An event occurred on December 24, 1941 in Hong Kong that almost shattered our family’s lives and had a bearing on my very existence. It was a cold, chilly evening on that Christmas Eve. The streets were dark and quiet after the sun had set. Very few people were walking on the streets, not so much because it was cold and dark, but because Hong Kong all of a sudden had become a “no man’s land.”
Hong Kong was a British colony since 1842 as a result of the First Opium War between Great Britain and China. The year 1941 was during World War II. Although the U.S. did not enter WWII until after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, for China WWII essentially started in 1931 when Japanese troops entered and occupied Manchuria in northeastern China, although it was another six years until 1937 before the conflict erupted into a major war between China and Japan. During the ten years of 1931-1941, Japan expanded its occupation to many other parts of China, including all the way to the city of Guangzhou (or Canton as it was called then) and the southern part of China that borders to Hong Kong.
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Need for Establishment of a Center for Future Studies
As we all know, there are many serious problems facing the U.S. and the world today that could become catastrophic and make the world a very unpleasant place to live in for our grandchildren, say 50 years from now. In particular, I am referring to those problems that may require 10, 20, or more years of research, development, and implementation to have any chance of solving those problems.
Unfortunately, politicians and government agencies in general are not interested in such long-term projects because the beneficial results won’t be available to help them with their next election, or even the next couple of elections after that. Similarly, corporations also do not want to invest in that kind of long-term R&D. With corporations’ focus on the annual, if not quarterly, financial reports, R&D that can give rise to financial benefits in 3-5 years is already considered to be long-term.
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