The Age of Ambition

I read the prolog and epilog of this book. It is an interesting book about the fast progress of China and its advancement and also the challenge it faces in the recent days. There are several points that I would like to make from both parts.

First, China has extensively reached a successful story economically by reaching the pace of economic growth and has brought its people prosperity and a better life. Nowadays there are thousands even millions of millionaires in China and place the country in the developed world. This economic growth has widened the proportion of middle class in China and bring radical change.

Second, the progress of China's prosperity has also brought other complicated matters. Prosperous people demand more than economy but also other indicators of advancement such as security, health coverage and freedom of expression. It seems the authoritarian approach of the ruling communist party is under threat. The prosperity of China makes it harder for the country to keep its authoritarian approach sustained in the longer time. So it feels like the demand for a more open political system is already ripe in the mind of most people in China and will explode and waiting to be real with the time.

Third, China has reached the peak of its economic growth and tend to slow down. This happens because based on many research that autocracy will not bring progress in the long term. So the option to change the approach to be more democratic could be a radical choice that should be considered by the Chinese leadership.

One of the most interesting sentences could be "from every Lee Kuan Yew, there is president of Congo" means autocracy may also lead to bad leadership that could detrimental to the future of the country. In addition, some of the past policy also affect the country's economic capacity as the country's one-child policy will decrease its young labor from 2011-2030 up to 30 million workforces.

Here are some points that I could share from my short reading of the book.