Size matters ... to China

Tell your friends: China's building the world's biggest radio telescope.

Why is China doing this?

I don't really know. I'm still not quite sure what the practical purpose of China's space mission is, to be honest.

But you can rest assured China's radio telescope is the biggest. The People's Daily says so: It's as large as 40 football fields, 10 times bigger than the current largest one in the United States and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Maybe not that last thing.

In case you haven't noticed, China has size issues.

This seems kind of weird in a country that is not only the largest in the world in terms of square kilometres, but has the largest population. Especially because no one in China is going to let you forget that for a moment.

Almost every single Chinese person I've met begins at least one conversation on the government's less palatable policies with, "Well, China has so many people ...

... it makes democracy unfeasible."

... you can't have individual freedoms."

... the government can't provide for everyone in a timely manner."

Etcetera.

Does this make sense? To a certain degree, yeah: There are 1.4 billion people here, fer chrissake. To cruelly continue to mock a former Canadian federal party leader who really doesn't deserve to be mocked any longer: You think it's easy to run a billion-person country?

Of course it isn't. It's kind of a logistical nightmare, and in one sense that explains the government's addiction to order (it also explains why almost no Chinese person can ever answer a question beginning with, "How many people ... ?").

But by that same token you could also argue that trying to rule a bazillion people with an iron, one-party authoritarian fist really isn't a realistic goal. I think it's also fair to argue that claiming the country's unfit for things like a competitive political system or the protection of individual rights is really selling this population short. If your argument is that democracy or human rights are overrated and China's just smarter than everyone else, okay. I'll buy that as an argument, although I can't say I agree. But as most ostensibly democratic countries have aptly proven on numerous occasions, democracy can be more farcical than effective.

But the people who can master both killer street food and a cutting-edge space program aren't capable of casting a ballot and send some hapless bozos into government?

Umm...really?