Op-Ed Columnist A Biblical Seven Years By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN New York Times Published: August 26, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/opinion/27friedman.html?em After attending the spectacular closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics and feeling the vibrations from hundreds of Chinese drummers pulsating in my own chest, I was tempted to conclude two things: âHoly mackerel, the energy coming out of this country is unrivaled.â And, two: âWe are so cooked. Start teaching your kids Mandarin.â However, Iâve learned over the years not to over-interpret any two-week event. Olympics donât change history. They are mere snapshots â a country posing in its Sunday bests for all the world too see. But, as snapshots go, the one China presented through the Olympics was enormously powerful â and itâs one that Americans need to reflect upon this election season. China did not build the magnificent $43 billion infrastructure for these games, or put on the unparalleled opening and closing ceremonies, simply by the dumb luck of discovering oil. No, it was the culmination of seven years of national investment, planning, concentrated state power, national mobilization and hard work. Seven years ... Seven years ... Oh, thatâs right. China was awarded these Olympic Games on July 13, 2001 â just two months before 9/11. As I sat in my seat at the Birdâs Nest, watching thousands of Chinese dancers, drummers, singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony, I couldnât help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; weâve been preparing for Al Qaeda. Theyâve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And weâve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones. The difference is starting to show. Just compare arriving at La Guardiaâs dumpy terminal in New York City and driving through the crumbling infrastructure into Manhattan with arriving at Shanghaiâs sleek airport and taking the 220-mile-per-hour magnetic levitation train, which uses electromagnetic propulsion instead of steel wheels and tracks, to get to town in a blink. Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country? Yes, if you drive an hour out of Beijing, you meet the vast dirt-poor third world of China. But hereâs whatâs new: The rich parts of China, the modern parts of Beijing or Shanghai or Dalian, are now more state of the art than rich America. The buildings are architecturally more interesting, the wireless networks more sophisticated, the roads and trains more efficient and nicer. And, I repeat, they did not get all this by discovering oil. They got it by digging inside themselves. I realize the differences: We were attacked on 9/11; they were not. We have real enemies; theirs are small and mostly domestic. We had to respond to 9/11 at least by eliminating the Al Qaeda base in Afghanistan and investing in tighter homeland security. They could avoid foreign entanglements. Trying to build democracy in Iraq, though, which I supported, was a war of choice and is unlikely to ever produce anything equal to its huge price tag. But the first rule of holes is that when youâre in one, stop digging. When you see how much modern infrastructure has been built in China since 2001, under the banner of the Olympics, and you see how much infrastructure has been postponed in America since 2001, under the banner of the war on terrorism, itâs clear that the next seven years need to be devoted to nation-building in America. We need to finish our business in Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible, which is why it is a travesty that the Iraqi Parliament has gone on vacation while 130,000 U.S. troops are standing guard. We can no longer afford to postpone our nation-building while Iraqis squabble over whether to do theirs. A lot of people are now advising Barack Obama to get dirty with John McCain. Sure, fight fire with fire. Thatâs necessary, but it is not sufficient. Obama got this far because many voters projected onto him that he could be the leader of an American renewal. They know we need nation-building at home now â not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Georgia, but in America. Obama cannot lose that theme. He cannot let Republicans make this election about who is tough enough to stand up to Russia or bin Laden. It has to be about who is strong enough, focused enough, creative enough and unifying enough to get Americans to rebuild America. The next president can have all the foreign affairs experience in the world, but it will be useless, utterly useless, if we, as a country, are weak. Obama is more right than he knows when he proclaims that this is âourâ moment, this is âourâ time. But it is our time to get back to work on the only home we have, our time for nation-building in America. I never want to tell my girls â and Iâm sure Obama feels the same about his â that they have to go to China to see the future.
First the NY Times wanted us to be more like France, now they want us to be more like China. Talk about taking a wrong turn. Might as well call these guys Wrong Way Feldman.
I like Tom Friedman. I don't think he wants the U.S. to be like any particular country. I think his point is that we should open our eyes to the world around us and admit that certain countries have been doing particular things much better than we have for some time. A country that refuses to transform itself will be swept aside at the rapid clip by which the world and technology moves.
It's all about being adaptable. USA refuses to adapt to a richer world - period. The US is ultra-conservative in this matter, and want to continue be top dog with cheap goods from poor nations. I would compare the struggle to some type of "economic slavery" - just like I see here in Brazil - where violence and crime is the answer to the conservative/corporate/corrupt rule - who in turn buy more security measures, like the highest number of bulletproof cars in the world. The key is to adapt - introduce small changes over time, and not wait until the whole world is against you and the position you are defending to the bitter end. By adapting you take moderate pain over time, and not catastrophic or traumatic changes that are devastating to all aspects of the country. To be able to adapt - you need to be aware of your impact on the world - have some insight and self-awareness. Relating with the world, and anyone, you need trust. Trying to strong-arm the world into complying, only builds up resistance until the struggle turns into a direct conflict. Obvious, really...
Europe is FAR crappier than the U.S. in terms of cleanliness ect. We should try to do what China did. Just imagine the great subways we could build with labor costs at just a couple of dollars per day.
John McBush is pushing nuclear power for electricity, and guess who he is holding up as an example for the US to emulate as it relates to the use of nuclear power for electricity? France...
Pabst, I actually think many european countries are doing quite well on the UN Human Development Index, although they might not be doing so good on the astonishingly objective "Pabst-index". The incredible thing with China, India, Russia and Brazil is how they are bringing hundreds of millions of their population out of the lowest poverty and into middle class. If you see the richer nations, e.g like Germany, the middle class has shrunk (around 14% in Germany between 1995-2006), while the truly rich have increased a little (almost 4% in Germany for the period). I don't particularly think of things like struggle between social classes at all, although I know it's possible to model society like a struggle between social classes, but the numbers themselves are undeniable facts and reflect true changes. I'm thoroughly a Laissez-Faire supporter and more into pure capitalism - not conservatism, but a bit more like anarchocapitalism.
??? Actually according to any quality of life surveys, Europe and Scandinavia rank far higher than the US.
This Friedman column reads like some Ann Coulter parody of clueless liberals. China wasted billions building a bunch of stuff to show off, when peasants in their countryside live worse than people did here during colonial times. He seems to have dropped his histrionic concern for disparity of wealth as well. Hint: it's pretty massive in communist China. The NY Times has a well deserved reputation for being awed by communist countries, even as they commit treason against their own country. If the NYT was a chinese newspaper and revealed secret government activities, do you doubt for a second the editors would have met a firing squad the same week? Perhaps the clueless Friedman would also advocate that we adopt chinese wage scales and labor protection, chinese environmental rules and the Tiamnamen Square approach to dissidents that keeps their economy humming smoothly.