Last week’s breakfast speaker was our own Claes Ryn, Professor of Politics at Catholic University, who has recently returned from his sixth trip to China where he delivered a major address and was named an Honorary Professor at Beijing Normal University. Claes had wondered why an invitation would be extended, but realized that America is the subject of universal attention and that his ideas and his writings would surely command attention.

China is a land with an ancient culture that may be lost or endangered by a new Chinese identity. He expressed the view that communism is gone but its mechanism for governing may remain. ”There is horror on the horizon” he said, “that China and the U.S. may find themselves in an unbelievable war, to be avoided if highly civilized people can work out their differences.