2019-03-11 Listening to the TED

It's very inspiring to listen to the TED Radio. I can even do this in China because it's unblocked by the "Great Firewall". I usually listening to the program while I was doing home chores or exercising in house where I have wifi access.

Yesterday, I listened "Is War Between China and the US Inevitable?" I was fascinated by the facts that the speaker, Harvard professor Graham Allison mentioned in his speech. e.g., in 1978, he asked his audience what the percentage of population in China lived under $2 a day was. The answer was 90%. Further, he asked what the percentage as of today, 40 years later. The answer was 1%!

He said that China has the world most capable and efficient leader in President Xi, whose goals was to "Make China Great Again!" That brought some laughter from the audience. This was because everybody go his humor as he then said, "This was 6 years before Donald Trump declared "Make the America Great Again!", which brought even loader laughter.

His another example was about a renovation of a bridge in Boston just across the river near Harvard. The city authority decided to do this 5 years ago. and then after several construction delays and three times over the original budget, they announced that they were not going tell the public when they will finally finished the the project. And he compared this project to a similar bridge project in Beijing which was twice as long in length. He asked the audience how long the Chinese project took. The answer was astonishing 42 hours!

It's not these provocative examples that brought the audience's attention. He further emphasized that China had clear goals for the future 5, 10 and 25 years and is well under its way towards these goals. It's inevitable that China will succeed the US to become the world superpower.

Historically, There were 16 times that an emerging superpower succeeded an existing world superpower. 13 out of 16 ended in was war. And more amazingly, most of these wars were started by an insignificant third party! For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, the assassination of a royal family member of Austria by an Serbia national that escalate to a whole fledged war in Europe.

The speaker compared the leaders in both China and the US, and then specifically mentioned the North Korea leader Kim Jong-un, the "third party" as a eerie comparison. The conclusion of his speech was, there was no conclusion. Nobody could predict what's going to happen next for our precious little Earth. But he encouraged conversations between China and the US and all other major world powers. He has been an active advocate for cooperation and world peace.