Joseph Wang
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Lives in Hong KongUpdated Sun
Is it true that all Chinese politicians are STEM graduates, while all American politicians are sociology graduates?
No. This was true of the previous generation of leaders, but it is not true of this generation that tend to be law graduates. If you go back two generations, the people that ended up in charge tended to be military. My guess is that the next generation of leaders will likely be business and finance graduates.

The previous generation were engineers that ended up project managers and then worked their way up.

There is a nice quote from John Adams……

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

I should point out that in China science and technology is held a lot higher in the government than in the West, and there is a very important historical reason for that….

Nemesis (1839) - Wikipedia
Nemesis was the first British ocean-going iron warship. She was the largest of a class of six similar vessels ordered by the 'Secret Committee' of the East India Company. Nemesis, together with her sister ships Phlegethon, Pluto, Proserpine, Ariadne, and Medusa, was built by John Laird’s yard at Birkenhead. [4] Launched in 1839, the Nemesis was deployed to China – arriving late-1839 – and used to great effect in the First Opium War by Captain William Hutcheon Hall and later in 1842 by Captain Richard Collinson . [5] The Chinese referred to her as the "devil ship". [2] Construction [ edit ] Although commissioned by the Secret Committee of the East India Company (EIC) in 1839, the vessel did not appear in the EIC's list of ships, [6] leading The Times to comment: "...this vessel is provided with an Admiralty letter of license or letter of marque . If so, it can only be against the Chinese; and for the purpose of smuggling opium she is admirably adapted." [7] Nemesis was a gunboat built by British shipbuilding company John Laird's Birkenhead Iron Works in three months. [8] She had a length of 184 feet (56 m), a beam of 29 feet (8.8 m), a draught of 6 feet (1.8 m) when full of coal and less than 5 ft when laden with less, and a burthen of 660 tons. [1] [2] She was powered by two sixty horsepower Forrester engines. [9] She was armed with two pivot-mounted 32-pounder and four 6-pounder guns. The steam- and sail-powered ship was particularly effective in China because her shallow draught of only five feet allowed her to travel up rivers to pursue and engage other vessels and targets. Her watertight bulkheads were the first to be used in a warship. They enabled her to survive the hull damage she sustained during sea trials and en route to China in 1840.. [10] [a] That year, Nemesis became the first iron ship to sail around the Cape of Good Hope , aided by techniques developed the year before by Sir George Airy , the Astronomer Royal , to adjust a compass for the effect of an iron hull. The adjustments were not particularly effective, with the result that the ship's compass performed poorly throughout its career. [11] Nemesis arrived off the coast of China in late 1840, [3] although when she set sail from Liverpool it was publicly intimated that she was bound for Odessa to keep the voyage a secret. [6] A British officer wrote that the outbreak of the First Opium War "was considered an extremely favourable opportunity for testing the advantages or otherwise of iron steam-vessels." [12] She first saw action in the Second Battle of Chuenpi on 7 January 1841 against the Chinese fleet at the Bocca Tigris forts. In the Battle of First Bar (27 February), Nemesis sank Cambridge , an old, but re-armed East Indiaman that the Chinese had purchased. Due to Nemesis ' s shallow draught, Nemesis was able to move through shallow water during the Broadway expedition on 13–15 March and aided in the capture of Canton on 18 March. Based in Chusan, she also saw action at Taisa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(1839)
Never again…. Never again…

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