“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

Off to a new year with old and new challenges. It appears there will not be a shortage of challenges, it will be up to each of us to notice the contentment of the moment or task well done.

The current Chinese ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, has just been promoted to foreign minister. He authored the following article 4 days ago.

How China Sees the World The National Interest by Qin Gang December, 26, 2022

Just as people’s worldviews fundamentally shape the ways they choose to engage with the world, the same holds true for countries and political parties. It has been reaffirmed at the Party Congress that China is committed to its foreign policy goals of upholding world peace and promoting common development, and it remains dedicated to building a community with a shared future for mankind. Such an official, open declaration of the CPC’s worldview sheds light on the way it engages with the world.
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Mankind went through multiple crossroads in the twentieth century. Now we have come to the first crossroads of the twenty-first century: the pandemic has not been over after three years; global economic, financial, and energy crises emerge one after another; an economic recession is looming large; and more conflicts seem impending. At such a juncture, will the world continue to embrace a brave new century, or will it succumb to the beaten path of the last century? This depends on the choice of people of all countries, including the American people.

If people choose to see the world from a “democracy vs. authoritarianism” perspective, they will very likely usher in a world of division, competition, and conflict; but if they view the world as a community with a shared future, then openness, cooperation, and win-win outcomes will be the fruits of their choice. As President Xi Jinping stressed in his meeting with President Joe Biden in Bali last month, the world is big enough for the two countries to develop themselves and prosper together. China-U.S. relations should not be a zero-sum game where one side out-competes the other or thrives at the expense of the other. China and the United States now share more common interests, not less. This is how the notion of a community with a shared future for mankind mirrors in China-U.S. relations.

The differences between China and the United States—in history, culture, social system, and development path—will most probably remain in 100 years. But as residents of the same world, we should and can listen to each other, narrow our gap in perceptions of the world, and explore a way to get along based on mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation.

The Chinese people are looking to the American people to make the right choice.

His arrival to the United States in July last year was not welcoming. A missed opportunity to build the social relationships to facilitate working on difficult issues of the present and those emerging in the future.

Who Is Qin Gang, China’s New US Ambassador? The Diplomat July 30, 2021

Unlike his predecessor, Cui Tiankai, a veteran diplomat with deep knowledge of U.S. affairs and personal connections with incumbent and former U.S. government officials and lawmakers, Qin has never specialized in dealing with the United States

To foreign journalists covering China, Qin is known as the pioneer of excoriating one-liners. often delivering punchlines wrapped in Chinese metaphors.
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A former foreign correspondent who attended Qin’s press conferences described him as someone who “talks with theatrical flair,” “contemptuous and charismatic at once.” Another remembered him to be “tough and plainspoken.”
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James Green, a diplomat with two decades of experience in the U.S. government working on bilateral China-U.S. relations and currently a senior advisor for McLarty Associates, recalls his impression of Qin Gang: “I never worked with Qin directly during my time working for the State Department and at the U.S. Embassy. I would say I first became aware of him when he was the spokesman while I was in Washington at the time following his announcements from the podium of the Foreign Ministry.”

“I guess I would say he’s one of the first foreign ministry spokespersons that I can remember by name. I’m sure the position existed before him, but he was one of the more prominent holders of that position as the spokesman.”
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Qin is not considered a Xi Jinping lieutenant from his Fujian or Zhejiang home base. “Qin is a later comer to Xi Jinping’s inner circle. But since Xi has become the secretary general, through mainly luck, Qin has had a lot of face time with Xi Jinping as the person in charge of protocol,” said Victor Shih, a University of California, San Diego, professor of political economy who specializes in elite Chinese politics.

Shih notes that Qin has had to arrange Xi’s overseas trips, of which there were many, especially during his first term. Qin also was responsible for arrangements when leaders of other countries visited Beijing. “Through these arrangements and through attending these trips and meetings with Xi Jinping, Qin has had a lot of close interactions with Xi Jinping and must have made a good impression,” said Shih. “He must have gotten Xi’s trust and is now enjoying the fruits of that trust.”
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“The challenge for Qin Gang or for any Chinese diplomat is to open up the aperture of their interactions beyond the State Department and beyond the U.S. government to other parts of U.S. society, including business associations, universities and students, inside and outside Washington,” Green remarked.

“It’s quite a different job,” he added. “It’s not a mechanical challenge. It’s a product challenge, what the Chinese ambassador in the United States is selling. It’s not a great product to sell. It doesn’t matter how good a salesman you are, how many meetings you do, you are trying to push a product that, in the eyes of many Americans, is quite damaged. So it’s going to be a challenge.”
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In 2013, Cui Tiankai, then incoming Chinese ambassador, was given a reception by U.S. diplomats upon arrival. This time no State Department officials were present to greet the new ambassador on his arrival in Washington, yet another sign of how frayed the bilateral relationship has become.

On the evening of July 28, 2021, Qin Gang delivered his first remark to Chinese and American media upon arrival. He started by recounting Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to China, which opened the door to the normalization of China-U.S. relations.

“Dr. Kissinger had to travel covertly to China via a third country. Fifty years later today, as the 11th Chinese Ambassador to the United States, I can travel most openly and fly directly to this country. How the world has changed with the passage of time! I believe that the door of China-U.S. relations, which is already open, cannot be closed.”

“Where this important relationship will be headed is vital for the well-being of the Chinese and American peoples and for the future of the world,” Qin added, and promised to “safeguard the foundation of China-U.S. relations, uphold the shared interests of the two peoples, and endeavor to bring China-U.S. relations back on track.”

There were indications in November he might be promoted. (my bold) There was time to make an effort to improve relationships if the diplomatic core had been interested.

Qin Gang, China's ambassador to US and a long-time Xi loyalist, poised to lead foreign ministry
South China Morning Post reprinted on Yahoo News Nov 4, 2022

Should Qin become foreign minister, analysts said they did not expect to see much outward display of independent initiative given China's system, his relatively limited experience and how beholden he is to Xi, based on his time in Washington.
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Qin arrived in Washington in 2021 during a difficult time in US-China relations that only worsened during his 15-month tenure.

The administration of President Joe Biden has maintained most of the tough trade, defence and technology policies of its predecessor, former president Donald Trump, even as a defiant Beijing continued building up its military and nuclear arsenals.

Qin also had trouble shaking his reputation as a wolf warrior - a faction of unapologetic nationalists within the Chinese foreign ministry named after a blockbuster 2015 film.

The senior diplomat gained notoriety for his combative tone as foreign ministry spokesman, with intermittent efforts to soften his reputation in his Washington assignment scarcely bearing fruit.
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In the weeks and months after Qin's arrival at New York's Kennedy Airport, Qin sought to mount a charm offensive, riding tractors with farmers, holding babies, sharing mooncakes with students.

But he never managed to carve out a persona that consistently resonated with his American audience, analysts said, vacillating between bridge-building and strident party-line messaging.

"It could be because his talking points were not persuasive or he's personally not persuasive or both," said Moon. "If you have a harsh wolf-warrior message, surprise, surprise, it's not going to work out that well ... That may have gotten him promoted to the Central Committee, but did not help improve relations."

Other analysts said - beyond the issue of access to high-level US officials - the interest groups Qin met with were long-standing pro-China organisations. In August he jokingly tweeted: "Pandas are not endangered any more! I hope panda huggers will not [be], either" But, they added, he did not seem to be meeting with those close to the administration with influence who could help ease US-China tensions.

"I have no evidence he used his time here to develop durable, high-quality relationships with policymakers or thought leaders," said one former US White House official.
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Qin also lacked deep access within the US administration, analysts said, reflecting in part American displeasure over the lack of access granted to US Ambassador Nicholas Burns in Beijing as well as the dismal state of bilateral relations.

They noted Qin failed to forge much of a rapport with White House Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, National Security Council Senior Director for China and Taiwan Laura Rosenberger, or Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"He has not been someone who has won the respect of the White House," said an analyst with close ties to the Biden administration. "He's just not respected by Kurt, Laura, anyone, yet he will be Blinken's new counterpart."
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Analysts see fewer communication channels with the retirement of top Chinese envoy Yang Jieqi, a seasoned diplomat with strong English and a good working relationship with Sullivan.

Yang's US ties date to the George W Bush administration. His successor on the Politburo is expected to be Wang Yi, China's current foreign minister and a European specialist.

Work reports, Xi's speeches and the promotions out of last month's 20th party congress leave little doubt that Beijing views the US as an increasingly hostile, waning adversary intent on holding China back. With loyalty to Xi valued over technocratic expertise, concerns about US-China relations run high as Qin ascends.

A new development theory for a new year. Another small group of people have the answer for a perfect future world once we totally discard our old beliefs.

The yin and yang of metamodernism Asia Times December 27, 2022

Metamodernism, an intellectual movement that emerged in Europe about 10 years ago, has an ambitious goal: formulating a response to a world “that feels like it’s unraveling through climate change, culture war, bio-precarity, political corruption, and myriad economic failures.”

The metamodernist community, many of them intellectuals in their 40s, share a concern about the ideological, social, and cultural malaise in European society. They argue we are “between two worlds” – the now-dying system and a system that has yet to be born.

As a way out, the metamodernists want to reconcile their two antagonistic predecessors. They see the culture wars currently raging in the Western world as a battle between modernist and postmodernist values. Their response: “You are both right. We’re going to synthesize opposites and build something new from there.”
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Metamodernism has roots in integral theory, a stage-development theory developed by Ken Wilber. Integral is a synthesis of Western developmental psychology and Eastern religious traditions, mostly Vedanta and Zen. Collaboration between Wilber and Spiral Dynamics, a model of evolutionary development, led to Spiral Dynamics Integral, or SDi.
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Applying stage theory to the contemporary world is not without pitfalls. For one, it assigns people, groups, and countries to hierarchical levels. Moreover, it assumes all people and all countries will go through the same developmental stage in the same sequence.

Integralists typically argue that Northern Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world have the largest percentage of Integral-Teal (see the color chart above) people and thus the highest level of development. Based on social and gender equality, the ranking makes sense.
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Leading theorist Daniel P Görtz explained the need for a shift in focus during a TED talk, saying: “If we hold on to our Modernist and Postmodernist mindset, we will not have the values that are going to match the complexity of the global, post-industrial, digital age.”
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The Metamodernist Manifesto echoes this focus on reconciling dynamic opposites. It wants metamodernism to be defined as “the mercurial condition between and beyond irony and sincerity, naivety and knowingness, relativism and truth, optimism and doubt.…” As their manifesto explains:

• We recognize oscillation to be the natural order of the world.
• We must liberate ourselves from the inertia resulting from a century of modernist ideological naivety and the cynical insincerity of its antonymous bastard child (that is, Postmodernism).
• Movement shall henceforth be enabled by way of an oscillation between positions, with diametrically opposed ideas operating like the pulsating polarities of a colossal electric machine, propelling the world into action.

If the latter conjures up a cybernetic image of a metamodern metaverse, the Metamodern Manifesto predates the metaverse by more than a decade. But the “colossal electric machine” is a useful metaphor to describe cybernetic, postindustrial society.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5USomyB3mZQ]

What is on your mind today?