China's 3.1 Upgrade - Coming Soon

The next industrial leap for China is not making more cheap clothes, cell phones, cars and just about every other knick knack.  It's IT architectecture, selling financial products and developing life saving drugs.  It's moving up the value chain currently dominated by Western economies.  This climb won't happen today but bet on it happening in our life time.

To prepare for this next rung, China is undergoing what many Chinese professionals describe as a transition from building hardware to software.  Now don't take them literally.  Metaphorically, what they mean is instead of building roads, airports, factories and hospitals (the hardware of modern economies), as China had done for the past 30 years, the country is shifting towards developing software, not as in a computer program but rather a societal code that cultivates dignity, freedom of speech and human rights.  

My Chinese colleagues feel that this desperately needed "software" revision will truly bring China to the 21st century.  I think they're right.  With humankind at a critical intersection where the human race will shortly explode to 7.5 billion people and our climate heading towards irreversible catastrophe, China has a narrow window to refresh itself.  This reload will make life immensely better for everyone and just maybe, it'll take our planet on a better course.   This is one update we can afford. 

. 

Comments

[Ray Jia]

China has been improving its "software" and achieved great success not found in other parts of the world.

Education is very important in this factor. China is now trying to change its education from the old way to the new why which encourage taking challenges, solving problems, creating new ways and meeting the global competition.

[daryl suen]

this "upgrade" has potential good for everyone, as you have said,however, there is also potential an ultimate crisis. dignity and human rights are what we should strive for as a species but we must understand what comes with it i.e. everyone will demand an equal piece of the pie. at 7 billion people this will quickly bring us to a catastrophe if we do not plan for it. the reason why we are not already in a catastrophe is because the vast majority of us live in poverty and have small ecological footprints.