I ran across this last night, and thought it was interesting in light of our current concerns about China. It was written by Will Durant and published in 1935 in the first volume of The Story of Civilization.
After quoting a Chinese leader of the early 20th century, Hu Shih, who said,
"The real problem, therefore, may be restated thus: How can we best assimilate modern civilization in such a manner as to make it congenial and congruous and continuous with the civilization of our own making?"
Durant commented:
All the surface conditions of China today tempt the observer to conclude that China will not solve the problem. When one contemplates the desolation of China's fields, blighted with drought or ruined with floods, the waste of her timber, the stupor of her exhausted peasants, the high mortality of her children, the unnerving toil of her factory-slaves, the disease-ridden slums and tax-ridden homes of her cities, her bribe-infested commerce and her foreign-dominated industry, the corruption of her government, the weakness of her defenses and the bitter factionalism of her people, one wonders for a moment whether China can ever be great again, whether she can once more consume her conquerors and live her own creative life. But under the surface, if we care to look, we may see the factors of convalescence and renewal. The soil, so vast in extent and so varied in form, is rich in the minerals that make a country industrially great; not as rich as Richtofen supposed, but almost certainly richer than the tentative surveys of our day have revealed; as industry moves inland it will come upon ores and fuels as unsuspected now as the mineral and fuel wealth of America was undreamed of a century ago. This nation, after three thousand years of grandeur and decay, of repeated deaths and resurrections, exhibits today all the physical and mental vitality that we find in its most creative periods; there is no people in the world more vigorous or more intelligent, no other people so adaptable to circumstance, so resistant to disease, so resilient after disaster and suffering, so trained by history to calm endurance and patient recovery. Imagination cannot describe the possibilities of a civilization mingling the physical, labor and mental resources of such a people with the technological equipment of modern industry. Very probably such wealth will be produced in China as even America has never known, and once again, as so often in the past, China will lead the world in luxury and the art of life.
No victory or arms, or tyranny of alien finance, can long suppress a nation so rich in resources and vitality. The invader will lose funds or patience before the loins of China will lose vitality; within a century China will have absorbed and civilized her conquerors, and will have learned all the technique of what transiently bears the name of modern industry; roads and communications will give her unity, economy and thrift will give her funds, and a strong government will give her order and peace. Every chaos is a transition. In the end disorder cures and balances itself with dictatorship; old obstacles are roughly cleared away, and fresh growth is free. Revolution, like death and style, is the removal of rubbish, the surgery of the superfluous; it comes only when there are many things ready to die. China had died many times before; and many times she has been reborn.
I think Will Durant was prescient.
Fred
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