nan | 楠木

I read a column on Hexun today, talking about how the world was flat, but not equal. Personally I wasn’t too interested in the article. It was the usual talk on how unequal the world was, what inequalities existed, and how nobody was doing anything etc. I stopped reading after about 10 seconds.
However, one fact got me thinking. Friedman’s book was an international bestseller last year. It only entered China this year. Talk about the world being flat, when you’re intellectually one year behind the whole world.
If there is anything that we should learn from the book, it’s that in this era of globalization, we need to be open to ideas, and let information flow as much as possible. Friedman credits China and India’s success to the playing field being leveled by advances in IT and such. Because of the free flow of ideas, a person in China can make himself just as competitive as a person in the US.
If this is the case, then we should be especially critical of the barriers that still stand between us and free communication. For a book to be made one year late to the public, that’s just against the very notion of the book itself. While it’s arguable that it takes time to negotiate a deal with the publishers and do the translation, there should be no barrier on bringing in the original English version to English book-stores across the country.
And yet, I searched in vain last year to find a copy. I don’t know what the details behind that (is it purely a case of economics, or are there more political restrictions? Personally I think it’s the latter), but I ended up buying a copy in Seoul.
I understand the concerns of the government over what publications are allowed or not. But for competitiveness’s sake, let’s not make the world round for ourselves.