I thoroughly enjoyed the talk the guest speaker gave on the economic climate in China, and how innovation has had a turbulent past with the Chinese people.  I particularly enjoyed how he incorporated cultural hypotheses to explain why China did not become, and still has not become, the world leader in science and technology, even though at one time they were thousands of years ahead of the west.  Personally I enjoy looking at cultural and historical factors to explain modern phenomena, so learning  how Confucianism and imperialism and communism overtime worked to stifle innovation from the ground up in China is particularly interesting to me.  I believe that it is a combination of all of these factors that has contributed to the modern economic climate in China, and not so much the geographic or other factors.  I believe that China is a very traditional, backwards facing society, that is comfortable in tradition and in their particular niche in the world, and has not until recently decided to look forward more.