China’s Sphere of Influence
Robert Kaplan has an interesting article up at The Atlantic concerning Beijing's relationship with its far-western province, Xinjiang. In the text, he touches upon an issue that occasionally flies under the radar in international coverage of China:
As China's zone of influence expands westward, a network of north-south roads through Pakistan, India, and Burma will one day connect both Xinjiang and Tibet with ports on the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, economically liberating landlocked inner China. A new Silk Route will form, in which Lhasa will be linked with Kolkata, Kashgar with Karachi, and so on.
Here in Kunming, China's massive investment in international road and rail links will change the face of the city within the next ten or twenty years. Before long, it will be possible to drive from Kunming to Calcutta or Kunming to Bangkok on modern, high-speed roads. As Kaplan notes, these transport links will fuel economic expansion to southwestern and western China, regions that have been slow to share in the coastal provinces' economic prosperity.
I was chatting to a friend the other day about East Asia's two "rogue states": Burma and North Korea. He said that each problem will eventually resolve itself, as both countries will eventually become client states of China. In one sense, they already are: China's imports of Burmese timber helps prop up the latter's sagging economy and China is the only significant global power with any ties at all to North Korea. My friend believes that before long both the Kim family and the Burmese junta will be taking orders from Beijing.
Whether or not my friend's prophecy comes true (and I suspect it might), I do believe that one of the major global trends in the next few decades will be a realignment toward great powers having regional "spheres of influence". China isn't necessarily a great power yet; its military and economic strength are no match for fully developed countries; but its rise as the regional power in East Asia is inevitable.
What does this mean for the United States? Its military and economic dominance will not wane for some time, but in the (somewhat) near future the American moment of unipolarity will undoubtedly recede. The US has based its foreign policy since the Cold War on being the global hegemon, leading a network of friendly, secular liberal democracies in its new world order. This policy has led to an overstretched military and ill-advised wars against regional tyrants, hardly the best use of US resources or power.
A consequence of relative US decline vs. the rise of China and the EU may be a stable series of spheres of influence, with each power having a controlling stake in its periphery. As for China, this may mean they will have to compromise in places such as Africa in order to exert greater hegemony in Taiwan, Burma, North Korea, and other neighboring places.
Chinese Perceptions of the West- and Vice Versa
A bit of a thought experiment here. What perceptions (misguided or otherwise) would the average Chinese person have of the US? What perceptions would the average American have of China?
Of course, there are lots of people with a foot in both countries, so for the sake of this experiment lets cast them out. By "average", let's say a reasonably well-educated person who has never lived in the other country but follows the news and is susceptible to the biases in their respective media. Let's further assume that the "average" Chinese or "average" American possesses no extremist political leanings and is generally patriotic and law-abiding.
What does the "average" Chinese person think of America? A few guesses:
-American concern for the plight of the Tibetans is a red herring, as the US government is primarily motivated by an a priori fear and resentment toward China.
-The American political system is neither inferior or superior to the Chinese one, just different. America, though, believes that its democracy should be adopted throughout the world, posing a threat to the sovereignty of countries such as China.
-American economic strength, while derived from exploiting the resources of other nations, should nonetheless be emulated in China.
-American cultural exports harm traditional Chinese values to a certain extent, but this effect is mostly benign.
-American criticism of China's relations with other countries is hypocritical and unfair.
-Mao Zedong was a national hero who united China after a century of division and humiliation at the hands of enemies, both external and internal. His mistakes during his tenure do not diminish his constructive role in Chinese history.
-China's problems are largely caused by malevolent foreign interference, not by internal governance.
-Americans are militant nationalists who are suspicious of foreigners due to its biased media.
-American hamburgers and French fries taste good, and American movies are cool.
And the American perception of China?
-China is very close to becoming a major economic and military power and poses a threat to American dominance of the post-Cold War world order
-China is rigidly controlled by a malignant government who oppresses the individual rights of the people and uses force to suppress any dissent. As a result, the Chinese are mostly unthinking automatons.
-China's role in Tibet is nothing short of neo-colonialism. The Dalai Lama is a man of peace and should be allowed to govern Tibet unmolested by the Chinese.
-China plays an unconstructive role in world affairs due to its reluctance to pressure rogue regimes in Africa (Sudan, Zimbabwe, etc.) and Asia (Burma, North Korea).
-A new Cold War is possible, though not inevitable. Nonetheless the two countries are poised to become adversaries despite paying lip service to mutual cooperation.
-The Communist Party is unpopular, and is vulnerable to collapse in a popular uprising. The Chinese would prefer an American-style multi-party democracy.
-Mao Zedong was a villainous murderer on par with Hitler and Stalin who ruined his country through megalomania and economic mismanagement. The Chinese will not advance unless they repudiate him further.
-The Chinese are militant nationalists suspicious of foreigners due to its biased media.
-Chinese food tastes good, and kung fu movies are cool.
I don't mean to endorse any of the above, and am just fleshing out what I see are common perceptions that citizens in each country have of the other.
What's spot on? What's off-base?
Bravery and Wisdom at Duke
Perhaps it's due to my nature, or my undergraduate background in social science, but I've always taken a dispassionate, analytical view toward current events. I love reading the newspaper, in particular. At first glance, an article on the front page illustrates a current event: the who, what, when, where, and how. The "why", though, is typically underexplained or omitted altogether, and for me one of the pleasures of reading the news is scratching the surface and getting to that "why". Like in a science experiment, variables multiply and interact, and while some situations are simply too complex to rationalize, the mere process of seeking leads to an enhanced understanding of the world.
But sometimes, certain items in the paper provoke an more emotional response. This was the case when I came across a Washington Post piece (excerpted at Peking Duck) by a university student named Grace Wang, a young woman who recently found herself in a spot of trouble due to an innocent act of goodwill.
A brief summary: Wang hails from Qingdao, a large and lovely port city in eastern China. At Duke, where she studies, she encountered a demonstration pitting the university's Chinese students against an assortment of pro-Tibetan protestors. Hoping to facilitate a civil discussion, Wang discovered that neither side wished to interact with the other and instead were reduced to shouting epithets and slogans. This obstruction only prompted Wang to try harder, but before long she found herself under verbal attack from the Chinese camp, members of which calling her a traitor. The abuse and threats traveled across the ocean to her native China, where her parents have been forced into hiding and their home defaced with dung.
Clearly, this situation would not be easy for anyone to deal with, much less a young university student living in a foreign country. Yet from her editorial, Wang comes across as wise, brave, intelligent, and absolutely correct. The idiots on the message boards who abuse, threaten, and slam her may consider her a traitor, but she is a credit to China and this country would be a lot better off if there were more people like her.
Various aspects of China trouble me, but none more so than the brainless nationalism festering like a sore in this country. Yes, I realize nationalism exists everywhere. But really- this sort of thing is absolutely ridiculous and reflects very, very poorly on a country that should really be above it.
Someone Else Hates The French
The recent brouhaha surrounding the Olympic Torch concerned the demonstrations in three of the cities that hosted the torch relay: London, Paris, and San Francisco. As far as I could tell, the no one demonstration was bigger than any other, but for some reason the resulting backlash here in China has been directed against the French. Here in Kunming, I've met a handful of locals participating in a nationwide boycott of Carrefour, the French supermarket giant with thousands of stores throughout the country. At the foreign students' dormitory opposite Yunnan University, the French flag has been defaced, while the American and British ones have been left untouched.
Why are the French taking it in the shorts? Well, I suppose a lot of Chinese already dislike the US so there's no sense haranguing us any further. But shouldn't the British at least be the recipient of some Chinese animus?
I was discussing this subject today with two other Americans who attend my school. We were joking that the Chinese, in this anti-French phase, are oddly allying themselves with the American right-wing. Five years ago, when France refused to participate in our misadventure in Iraq, the resulting American backlash was extensive. A congressman from North Carolina introduced a bill re-naming French Fries "freedom fries". A conservative friend of my parents announced he was canceling his summer trip to France, while another (a nominally anti-Bush Democrat) said he no longer would purchase Grey Goose vodka.
France was hardly the only country opposed to the Iraq War. Germany also refused to help, but I don't recall anyone getting too upset about it. When the Spanish pulled out in '04, I doubt very many tapas restaurants lost business. Yet even today, when the majority of Americans have turned against the war, a bizarre grudge against the French still exists.
Much of this is cultural- for whatever reason France and America don't mix all that well despite being consistent allies for over two hundred years. Unlike the industrious Germans and the sturdy Brits, the libertine French seem to stand in opposition to bedrock American values. Is it the topless sunbathing? The hairy armpits? The artsy-fartsy films? The smelly cheese? Godless sexual freedom?
If culture is the key variable here, then its application to the current Chinese/French dust-up makes perfect sense. The Chinese are renowned for their work ethic, while the French infamously adopted a 35-hour work week. In France, a nude woman on a beach or in a shampoo commercial would alarm no one. In China, a moderately-revealing bikini raises eyebrows. A morning espresso and croissant doesn't jive with tea and 包å.
I jest, of course, but somehow exploring the actual underlying causes to the current Chinese two minute hate against France seems a thankless task.
PS- For the record: as a socially libertine, atheistic, wine-drinking, wishy-washy San Francisco liberal who prefers driving fuel-efficient import cars, I of course like France and the French very much. Here are eight reasons why (not entirely safe for work)
PPS- For a take on how absurd the French backlash has gotten, read Ryan at Lost Laowai
Little America in Fuzhou
From September 2005 to July 2006, I lived in Fuzhou, a large coastal city located in southeastern Fujian Province. For the most part, Fuzhou resembles any other Chinese mega-city: ubiquitous construction projects, fancy new shopping centers, decaying apartment blocks (one of which I called home), and little snippets of the past like Buddhist temples and ramshackle street markets. For me, the most interesting feature of the city was its proximity to Taiwan. The distance between Fuzhou and Taipei is a mere 145 miles, yet to get to Taipei from Fuzhou required a stop-over in Hong Kong. Funny world, indeed.
Soon, I discovered that Fuzhou had another interesting feature: an unusually large number of the locals have relatives overseas. I once asked my high-school class how many of them had cousins, aunts, or uncles in the US alone, and nearly half raised their hands. One day, a student of mine introduced me to her "sister"*, a teenage girl from Toronto.
*The generation of Chinese born after the implementation of the One Child Policy tends to refer to cousins and even close friends as "sister" and "brother", which can be confusing at first because few of them bother to clarify the actual relationship. The Torontonian, upon being introduced as my students' sister, subsequently rolled her eyes and said, "we're cousins".
Recently, Ben Ross (an old friend of mine from Fuzhou and fellow China blogger) wrote that he has heard Fuzhou dialect spoken on the streets of Chicago, where he now lives. In San Francisco, I once asked an immigrant Chinese where he came from and was not surprised to hear "Fuzhou" in response. Chinese from every province immigrate, but a disproportionate number of them come from little Fujian.
A new dispatch in Slate points out why this is: immigrants who become established in a foreign place will later send for their spouses or siblings to join them in the rush for prosperity. This pattern is known as "chain migration" and explains why certain villages near Fuzhou have an acute shortage of working-age men. In fact, a great number of people left in these places are babies and the elderly, as working couples living overseas will send their offspring (equipped with US passports) back to the motherland to live with their grandparents as per Chinese custom.
Will this trend continue? Fujian's geographical and linguistic proximity to Taiwan means that the city has attracted an enormous amount of venture capital from the latter, turning Fuzhou into one of the wealthier cities in all of China. Despite being somewhat lacking in tourist attractions, Fuzhou has far more five-star hotels and fancy restaurants than, say, Kunming. Should this prosperity trickle down to the middle and working classes, the Fuzhouese might find the idea of emigration less attractive. Or, perhaps, those who leave the country may find themselves replaced by Chinese from the interior drawn to the city for its booming economy.
In any case, read the whole Slate piece.
(photo: my old neighborhood in Fuzhou, taken in 2005)
Boycott Silliness From Hillary Clinton
In a press release dated April 7th, Hillary Clinton called for President Bush to personally boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics "absent major changes by the Chinese government". Should Bush agree, he would join German chancellor Angela Merkel and British prime minister Gordon Brown in absentia during the games' kickoff event. French president Nicolas Sarkozy has yet to announce his plans.
At first glance, whether or not Western political leaders attend the ceremonies strikes me as irrelevant. Nobody will be tuning in to catch a glimpse of Bush, after all.
But what does Clinton hope to accomplish by proposing Bush boycott? Does she really think the Chinese government will be sufficiently embarrassed to compromise with the West on policy goals? If anything, their reaction would be the opposite: China is known for digging its heels in the face of international criticism.
Of course, Clinton is in the middle of a hard-fought presidential campaign, so perhaps she felt that blustering about China would help among certain constituencies.
Meanwhile, as the Olympic torch winds its way through Europe and the Americas, public support for boycotting seems to be on the rise, with 31% of the US population in support according to a recent poll.
But here's a question about the boycott that I haven't seen raised: isn't this a slippery slope? The US and China, after all, are not sworn enemies. They have diplomatic relations and strong economic ties. They participate together in diplomatic endeavors, such as the Six Party Talks concerning North Korea. Is it appropriate to use the Olympics, an international athletic competition intended to foster global good-will, as a platform for humiliating a country with whom our interests are so great? Especially when everyone who follows Beijing politics understands that a boycott won't work.
Wouldn't Middle Eastern countries, say, then boycott the London games in 2012 in retaliation for Britain's role in the Iraq War? To me, the idea of a boycott seems like a dangerous precedent.
I have my differences with the Chinese government on a whole host of matters and will likely be somewhat nauseated by the display of jingoism at the Games, but really: what do people think will really happen if the world allows China to host the Olympics peacefully?
NOTES:
Hillary Clinton press release via The Washington Note
Reuters story via Passport
Some Scattered Thoughts on T1Bet
As the uprising in T1bet has attracted international attention (and some condemnation), I've been struck by the similarities and differences between the T1betans and the other major disaffected Chinese ethnic minority, the Uighurs.
Both groups occupy "autonomous regions" on the western fringe of China, though the Beijing government's definition of "autonomous" might not jive with what you learned in school. Both regions did not join the Chinese empire until fairly recently and have been among the few ethnic groups within the country to periodically oppose Beijing rule. In both the TAR and Xinjiang, the federal government has encouraged settlement by the Han majority, who mainly separate themselves from the locals and do not bother learning either the Uighur or the T1Betan languages. In both cases, the Chinese government has made heavy investments in infrastructure intended to modernize what Beijing believed to be "backward" regions. Rebellions by restless locals are repressed without mercy. All claims to separateness are dismissed by Beijing. The T1Betans and Uighurs largely remain resentful of Chinese rule.
When the Uighur population of Xinjiang revolts, the international community yawns. The average Westerner doesn't even know what a Uighur is, much less that they are ethnically Turkic, speak an Altaic language related to Turkish, tend to resemble Mediterraneans in appearance far more than Chinese, and practice Islam. The Uighurs like to refer to their territory as "East Turkestan" and claim kinship with the peoples of the neighboring ex-Soviet Central Asian states. While their claims to sovereignty may be just as valid as T1Bet's, nobody will be organizing "Free Xinjiang" concerts or writing high-brow columns in major newspapers about their plight. Their cause is largely ignored, and that suits Beijing just fine.
T1Bet, on the other hand, has long been a cause celebre among Hollywood actors, musicians, and high-profile activists around the world. What accounts for the difference? I can think of three main reasons:
1. T1Bet has a charismatic, high-profile leader: the Dala1 Lama. Ensconced in India, where he has lived in exile since 1959, the DL travels the world lobbying various luminaries for support. He also has (wisely) adopted the mantle of non-violence, lending a Gandhi-like air to his causes. He, more then anyone, propagates the image of T1Bet as a land of peaceful Buddhist types who wouldn't harm a fly, much less smash up Han-owned businesses in Lhasa.
The Uighur population lacks any such figure, whether in Xinjiang or in exile.
2.T1Bet's unique geographical features have lent a mystical air to the region for centuries. The image of T1Bet as a mountainous Buddhist paradise where the becalmed locals are free to seek enlightenment has attracted scores of Westerners who, ignorant of the actual situation, feel naturally sympathetic to their cause. In the same way quite a few Americans lionize the long extinct Amerindian culture, the rest of the world feels similarly disposed to the T1betan one.
Xinjiang mainly consists of parched desert, oil deposits, and various other features that don't scream out "place of enlightenment and mysticism".
3. It has to be said, but the fact that Uighurs are Muslim and that several of them have been rounded up in anti-terrorism operations does not necessarily attract much sympathy in this "War on Terrorism" epoch. Their rather dusky Middle Eastern features don't exactly help, either.
As for my thoughts toward the present situation in the TAR, I've got little to add that would shed additional light, and those with far more historical knowledge than I are adequately covering the matter. As always, we'll see how everything turns out.
UPDATE: The original post erroneously stated that Uighur is an Indo-European language when rather, as Chris points out, it is an Altaic one.
The Spielberg Wars
Steven Spielberg recently withdrew from his role as adviser to the Beijing Olympics in order to protest against China's economic support of the genocidal Sudanese regime. This minor story has revived the old "should we boycott the Olympics" discussion, in which I have little desire to participate. For a more thorough analysis, Richard devotes a long post to the subject at The Peking Duck.
A constructive way to view the boycott debate would be to cast morals aside in favor of a simple cost/benefit analysis. What positive outcomes would result from a boycott? Would it persuade the Chinese government to alter its foreign policy in a nod to international opinion? Not likely. Would Beijing liberalize its political system? No. Did the US-led boycott of the Moscow games in 1980 have positive consequences? No. Are there significant risks involved with a boycott? Certainly.
If someone were to write a thoroughly researched, well-reasoned opinion piece arguing that a boycott would serve international interests, then I would not hesitate to read it. Instead I encounter articles like this that do little more than recycle the same old tired complaints about China's domestic and international misdeeds.
Will the US Election Affect China Policy?
John McCain's victory in the Florida primary makes his eventual nomination likely, which is bad news for this Democrat. McCain is clearly the most electable Republican left in the race, and coupled with a Democratic nomination of Hillary Clinton, the Arizona Senator would give the Elephant Team a fair to good shot at retaining the White House this November.
What would a McCain presidency look like? Ignoring his positions on social and economic matters (areas in which the president has less influence anyway), what would a McCain foreign policy look like? In particular, how would a President McCain conduct American policy toward China?
For the most part, very little will change. President Bush's policy toward China has been relatively uncontroversial, and in fact most observers feel he handled the one Sino-American crisis of his presidency (the 2001 air collision over Hainan Island) fairly well. Bush also has solicited Beijing's help in prodding North Korea toward disarmament, though without success so far. Mostly, American policy toward China has been consistent since the re-establishment of diplomatic ties in the 1970s. McCain probably won't deviate very much, and for good reason.
What troubles me about McCain is his extreme militarism. I would worry that he would respond to a Cross-Straits crisis with calls to action, and it seems that his solution to every global crisis is to send American troops along. The adoring media gave him credit for calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, but many fail to recall that McCain's objection was that there were too few, not too many, troops. In McCain's view, militarism and imperialism are virtues that Americans are honored to have. Few in China would agree.
On the other hand, McCain doesn't seem to jive with the neo-conservative* notion that the US is obliged to spread "freedom" by force. He seems to be more of a realist than Bush, and backing off on democracy promotion as an official policy would do wonders for America's image in the developing world. One task the next American president will face is repairing the nation's "soft power", a necessary skill in an era when the Chinese conducts a charm offensive throughout Africa and other poor regions.
Fortunately, China is a stable country and the odds of a hot war over Taiwan are slim. Financial ties between the two countries are such that neither side wants a falling out, and China is decades away from attaining the same degree of global supremacy that America now possesses. I would be surprised if US-China relations were to suffer much no matter who is elected president.
All the same, I'd still say that a President Clinton or President Obama would serve America's interests abroad far better than their Republican counterparts, if only marginally in the case of China.
*Speaking of neo-conservatism, one silver lining in McCain's victory tonight is the imminent withdrawal of Rudy Giuliani, the erstwhile Republican front-runner whose aggressive foreign policy would have made Bush seem like a piker. Nonetheless, Giuliani will apparently endorse McCain and I'd expect most of his supporters will transfer their affections to the Senator.
Will the China Model Succeed?
Let me direct your attention to a fascinating article concerning some of the big questions about China. First, will the Communist Party continue to enjoy the support of the rapidly growing middle class? And second, will the Chinese system of combining relative economic liberalism with an authoritarian political structure become the dominant model for developing countries worldwide?
These are big questions, and needless to say expert opinion remains divided. Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao recently stated that the Communist Party would remain in power for the next 100 years, prompting skepticism from many observers. Yet as the article indicates, previous predictions of the Communist Party's imminent demise have all turned out to be incorrect.
In addition, the piece explains just how thoroughly the state involves itself in the daily affairs of ordinary Chinese people. Very few foreigners, I would say, know just how differently the government functions in China than in a liberal Western democracy.
In any case, read the whole thing.