Page 2 of
5 CHINA AND
APPEASEMENT, Part 3 China's misguided 'experts' on the
US By Henry C K Liu
with the controversial US "war on
terrorism". Quite the opposite - a US-China
alliance on global terrorism will add unneeded and
unwanted complexity to the single-dimensional
terrorist threats faced by China today.
While terrorism-fighting technology shares
universality, the socio-political causes behind
terrorism are unique in every nation,
making international
cooperation in any "global war on terrorism"
highly problematic. Until September 11, 2001, the
US was an open sponsor of separatist terrorism
against China.
Long-term US
belligerence against China Wang writes that
"history has already proved that the United States
is not China's permanent enemy". Such a claim is
contrary to fact. The US considers all communist
governments permanent enemies. US hostility toward
China is both racial and ideological, with the
racial side running back two centuries to the
founding of the US as an independent nation and
the ideological side beginning with the founding
of the People's Republic of China. This hostility
is not limited to nation-state geopolitics. Its
missionary roots go to a deep-seated public
attitude that remains ready for demagogue
politicians to exploit at any time. There is a big
archive of racially based anti-Chinese legislation
in US history.
A recent survey by
WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) on "US General
Attitudes Towards China" found that "Americans
lean toward negative views of China's role in the
world, its government, economic system,
leadership, and its human-rights record. There is
little optimism that the human-rights record will
improve or that China will become more democratic.
Trust in China is fairly low."
Between
January 2005 and April 2006, BBC/GlobeScan/PIPA
and WPO asked Americans on three occasions whether
China was having a mostly positive or mostly
negative influence in the world. In each case a
slight majority or plurality said it was having a
negative influence - January 2005 (46%), November
2005 (53%), and April 2006 (49%). Furthermore,
three out of four Americans have an unfavorable
view of "how China uses military power and the
threat of force". Notwithstanding that this
attitude is based on perceptions misled by US
propaganda, not on historical facts, public
opinion translates directly into votes that affect
official policy in the US political system.
Attitudes about the Chinese government and
economic system are also quite unfavorable. In the
April 2006 WPO poll, 80% said they had an
unfavorable opinion of China's system of
government (40% very unfavorable), while 66% had
an unfavorable view of China's economic system.
President Hu also gets low approval
ratings from Americans. Sixty-three percent have
an unfavorable view of Hu, while just 27% have a
favorable view of the Chinese leader. Attitudes
about Hu are also more unfavorable than those of
Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former high
KGB officer, who was rated in the same poll.
Asked in April 2006 whether China had
become more or less "democratic and responsive to
its people", only 24% said it had become more
democratic, while 49% believed it had "stayed
about the same" and 18% said it had gotten less
democratic. In the past, several Pew studies
consistently found that a majority of Americans
did not believe "China's government is becoming
more democratic and is allowing more freedoms for
Chinese citizens". In May 2001, 62% expressed this
view. Skepticism about China's progress toward
democracy is closely related to greater doubts
about improvements in its human-rights practices.
Americans are also skeptical about China's
movement toward the free-market system. In the May
2001 Pew poll, a 47% plurality said they did not
believe "China's economy is becoming more like the
kind of free-market system found the United
States". This was virtually unchanged from early
1999.
Americans have also shown pessimism
about US policies influencing China to change, and
about China and the US finding common ground. In a
May 2001 Pew survey, a majority (56%) said they
did not think it "possible for the US, through its
policies, to have much of an effect on making
China more democratic". When asked in a March 1999
Louis Harris poll if "the US and China will be
able to work together to adopt the same common
values about democracy and a market economy", just
29% thought that would happen. Nearly two-thirds
(65%) rejected the possibility.
Trust in
China continues to be fairly low. In February 2006
in the midst of the controversy over the
management of US seaports by foreign companies,
respondents were asked whether companies from
different countries should be allowed to own cargo
operations at US seaports. A majority (65%)
believed that companies from China or Hong Kong
should not be allowed to own these operations,
more than those who opposed ownership by companies
from Arab countries friendly to the US (56% should
not) and France (50% should not).
In a
January 2000 Hart Research poll, nearly half (48%)
said that "compared with other countries that the
US trades with", China was seen as below average
in "living up to the agreements it makes with the
United States". Just 32% thought China was average
(25%) or above average (7%) in this regard.
Americans are more apt to view the
US-China relationship as unfriendly rather than
friendly, but only a small minority view China as
an outright enemy. Americans are divided as to
whether China is cooperating with the US in the
"war on terrorism". A strong majority view
relations with China as being important to US
interests and growing more important, though
problems posed by China are not considered
pressing. While China is not viewed directly as an
enemy of the United States, perceptions of its
foreign-policy influence on the US are
predominantly negative. Asked in April 2006 about
how they view "the effect of Chinese
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