100 years of freedom

China celebrates 100 years, this February since the last emperor abdicated. Was the revolution successful? China's first president, Dr Sun Yat Sen, was certainly an idealist, and motivated by his humanity, and outrage at the injustices in his country. This has so often been the case, where a truly great leader has emerged to free the common people from the ravages of poverty and oppression. At least that is how revolutions are begun. Think of Castro in power for 50 years, another idealist, but most people would say his revolution was more successful.  Compare the Chinese revolution to the French and Russian revolutions. Especially during those first 70 years or so. The Chinese and Russian revolutions were hijacked by corrupt and evil men, and of course the two world wars didn't help much either. I personally think that Dr Sun Yat Sen would have been appalled by the successive governments of China. After Japan's self-imposed 200 year isolation, Japan very quickly became powerful, why did't China after its liberation from feudalism? It is only today that we can truly say that China can now hold its head high on the world stage, this should have happened 70 years ago, but sadly under the guise of nationalism and false communism, its own leaders destroyed and massively oppressed their own people. Nationalism still rears its head frequently in China, as it does in Europe and elsewhere, but nobody takes communism seriously anymore, Richard Dawkins becoming Pope is just as logical.Communism does not exist in China, and hasn't for 30 years.
Chinese people, 100 years after electing (although by just a small committee) their first leader, still do not have universal suffrage, pretty damned sure that Dr Sun at that time looked at the example of the USA and hoped his own people could choose their own leader one day.
The future? China is a huge part of humanities future, and so our problems are very similar. A fairer distribution of wealth, human rights, justice, are universal concerns, pollution, resources and universal suffrage are particularly crucial for China's continued success.
It wasn't only China that wasted valuable time in the last century, but China must look honestly at its recent past and admit and remember the very hard lessons that were learnt.