. One way for America to become more representative is to increase the size of the House of Representatives. The limit of 435 members was created in 1929 when the population was 1/3rd of what it is today.
Fairer representation of all is the preeminent goal of democratic governance. Trump is the antithesis of that goal.
One remains skeptical of Landemore’s solution, but America and other purported democracies need to wake up to unequal representation in government rule. The strongest single objection to Landemore’s political idea is in a method of election and government policy creation that offers fairer representation of all nation-states’ citizens. Her fundamental truth is that today’s professional politicians fail to represent the diversity of democracies’ citizens.
It is up to this generation to revise the checks and balances of American Democracy to assure the abuses of power by a President will not destroy the fundamental strengths of democracy.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Regime Change (Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump)
Author: Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan
Narration by: Robert Petkoff
Jonathan Swan (Australian and American investigative journalist at NYT, reporter who won the Emmy Award for Best Edited Interview for Axios.)Maggie Haberman (American journalist, political analyst for CNN, White House correspondent for the NYT, published a best seller, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump” in 2022.)
If only a small percentage of Swan’s and Haberman’s history is objective, Trump’s presidency shows the weaknesses of American democracy. America’s president supervises executive departments, directs cabinet secretaries, orders the firing of employees, sets executive branch priorities, and issues lawful orders to federal agencies. Every American President’s power to hire executive branch employees has the ability to create a managerial ruling class that concentrates wealth and power in a like-minded group with direct reports to the President. Trump, with the character traits of a martinet, allows no disagreement and demands loyalty above all. He hires a cadre of rich Americans to lead the executive branch with total loyalty to one person’s beliefs and actions.
President? Trump.
The President of the United States has direct power over military operations with the right to deploy military force at will. Trump demonstrates that power with the bombing and intended domination of Iran. Trump’s intent is to eliminate Iran’s leadership and its nuclear bomb ambitions; i.e., objectives that fail on many levels. Congress only has the power to declare war, fund the military, and regulate armed forces. Trump did not declare war. He legally uses the military to attack an independent nation; murder alleged drug traffickers without trial and institute an American immigrant deportation policy without either American congressional or judicial endorsement just because, as President of the United States, he can.
January 6, 2021, Trump’s patriots?
The President’s power to pardon leads to the release of hundreds of Americans who had been jailed for attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Over two thousand rioters attacked Capitol Police, damaged the chambers of Congress, and threatened elected officials like the House Speaker and Trump’s chosen Vice President who would not endorse Trump’s belief that his reelection had been fraudulently stolen.
“Regime Change” is a difficult book to be objective about because of a personal distaste for Donald Trump. Much of what Swan and Haberman write reinforces a view of corruption by bullying of a President who is undoubtedly as controversial to some Americans as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and FDR were in their times. The difference is that Trump is a proven liar whose public statements are proven false by independent fact-checking organizations. An objective judge of Trump’s presidency will only be fairly revealed by historians in future years. Though “Regime Change” seems well documented, the emotion of current times and the rage of citizens who elected this scofflaw will refuse to believe the truth.
Trump’s cabinet updated April 2, 2026
With a second term control of Trump’s election, he handpicks executive department employees and cabinet secretaries principally based on loyalty. Trump proceeds to issue lawful orders to federal agencies as a part of his administrative power. The President’s power to create executive orders requires no legislative oversight. That power is only constrained by constitutional and statutory authority over which a President has no control. That constraint requires time to be enforced, and Trump chooses to do as he wishes until restrained by either congressional or judicial action, neither of which are happening because of time or Constitutional right.
Trump exposes structural weaknesses in American Democratic government.
It is up to this generation to revise the checks and balances of American Democracy to assure the abuses of power by a President will not destroy the fundamental strength of democracy.
There is an ongoing hybridization of American capitalism and Chinese communism. Is Trump’s authoritarianism becoming more like Xi’s communism or Xi’s authoritarianism becoming more like Trump’s capitalism? One wonders–are we growing closer together or farther apart?
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
House of Huawei (The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company)
Author: Eva Dou
Narration by: Nancy Wu
Eva Dou (Author, American journalist who reports on technology for The Washington Post.)
“House of Huawei” is a complex history of the growth and development of what became a Chinese multinational technology company that builds smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, and most importantly, telecom infrastructure for cloud services around the world. It is China’s version of Amazon that becomes a massive seller of tech equipment, internet use, and communication.
Ren Zhengfei (Chinese entrepreneur and engineer, founder of Huawei Technologies.)
There are many names of Huawei business leaders that are largely unknown to most Americans. Ren Zhengfei is the founder and most important person in Dou’s story. He is born in 1944 to schoolteacher parents during the Cultural Revolution. He served in the Chinese armies engineering corps that shaped his management style. He worked through famine, political purges, and the strict discipline of military service. He became the founder of Huawei in 1987.
Deng Xiaoping (China’s Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission of the Chinese Communist Party, 1982-1987)
The advance of Deng Xioping opens a capitalist door to the world for Huawei. Beginning in 1978 through 1989 Deng reforms the communist party and encourages a limited form of capitalism in China. When Xi takes over, Huawei becomes more directly subject to communist party oversight. As a company, Huawei is pulled closer to China’s government control. The Huawei network is classified as a national-security asset. Though Huawei may or may not have sought closer association with the CCP, it became entangled with state strategy.
Xi makes Huawei a national champion of innovation and semiconductor technology. It becomes a symbol of China’s technology ambitions while being a target of U.S. sanctions. Dou shows Huawei becomes a battleground for tech strategy between China and the Untied States
Sun Yafang (Chinese engineer and Chairwoman of Huawei, 1999-2018.)
Sun Yafang is a former chairwoman of Huawei. Her ties to Chinese intelligence services are viewed as a recurring controversy with Huawei’s involvement with America. Her relationship with China’s state power structure creates concern on the part of the U.S. with Huawei’s data collection as a part of Huawei’s practices in America.
Meng Wanzhou (aka Cathy Meng or Sabrina Meng, Deputy Chairwoman and CFO of Huawei.)
Ren’s daughter, Meng Wanzhou, becomes the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei. Wanzhou became known to the world when she is detained in Canada in 2018 at the request of the United States. Her arrest ironically leads to more familiarity with Huawei and its expansion in the world. The primary concern the author reveals is how dependent Huawei may be on the Chinese government for information about America’s technology services.
The fundamental concern of America, Germany, and Japan is Huawei’s use of data collection in their countries.
In the end, these countries decide to ban or restrict the use of Huawei’s equipment because of their ties to the Chinese Communist Party, government, and military. Beginning in 2019 the U.S. banned some of Huawei’s services and global chip supplies. By 2026, Huawei is banned from American federal networks, and telecom infrastructure services. Germany and Japan take similar actions between 2018 and 2026.
Dou explains Huawei’s history exposes deep contradictions with China’s government-directed economic growth.
The authoritarian and state-directed economic and political structure of China is a challenging contradiction to the idealism of communism. China’s communism is compelled to change ideologically from Marxism-Leninism to a state-directed form of capitalism. Huawei becomes a telecom giant euphemistically called socialism with Chinese characteristics. In truth, Huawei is structured to be more capitalist than communist with interventionist potential by the state if it conflicts with centralized control of the party.
Communist captitalism.
Dou explains how Party committees are created within Huawei’s management system. These committees exercise ideological control over Huawei’s executives. Huawei’s objectives are required to conform to national priorities. The development of 5G and telecom infrastructure becomes a national, not private asset of the company. This generates fear in the U.S. about security liabilities and foreign influence of China on U.S.’ and allied countries’ political and/or economic affairs. Dou notes China’s leadership insists on enforcing its security laws, data practices, and CCP’s rules of the road for Huawei’s operations.
Huawei discipline.
Dou notes that Xi’s anti-corruption campaign pressures Huawei to tighten internal governance. Executives of Huawei were disciplined for being too extravagant. The CCP organized ideological training for company employees to more fully align them with the Party. China’s government interference in Huawei’s management leads to U.S. sanctions and an arrest of Meng Wanzhou’s in Canada. The United States has effectively banned Huawei telecom and surveillance equipment. Federal agencies cannot use Huawei devices. American internet companies in the U.S. that receive federal funds must remove Huawei equipment. Though Huawei phones and laptops are not banned in the U.S., they are not sold by major U.S. carriers or retailers. The UK, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, and Canada have taken similar actions against Huawei services. Huawei product like laptops and mobile phones are not universally banned but many Western countries have barred telecom infrastructure because of national security concerns.
What is striking about Dou’s book is the history of Huawei shows both confluence and separation between Communism and Capitalism.
Both use the capitalist tools of competition, private enterprise, and global markets. Both are involved in the private sector and provide preferential treatment, political protection, and financing. Nationalism is a greater force than Marxism for both China and the U.S. American corporate discipline is similar to communist party discipline. Further, economic and political strategies of America and China have similarities. However, the two cultures conflict with each other over globalization and levels of interference or control of private companies. America leans toward transparency, partnership, open markets, and international trust. China opts for secrecy, political reliability, ideological conformity, and oversight to ensure national security. Furthermore, America thrives on risk-taking, experimentation, a free market and decentralized decision making while China emphasizes political correctness, Party control, ideological discipline, and insistence on corruption elimination.
In sum, it seems there is an ongoing hybridization of both American capitalism and Chinese communism. Is Trump’s authoritarianism becoming more like Xi’s communism or Xi’s authoritarianism becoming more like Trump’s capitalism? One wonders–are we growing closer together or farther apart?
“The Fire Next Time” signals a political and prophetic warning to America. The continued existence of Baldwin’s observations about racial inequality are compounded by the rising gap between rich and poor and gender inequality in the 21st century.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Fire Next Time
Author: James Baldwin
Narration by: Lawrence Fishburne
JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987 AMERICAN NOVELIST, SOCIAL CRITIC)
“The Fire Next Time” is written when James Baldwin is only 38 years old. He lives for 25 more years before his death in 1987. His book about life as a Black American is an emotional journey into the struggle of Black Americans that exposes the venality of white suppression and inequality in American history. The intensity of his writing is a brutal exposure of the consequence of discrimination that overwhelms a reader or listener. In many ways, his book is professorial but his view of life as a minority in white America is appalling.
Baldwin exposes the hypocrisy of American democracy, the moral bankruptcy of racial hierarchy, and the failure of American institutions to live up to the values expressed in the American Constitution. The founders argue “all men are created equal” while history shows human equality has never been achieved in America. Baldwin clearly explains America’s failures but is decidedly vague on how those failures can be corrected. He clearly disagrees with the Nation of Islam’s belief in Black self-determination through separation of the races but is ambiguous about organized movements to correct discrimination.
Racist rally in America.
Baldwin explains how white liberals are too complacent, conservatives too cruel, Black separatists to fatalistic, and American institutions too dishonest to forthrightly deal with human inequality. His foundational belief is that a fight for civil rights, and continued arguments for equality are essential requirements for America to achieve the goals that are stated and implied by the Constitution.
“The Fire Next Time” signals a warning to America.
“The Fire Next Time” signals a political and prophetic warning. The continued existence of Baldwin’s observations about racial inequality are compounded by the rising gap between rich and poor and gender inequality in the 21st century. If America refuses to confront inequality, there will be a national reckoning that will be violent and unavoidable.
To Mark Galeotti, Putin is a pragmatic ruler who reminds Russians of their history of Tsarist control and leadership. Time will tell whether Russia’s citizens become discontented with war, lost lives, and victims (some of which are Russian Ukrainians) who choose to live in Ukraine.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
A Short History of Russia (How the World’s Largest Country Invented Itself, from the Pagans to Putin)
Author: Mark Galeotti
Narration by: Mark Galeatti
Mark Galeotti (Author, British historian, writer, honorary professor at UCL’s School of East European Studies.)
“A Short History of Russia” notes that Russia has historically felt insecure about its identity as a part of the European community. Galeotti notes Russia has no natural borders and no single ethnic core. Reaching back in history, the author notes the royal history of Russia’s Tsars (men and women who have descended from royalty). The 1917 Russian revolution turned Russia’s monarchy into a communist autocracy that leads to the eventual ascension of Putin. Putin becomes leader of a reconstituted Russia that reminds one of Russia’s Tsars. Galeatti argues Putin’s Russia considers itself part of the European continent despite its Mongol history that profoundly reshaped Russia’s political culture.
Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group which originated in Mongolia and China.
Galeotti argues Russia has always aspired to be a major influence and power in Europe. Their history of centralized authority and territorial expansion is characteristic of Russia’s desire to be a dominant part of European culture. Despite Russia’s cultural intent to be part of Europe, it drives to have its own identity as a continental influencer rather than conforming culture. The rise of communism, and much later, Putin is founded on Russia’s history of hierarchal leadership and cultural belief.
Tsarist Russia.
Galeotti paints a picture of Tsarist Russia that becomes a model for the rise of autocratic communism. Russian Tsars emphasized centralized control of the country. The Tsars were suspicious of citizen influence or control of the country. They set the table for rule from above because of the lack of any civil organization. Russia had a cultural background for the creation of an autocratic state. The effect of that background set the table for Stalin and today’s Vladmir Putin. Stalin establishes his rule through the use of a secret service to assure loyalty to its leader, Joseph Stalin. Stalin uses that secret service to eliminate rivals to his power. In the interregnum between Stalin and Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev attempts to reform the communist party to an openness for change through his personal effort and a home-fore initiative from party leaders, workers, and managers. Gorbachev fails for many reasons; not the least of which is the terrorist and murderous experience of Stalin’s leadership. But, Gorbachov’s is also because of his failure to gain party support and the consequent departure of many states that chose to leave the U.S.S.R.
Gorbachev takes control of the Russian government with the intent of restructuring weaknesses that had grown in the directionless vacuum created by the death of Stalin. Boris Yeltsin interferes with Gorbachev’s effort when he becomes President of the Russian Federation in 1991. Yelsin complicated Gorbachev’s reform by looking to a young KGB officer named Vladimir Putin to join the administration. Yeltsin’s alcoholism compounded growing disorganization of the Russian government. Gorbachev loses control of the communist party and the balance of personal interests between factions of the U.S.S.R., in part, because of Yeltsin’s interference and mismanagement.
Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine.
Chernobyl becomes a symbol of what is going wrong with centralized government control. Putin’s steely determination reminds Russians of a leader who could stabilize what remained of the Russian empire after the Baltic states and Ukraine left the Union. The ideas of perestroika and glasnost interfered with the U.S.S.R.’s imperialist system of government. However, public discontent with Gorbchev’s rule renewed public interest in Tsarist style control of government like that which is implied, if not recommended by former KBG agent, Vladimir Putin.
Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007, President of Russia 1990-1991.)
Galeotti believes Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost recommendations reveal deep structural weaknesses that are magnified by Boris Yeltsin’s incompetence. However, Galeotti argues Putin is not a master strategist nor a villain. Putin is characterized as an opportunist who takes control of Russia in ways that were experienced during Tsarist and later Stalinist rule. He reinstitutes personal networks of government control by rewarding those who comply with his rule while hollowing out leaders and institutions that interfere with his power. Putin makes himself a modern Tsar by governing with a circle of loyalists. Loyalty to Putin is the cornerstone of his governance. Putin manipulates the fragility of Russian bureaucracies meant to improve the lives of Russian citizens while endorsing the greed of the wealthy. Control and loyalty become more important than effectiveness or efficiency. Loyalty to Putin is the mark of value in his administration.
Putin clearly takes the side of autocratic rulers because of his belief in control of circumstances and belief in loyalty to those in charge.
Putin in Syria supports its dictator, Bashar al-Assad, who flees to Russia when deposed.
Bashar al-Assad (Rose to power in Syria in 2000 having inherited his position as Syria’s ruler from his father. As a fellow autocrat, he is fully supported by Putin.)
Galeotti notes Putin is not omnipotent but is a leader whom Russians are familiar with from past history. Centralization of power has been a hallmark of Russia’s growth with a desire for Russia to be identified as a powerful and important part of Europe. To the author, Putin is a pragmatic ruler who reminds Russians of their history of Tsarist control and leadership. Time will tell whether Russia’s citizens become discontented with Putin’s aggression, the Ukrainian war, war’s lost lives, and its victims (many of which are Russian Ukrainians).
The answer to “Has China Won” seems a “no” for the present but Mahbubani makes a credible argument for its continuing growth, prosperity, and success.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Has China Won? (The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy)
Author: Kishore Mahbubani
Narration by: Aaron Abano. P.J Ochlan
Kishore Mahbubani (Author, Singaporean diplomat, and academic who is a permanent representative to the UN.)
“Has China Won” is a controversial political opinion that suggests America is grossly underestimating the growing strength of China that will continue to grow in influence and power in the world. Some may argue Mahbubani overstates China’s strengths and understates its weaknesses. Mahbubani does not deny America’s strengths, its resilience, and peaceful world strategy. However, his underlying inference is that peaceful socialist doctrine will replace democratic capitalism as the “sine quo non” of the future.
There are three general categories of governance in the world. One is communist socialism, two is democratic capitalism, and three is authoritarian despotism. By the end of “Has China Won?”, one is inclined to believe China will grow to be a competitor to America as a socialist communist success just as America has become a democratic capitalist success. Authoritarian despotism will disappear as a system of governance as human education improves. China may surpass America as a superpower in the sense of population but not necessarily as a world influencer. Both systems have discriminatory flaws. China is neither better nor worse as a political entity than America; i.e. both are destined to compete for socio/political influence in the world. Socialist communism will likely grow to be equally influential as democratic capitalism for nation-state governments. Socialist communism is an ideological competitor; i.e., it is as likely to be adopted or rejected as democratic capitalism. In my personal opinion, socialist communism and democratic capitalist governance will survive in some form until their equal or superior is discovered.
American democratic capitalism has made its mistakes.
America cannot deny its international intervention mistakes. Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan are overreaches of America’s belief in democratic capitalism. America fails to understand deep-rooted cultural beliefs, the nationalism of other countries, and the appeal of socialist communist or authoritarian doctrine. In an effort to support national dissidents; America has invaded several countries and chose to abandon their citizens which allowed authoritarians to retake control of their countries. Vietnam remains a socialist communist country. Afghanistan returns to rule by the Taliban. Iraq is a weakened economic nation led by a fragile, technocratic, non-aligned political novice named Aliall-Zaldi.
America’s latest mistake is the bombing of Iran. (A water plant destruction.)
President Trump chooses to bomb Iran and expects Iranians to rally around American democratic capitalism when all that is accomplished is a hardening of authoritarian Iranian Leadership’ beliefs. Many Americans believe Iranian authoritarian leadership will fail. Whether socialist communism or democratic capitalism will replace authoritarianism may only be a matter of time. President Trump’s ham-fisted actions are unlikely to endear democratic capitalism to Iranian citizens. Iran’s future cannot be predicted in the short term, but Iranian authoritarianism seems likely to fail.
The answer to “Has China Won” seems a “no” for the present but Mahbubani makes a credible argument for its continuing growth, prosperity, and success. It depends on China’s history of long-term domestic stability and growing prosperity. Will Xi and his successors continue to improve the economic well-being of the millions of Chinese poor? Can China avoid military conflict with the U.S.? No one knows but many speculate. Will the U.S. finally understand China’s government and what it means to its people. Xi is not America’s enemy; neither is he an ally.
Like American capitalism, Chinese communism has its faults. One big difference is American capitalism offers a higher level of individual freedom with legal rights to defend oneself in a court of law (that is, of course, if you are not an immigrant).
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Red Roulette (An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, and Vengeance in Today’s China.)
Author: Desmond Shum
Narration by: Tim Chiou
Desmond Shum (Author, born in Shanghai in 1968, former Hong Kong businessman who lives in the UK. with a son born in the U.S.)
“Red Roulette” is an amazing personal story of a former Chinese citizen who marries a successful Chinese woman, Whitney Duan. She is disappeared by the Xi government in 2017. Shum and Duan were married from 2004 to 2015. His wife’s fate is unknown to Shum as he writes this book. Amazingly, Ms. Duan calls Shum four years after she is disappeared by China to ask him to not publish his book. Shum believes this is the first public contact by Duan since her disappearance in 2017.
Ms. Duan had chosen to capitalize on a system of doing business in China the way it had been done for many years. That system is riven with a kind of societal corruption revealed in “Red Roulette” that has grown with communism in China.
Desmond Shum reveals surprises to many Americans about China’s culture. Despite a presumption of many non-Chinese, Shum explains power is personal, not institutional in China. One might presume that CCP’s control of wealth and power in China comes from the party and its leaders. However, wealth in China is only influenced by the communist government through a social network of beliefs. Shum explains personal relationships and connections are built on favors, gifts, and mutual obligations that are debts that carry the reality of power in China. This explains the title of the book “Red Roulette” in the sense that success in Chinese society is a game of chance based on bets placed on the value of favors, and gifts that CCP members believe have worth.
Debt for favors and gifts is in the eye of the beholder which makes fair payment a mysterious and chance driven calculation. Adding to that complexity is the power of a CCP leader to erase a citizen socially, legally, and economically. By erasure, Shum explains citizens may be detained, prevented from family contact, denied legal representation, arrested, impoverished, and isolated from any social contact. Shum explains his ex-wife, Whitney Duan, vanished for years with no charges, no trial, and no record of her disappearance.
Xi Jinping (Leader of the CCP in China.)
The CCP elite govern China through relationships among themselves, not by official meetings or party leadership orders that are necessarily based on definable communist dogma. Everything happens behind the scenes. Official meetings, if there are any, are strictly “for show”. Shum’s admits in his personal story that he and his ex-wife became wealthy through a corrupt relationship with Zhang Beili, one of the CCP apparatchiks and power brokers. One may argue the CCP is similar to the Congress of the United States. Wealthy capitalists, like CCP apparatchiks, game the stock market and society through political connection with elected government officials
Deng Xiaoping launched an initial shift away from Maoist central planning despite ordering the crackdown on Tiananmen Square in 1989.
As somewhat of a realist, one understands governance is based on leaders presumed power, wealth, and political influence. Shum argues China’s economic modernization and capitalism began with Deng Xiaoping who rose to power after Tiananmen with Hu Jintao continuing China’s economic boom. Shum argues today’s Xi is increasing control of the CCP and the economy with the traditions of Chinese society. In the author’s opinion, China is reinstituting a Mao-style autocracy that is spreading fear across the country.
In fairness to Shum’s assessment of China, there is evidence of America’s slip into autocracy in today’s economy.
Shum believes Xi Jinping’s CCP anti-corruption campaign is only a pretext for power consolidation. In Shum’s opinion, Xi’s targeted removal of CCP apparatchiks is not because of their corruption but because they rival his power over the party. Xi’s campaign on corruption increases fear among CCP members and influencers that reinforce traditions of China’s rule by personal relationship and connection. Xi’s goal is to increase personal loyalty to himself which is part and parcel of the history of Chinese social norms. Shum’s evidence of corruption is the increase in disappearances, secret detentions, arrests of businesspeople without charges, and insistence on what is characterized as party discipline.
Whitney Duan and Shum when they were married.
Whitney Duan’s disappearance is Shum’s primary example of Xi’s Chinese governance. Duan is characterized as ambitious, brilliant, and determined. Her rise to power in Chinas is from close relationships she develops with people who have influence in the communist party. She befriends Zhang Beili, the wife of the Vice Premier of the CCP, Wen Jiabao. Because of that association, Duan has privileged access to information about land deals and major real-estate projects in China. She uses that information to make deals with advanced knowledge that result in great economic wealth for her and her former husband. Shum marries Duan and they both capitalize on insider information they gain from Duan’s relationships. One presumes the marriage ends because of the stresses and political dangers involved in their common business interests.
The quality of Kafka’s story in “The Trial” is the human desire for freedom that is not extinguished even in the darkest times of a country’s repression. This is a hope one presumes for both China and America, but human nature gets in the way.
In 2017, two years after the author’s divorce, Whitney Duan disappears. There are no charges, no trial, no public disclosure, and she is unable to contact any of her family including the son she has with Shum. No one knows if she is dead or alive. The state refuses to say she has been detained. One presumes, she is arrested because of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign and his purge of some party members like Wen Jiabao. Interestingly, just before the book is to be published, Whitney Duan calls Shum to ask him not to publish. Obviously, she is alive.
One big difference between American capitalism and Chinese communism is a higher level of individual freedom with legal rights to defend oneself in a court of law (that is, of course, if you are not an immigrant). That is a significant difference between China and America. However, both countries are impacted by bad actors that game the system based on personal relationship and influence with political leaders.
On the one hand, this story reinforces belief that Xi is trying to reform the CCP. On the other, the methodology of autocracy offers no defense against the injustice of being condemned without trial.
One concludes Whitney Duan lost in the game of Chinese Roulette by being part of a relationship that gave her inside information from the CCP. Her disappearance is proof of the theme of Shun’s book about the importance of relationships and connections to gain power and financial success in Chinese society. Like American capitalism, Chinese communism has its faults.
Roth shows acculturation is both an opportunity and danger in “The Plot Against America”.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Plot Against America
Author: Philip Roth
Narration by: Ron Silver
PHILLIP ROTH (WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION, MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE AND MORE)
Roth’s “The Human Stain”, and “The Plot Against America” are troubling fictional stories of American society. Roth’s imagination seems somewhat out of control in “The Plot…” but his point is that American democracy, like all forms of government, is flawed by the nature of human beings. Popular election is no guarantee of government probity because the public is as easily led by lies as the truth; i.e., something we see in today’s American government. “The Plot Against America” creates a fictional story of the advance of a racist to the Presidency of the United States at the time of Hitler’s government putsch in Germany.
Charles Lindbergh (Famous aviator who expressed suspicion of Jews and is characterized as a supporter of Hitler.)
America had several famous supporters of Hitler’s ascension in Germany; i.e., not only Charles Lindbergh, but Henry Ford, Father Charles Coughlin, and Jospph P. Kennedy Sr., to name a few. Lindbergh believes in white supremacy but excludes those of Jewish ethnicity because he believes Jews are not a part of the American or Western racial community. He believes Jews are a separate people with separate loyalties. This conforms to Hitler’s view of German society as superior to all others. Added to Lindbergh’s racism is his belief that communism threatens individual liberty, a foundational democratic belief. Lindbergh is vociferously anti-communist even though Russia is led by white rulers. Lindbergh believes centralized state control, state suppression of dissent, and forced conformity are anti-American. This is an ironic view because Hitler insists on state control, suppression of dissent, and a forced conformity; i.e., beliefs Lindbergh infers he abhors.
Roth writes a story suggesting Lindbergh run against Franklin Roosevelt for President. Lindbergh wins in this fictional story. In truth, Lindbergh never runs for President. History actually shows the Republican party approaches Lindbergh in the late 1930s to run against Roosevelt because of his celebrity, anti-war message, and isolationist beliefs. However, Lindbergh turns the Republicans down.
Wendell Lewis Wilkie becomes the nominee for President by the Republicans in 1940. (1892-1944, an American lawyer.)
Wendell Willkie is the Republican Party’s choice for President. What makes Roth’s story interesting is his concern for loss of Jewish ethnic identity from the influence of Americanization. Two fundamental points are made in the title of the book. There is the obvious “…Plot Against America” with Lindbergh as an America candidate for President who supports Hitler. A less obvious point is Roth’s more subtle “…Plot…” by American society to diminish ethnicity. In Roth’s story, Lindbergh is elected as President of the United States.
Drawing the line between cultural disintegration and acculturation is different in an autocracy than in a democracy. A perfect democracy allows ethnicity to flourish within the boundaries of common societal norms while an autocracy demands conformity to specific societal norms that, in some autocratic countries, become demands. Roth’s point in “The Plot Against America” is that ethnic identity is a fundamental right of human beings that should not be denied by any government. This is not to say that ethnic identity is not influenced by society, but that ethnicity should only be a natural, not governmentally enforced influence. Roth’s story shows a fine line that is crossed by America in influencing Jewish culture to become less ethnic. He tells the story of a government endorsed program to offer Jewish children the opportunity to become laborers on American farms. That experience leads to a Jewish child’s exposure to eating pork which is explicitly forbidden by the Torah because it is considered unclean. Roth shows “old world” ethnic’ cautions are sometimes abandoned because of life experiences that diminsh ethnic taboos.
Discrimination based on ethnicity, race, or sex diminishes democracy.
Roth shows acculturation is both an opportunity and danger in “The Plot Against America”. One may read into Roth’s story that he regrets the Americanization of Jewish ethnicity. To the extent that the discipline of education may be harmed by acculturation, one is inclined to agree with Roth. On the other hand, ethnic identification has led to unequal opportunity based on ethnicity, race, or sex which should have nothing to do with innate capability.
History has shown the greatness of both parties of American government. One takes pride in the fact that American democracy corrects the errors of incompetent Presidents.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Fourth Turning is Here (What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End)
Author: Neil Howe
Narration by: Neil Howe
Neil Howe (American author, historian, economist, and consultant.)
Neil Howe argues the United States is in the middle of a crisis. He views political polarization is as great today as it was during the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression. He suggests society has broken into two “mega-identities” that is evident in the news of the day. He sees a red and blue American society with a distinct part of society being rural/suburban, evangelical or traditionalist, nationalist, anti-elite, and distrustful of institutions. The other side is urban/metropolitan, secular and pluralist, cosmopolitan, and pro-institution with a trust in expertise. (In fairness to the author, this reviewer did not listen to Howe’s entire book.)
Generational beliefs.
Howe goes on to suggest there is a generational quality to these two camps. Boomers are those born between 1943 and 1960 (my generation). Generation X born from 1961-1981, Millennials (1982-2004), and Generation Z (2005-to the present). The problem with this broad categorization of Americans is that one can see themselves in each generations view of American government and society. Americans are both Red and Blue, believe strongly in the equality of human beings, are skeptical of absolutes, and believe in common good and the importance of government. Americans are relatively free human beings who will ultimately make the right decision to preserve the health and well-being of democratic society.
Is immigration an American crisis or a discouraged opportunity?
Howe argues today’s America is at a once-in-a-century crisis. He suggests American governance has become too polarized and that institutions of government are decaying in ways that are diminishing the economic prosperity and influence of democracy in the world. Polarization is not new to America. One who has reached a Boomer’s age remembers political polarization from the excesses of America during Vietnam. The mistakes and lies of the Johnson administration are not unlike the lies of Donald Trump. Democrat’s support of Johnson’s Great Society created too many programs like urban renewal and anti-poverty that remind one of Republican’s support of Trump’s overzealous deregulation of environmental protection, finance of projects to aggrandize his reputation, and welfare policies that penalize the poor. Both Johnson and Trump show poor management of their major policy initiatives. The social and political consequence of their mismanagement has damaged America’s economy and influence in the world. Both Johnson and Trump represent what can go wrong in a democracy but is eventually corrected by elections of future leaders founded on the principles of the Constitution.
Johnson’s Great Society.
There are differences and similarities between Johnson and Trump. The obvious difference is the parties to which they belong. Johnson creates bureaucratic sprawl and economic waste by expanding government services while Trump creates bureaucratic ineptitude through fragmentation from arbitrary firing of government employees. Both Presidents believe they are benefiting American society while they made decisions that damaged the economy and diminished the value of democratic governance. The extent of their damage during these two Presidents did and will take time to repair but the structure of America’s government assures democracy’s recovery.
History has shown the greatness of both parties of American government.
Lincoln is elected to take the giant step needed to put America back on the path of human equality and opportunity. Franklin Roosevelt saved America from economic collapse. Just as Lincoln is not survived by a President who reinforces equality of Americans, the same will likely be true for the next President after Trump. But, as Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. One takes pride in the fact that American democracy corrects the errors of incompetent Presidents.
