HONG KONG - As the world continues to celebrate the victory of United States
president-elect Barack Obama and the imminent departure of the George W Bush
administration, ordinary Chinese people are being drawn to Obamamania and a new
view of America. For many, a long-held stereotype of the United States as a
racist country run by a white elite has been shattered forever.
Many Chinese harbor their own prejudices against black people - indeed, against
any people who are not Chinese - but they recognize Obama's achievement and
what it signifies for other minorities - including Chinese - in the US.
Obama's election has been hailed as nothing short of a miracle in state media.
At the same time, Chinese leaders could - and perhaps should be
- worried about an Obama presidency. First, Beijing likes predictability in
American diplomacy. Republican Senator John McCain was seen as a continuation
of the Bush policy toward China - namely, minimal pressure on human rights and
perfunctory complaints about tainted products and currency manipulation as
China raced along at double-digit economic growth and the Communist Party
maintained its grip on the country's 1.3 billion people.
Obama's broad and ambiguous mantra of change is cause for anxiety. What if
Obama is emboldened to take on Beijing for its routine and sometimes brutal
detentions of political dissidents? If the US can shed its current reputation
as a human rights violator, Western opinion will be with the new president in
such a fight.
And what if the Democratic president teams up with Congress on trade issues and
turns protectionist, bashing China as a bogeyman for America's economic woes?
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives since January 2007, has
certainly proved to be no friend of China. Judging by Obama's rhetoric during
his campaign for the White House, fears that he could accommodate anti-China
sentiment may be justified.
Remarkably, considering China's economic power and growing international
influence, the subject of Sino-American relations rarely came up during the
presidential campaign, and responses on both sides were predictable. As usual,
China was caricatured as a reckless exporter of tainted goods, a currency
manipulator and a human rights abuser.
Presidential campaigns leave little room for nuance. As such, neither Obama nor
McCain bothered to mention that the vast majority of Chinese exports are safe,
that the value of the Chinese yuan has risen by over 20% against the US dollar
over the last three years or that the protection of human rights in China is
improving.
China has come a long way since the spring of 1989, when former paramount
leader Deng Xiaoping put Beijing under martial law and ordered a lethal
crackdown on thousands of students demonstrating for democracy in Tiananmen
Square. That same Beijing was chosen to host the Olympic Games this summer - a
selection that was both an acknowledgment of progress and an expression of hope
that it will continue.
Now that the US election is over, the political pandering to the American
public should cease. The Sino-American relationship is complicated, and if an
Obama administration wants to be on the right side of history, it will provide
more carrots than sticks for China. Despite Obama's relentless Bush-bashing
during the campaign, he needs to follow Bush's lead on China. Sure, push a
little, prod a little, but recognize and encourage China's immense progress.
Obama can do far better than Bush in educating Americans about their country's
growing, but largely unspoken, economic partnership with the Chinese. Americans
should be told by their new leader that the US$518.7 billion invested by
Beijing in US Treasury bonds is one big reason they have been able to max out
their credit cards in recent years. China has been the chief underwriter of
America's huge debt.
And, now that Wall Street's hubris has brought the US economy to its knees, the
new president would be right to point out that China, with nearly US$2 trillion
in foreign reserves, could be a tremendous help in restoring America's economic
health.
The Bush administration understood the mutual dependency that has come to mark
Sino-American ties but, for political reasons, did not deign to acknowledge it.
What a breakthrough it would be if Obama could help America understand China as
the partner it now is, not the enemy it once was.
Such a shift in rhetoric and attitude is no doubt what Chinese President Hu
Jintao and his leadership team are hoping for from Obama. Still, they would
settle for maintaining the status quo of the past eight years under Bush. What
worries them is Obama's potential to push democracy, protectionism or human
rights.
Since Mao Zedong's historic meeting with US president Richard Nixon in 1972,
Chinese leaders have preferred Republicans. Obama, 47, is young and untried and
his record sketchy and suspect. The Chinese people may be caught up in the
global euphoria over Obama's stunning victory, but anxiety is likely to rule
among their leaders.
The symbolism of Obama's triumph as a black man can only add to that anxiety.
Until now, one standard Chinese response to US criticisms of Beijing's human
rights record was to fire back with example of how African-Americans were
oppressed, unequal citizens in America. That argument is essentially dead.
Obamamania may also raise uncomfortable questions about how China's dominant
Han ethnic group deals with its own challenges from ethnic minorities such as
Tibetans and Uyghurs. Could an ethnic minority ever become president of China?
Until now, the question had never been asked.
And the answer, of course, is no - just as an Obama-like breakthrough is
currently impossible in the United Kingdom or continental Europe.
But comparative history is a tricky business. Minority rule in China, with its
2,000-year-old history, has a very different meaning than it does in the US.
Minorities - the Mongolians and the Manchurians - ruled China for long
stretches of time, and the results, at least from a Han Chinese perspective,
were not pretty. Historically, minority rule of China has come about only as a
result of brutal force.
Chinese leaders are keenly aware of their history and take lessons from it -
lessons that they hope president Obama will take the time to learn.
Kent Ewing is a Hong Kong-based teacher and writer. He can be reached at
kewing@hkis.edu.hk.
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