It is the studio of an artist in the
17th-century Netherlands. In the foreground there
are a tapestry, an empty chair and a table. A
seated painter is trying to catch the essence of
his model, a demure young woman, Clio, the Greek
muse of history. On the wall, as a backdrop, is a
large map of the Seventeen Provinces printed in
Amsterdam. The scene is quiet but inspiring.
Johannes Vermeer's Art of Painting
is open to interpretations. With Clio and a map as
key elements of the composition, Vermeer
represents the interplay between history and
geography but, more fundamentally, the interaction
between time and space. However, Clio is the
Dutch Golden Age painter's main focus. Even if
both time and space are conditions of human
experience, history is well and truly alive in
Vermeer's allegory. This living
presence of history is a
differentiating factor between, on one side,
Europe and China and, on the other, the United
States: while the two old worlds carry ancient
memories, the American spirit, always on the move
for new frontiers, has relatively less historical
depth.
Used to innumerable discourses on
the differences between the West and the East, one
is not prepared to recognize two facts. First,
although Europe and China have been slowly
elaborating two distinct civilizations, they
cannot be absolutely separated. Having in common
long maturations over millennia, the two old worlds have
developed affinities and, despite all the exotic
representations, the two edges of Eurasia are
closer than they seem.
Second, one should
not reduce the West to the US: that country, which
from a colony has been rising to the rank of
global hyperpower in only 230 years, is very
singular and is culturally departing from its
European foundation. "The reasons for the
trans-Atlantic divide are deep, long in
development, and likely to endure," writes Robert
Kagan (Paradise and Power, 2003). While we
would disagree with the Washington-based analyst
on the causes of the Atlantic divide, we strongly
converge to observe the divisive trend.
It
is precisely based on their affinities that Europe
and China have to build a partnership that goes
beyond ever-varying trade, scientific or even
political interests. In other words, by placing
culture as the keystone of their relationship, the
two Eurasian civilizations would enter a really
stable and meaningful cooperation having over time
global constructive impact.
Historian
Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) already indicated
after the first massive tragedy of the 20th
century the direction to follow: "If a true
world-civilization is ever to be created, it will
not be by ignoring the existence of the great
historic traditions of culture, but rather by an
increase of mutual comprehension" (The Making
of Europe, 1932).
Understand, so
that you can trust Escalation in the Middle
East, chaos in Iraq, uncertainty in Afghanistan,
tensions over Iran's and North Korea's nuclear
programs, the spread of terrorism, large economic
exclusion, deadlock in the Doha trade development
agenda, rhetorical dispute between Washington and
Moscow, evaporation of US soft power and discredit
of the very values it is supposed to project.
Despite Francis Fukuyama's famous post-Cold War
prediction, history has not ended (The End of
History and the Last Man, 1992). On the
contrary, it is a time when various models of
society are facing one another and opposite ideas
circulating intensively.
At the two edges
of the Eurasian continent, the European Union, a
model for cooperation among countries, and China,
a reference for developing countries, have a
greater role to play in this highly critical
global situation.
It requires on both
sides vision and leadership. Helsinki will host
the ninth EU-China summit on September 9 - exactly
30 years after Mao Zedong's death on September 9,
1976. Finland's high-level gathering has to be an
event marked by a clear definition of the EU/China
strategic relationship and by bold decisions on a
wide range of issues.
However, one should
not forget that managing the growing
interdependence between a post-nation-state Europe
and a re-emerging Chinese world is a process that
does presuppose time.
Despite the
ultra-rapid rhythm imposed by the logic of 24-hour
news and information, European and Chinese
policymakers should always put the Euro-China
relationship into perspective. An agenda uniquely
driven by trade or immediate technocratic concerns
does not fully express the nature of the European
and Chinese cultures.
Only a shared
awareness of fundamental cultural and historical
commonalities can lead to the deepening of the
links between the two edges of Eurasia and have a
moderating effect on Washington's imperial hubris.
Better understanding between Europe and China is
also necessary for both sides to take the full
measure of what the two ancient civilizations can
achieve together.
But in various segments
of European society, one hesitates about China's
intentions, and it seems that China is still too
unknown to be trusted. Intellige ut credas
- "understand so that you should believe" -
Augustine's words on reason and faith might apply
also to the actors of international relations:
mutual understanding begets trust and the two are,
in fact, reinforcing each other.
From
internal pluralism to global equilibrium
China's re-emergence - there is no "China
rise", but only China's restoration to its
historical position - is already having
considerable impact on the global village.
Understandably, observers and analysts discuss the
nature of Beijing's behavior on the international
scene. Will China behave like an empire trying to
dominate and extend a pax Sinica, or act as
a cooperative force working for a foedus
pacificum, a league of peace, to use Immanuel
Kant's expression (Perpetual Peace, 1795)?
In other words, will China tend to behave
like the US, indeed at the center of a unilateral
pax Americana, or more like the members of
the European Union embarked to build a republic of
nations? Peace or war at a massive scale in the
21st century will depend largely on the answer to
this question.
Obviously, a pax
Sinica would collide with the pax
Americana; in such a scenario, indirect or
direct conflicts between the two hegemons seem
unavoidable. But if a cooperative Chinese
civilization joins the efforts of a cooperative
Europe, not only could an unprecedented area of
peace and prosperity be opened on Eurasia, but the
US could rediscover the wisdom of the Jeffersonian
spirit, or face the risk of being isolated from
the dynamics of a post-imperial Eurasian
world-continent.
One may try to anticipate
the nature of Beijing's posture in world affairs
by looking at what can be called China's
experience of diversity. Here, we are looking for
a factor that partly explains China's current
relatively good relationship with its 14 land
neighbors (given the heterogeneity of China's
periphery, this is already a remarkable diplomatic
achievement), its strong engagement into the
United Nations system and the World Trade
Organization, its commitment to the ASEAN+3
process, the six-party talks on North Korea or the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Beyond more obvious and immediate tactical
concerns, or strategic choices, Zhou Enlai's "Five
Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence", or more
recently the SCO's "Shanghai Spirit" (mutual
trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation,
respect for cultural diversity, and common
development) might well also be linked with a
tradition of having to handle pluralism and to
cope with complexity.
Since it shares with
the Old World an accumulation of experiences in
dealing with a high level of internal diversity,
the Chinese world is more likely to adopt the
European quest for equilibrium on the global
chessboard. As custom deeply influences
individuals' behavior, history has profound impact
on the reflexes or responses of political
entities.
The US, which never had to
manage internally a multilateral subsystem, is
just not well equipped to accept and live within a
genuine global multilateral system. Discussing the
trans-Atlantic divide, Robert Kagan affirms that
"on major strategic and international questions
today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are
from Venus" (Paradise and Power, 2003). But
to continue the astronomical metaphor, if one can
say, indeed, that Americans are from one planet,
both Chinese are Europeans are from
constellations.
For Washington the only
conceivable alternative is between chaos (to be
understood as a world without US leadership) or
the leadership of one pole over the others
(another way to formulate and justify the pax
Americana).
"A quick end to US
supremacy would produce massive international
instability. In effect, it would prompt global
anarchy," wrote Zbigniew Brzezinski, analyst and
formerly national security adviser to president
Jimmy Carter (The Grand Chessboard, 1997).
One can even find a radical version of this
alternative, where chaos is mere non-existence,
and its opposite order and survival. Indeed,
analyzing the "war on terror", David Frum and
Richard Perle conclude: "There is no middle way
for Americans: it is victory or Holocaust" (An
end to evil, 2004). One should not
underestimate the danger of such a gross and
immature remark, since it gives no more space to
reason and intelligence.
By contrast,
because of their past internal diplomatic
arrangements, Europe and China see almost
instinctively the nuances between these extremes
and the advantages of maintaining equilibrium
among various poles of power. History has trained
the two old worlds to deal better with complexity,
uncertainty and the art of concessions.
In
the US, many would have first to recognize that
reality is complex and uncertain and that
compromise is not necessarily a betrayal of
ideals, or negotiation a waste of time. Americans
like Henry Kissinger, who are able to apprehend at
the world level a genuine multipolar
configuration, have been shaped by careful studies
of European thinking. Diplomacy (1994)
recapitulates the story of the Old World
foreign-policy wisdom - and, of course,
imperfections.
Middle ways between
uniformity, fragmentation It is a paradox
that despite a long obsession for an immutable
order - unity under the emperor mainly served by
an ideology, orthodox Confucianism, and an
obedient bureaucracy - China could well be
prepared to act as a co-architect of a multipolar
world.
Western "Orientalism" reflects
China's imperial vision of itself: a timeless
pyramidal socio-political construction occupying
the center of the world. This "Orientalism",
vulgar or sophisticated, is still one of the
sources of the "China threat" refrain. Indeed, a
re-emerging "Middle Kingdom" - translation of the
Chinese zhong guo, where the notion of
"kingdom" is not even obvious - would logically
strive to gain a position of dominant centrality.
In that sense, the fear is just a
consequence of a biased initial assumption. One
should stop to indulge in vague representation
such as the one behind the alleged quotation
attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: "When China
awakes the world will tremble." Why should the
world necessarily dread China's awakening? China
is, in fact, able for concrete universalism, which
is already partly enveloped in its own internal
"unity in diversity" and in its post-imperial
socio-political transformations.
The
overture of the epic Romance of the Three
Kingdoms (either written at the very end of
the Yuan Dynasty, 1277-1367, or at the very
beginning of the Ming period, 1368-1644) is often
cited: "The world under heaven, after a long
period of division, tends to unite; after a long
period of union, tends to divide."
The
author of the novel, Luo Guanzhong (1330-1400),
points to different phases of Chinese history
where fragmentation and unity alternate. The issue
of unification has been the recurrent theme of
China's history well after the Qin's first emperor
(221 BC) or the long Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220),
which established the intellectual foundations and
fixed the rules of imperial Confucianism.
If this system has been able for long
periods of time to structure the Chinese world,
one cannot reduce all Chinese history to it, and
one should pay attention to phases whose
characteristic was to balance unity and diversity.
If China has suffered in the past from
totalitarian uniformity or the chaos of
internecine fights, it also made the experience of
a wide range of political configurations between
these two extremes.
The pre-Qin age
presents interesting examples of such
configurations. Under the Zhou Dynasty (1121-222
BC), numerous kingdoms co-existed within what is
today's China territory. While describing a
sub-period (known as Springs and Autumns, 722-481
BC) of this long dynastic time, French sociologist
and sinologist Marcel Granet (1884-1940) writes:
"This time saw a kind of inferior concord ... it
was the result of a practice of summits and
treaties among the kingdoms ... they intended to
reach a certain equilibrium" (The Chinese
Civilization, 1929).
Moreover, one
should read a book like Zuo's Commentary,
compiled in the mid-Warring States period, 403-222
BC, as an introduction to international relations
within the Chinese world. In Chapter 23, the Zheng
state's adviser, Zhu Zhiwu, prevents a war with
the Qin state by developing a solid argumentation
based on a balance-of-power thinking.
It
is in that context that American analyst and
academic Kendall Myers (Johns Hopkins University,
Paul Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies) is right to affirm: "China, like Europe,
has had its own international system, with a long
experience of several thousand years of
international relations, for the most part within
China. As a consequence, China has developed its
own classical theories" ("Why history matters",
Daxia Forum Lecture, East China Normal University,
Shanghai, June 2, 2006). A study that would be to
the Chinese world what Henry Kissinger's
Diplomacy is to the West has yet to be
written.
Enveloping diversity, also
potentially a source of fragmentation as indicated
in the opening of the Romance of the Three
Kingdoms, China has developed highly refined
thinking on equilibrium and harmony.
Widely used nowadays is the famous
sentence whose origin is the Analects of
Confucius (551-479 BC): "The gentleman is looking
for harmony and not assimilation, the others are
looking for assimilation without harmony"
(Analects 13:23).
More generally,
it makes sense to read the Analects as,
among other things, a classic on peace and
conflict prevention. Asked by his disciple Zigong,
often engaged in inter-state diplomacy, about
government, Confucius replies: "Sufficiency of
food, military equipment and confidence of the
people in their ruler." But when the disciple
asks: "Suppose you had no choice but to dispense
with one of these three, which would you forgo?"
the master answers: "Weapons." (Analects
12:7).
Let us go back to Vienna's
Kunsthistorisches Museum to look again at The
Art of Painting. In her left hand, Vermeer's
Clio is holding The History of the
Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Here again,
Europe and China meet; they have in common the sad
experience of violent tragedies. While Chinese and
European histories are made of wars on their
respective soils, the US did not have to go
through major conflicts on its territory (the
Civil War between 1861 and 1865 being an
exception).
With such similarities in
their past trajectories, Europe and China probably
developed a perception that is closer than it can
seem. Exoticism and strangeness reconstructed by
literature or cultivated by Sinologists who
examine China, as Egyptologists would explore
hieroglyphs, sphinx and mummies, might diminish
when the analysis is gaining in accuracy.
On December 1, 2005, Premier Wen Jiabao
gave an interview to the French newspaper Le
Figaro. As an introduction, he made a reference to
the scholar Gu Hongming (1857-1928): "It seems
that only the French people could understand China
and the Chinese civilization because the French
share an extraordinary quality with the Chinese,
namely subtlety."
And Wen added: "So when
I meet French friends, I do not feel there is
estrangement between us." We have also this
reference to subtlety to describe the Chinese
mind, but this time in Jean Monnet's words;
remembering his stay in Shanghai in 1934 and 1935,
the father of the European community writes: "When
I reached Shanghai ... I found myself face to face
with men who seemed far more subtle and
intelligent than Westerners" (Jean Monnet,
Memoirs, Collins, English translation 1978,
p 110).
Delicacy of perception and an
aptitude for nuances are not, of course,
exclusively Sino-French characteristics. Wen was
being polite with his guests - and supremely
"subtle" with his French visitors, who may have
been especially receptive to the agreeable
wording.
However, millennia have polished
the European and Chinese collective mind to an
extent yet to be matched by the New World, in
spite of its many achievements. General refined
judgment did not prevent the two edges of Eurasia
to fall repeatedly into the madness of wars,
internal turmoil and even to come close to
self-annihilation, but accumulated wisdom
certainly contributed to their respective
longevity and current renewal.
China:
The Europe of the Far East? Alexis de
Tocqueville (1805-59) observed this general
paradox of 19th-century US society: "The aspect of
American society is animated, because men and
things are always changing; but it is monotonous,
because all these changes are alike" (Chapter
XVII, Democracy in America, 1835).
Today, for those trying to describe
China's mega-society, the difficulty is twofold:
men and things are, indeed, changing, but these
changes, because of the heterogeneity of the
Chinese world, are not similar. Discontinuities in
geography, demography and economy humble the China
watcher and certainly make the work of
policymakers arduous.
People not directly
in contact with the reality of the Chinese
constellation tend to look at China as a
homogeneous entity. They imagine one Chinese type
from Harbin to Guangzhou or from Shanghai to
Chengdu living in similar environment and
conditions. This is, of course, a stereotype.
China is not another nation-state, and an analogy
with Europe can help us to frame the Chinese world
in a way that is both useful and meaningful.
China is physically almost as large as
Europe and much larger than the European Union 25.
The population of the European Union does not
exceed a third of China's 1.3 billion inhabitants.
These basic elements introduce us to the scale and
variety of the Chinese world.
Nine Chinese
continental provinces (Henan, Shandong, Guangdong,
Sichuan, Jiangsu, Hebei, Hunan, Hubei and Anhui)
have a population superior in number to the
population of France, which is after Germany the
most populated of the 25 EU member states. Almost
200 million people live in the Shanghai economic
basin alone (the Shanghai municipality, Jiangsu,
Zhejiang and Anhui). A strong Sichuan identity, a
Cantonese culture or some Shandong
characteristics, to name a few Chinese cultural
subsystems, are not really surprising. Moreover,
one should not forget that China is a
multinational political entity.
Conventionally, one speaks of 56 ethnic
groups composing China's gigantic human mosaic. If
the Han group - being itself much less uniform
than it seems - makes more than 90% of the total
population, one has to keep in mind that other
minorities represent in total more than 100
million people. China's largest minority, the
Zhuang group mainly located in the Guangxi
autonomous region, is made up of 16 million
people, and more than 18 ethnic groups are
composed by more than a million people each. The
newest independent European country, Montenegro,
has a population of fewer than 650,000.
In
such a context, it is important to balance the
legitimate need for unity with the richness of
diversity. Indeed, the preamble of the People's
Republic of China constitution adopted in 1982
stipulates: "The People's Republic of China is a
unitary multinational state built up jointly by
the people of all its nationalities. In the
struggle to safeguard the unity of the
nationalities, it is necessary to combat
big-nation chauvinism, mainly Han chauvinism, and
also necessary to combat local-national
chauvinism."
To combat big-nation
chauvinism and local-national chauvinism, this
double simultaneous task would sound familiar,
mutatis mutandis, to a European Union
official. On one side, Beijing needs to ensure
that the Han large majority does not fall into the
pitfalls of exclusive nationalism within the
Chinese world, and on the other side, it needs to
prevent separatism.
Said differently, the
Han have to eschew imperial and colonial
temptations while China's different components
have to exist in a way that does not reproduce the
Western nation-state construction. This is not
easy, but China is well equipped to find middle
ways between uniformity and fragmentation. In any
case, constant improvements in minorities'
participation into the socio-economic life of the
autonomous regions (Guangxi, Inner Mongolia,
Ningxia, Tibet and Xinjiang) will help to achieve
the goal indicated in the constitution. By doing
that, China will prove not only that it can win
the race for material development, but also that
it can manage a high level of multiculturalism.
From six to 25 members - and soon in 2007
with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to 27 -
the history of post-World War II European
integration is made of successive enlargements; it
is also, gradually, the political reunification of
the European civilization. At the other edge of
Eurasia, with Hong Kong and Macau (1997 and 1999
respectively) retrocession, the Chinese world is
also going through a process of reunification;
using EU jargon, it could be framed as China's own
version of enlargement.
The status of
special administrative region allows Hong Kong and
Macau to maintain some of their characteristics
within an enlarged Chinese world. In Hong Kong,
the Basic Law guarantees a large degree of
autonomy (under the principle "one country, two
systems") to the citizens of the city-state. It
also indicates the path toward democratization
(for example, Article 45 of the Basic Law
specifies that "the ultimate aim is the selection
of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon
nomination by a broadly representative nominating
committee in accordance with democratic
procedures").
For the Chinese world, Hong
Kong is a laboratory whose successful
experimentations will have a considerable impact.
Indeed, if the principle "one country, two
systems" proves to be workable and effective, it
can be a point of departure to frame the future of
cross-strait relations. The road to political
integration between Beijing and Taipei after
intense economic links will be long and tortuous.
But Lien Chan's 2005 visit on the mainland
as chairman of the Kuomintang was an important
step toward this end. Fundamentally, people on the
island and on the mainland have in common what is
the essence of Chinese culture: the characters. In
their continental simplified version or classical
form, they are the permanent feature of an ancient
civilization and the carrier of its memory.
Europe and China:
Cross-fertilizations The European Union
must articulate more options with respect to China
than seeing it simply as either a threat or an
economic opportunity. By reflecting on China's
cohesion, Europe can find the path toward more
political integration. In that sense, for the
world's largest trading bloc, the reintegration of
one-fifth of mankind into the world-system is not
only a test but also an impulse for further
political deepening. Europe is being asked to face
its historical responsibility, and this task might
help focus the union's energies and take them away
from other issues, perhaps more urgent, but
certainly less important.
After the
exchanges with the Jesuits in the 16th century,
and the clashes with Western aggressive powers in
the 1800s, China is facing Europe directly for the
third time. However, Beijing is now talking to
Brussels as an equal. Failing to realize that a
renewed Europe is more than a force that can
potentially counterbalance Washington or a partner
for business, Beijing would miss an historical
opportunity. If China can find inspiration in
European society and its constant effort to
balance economic efficiency and social justice
under the rule of law, then even more Chinese
citizens will be able to enjoy all the benefits of
modernization. Chinese civilization will
subsequently be in a better position to contribute
to global equilibrium.
Moreover, culture
has to stand as the keystone of the Euro-China
relationship. Whereas trade, economic or political
interests vary and can be sources of tensions,
culture is what can maintain the connection
between Europe and China, the supporting element
without which the Euro-China arch can easily
collapse.
In its highest expression,
culture does not divide. "Friends converge towards
the gentleman's culture and their friendship
promotes benevolence and goodness." This was
Confucius' view (Analects 12:24). Clashes
between human beings are caused by obscurantism or
misinterpretations of the traditions and not by
what has been precisely elaborated through
millennia to be a source of harmony.
Aware
of fundamental commonalities, understanding their
respective constraints and looking for
cross-fertilizations, it is time now for the two
old worlds to join their strengths and wisdoms to
open a more cooperative page of history. Let us
meditate one very last time on Vermeer's Art of
Painting. It presents a paradox: Clio imposes
her presence but we can shape her features.
David Gosset is director of
Academia Sinica Europaea at the China Europe
International Business School, Shanghai, and
founding director of the Euro-China Forum. The
fifth Euro-China Forum will take place this year
in Sofia, Bulgaria. You can contact David Gosset
at gdavid@ceibs.edu.
the two old worlds have
developed affinities and, despite all the exotic
representations, the two edges of Eurasia are
closer than they seem. 
