The heart-wrenching security video from Shanghai shows the two year old toddler run over twice and disregarded by eighteen passersby until a trash lady drags the still-thrashing child to the side of the road and the mother runs up. (Graphic content, your eyes may brim). The little girl died today.
This has caused soul-searching on Sina Weibo (the Chinese Facebook). One comment is quoted in the Toronto Star: “This just shows how abnormal is the moral situation in this society! The sad Chinese, poor China, are we even rescuable?” China has been changing from a peasant nation, tens of millions being thrust into city life away from kinship norms. (Amazon.com "Factory Girls" )
I think the question, "Who is my neighbour" asked of Jesus a couple thousand years ago is still answered by the parable of the Good Samaritan. Canada benefits from a Judeo-Christian heritage that considers "Love your neighbour as yourself" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as normal wisdom.
An economic viewpoint from Mitch Shedlock at Global Economic Analysis: "The often repeated story regarding China is that the country will grow without end, it will overtake the US, and rule the world. Instead, I propose the China story is really about rampant credit expansion, malinvestments, unproductive assets, no free capital markets, centralized planning that people mistake for capitalism, no legal system of merit, no freedom of speech, no respect for either property rights or human rights, and that peak-oil will in and of itself kill the story. In short, all the people who think China is some sort of miracle savior for the world economy are going to find out otherwise."
The counterpunch is that the story has been published in Chinese papers, and gone viral on Sina Weibo (4.5 million posts) as noted in this China Digital Times story. China is re-creating itself.
Added: From China Digital Times also, blaming capitalism and blaming communism.
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