I’m starting to wonder if the Chinese might have a fundamentally different perspective on sustainability than the west. After all, the Chinese have been one continuous nation for 5000 years (or at least they are in their heads), and that whole time war, earthquake, and storm haven’t budged them. In the same time, in the west, empires rose and fell, cultures were exterminated, languages vanished, and cities were wiped out by volcano and flood. We are more connected to the idea of mass natural disaster, the environment and politcal climate creating massive changes, fundamental changes, where changes in china just changes the capital, the dynasty, and involves usually some massive turmoil, but after which things go back to normal. In modern times and in ancient, things go back to being Chinese, in the way the Chinese do things. Not so the west.

On the other hand, of course, the Chinese are skittish of large changes, due to the radical experiments of the last century. So, you have a monolithic nation, afraid of change but on the other hand extremely used to it. An interesting dialectic.