Page 3 of
5 CHINA
AND APPEASEMENT, Part 3 China's misguided 'experts'
on the US By Henry C K Liu
foreign policy on the United States and
its interests", a majority - 54% - said it had
been very or somewhat negative, while only 36%
said it had been positive.
For decades,
Harris polls have asked whether Americans think
China is "an ally of the US, is friendly but not
an ally, is not
friendly but not an enemy, or
is unfriendly and is an enemy of the US". Gallup,
the Los Angeles Times, CBS (Columbia Broadcasting
System) News and others have used similar
questions. Over the past few years, with just a
few exceptions, a plurality to fairly strong
majority has said that China is either "not
friendly" or an enemy. Recently (August 2005)
Harris found 53% saying China was either "not
friendly, but not an enemy" (38%) or "unfriendly
and ... an enemy of the US" (15%), while 41%
called it either a "close ally" (5%) or "friendly
but not a close ally" (36%). US-China friendship
does not have a solid anchor and is affected in
big swings by current events, meaning a sudden
confrontation can activate public war cries
against China.
When forced to choose
between just two options of characterizing China -
as either an adversary or an ally - a strong
majority chooses "adversary". As recently as July
2005, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 49%
thought of China as more of an adversary "in
general", while just 26% saw it as more of an
ally. The poll found that about three in four
considered China to be "an adversary and
competitor" on "diplomatic and military issues"
(77%) as well as "economic issues" (73%). When
asked in a May 1999 Pew poll, 51% disagreed with
the assertion that "China is basically friendly
toward the United States". Thus when President
George W Bush characterized China as a "strategic
competitor", he was voicing US public opinion.
Of course, how the US public thinks of
China does not reflect an accurate picture of what
China actually is. It only reflects attitude. Yet
it is not useful to dismiss such opinion as based
on ignorance, because in politics, perception is
all. US public opinion does influence policy by
determining the composition of the government.
Wang Jisi, as China's foremost expert on the US,
would do well to pay close attention to such
public opinion polls to avoid being misled by
propaganda from his expert counterparts in US
think-tanks.
Wang also writes: "Nor does
China want the United States to see it as a foe."
Unfortunately, what China wants of the US is not
what the US government will automatically grant or
even be in a position to grant without public
support. The US will continue to see China as a
foe as long as public opinion on China remains
predominantly negative. To improve relations
between the two countries, more than strategic
dialogues between experts and policymakers are
needed. Transparent spins by official experts are
close to useless.
What China needs to do,
as Japan has successfully done since the end of
World War II, is invest heavily in
people-to-people contacts and exchanges with the
US public, increase support for educational and
cultural exchanges, and promote a network of
non-governmental, non-commercial friendship
organizations in every state in the US to give the
public a better understanding of China. For
example, while there are frequent exchanges of
trade delegations, there are as yet no "Year of
China" events in the US, as there were in France
in 2003-04 and in Russia now.
Insular
experts Experts like Wang Jisi usually
spend a couple years at prestigious US
universities as pampered foreign VIP scholars and
are spoon-fed well-rehearsed academic spins by
their hosts, whose perspective on China is often
detached from US mass opinion. Exchange scholars
from China are frequently cocooned in an insulated
environment of respect and friendship from their
US colleagues, never having a chance to experience
personally and directly the reality of racial
discrimination and ideological intolerance in US
society. The positive perception of the United
States these experts carry home with them is
distorted by their insular experience. This
explains why while China can interact effectively
with the executive branch of the US government, it
does not have a good understanding of the raw
political dynamics that drive Congress.
These US-trained Chinese scholars then
return home as experts on the US to act as
high-level advisers to the Chinese leadership.
Their understanding of the US is often superficial
and elitist, limited by the rules of discourse
prevalent in US universities and policy
think-tanks they visited. Policy experts are a
tight little fraternity, and they tend to
represent the official views of their respective
governments. They communicate through formal
dialogue of high-sounding policy and diplomatic
jargon to seek convergence through the
choreography of foreign-policy negotiation.
Together, these experts fashion agreements that
cannot be implemented by the contracting
governments because the agreements they make are
often unrelated to reality on the ground or the
domestic political weather in either country.
In democratic politics, the lowest common
denominator frequently carries the day into
policy. For the United States, that lowest common
denominator is decidedly anti-China. For China,
the lowest common denominator is a fantasy on
natural US amity, a common defect of Chinese
national narcissism. Elitist Chinese experts on
the US like Wang Jisi would improve their
understanding of the US by heeding the advice of
Mao Zedong to stay close to the voice of the
people.
Hostility no secret As
for Wang's claim that "history has already proved
that the United States is not China's permanent
enemy", one can only surmise that Wang is
unfamiliar with the views of Aaron L Friedberg, a
professor of politics and international affairs at
the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University,
who joined US Vice President Dick Cheney's staff
as a deputy national security adviser and director
of policy planning on June 1, 2003, for a term of
one year, taking a public-service leave from the
WWS.
The appointment caused widespread
speculation about neo-conservative co-option of US
foreign policy in general and China
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
