Daniel Lubetzky

China seems intent on using its veto at the UN to minimize any interference with national sovereignty, even at the expense of basic human rights and values, to the point of again vetoing a UN resolution against Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s atrocious dictator, and seeking to fight an ICC warrant against Sudan’s genocidal President.  Howard French just wrote an excellent article on this issue.

But what seems to also be missing from most analyses on this topic, is that China is not just trying to limit ‘foreign interference’ in national affairs but also just plainly trying to avoid having to pay any commercial price for being a global citizen.  The United States and other Western countries incur a tangible cost for taking certain moral stances.  Sometimes these principles are worth more than trade.  It is truly immoral to pursue trading interests at all costs. The policy-making community, and CONSUMERS, have not weighed in enough on this issue.

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I was initially persuaded by media and pundit assertions that what is behind this meteoric rise in raw materials is at least connected to "speculation" – ie, hedge funds plowing in billions into commodity future contracts and other financial investments that make the goods artificially rise in cost.

But look at the Deutsche Bank chart (which my law school buddy Stanley Haar shared with me) below.

Non-Exchange traded commodities have risen more than those traded on exchanges. Unless hedge funds are also buying the physical goods in all these sectors, the more likely culprits are sheer global over-consumption and over-consumerism.  For years the mantra was that we should only hope the rest of the world will have a standard of living that is closer to the Western world’s.  Now that India and China are more than catching up, we are learning how this taxes our planet.

A better plan would be for all of us to learn to live just a little bit more modestly and less wastefully. 

It is rare that the first few paragraphs of a story in the  New York Times will make one cry.  But this story about the quake catastrophe in China is just such an example of human love and the quest for survival amidst adversity.

It is not PC to admit that Anglo-Americans often have problems distinguishing Asian faces (or for that matter, any other ethnicity).

 But from China Southern Air comes some comforting confirmation that for the Chinese, the opposite is true – Americans (or Westerners) all seem to look alike to them.

On the plane on the way back from Dalian to Beijing, I caught this hilarious variety news item where an intrepid reporter had paired Western soccer players and Hollywood celebrities that, apparently to Chinese eyes, looked fantastically alike – at least fantastic enough to be tv-worthy.

What is hilarious is how far these people look alike!

Here are some of the editors’ wise matches: (click on any of them to enlarge and see it closer – and click again to expand)

Will Smith -with some black soccer player:

The only thing these have in common is that they are both black!

 Ben Stiller with some white soccer player:

 The only thing these two have in common is that they are both white!

Here are close ups of the twins:

Ok, they did get a couple slight similarities, not sure they are worthy of a tv story, but here is Matt Damon’s soccer alter-ego…

But Brad Pitt’s?!

And the Dude from Dude Where is My Car’s alter-ego?

And Mel Gibson’s nephew?!

But the punch line is that their long-lost twin matches included some 23-year old soccer player with 80+ year-old Clint Eastwood!

Here are the close ups confirming how much they look alike (not!)

One of the most stimulating meetings I had at the YGL conference was with Arthur Mutambara.  I had not gotten the chance to connect with him during the conference, until I heard him ask a question at a session with the CEO of China Mobile, Wang Jianzhou.   

China Mobile is the world’s largest and fastest-growing cell phone company, and we were wowed at the enormity of their growth: 330 million subscribers, and 90 million more anticipated within the next 12 months. 

Arthur was not awed or intimidated, and yet was very elegant and logical in the way he asked Mr. Jianzhou a question.  He basically asked him, as an engineer and business executive, how he could reconcile technological growth and innovation with a closed political system and whether he felt that in the end China would be able to competitively innovate (as opposed to just emulate) and create new products, if it continued to censor the web and block political development. 

Mr. Jianzhou’s reply was that these matters are very complicated. 

I was struck that Arthur’s question was particularly gutsy, given an otherwise artificial atmosphere of total adulation that ignored the big elephant in the room.  It takes strength of character to be able to ask tough questions that could be controversial but important, and it takes elegance and sophistication to do so in a professional way. 

Later that night I got to learn where this passion and eloquence emanated from. 

Arthur leads a political party of the opposition in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change.  Leading an opposition party in Zimbabwe is not an easy proposition: the ruler is an authoritarian dictator whose government has jailed, tortured and decimated opponents, and brought Zimbabwe down to shambles. 

Arthur actually felt he had not done enough.  “I live in a country where people may be jailed.  Where I may be jailed when I come back to my country.   I could be tortured.  I don’t know how many civil rights leaders or activists are being kept inside dark rooms here in China.  But I feel a duty to stand up and call for freedom.  If something happens to me, will others stand up?” [I am paraphrasing to the best of my ability] 

 Arthur reminded a group of YGLs that leadership is about “taking risks, self-sacrifice, and rebelling for justice” where necessary. 

Gutsy guy.

The Chinese character for Crisis is made up of two symbols: danger, and opportunity.

This insight is by now known all-too-well in the Western world.

What is less known is that most Chinese people have never thought of this beautiful relationship.  For them “crisis” is “crisis.”  And if you push them to explain what that word consists of, and whether they have ever realized of the connection of the components within the word, most will be thinking about that connection for the first time!

The same often happens in our daily lives and cultures and languages.  We are too close to exceptional wisdom which surrounds us.  We don’t question assumptions, we take things for granted, and we assume all facts as they are provided to us – particularly when they are printed or broadcast via media. 

Humanity would be so much better off if we humans were more critically aware and curious, and fight the herd instinct.