Forty years ago this summer, Chinese communist chairman Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, unleashing a painful decade of torture, humiliation, prison and exile for China.
In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping healed the wounds with market liberalization, and the seeds of China’s comeback. Now, a booming new China, still under Communist Party rule, contemplates its political future. And the beacon in some quarters is a very old one — not Mao, or Deng, but Confucius — the great sage of antiquity.
Democracy advocates worry that is a path to authoritarian trouble. Confucians say it’s the Asian way.
Hear about China, Confucius, and the democratic hope.
Guests:
Daniel Bell, author of “Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context.”;
Xiao Qiang, human rights activist and director of the Berkeley China Internet Project, and former executive director of Human Rights in China.;
Jonathan Kaufman, former Beijing bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.
Democrats charge Republicans with being prisoners of special interests. A young conservative turns that charge around.
Comedian Lizz Winstead, co-creator of “The Daily Show” is with us, on the truth in humor.
A breast-feeding three-year-old – and mom – on the cover of Time Magazine. We’ll talk with the guru of “attachment parenting.”
Two billion dollars lost in a flash by JP Morgan. Is this an argument for the Volcker rule – cracking down on speculative bets by the banks?
