Thinking Chinese -

Sooooo, I was reading an article in the New York Times today and the jist of it was this:

"While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at a rate of one a month."

This basically sums up everything that I have come to learn about the Chinese government as opposed to ours. While the U.S. is busy arguing, and figuring out how to not offend people, China is busy getting things done. Here are a few other examples:

Swine Flu comes to China- within hours the man who has brought it here is quarantined, as are 286 staff and guests from the hotel he is staying at, everyone from his flight (and their families), and just for good measure every Mexican person in China.... Result- there is 1 known case of swine flu in China.

Approaching the Beijing olympics, athletes express concerns over pollution in the city. The Chinese government tells millions of people - "sorry man, you can't drive today, or sorry man your factory has to stop producing" (not actually what they said- but similar) . Result, Beijing air quality was acceptable, and still is much better than in years previous.
(With the approach of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, it will be interesting to see what steps the government takes to clean up the pollution in my lovely city).


Granted, all this comes at the expense of some citizens rights.....but i'm not going to pass judgement. It seems to be working pretty damn well for China.




http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/asia/11coal.html?_r=1