​The rise of China had happened as many people predicted. A famous quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte (9/15/1769-5/5/1821) said: “China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.” Isaac Stone Fish in Foreign Policy (FP 1/19/2016) wrote a review article, "Crouching Tiger, Sleeping Giant", about this quote as an overused cliché. In 1997, The Economists cited the popularity of this quote: “(Napoleon's words) launched a thousand articles”.  Financial Times journalist James Kynge wrote a 2006 best-seller “China Shakes the World”. On January 4, 2016, the Wall Street Journal ran a video also titled “Opinion Journal: China Shakes the World”, giving a negative assessment of China's economy.
 
According to Fish, The Economist proudly claimed to have “got in relatively early” with this cliché by publishing a special feature in 1992 titled “When China Wakes” — two years before New York Times journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s best-seller “China Wakes” and roughly five years before French diplomat Alain Peyrefitte’s best-seller, "China Has Woken", (which is a response to a 1966 book, "When China Wakes", by prominent French journalist Robert Guilain). Richard Nixon also titled one chapter of his 1988 book on China “The Awakened Giant.” American journalist Harold Isaacs wrote in 1958. “A quick scanning of a variety of periodical and book indexes turns up the titles of some sixty magazine articles and thirty-odd books, published at various times between 1890 and 1940, in which China, or the giant, or the dragon, has awakened, is waking, or is stirring, rising, changing, or being reborn.” So the quote was used for nearly two centuries of time non-stopping even though there was no absolute proof Napoleon said it.
 
One interesting point Fish had made in his article was: "A “sleeping lion,” or “sleeping giant,” as another version of the cliché has it, permits a certain degree of complacency… allows Americans to cling to the idea of American Exceptionalism, to displace into the future the anxiety about the loss of global prestige — the relative weakening of the U.S. (led) global order …and the relative strengthening of (wakening to) a Chinese one." Actually, "sleeping lion" and "sleeping dragon" are used by Chinese scholars and common folks alike with two purposes, one to motivate the Chinese population to wake up, to work hard, and to contribute to nation building or rejuvenation/reconstruction, and the other to echo with the world's complacency towards a rising China. China certainly does not wish to be targeted as a roaring lion.
 
However, as we entered into 21st century, Napoleon's quote seems to have become a prophecy coming true. Scholars and political commentators have turned their attention from ‘sleeping’ to how did China rise so fast? World scholars including Chinese all pondered this question and struggled to find a Chinese model as an answer to ‘how’! But it is a real challenge to connect from Deng Xiao Ping's reform policy - opening China with a slogan: "keep a low profile and bide your time" - to today’s China being the number two economy in the world. Western political analysts and economists just can’t get their arms around this 'China model'. Ironically, neither can any Chinese scholar. This is not because that the “China Model” is a national secret. China sincerely wants to offer her 'model’ to developing countries, but no simple treatise of the ‘China Model’ exists even though tons of facts and articles on China's achievements do. Interestingly, numerous papers analyzing the rise and weakening of the U.S. do exist but no precise models to describe ‘how’ the two Giants have reached their current status. However, researching a little deeper, two elements of reasoning or two salient characteristics can be found to explain ‘why’ a "China Model" may have existed and worked for China and in their absence affected the development of the U.S. 
 
The first element has to do with China's governance or political systems. West political analysts often describe China's political system as totalitarian run by one-party, the CCP. But what the West missed is that China’s 'one strong party' political system is precisely the element that is responsible for her effective governance. The CCP government makes decision through thorough efforts in gathering inputs and perspectives from all sectors of their people, including other small political party and organizations. This planning process always starts from grassroots with democratic procedures to arrive at consensus decisions that percolate up through the political system, village, town, city, province, to central government guided by CCP. The main feature of China's political system is that CCP is keenly aware of its vulnerability if decisions were not rigorously formed, accountable and owned by the majority who cultivated them but More Importantly if they were not also owned by the minority!! 
 
In China’s democratic processes, majority rules (same as Western political processes) AND minority obeys (no opposition after a decision has been reached). This characteristic is so critical to Chinese government's efficiency and effectiveness and CCP’s stability. The art and challenge in the CCP is to arrive at decisions through rigorous due process so there is no post-decision opposition not only in the party but among all people. Therefore, China’s mega programs or small policies mostly get executed successfully. In the Western democracy, when decisions were reached even with fairly thorough and rigorous public hearing etc, the opposition, even very small minority, often goes into acute opposition mode, carrying out protests, lawsuits and even sabotage. This political phenomenon makes the government inefficient and ineffective and also intimidates legislators to shy away from ambitious programs or giving too many compromises rendering them ineffective, Obamacare as an example. Majority rules-Minority obeys explains why in the past decades China has made so much progress in her nation building, surpassing the U.S. in many areas: infrastructure, transportation, etc. and soon in energy, environment, healthcare, even space exploration.
 
The second element has to do with Chinese people's spirit. In general, the Chinese people have a very much forward-looking spirit and philosophy. This particularly includes people in the leadership, both in the government and in the industry. The entire country is serious about achieving middle class living standard within shortest possible time. This drive grows stronger from villages, towns, cities, provinces to the central government. The forward looking-spirit explains many mega programs launched in China; The One Belt and One Road (OBOR) reflects that spirit in China's diplomatic perspective and policies. The Chinese do treasure their history but they look forward and are emboldened by their rich inheritance in philosophy such as global harmony, world prosperity and superior human power to nature. 
 
In the Chinese society, families motivate their members thinking forward, schools motivate students own responsibilities to get better lives for themselves and others. This Chinese spirit does create problems like migration of population to major cities sort of yuppie materialistic society producing social challenges such as job demands and wealth gaps. However, China with its long history of having family as the fabric element of society, the transformation of Chinese societies may have checks and bounds guided with Chinese philosophy. On the other hand, the forward-looking spirit in the U.S. represented by 'Go West' seems to have diminished to ‘typing on the phones for hours in Starbucks’. From the U.S. Foreign policies, one sees legacy strategy and out-dated international perspective. The U.S. still heavily imbedded in military alliances based on Cold War mentality. In contrast, Chinese diplomatic approach is focusing more on economic development partnership and working within the confines of international bodies such as the UN, BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), G20 etc. Also in contrast, the U.S. Asia policy maintains antiquated military treaties with an aging Japan who could not shed her legacy being an Imperial power pre WW II. Lack of a forward looking spirit, the American people will eventually fall behind China as she pushes her forward-looking programs. 
 
The above two elements may not give us a quantitative characterization of a 'China Model' but they highlight the reasons for China’s rise and the U.S. stagnation and alarm Americans to understand China and develop partnership with her for mutual and world prosperity!
 
Ifay Chang. Ph.D. Producer/Host, Community Education - Scrammble Game Show, Weekly TV Columnist, www.us-chinaforum.org . Trustee, Somers Central School District.
 
 

​Las Vegas shooting was committed on Oct. 1, 2017 by a lone killer, Stephen Paddock, a resident of Mesquite, Nevada, who was a retired accountant, property investor and a wealthy lavish gambler, received VIP treatment for his gambling hobby. He was offered complementary suite on the 32nd floor at Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel, where he stayed for three days, plotted and committed the mass murder killing 58 and wounding 500 people who were attending the outdoor concert of western country music 400 yards across from the Mandalay Bay Casino hotel. The shooting was premeditated involving the use of 23 weapons and converted semi-automatic guns. So far, the officials ruled out this mass murder from any connection with terrorist groups but could not offer any clue why Paddock committed such a crime other than disclosing that his deceased father, Benjamin Paddock, was a bank robber and his younger brother Eric living in Orlando, Florida and Australian Pilipino girlfriend, Marilou Danley, both had no idea why Paddock committed this horrific crime.
 
Naturally, the Las Vegas shooting has raised serious concerns among American citizens regarding what are the reasons causing (or responsible for) this tragedy and how the U.S. may prevent such incidence to occur again. Since Paddock committed suicide at the crime scene, the officials seem to be following crime solving logic to focus on the criminal's motive and whether there was any accomplice involved in the crime. Whereas the media besides following the official reports, seemed to have launched their speculative investigation on whether Paddock was mentally disturbed (insanity) or influenced by inheritance (DNA from his criminal father) and was eagerly flaming the debate on gun control and second amendment in the constitution which always surface up whenever a crime was committed involving guns. Such a debate would be useful if it could produce any legislation that could prevent crimes and not diminish the spirit of citizens' right to bear arms as granted by the second amendment. 
 
To make a causality Analysis of the Las Vegas Shooting crime may be straight forward based on direct evidence known about Paddock as a lone person committed the crime with no connection to any organization or terrorist group and also with no political or religious reasons as crime motive. Paddock was sane with no criminal background. He obtained the weapons legally and his crime actions had no implication to his younger brother or girl friend. Toby Harden wrote a quite detailed account of the Las Vegas Shooting in the Sunday Times, UK (10-8-2017); he had suggested that the genes from Paddock's robber father may be responsible for his crime, quoting a Psychologist, John White. But this is totally far-fetched without any scientific proof since White said himself that there was no such thing as genes of mass murder. 
 
Since there is not much significant direct causes linking to Paddock's criminal actions, we may extend the causality analysis to indirect causes or evidence. By indirect causes, I mean anything that might have contributed to the occurrence of the Las Vegas shooting incidence or in the absence of them, the incidence might be aborted. First, the inadequate security management at the Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel was a contributing factor to the mass shooting. It is unbelievable, the hotel would let any guest bring in 23 weapons, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, tripods, scopes, tools and a dozen “bump stocks” (devices to modify semi-automatic rifles that essentially turned them into machineguns), into the hotel rooms without arousing any hotel management's attention. If the hotel security was able to detect these weapons or alert enough to increase security measures, the shooting might be averted. From public safety point of view, the Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel (management, bell boys, room service staff, garage attendants, hotel surveillance crew, etc.) was at least negligent if not reckless or careless in allowing such a mass murder to take place in the hotel. Proper public safety and security law should be implemented to demand diligence in security and safety management on private and public business entities. 
 
The occurrence of Las Vegas Shooting and many other shootings happened before must have causality roots in the society which we must try to understand beyond simply blaming on the availability of weapons. One of the indirect causes may be pointed out is the immoral media effect. The criminal incidences were always reported by media as sensational stories; worst of all too often they were made into ‘hit’ movies to leave people dramatic impressions about the violence and the crime rather than any moral lessons or judgments. Ask yourself, how many crime movies or TV series that have left you a clear moral imprint or instead a sensational violent crime. Especially for kids and young people, they were impressed time after time how sophisticated crimes could be committed and how dramatic effects the crimes could create. No wonder the shooting crimes in the recent decades were getting worse and worse involving more death and more elaborated setting (drama) as again exhibited by the Las Vegas Shooting.
 
A society must balance individual rights against public rights.  Gun control is such an issue. Yes, individuals granted by the U.S. constitution have the right to bear or own arms but the debate on gun control after a shooting incidence has always been focused too much on the 'right' to own guns or certain guns, a stalemate debate. The real desired solution is not to take away the right to own guns but monitor how the weapons are kept and used. If legislations can exist to impose vehicle inspections every year for the purpose of insuring that the use of vehicles are safe for the individual, the public and the environment, why there isn't any requirement on inspections on weapons to insure their use to be safe for the owner, the public and the environment? Just like vehicles, heavy trucks get more stringent inspection (even road inspection), why aren't weapons get semi-annually or quarterly inspections on their conditions, whereabouts, ammunition usage and storage records and any modification or added new parts such as “bump stocks” which alters semi-automatic riffles into machine guns. Legitimate weapon owners should not have any objection to inspections just like vehicle owners shouldn’t. These inspections would not take away the right of owning weapons but would give law enforcement a good picture of weapon owners' intentions and behaviors with their weapons. Penalty for illegal possession of weapons must be severe and if any weapon used in crime is traced to an illegal sale, the seller should be charged as accomplice or accessory to crime.
 
Las Vegas Shooting is a tragedy but it should not be treated as another movie script.  Rather we should use it as a valuable lesson and make efforts to construct and implement proper public safety and security laws to make our society safe and secure.
 
 
 

​ 
Abstract

The 19th Party Congress of Chinese Communist Party is held in October, 2017. At this congress, the party leadership will be elected. This leadership will then be serving the government leadership positions for a new five year term. The government performance of previous five year and a plan for future five years will be presented at the 13th National People’s Congress in March 2018. This paper makes a preview of China’s forthcoming performance report in terms of specific impressive achievements. China’s success may be attributed to the Sino-democracy. On the world stage, a dialogue seems to be shifting away from debating the meaning, the merit and the legitimacy of Sino-democracy to discussing Chinese accomplishments, her continuing reforms and proposed futuristic global development programs.
 
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The Communist Party of China’s Party Congress (CPCPC) is held every five years to elect the top party leadership. The Congress delegates are screened from grass root to leadership level of the entire party (by nomination, recommendation and election) with scrutiny of the party organization (evaluation and selection) to make sure only the best qualified party members are chosen. The delegates at 19th CPCPC will elect the new leaders of CPC Central Committee, in turn, its General Secretary (CPC Chief), the Majority of Politburo members, members of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the internal discipline organ that has come to the political foreground since 2012 for carrying out the party's anti-corruption campaign. The selection of the Politburo Members and the Standing Committee are based on a meritocratic and Sino-Democracy* system guided by the CPC Party bylaws and institutionalized guidelines, such as age limitation requiring party members in active high positions to retire at age of 65. (*the West has always criticized the CPC government as authoritarian but after its years of reform with performance superior to many failing democratic governments, I coin the word Sino-Democracy for facilitating discussion of democracy in CPC)
 
No political system can be totally free of political patronage and personal relations. Thus, candidates for Politburo must have some backings of the present leadership figures. Since Xi Jinping (born 6-15-1953) is expected to continue serving another five year term, many of his close associates in the past stand a better chance to be advanced to the party leadership. Xi's party career and his regional party service experience have exhibited his preference to promoting low-key leaders driven by a strong work ethic rather than party bureaucrats motivated by personal interest and/or self financial gain. Domestic Chinese media offer far more positive view than the Western anti-China publications claiming that Xi's promotion of ‘his familiar’ people is for the purpose of dissolving the vast network of interlocking vested interest groups cultivated through the past administrations. Since Xi has done a superb job in his first five-year term as the Commander-in-Chief-of-China enjoying a high rating from the Chinese populace, one intriguing question circulating in the Internet blogs is that will the 19th CPCPC make a special provision for Xi to serve beyond his second term when he will be reaching 69 passing the retirement age of Chief, 68. Likewise, a question exists about the future of Premier Li Keqiang (7-1-1955) who will pass 65.
 
The 19th CPCPC (October 18, 2017) will lead to the 13th NPC (Spring, 2018) where a progress report of the past five years and a new five year plan will be discussed. Despite of the legacy arguments that China's one party government is not a ‘West endorsed democratic' government, the CPC government has made tremendous progress in alleviating poverty and elevating per-capital income multiple-fold since the government took a reform policy in 1978. Peering into China's progress report under preparation today by the State Council for the 13th NPC, we cannot help but feel impressed by her past achievements.  From 1-2012 to 12-2016, China had carefully directed her economy from a manufacturing and export oriented economy gradually to a consumption based economy with supply side stimulation and industrial innovation to move her economic sectors to higher technology content with creativity and innovation. The next 5-year official data and statistics seem to suggest that China has made significant progress meeting her set goals and initiated plenty of innovations driving China's economy to a higher plateau.
 
First, China has seen a 47.5% increase in R&D expenditures (from 1.0298 (2012) to 1.55 trillion Yuan (2016)). This nearly double-digit annual increase apparently has stimulated economic growth in several sectors with emphasis in science and technology. In basic research, China cites several achievements: I. Anomalous Quantum Hall Effect, 2. Outer Fermions, 3. Iron-based High-T Superconductor, 4. Chemically-Induced-Pluri-Potent Stem Cells, 5. Dark Matter Particle Detector Satellite, and 6. Heat Shock Protein. In other S&T area, the brag list includes: 1. New Generation Heavy Lift Carrier Rocket (Long March 5), 2. Manned Spacecraft Auto Dock and Space Lab with space station to launch in 2020 (Russia has requested to join), 3. World-Fastest-Super-Computer built with Chinese Chips (>100 petaflops/sec), 4. Unmanned-Chinese-Submersible-Vehicle, Haidou, dived 10,767 meter below Sea, and 5. Various New Tech: High-Speed Railway, Hydropower Efficiency, UHV Power Transmission, Hybrid Rice, Earth Observing Satellite, BeiDou Navigation, and Electric Car. 
 
China’s patents increased from 217,105 to 404, 208 (2012-2016), >4200 Shared Workspace, >3000 Tech Incubators, >400,000 Startups in Service Industry, >44M Market Players, 13.62M New Companies, >2.4M New Jobs by New Firms, 690M Internet Broadband Ports, 940.75M Internet Users, Smart Phone occupying 20% global market with 1.54B units and new energy vehicle sales 510,000 both being no. 1 in the world, SUV 9.14M 3.4X increase over 2015 and Industrial robot sales, 72,000, a 30.4% increase over 2015. China reported domestic travel, 4.44B People (50.2% up) and 3.939 T Yuan (73.5% up) (from 2012) and outbound people 120M. Most Impressive is China's e-commerce, online retail sales reached 5.1556 T Yuan, a 26.2% rise over 2015 and express business volume 31.3B, 6X increase from 2012 which brought a significant change in payment system online by banks and other institutions. The new sharing business in China shows 225M people booked taxis online, 165M booked chauffeur driven cars and 2M registered bike users with >1M orders per day, all booming innovative industries.
 
China places tremendous emphasis on innovation to drive manufacturing upgrade from mid and low to hi-end. The impressive progress is reflected in China's growth rate, average 7.2% from 2013-2016, compared to 2.1% U.S., 1.3% EU and 1.0% Japan and in China's contribution to world's economy, averages 31.6% compared to 18.2% U.S., 8.0% EU, and 3.7% Japan. China's GDP in 2016 was $11.2T, 14.9% of the world with grain, meat, major agriculture products, crude steel, coal, electric energy and chemical fertilizer manufacturing being number one in the world. China has 20,000 km high speed railway more than the second to tenth countries combined. China has 123,500 km express highway, 23000km more than the U.S., no. 2. 
 
Even though the progress report is impressive, China still has 43.35 M people in poverty (2016) dropping from 98.99 M (2012). China is embarking an education reform to create more innovative skills even though her college enrollment rate has increased from 27.2% (2012) to 43.3 % (2015). China's next five year plan will likely include a shift to focus on early education, language skills and discipline-interest matching with the purpose of creating more talents for innovation. The current examination system, one test defining career path, will likely be changed. Judging on CPC's past track record, we would likely see China maintaining her impressive growth and development defying the theory of a collapsing China.
 
On the world stage, we will see a shift of dialogue away from debating the meaning and merit of democracy and the legitimacy of China's CPC Government to practical Chinese accomplishments, her continuing reforms and proposed global development programs. Big nations can avoid Thucydides Trap if dealing issues with rationale rather than nationalistic thinking. PM of India Modi's decision of backing down from Docklam dispute with China in the Himalayan mountains for seeking a more welcomed position in BRICS conference in Xiamen, China (9/3-5/ 2017), is a good example for world statesmen to ponder. India has a lot to lose by taking an unjustified hostile position against Chinese road building benefitting all Himalayans. Recently, Russian President Putin’s declaration of joining the Chinese Space Station Program with Russian contribution of rocket transport engine is another example showing that excluding China from the existing space station program based on discrimination indeed backfired. Japan as an ambitious powerful nation with historical hostility towards China should particularly be honest and sincere in setting her China policy.
 
I have discussed that democracy is not an ideology but a tool for making decisions and the tool may take different forms for different institutions or circumstances, for example, in business corporations, local governments, unique US school boards, military establishments and national Congresses. The Sino-Democracy referred to above has not been so transparent to and understood by the people outside of China, perhaps, it would do the world good if CPC scholars would enlighten the world how Sino-Democracy works.