Adoption Quotes
3rd Earl Russell of Kingston. At the time China was one of the poorest nations on earth, with a series of feeble politicians and leaders fighting each other for the ability to rob the people. Their ancient science and virtues had been forgotten and it was thought of by the West and Asians alike as a failed state. However, Russell observed this one characteristic that could be so important when the rest of the world was learning more and more about everything from science to history. The search for wisdom from wherever it may be also gave them an advantage over other cultures who were more chauvinistic about the origin of whatever they did or thought. Less than a century later China was a superpower, economically, artistically intellectually, scientifically and almost militarily. It only lagged democratically.
While this type of modernization had been a theme of her reign, it was particularly fascinating at this time when China had been invaded by Japan and 7 Western Countries, she still argued that the only way for China to thrive and attain true independence was to reform and adopt many Western Ways. Chinese leader after her gave lip service to doing this but never wanted to implement the reforms lest the lose power. Ironically, it was under Communist leader Deng Xiaoping, 1904-1993, that Cixi’s notion of adopting modern Western economic and technological models and approaches was finally implemented and then China made the greatest improvement of any large society ever in a relatively short term. However, Deng stopped short of adopting Western notions of political freedom.
