Roger and Me

Although it seems a good while since Canadians looked upon China benignly, it’s actually not been that long. Until fairly recently, there seemed to be something of a consensus in government, business, and academic circles that Communist Party leaders had miraculously presided over the fate of a billion-plus people by fostering a workable social cohesion and diligently pursuing the admirable work, initiated by Mao Zedong, of relieving historic poverty. Under the post-Mao leadership, the thinking went, that diligence had progressively become almost messianic.

True enough, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a nasty bit of business, but it was obviously part of some growing pains and was really interesting as a social experiment. On top of all that, the consensus view went, the West had sins of both commission and omission to atone for in its years of colonial expansion, international dominance, and, as we are never allowed to forget, pure...