By W. Scott Morton, Charlton M. Lewis
“A really good activity! So lucid, beautfully written, with nice variety and perception. this may set a brand new common for brief normal histories of China.”
—Michael Gasster, professor emeritus of historical past at Rutgers University
Newly up-to-date and revised, China: Its heritage and tradition, Fourth version, accommodates the an important social and monetary alterations that experience taken position in China over the past decade. via wealthy aspect and interesting illustrations, the booklet strains China’s historical past from Neolithic instances to the current day.
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Additional info for China: Its History and Culture (4th Edition)
Example text
X. ” So Ma would go to the man in the Comprehensive Department, who would say to him, “I’m telling you, this is very complex. ” Complexity in China often has to do with government regulations and de facto social prohibitions. The complexities were multilayered and would have smothered anyone less determined to slice through red tape. In February 1996, for example, the State Council promulgated Interim Regulations on Management of Computer Information Networks—International Connections. These required that all users, individuals and organizations, strictly follow the State Secrecy System.
Ma put out $3,500 (RMB 30,000) to host thirty journalists and editors at a dinner at the club associated with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economics (MOFTEC, also known in reorganized form as MOFERT, Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade). He had prepared two computers with information on their hard disks. The slow speed of transmission in Beijing at the time made direct access to the Internet impossible, so he had copied two Web pages onto these hard disks. The experience proved to be an exhilarating success.
Of the twenty-four, twenty-three said it was too early to get into this business. “It won’t work,” they told him. “I spoke for two hours,” Ma said later, “and they didn’t get it. I myself didn’t know what I was talking about. One person said he would take a chance, but if it didn’t work he would turn tail right away. So I thought about it for one night. The next morning, I decided to do it. ” One factor in his decision was a sense of giving it a try. Ma has always felt that one does not measure success just by the results; instead, he feels that the experience of doing something is in itself a kind of success.