Buffet on China
Billionaire Warren Buffet at his annual shareholder’s meeting this week warned about getting too sanctimonious in criticizing China. Via The Standard (HK).
Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett issued strong support for the Beijing Olympics saying any effort to boycott the games would be “a terrible mistake.”
“The United States had a similar history of human rights trouble. A black man’s vote once counted as only of a white man’s vote and women were not allowed to vote at all, but in the end those issues were resolved,” he told a crowd of 31,000 in Nebraska.
Good for Buffett, one of the few folks putting things in historical perspective, something news outlets in the States fail to do.
Vice-chairman Charlie Munger via the Wall Street Journal was even more emphatic:
[Munger] didn’t pull any punches. For critics of China, “ask yourself the question: Is China more or less imperfect as the decades have gone by?” Mr. Munger, a professed admirer of Asian cultures, said. “The answer is that China is moving in the right direction. I think it’s the worst thing to pick on something about somebody you don’t like and obsess about it.”
May 6th, 2008 13:34
There is an amazingly naive historical/moral fallacy that inhibits reform in Buffett’s statement: “in the end those issues were resolved.” And how were those issues resolved? By protest and criticism. Whether and the extent to which engagement with China is effective is an intersting policy question subject subject to social and political science but if we did not permit productive criticism because no one is perfect, no one would improve.
May 13th, 2008 09:26
Thanks Andrew for a great post - it’s most definitely the case that very few media outlets in the West succeed in putting the China story in its proper historical context, so it’s enlightening to hear that Buffett and Munger are willing to go there. Hope all is well with you in Beijing - hope to see you this summer! ~ Nicole