Please watch this very well done PBS documentary video on China that is just over one hour:  “The Tank Man”.  (Note:  sometimes students report that accessing this documentary can be dependent on which browser they use; so if you use Mozilla Firefox and it does not work, then try accessing it using Internet Explorer, and vice versa.)

No question it highlights some of China’s warts. In fact, it’s so well done and so nicely ties together so many of the threads that we will raise in some of our predeparture sessions and in a number of our blog posts thus far that I am requiring you to watch it and enter a blog comment on it.  The last 25 minutes of the show in particular raise some interesting business issues that we will be exposed to on the trip.

As you watch it, look for the political-economic “deal with the devil” the Chinese government has struck with its people in order to move forward and try to put the past behind them, and consider whether, at this point in China’s history, the pros of that deal outweigh the cons. In other words, is democracy, with its reputation for gridlock and maintaining the status quo, the medicine today’s China needs at this point in its history; and in considering that question give pause to evaluate whether Winston Churchill’s famous words of, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time,” apply to today’s China.

Also, did you know that during that dark episode in China’s history in 1989, there were at least two camps/interest groups in the square those nights protesting — those advocating democratic reform and those concerned that China was moving too fast with economic change/market reforms thereby creating haves and have nots? So was the CCP crushing of these protests an attack on democracy/democratic reform and/or an attempt to keep and allow market reforms to keep moving along so China could modernize? How do you know?  Discuss and defend your answer.

Finally, here is the million dollar question:  Would China be where it is today if Ti**anm** Sq*#r^ had not happened? Would its economic miracle have taken place if that dark day of Ti$7^#m*n Sq*^r# had not taken place? (I may address this question in greater detail at one of our predeparture sessions if we have time, and I will re-ask this question of you when we are in China and you see with your own eyes what is happening in that emerging market.)

Prof. Carr June 4, 2008 addendum: See also this related, Wall Street Journal article that just came out, Generation Gap Over Ti**anm** Sq*#r^. Why do you think the youth of today’s China are pro government and nationalistic, and not more skeptical of government?  Discuss and defend your answer.