199. Obama and the Founding Fathers

As a history lover, usually, I don't focus my radar on current development of the relations between China and the United States. However, President Obama's comments on the relations stimulated my curiosities on the connection between history and nowadays. President Barack Obama said Thursday, September 23, 2010 that U.S.-China cooperation has helped ease global financial turmoil. He also pointed out that US-China cooperation is "a critical ingredient in a whole range of security issues around the world."

No doubt, China is important to the United States again. The fact that I used the word "again" reveals the historical fact that China was very critical to the founding of the United States. Spending 10 minutes on reading my article, With China We Trade, which published by Asian Times on line, on March 11, 2009, is worthwhile. You will learn how China's economic power, whose GDP accounted for 33% of the whole world, played a critical role for the new born United States' overcoming the financial and economic crises created by the Great Britain in its hope of forcing the newly independent former colonies to return one by one to be under the British rule.

198. Franklin had a fairly good grounding in Confucius moral philosophy

Benjamin Franklin had a fairly good grounding in Confucius moral philosophy. Mr.jimmiraybob derived at this conclusion after he read Dr. Dave Wang's works on the founding fathers and Chinese civilization. Mr. jimmiraybod wrote the following in the Well-known Blog, American Creation:

"Whatever the founding father’s depth of understanding regarding other religions and philosophies, it appears that Franklin had a fairly good grounding in Confucius moral philosophy. Much of Franklin’s own lifelong pursuit of virtue (see the 13 virtues/Autobiography) appear to have been modeled, at least in large part, by Confucian teaching. Prompted by the earlier post I did some Googling and came across a couple of things written by Professor Dave Wang (cited by Spirits)": More is available from this link.