SINOGRAPH Understand al-Qaeda, understand China
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - Let's imagine that China were not ruled by a communist party. Let's
think of it as a fully fledged democracy, just like the United States or
similar to a European model. Let's think that by some strange historical
accident, China had been marginal in global economic development until 30 years
ago, when some strange economic experiment started and growth exploded to the
present rate.
Would ties between China and the US, between China and its neighbors, or with
Europe be any different? Probably not, because with China's development and its
impact on the world, there is much more at stake than simply communism.
No longer fully distracted by its military interventions in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the US is focusing again on China's rise. China's yuan and trade
issues have come back to the fore in America's political horizon. Meanwhile,
the issues of China's undemocratic system and its human rights problems have
regained global attention.
The role of America's two war failures in triggering the present financial
crisis and in depleting the huge political capital that the US amassed after
the fall of the Soviet empire is highlighted in A World Without Islam,
in which Graham E Fuller poses a crucial question almost 10 years after 9/11.
In a nutshell, Fuller argues that absent Islam, the present problems in the
Middle East would still be there. Islam has contributed minimally and really in
an insignificant manner to these problems. Without the presence of Islam,
possibly the present conflict would have been between different branches of
Christianity: the Catholic-Protestant world versus the Orthodox world (which
would be dominating the Middle East).
In the Islamic world, there is no widespread agreement on an aggressive
political agenda. Otherwise, the Muslim states would be at war against the West
right now. There is a largely underground organization (al-Qaeda) trying to
subvert the Muslim world in order to mobilize for that war. But the attempt has
largely failed as al-Qaeda's campaign has not mobilized Muslim states -
although it can be argued that al-Qaeda successfully managed to provoke the US
into two possibly useless wars, which are now bleeding America financially,
politically, and mentally.
Can the al-Qaeda paradigm work for China too? China is "ideological" in that it
is ruled by a communist party but no longer tries to export its ideology or
expand its political clout all over the world. Previously, Mao Zedong was
supporting "Maoist" parties around the world. Yes, there is some Chinese
chest-thumping by those eager to demand a larger political say in the world and
fed up with the "US-dominated world order". Are those people the exception or a
dominating reality?
Here, as with the Muslims, the reality underneath is complex. Chinese who felt
ill or well according to a complex and extraordinary medical tradition now have
to translate their "shang huo" (the rise of fire) into indigestion or a
toothache. Hence, there is the simple question of why a country of some 1.4
billion people should blindly accept rules imposed by a world (the West) that
between Europe and America (depending on how you draw the borders) is
equivalent in numbers to about half of the Chinese population.
Then, there are also very contingent problems: what to do with the valuation of
the Chinese currency? Or what to do when a fishing trawler gets into a tiff
with boats of a neighboring state?
Here, we know dogmatic faiths on either side make a solution and understanding
more difficult - especially if these faiths are combined with the very
sensitive issue of identity.
The solution, as Fuller argues for the Islamic world, could be
counter-intuitive. In fact, the modern-day common notions that the earth is
round and revolves around the sun are counter-intuitive, as the earth looks
flat and the sun seems to go up and down before our eyes.
The real issue is the new world order and the relative place of China in it,
especially if compared with the US, India, Japan, Russia or Europe.
The question is extremely complex, and it is made more so by China's own
tendency to look at America so much, discounting its eight neighbors including
India, Japan, and Vietnam. On the other hand, outsiders tend to discount
China's own toughness. China sacrificed to the altar of development some 400
million children, the ones who were not born because of the country's one-child
policy.
Children are the closest thing to gods in otherwise largely godless Chinese
families, and they are the purpose of life for the parents and the ancestors.
Yet for the sake of development, families accepted tearing their flesh and
giving up these children. Furthermore, in recent years, some 50 million starved
to death following the dream of a Great Leap Forward, and the whole urban
population was persecuted and tortured in their souls for 10 years on the
delusion of a Great Cultural Revolution.
What can foreigners do to China that the Chinese have not already inflicted on
themselves over the past 60 years? In other words, it is hard to think one
could use force against China and China would really bend to it. In fact, some
Beijing hardliners would wish for a major war: it would cut the population, but
it would not break China.
And China, despite horrible losses and even a military defeat or a nuclear war,
would have expanded its regional reach and intimidated the rest of the world.
With, say 400 million deaths, China might stop the one-child policy, and within
30 years, raise the population back to 1.4 billion - only this time, it would
be seeking revenge.
The real issue is one of trust, reliability, and understanding to minimize
animosity. In retrospect, if the US had a better assessment of the Muslim world
and al-Qaeda, it's possible that America would be more powerful and richer
today.
Francesco Sisci is the Asia Editor of La Stampa. His e-mail is
fsisci@gmail.com
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