Reflections on governments

The current campaign and elections has reminded me of an interesting experience from several years ago.  When I was a graduate student, I was presenting a paper at a conference in Washington, D.C.  One of my fellow presenters was a young lady from China, who was a graduate student at a Canadian college.  Most of the presentations were fairly boring, so we started chatting when we should have paid attention, I guess. 

This was years ago, when China was even less "open" than it is now, and my new friend, I found out, knew almost nothing about American government.  And here we were in the middle of D.C.  I had been to D.C. several times, and knew my way around a little, so I proposed that we play hookey from the conference one afternoon and I would take her on a guided tour.  She thought this was a great idea, so off we went.  Explaining the buildings and institutions to her, and answering her questions, was quite a priviledge and interesting experience.  I wish I remembered more of our conversation now, but the only thing that stuck in my mind was that she was disappointed that the White House was so small.  I explained that it was just a "house" on purpose.  The founders wanted to make sure no one mistook it for a king's palace. 

I saw an interesting interview on TV in the last few days.  The news person was interviewing a gentleman who supposedly had some independent expertese on the relationship between the Chinese government and the Chinese people.  He said that after Tianaming Square (did I spell that right?) the government struck a sort of unspoken bargain with the people.  The government would let them have a capitalist economy, and not interfere, if the people would let the government alone, and not interfere.  The interviewer asked if it was working.  The man said "not really." 

Every college in America now, I think, has a relatively large student population from China.  The vast majority of these young people go back to China after graduation.  This has been going on for many years, at least 20 or 30, and it MUST be having some effect on their society.  It makes me wonder if the Chinese  government, by allowing and even encouraging this, has any kind of clue.