"On China" by Henry Kissinger (2011)

She is alone, having just returned from a tango class. At 10:22pm, the front door is slammed open. A poorly shaven (by design or inadvertently) man enters. She neither screams nor calls the police. "What a nuisance," she thinks, putting aside the New Yorker. "This foul-smelling savage probably wants me to teach him some salsa. And another one is hovering in the corridor---too shy to enter and supplicate. Well, if I teach the basic steps to the intruder, he might leave promptly and share the knowledge with his friends. Surely he has not forced himself into my apartment to lecture me on his area of expertise. I am in no danger." This seems to have been the Chinese foreign policy until the mid-nineteenth century.

History has favoured military might and economic influence, not poignant poetry, romantic dance routines, and friendly demeanour. Yet it is hard to accuse history of having failed to favour merit; the definition of merit evolves to conform with history's choices. Today, poetry, dance, and friendly demeanour are all integral parts of economic influence.

History matters for the same reasons data matter in science. A successful society encapsulates all relevant history in social norms (e.g., common law), institutions, and a collection of principles (e.g., a constitution). The remaining history are possibility theorems, of interest to experts.

Revolutions change the rules of the game. Entrepreneurship changes the strategies. Economic and political development benefits from the stability of rules and the innovation in strategies. Mao understood the merits of change, but has failed to direct it appropriately. Capitalist economies and democracies deliver change without planning for it.

The belief in the supremacy of ideas is less harmful than the belief in the supremacy of nations. The latter vilifies and sacrifices people. The former challenges ideas and, in the best case, may lead to conversations, not wars.