Societal Breakdown in China?

Special thanks to Xujun Eberlein, who translated this important article by Sun Liping. Sun is a sociology professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and this essay is currently very popular on the Chinese Internet. The essay provides some keen and controversial insights into contemporary Chinese society, as well as some observations that clearly transcend China. Consider the following passage, which with a few phrases changed could characterize contemporary life in the US equally well:

"Society has lost the ability to think long-term. Vested interest groups formed on bureaucratic capitalism pay overly great attention to short term interests; they have neither the ancient emperors' responsibility toward their descendants, nor the nobleman's detachment and transcending spirit. There is a tendency in our society for an exaggeration-syndrome over short-term problems to co-exist with a numbness-syndrome over long-term behavior. For every problem at the moment, each bush and tree looks like an enemy soldier; Problems concerning our descendants and society's long-term development all meet with a blind eye. 'Get drunk today when there is still wine' becomes institutionalized behavior. With resource and environmental issues, they drain the lake to catch all the fish."