You probably know that George Washington was America’s first president, but do you know about his enduring impact on people around the world? I did not until I visited Hainan, China in 2007.
At a family reunion, I struck up a conversation with one of my cousins, a Chinese citizen, and discovered we had a mutual love of politics and history. Although he criticized many recent American foreign policy decisions, he also revealed his intense admiration for George Washington.
He was astonished that after defeating Great Britain and winning American independence, Washington relinquished all his power to the people’s representatives and returned home to his farm. As a citizen of a country where the founding leader, Mao Zedong, entrenched himself in a lifelong dictatorship, my cousin found Washington’s resignation incomprehensible.
Read Full Article »