Have I been wrong all? Some critics suggest my newspaper columns since 1995 on the politics and economics of the Mainland have been — oh — overly sympathetic toward China.
I just don't know. But no one can afford to be complacent. And so the worry popped up again, for several reasons. One was as I was leaving Walt Disney Concert Hall recently after a scintillating Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 with Yuja Wang, on whom many of us classical-music fans have a bit of a crush.
Born in China and, in her most formative years, trained there, this diminutive superstar with the "flying fingers" and a delightfully glam wardrobe reminds us anew of the great treasures that can come from the Mainland. Gunpowder, after all, was hardly the last (or the most representative) of China's gifts.