April 18, 2008
Fear of China, fear of America
What is the cure for anti-Americanism in Europe? I have always thought that there is a one-word answer to that question - China.
And so it has come to pass. The FT-Harris poll released this week shows that a narrow majority of Europeans now regard China as the biggest threat to global stability - ahead of the United States. Of course, these kind of polls always reflect recent events. So the news out of Tibet - and, to a lesser extent, Darfur - will have hurt China’s image. Meanwhile the decline in coverage of the Iraq war - and the fact that the Bush administration is winding down - will help the US.
But I also think there is a bigger trend at work. It is natural - if not particularly noble - to resent the world’s sole superpower. But as it becomes clear that the only plausible challenger to American global hegemony is China, so Europeans are likely to remember that they have a lot more in common with the Americans than the Chinese - a democratic system, free speech etc etc…
The Chinese might also bitterly add that most Europeans and Americans also share one other trait - a white skin. Is there an element of racism in anti-Chinese feeling? Almost certainly. And that is why Europeans have to be very careful about not confusing legitimate criticism of the Chinese government with a generalised, old-fashioned fear of the “yellow peril”.
1-) Well, I am glad that you volunteerd the racial angle to this because, for sure, the white Europeans have a hard time accepting that some upstart non-white person might be better than them.
2-) You say the only plausible challenger to the American hegemony is China. Richard Haas has argued otherwise in the FT this week:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dd19987e-0af4-11dd-8ccf-0000779fd2ac.html
I think what he says about a nonpolar world being the likely successor to a unipolar one is equally reasonable.
For sure, The EU, China, India, etc. will grow more powerful in relative terms but neither are willing or able to take the mantle of of a fully-functioning superpower.
3-) I had lunch with 3 Chinese business people yesterday (employess of a Chinese oil company). We had a long discussion about Tibet where they were claiming that China is the injured party but, overall, their emphasis was on how much they thought the Chinese still had to learn from the West.
I know the above is anecdotal but I don’t think it is untypical.
I think, if the West don’t mess with the Chinese, they want to continue to grow economically and are not in any hurry to pick fights withe the West.
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | April 18th, 2008 at 3:30 pm | Report this commentGR: “And that is why Europeans have to be very careful about not confusing legitimate criticism of the Chinese government with a generalised, old-fashioned fear of the ?yellow peril?.”
I agree. Although I have to say that China really doesn’t help itself. Vis the shipment of Chinese arms sitting off Durban en route to help Mugabe oppress internal opposition.
One further point - on past form Europeans are not very good about confusing legitimate criticism of a governent spill over into something entirely more insidious. This does not augur well for future Sino-European relations.
Posted by: AYC | April 18th, 2008 at 3:32 pm | Report this commentSammuel Huntington understood that clearly more than ten years ago in his book “The clash of civilizations”…an old idea of identifying with others who share common cultural and ethnic characteristics.
But we must take into account the worst Wars have been intra-civilization Wars like WWI and WWII as interests clash usually with those you have in your neighborhood, something lawyers and police know perfectly…And on this side the U.S. have still the priviledge of an isolated geographical position between the Atlantic and the Ocean, and they know it.
Even if Koreans are from a cultural, ethnic, traditional and increasingly economic point of view much closer to China than to America, security concerns about sovereignty lead to a continuous cooperation with the U.S.
Even if Ukrainians are from a cultural, ethnic and linguistic point of view much closer to Russians (even Russia was born in Ukraine…) security concerns about sovereignty lead the Western half of it to a continuos cooperation with the U.S. (Eastern and Southern Ukraine probably will end being admitted as Russian Okrugs or Republics)
About Europe, well, China as far as I remember didn´t participate in our History from any perspective other than commercial. China has been just the Silk Road, porcelain and silk. China has been Trade and the “yellow” peril, now and then, has been just fear of Chinese products, centuries ago the highest quality products of the World and now the cheapest. So by then China was a concern of the European elite while now it is a concern of European labor…like in USA and Australia (which led to immigration ban of Chinese)
Future European relationship with China depends on the Russian Federation: if Russia fears its neighbor´s intention in the Far East krais then they will come closer and closer to the European Union´s Pole…but if they fear more NATO´s intentions then they will increase their cooperation and association with China. Germany and Spain think the Russian Federation is a Western nation with the natural resources Europe needs while the USA is driving Russia to comfrontation against other European nations and at the same time promoting comfrontation between the West and China to guarantee its own presence in the European Continent and the persistence of NATO, an organisation which really means Europe as an American Protectorate without Sovereignty, with our Commanders in Chiefs receiving orders from SACEUR Viceroy, John J. Craddock, who at the same times receives orders from the U.S. Commander in Chief…who is under the Command of the President of the U.S. of America. So, for example, the King of Spain Juan Carlos I is just third in the Defense Chain of Command, or perhaps not even that.
Posted by: Enrique | April 18th, 2008 at 3:54 pm | Report this commentI do not think China actually prefers Mugabe over his opposition, or vice versa. It is still legal to sell arms to the country now. So it is a business decision rather than a political dicision. Furthermore, do you seriously believe that Mugabe does not have rifles or ammo? Comeon, it is not nukes.
Posted by: jin | April 18th, 2008 at 3:58 pm | Report this commentjin: “So it is a business decision rather than a political dicision.”
Quite. A business decision made on the bet that Mugabe is going to steal the election. The point is that this type of cynical manoeuvering is not going to win the Chinese any friends amongst Europeans.
Posted by: AYC | April 18th, 2008 at 4:08 pm | Report this commentI think they are happy to sell arms to the current opposition, as soon as they become the government. Why not? Either you sell arms or not. The arms, like all other goods, will eventually fall into the hands of those people with money and will.
Posted by: jin | April 18th, 2008 at 4:15 pm | Report this commentBut the point is they are selling arms to one of the West’s current bogeymen. Hardly going to help their image problem is it?
Posted by: AYC | April 18th, 2008 at 4:19 pm | Report this commentI have to admit you are right. But think this way. Not selling does not make West a friend now, and they lose money. Selling will add some enemyin EU, marginally right now. But they will have some business compensation. Bottom line is the business is still legal. So you can do the caculation.
Posted by: jin | April 18th, 2008 at 4:32 pm | Report this commentChina’s foreign policies are more transparent and honest. Like everybody else, they act purely on the basis of self-interest but unlike most others, they don’t make any bones about it.
The West’s morality is selective @ best. Sure criticise Mugabe but why stop there and not mention dozens of pro-Western thugs, worldwide?
Posted by: Pacifist | April 18th, 2008 at 4:37 pm | Report this commentJin, I think we are in harmony on this. They clearly have made their bed.
Pacifist, “Like everybody else, they act purely on the basis of self-interest”. Sure. But the interesting thing is to work out where that self-interest lies. Good PR doesn’t monitise itself in the way that payment for a ship load of arms does, but bad PR certainly does not pay the bills. Anyone care to take a wager as to whether the Beijing games will make a profit?
Posted by: AYC | April 18th, 2008 at 4:54 pm | Report this commentAYC,
What struck me when talking to the Chinese people yesterday was that the Chinese side of the story remains untold and that they have not spent nearly enough time and effort on PR.
This may be because they are inexperienced at dealing with the Western public opinion or because they don’t realise its importance (as the public opinion at home is ignored).
In due course, the Chinese will also claim that they are bombing people for democracy etc. They are quick learners.
Posted by: Pacifist | April 18th, 2008 at 5:10 pm | Report this commentThe Chinese do not have “white skin”? That’s news to me.
Colour classifications of race are extremely anachronistic, and themselves smack of prejudice, even if dished out in jest.
Enrique writes: “China as far as I remember didn´t participate in our History from any perspective other than commercial.”
You must be joking! Which history is that?! For most of the past millenium China was the technological power-house of the world: paper, printing, a paper currency; gunpowder, the compass, the strap-on harness; the windmill. These are just a few examples of the technologies first developed in China, from whence they slowly spread to the rest of Eurasia. Eventually they even made it to far-off and backward Europe (the ‘our History’ I assume you are referring to). As early as the 13th century China — which boasted of factories and a market economy — was on the brink of an industrial revolution, a development ultimately derailed by the Mongol onslaught and the reactionary insular conservatism which consequently prevailed. Europe at the time, was only beginning to emerge from its ‘Dark Ages’ (a very local European affair) and catch-up with the rest of the world in what was later termed the ‘Rennaissance’.
A repeating feature of history is that ideas developed in the centre are ultimately thwarted by established institutions, and therefore find a venue in the periphery where they can resurface. Examples:
1. Monotheism, whose roots lie with the prophet Zaratushtra, which was an idea in development in the cosmopolitan religious milieu of the 5th century BC Persian Empire, was however shunted from the conservative centre only to emerge with the peripheral Judean elite of the Babylonian captivity.
2. A modern example is the development of Communism, which contradicting the predictions of Marx was not able to prevail in central Europe, was shunted to backwards Tsarist Russia, which not being industrialised was supposedly not ripe for revolution.
3. All the ingredients of the Industrial Revolution originated in China, but were brought to fruition on a bleak island in the far north-west of Eurasia.
Posted by: RCS | April 18th, 2008 at 5:28 pm | Report this comment“This may be because they are inexperienced at dealing with the Western public opinion or because they don’t realise its importance.”
I think this will have changed forever after the debacle of the past couple of weeks. And they better be quick learners - Tibet is the No.1 issue these days.
Posted by: AYC | April 18th, 2008 at 5:31 pm | Report this commentIt is not about PR. It is about language and culture. In Asia, I only remember India makes good PR in western media. Sometimes HK makes a few good PR. Even a country as rich, developed and modern as Japan had been demonized before. Does any Asian voice have any influence on western public opinion? I doubt it.
Posted by: jin | April 18th, 2008 at 5:52 pm | Report this comment“But as it becomes clear that the only plausible challenger to American global hegemony is China”
I beg to differ. EU clearly has a big advantage here—EUR. This is the only alternative to USD. Although some pundits dismiss EUR’s future as a global dominant currency, such as Michael Pettis, I see EUR is a real challenge to U.S. economic hegemony, which is the base of all U.S. power.
Posted by: jin | April 18th, 2008 at 5:58 pm | Report this commentJin,
The economy is only one aspect of the American global hegemony. Their military is huge by anybody’s standard and their culture is alluring to many.
Posted by: Pacifist | April 18th, 2008 at 6:08 pm | Report this commentRCS, that´s what I mean: goods, products, technology, but not a War between the Roman Empire and China or between the Hellenistic Empire of Alexander the Great and the Chinese Empire…unless we think about the Hellenistic Indo-Greek Kingdom of Demetrus in Northern India or about the the Tocharians…anyway with scarce relationship to Europe.
Not a History of War but of a Histoy of Trade…until the XIX Century British Opium Wars.
Posted by: Enrique | April 18th, 2008 at 7:11 pm | Report this commentGR”But as it becomes clear that the only plausible challenger to American global hegemony is China”
The above does not work for me…
I am glad “P” you provided the link to Haass essay…As I said previously at “Power and Russia’s Backyard” …I think Haass is on to something…
“Finally, unipolarity’s end is not simply the result of the rise of other states and organisations or of the failures and follies of US policy. It is also a consequence of globalisation. Globalisation has increased the volume, velocity and importance of cross-border flows of just about everything, from drugs, e-mails, greenhouse gases, goods and people to television and radio signals, viruses (virtual and real) and weapons. Many of these flows take place outside the control of governments and without their knowledge. As a result, globalisation dilutes the influence of big powers, including the US.
These same flows often strengthen non-state actors, such as energy exporters (who are experiencing a dramatic increase in wealth), terrorists (who use the internet to recruit and train, the international banking system to move resources and the global transport system to move people), rogue states (which can exploit black and grey markets) and Fortune 500 companies (which quickly move personnel and investments). Being the strongest state no longer means having a near-monopoly on power. It is easier than ever before for individuals and groups to accumulate and project substantial power.” Richard Haass FT
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 18th, 2008 at 7:29 pm | Report this commentFor most of the nineteenth and first half of the 20th century, China was humiliated, exploited and, in substantial part, occupied by foreign powers, Western and Japanese. As we all know, Africa suffered from slavery and/or colonial rule for centuries at the hands of the West and the Arabs.
Does this horrendous history of of egregious human rights abuses in any way justify Mugabe’s use of storm troopers (a/k/a “war veterans”) to carry out violence and terror against his African (or, for that matter, white) fellow citizens? Did China’s past humiliations justify the horrors of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” and Cultural Revolution? Did they justify the repression at Tienanmen Square in 1989? Do they justify the current persecution of Falun Gong and of political dissenters? Do they justify what is happening in Tibet, in Burma,in Darfur and, yes, China’s arms shipments to Mugabe that South Africa so cravenly allowed to go through?
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 8:03 pm | Report this commentI meant “centuries”, not “century”, in my first sentence. And “persecution” should read “persecutions”, in my next-to-last sentence.
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 8:08 pm | Report this commentalgasema: China’s arms shipments to Mugabe that South Africa so cravenly allowed to go through?
well no one is clean on that one…Israel and India help Burma’s brutal regime arm up…US, Russia, and GB loading up the Middle East…the White House Iran Contra team were little more glorified gun runners…then you have all those independents out there …the Russian that just got caught…and don’t forget Yair Klein, who was caught in Moscow last summer and sits (perhaps still or at least until recently) in a Moscow cell…which is very interesting in itself as to why Klein is/was there sooooooo long…perhaps he is writing down his version of events (what governments , individuals he worked with and for)since 1980’s for the Russians…it would probably be an interesting read for them amd many others…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 18th, 2008 at 8:53 pm | Report this commentLisa Helene-Lawson, does this litany of abuses elsewhere mean that it was fine for China to send the arms to Mugabe or for South Africa to let them go through?
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 9:10 pm | Report this commentNo… but nor should China be singled out…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 18th, 2008 at 9:13 pm | Report this commentAmerica also has an entirely different reason to “fear” China. While I was watching some late night television, I noticed with a growing sense of frustration that all of the cable news channels were focused on the story about the sex abuse scandal at the religious cult in Texas, something which, while most reprehensible, merits about 30 seconds of coverage at the most. Finally, I turned to the official Chinese channel, CCTV (in English) which was carrying on a serious and very informative discussion with two US economists about economic relations between China and the US.
Maybe I am being elitist, but a country of juveniles (and I am not referring to the sex abuse scandal victims) does have good reason to worry about a country run by adults, however nasty some of their policies may be.
Posted by: algasema | April 19th, 2008 at 8:07 am | Report this commentIn my experience the Russians never “feared” the USA in the CW; but they did respect its firepower, muscle, etc. However to this day they are very, very wary of the Chinese. An old Soviet joke still runs true today (it ain’t that funny in translation): two soldiers at Chinese-Russian border. Russian says “kak dela?” (how are you / how’s life?) “Everything’s fine at the Chinese - Finnish border”, comes the Chinese reply.
Posted by: tim | April 19th, 2008 at 12:15 pm | Report this commentFor SACEUR I mean “Bantz” not “John” Craddock.
Posted by: Enrique | April 19th, 2008 at 1:32 pm | Report this commentWell, it is the same, Bantz John Craddock, hehe.
Posted by: Enrique | April 19th, 2008 at 1:34 pm | Report this commentMr. Rachman talks about “anti-Americanism’ as one always does, without explaining what the word means or what he means by it. He goes on to wisely admonish Europeans that they “…have to be very careful about legitimate criticism of the Chinese government with a generalized, old fashioned fear of the “Yellow Peril.”
The same goes double for those who mask legitimate criticism of American government policies (which the vast majority of Americans are also against) with the inexplicable slander of Anti-Americanism, whatever that may be.
Europe is a continent whose nations have more in common with America, culturally, politically and genetically, than they do with each other. What about “self-hatred” as a substitute for the obscure accusation of anti-Americanism by anyone who might want to pull the wool over the facts.
Posted by: Paskalis | April 20th, 2008 at 8:55 am | Report this commentChina should be feared, only only by U.S., but also Europe. With a very different civilization from the West’s, their values & norms or perceptions are rather alien. These differences are further complicated with a totally different language, written & spoken. This is the first time in human memory when both civilizations coming face-to-face full-blown that China can say “No” to the self-proclaimed more civilised countries in the West. Most probably, we are so used to a weakling China, the dynamism & capitalist modern China is just does not fit into our imagination. China is so gigantic, both geographically & in population, its current development trajectory naturally arouse fear…fearful for how this dragon is going to utilise its growing power, economically, politically or militarily.
Disagree with China doesn’t understand PR with other countries….just ask all the African & Asian countries, especially in South East Asia where there’s a diaspora of Chinese presence, it’s very popular…much more popular than any European countries or U.S.. I suspect it’s a matter of priority…..China will learn fast. The West beware!!
Posted by: thowsin | April 20th, 2008 at 12:48 pm | Report this commentwell “fear” should never be… nor do I believe it can ever be the basis and/or the definer for a relationship on personal level, nor in foreign policy…the very nature of “fear” limits it to a dysfunctional and/or highly distorted relationship at best…it’s a stupid and very lazy way to look at the world , or any country and its people…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 20th, 2008 at 4:19 pm | Report this commentIn his theory of evolution, Darwin spoke as much of cooperation as he did of competition. We know from microbiology that the complex systems of microbes within our bodies (that far outnumber the, by comparison, handful of genomes that define us), which literally make us hosts for the lives of others, are sustained for the most part by cooperation. Yet we are led to believe, suckers that we are, that the only smart response to the “other” is fear and conflict. No wonder we are looking for other planets to escape to. Let’s just hope the word doesn’t get around.
Posted by: Paskalis | April 20th, 2008 at 4:32 pm | Report this commentI agree with Lisa-Helene Lawson that fear is not a healthy basis for any relationship.
It is nevertheless very tempting to toy with the idea, like Mr Rachman does, that fear can be used to induce desirable behaviour and attitude changes. We could for example turn it the other way around and use this dirty trick on the Americans, scaring them with China to make them accept a global rule of law.
Well, it was nice to indulge in that idea; but Ms Lawson is right, one should not use fear in this way.
On a serious note, the recent criticism regarding Tibet and the olympics is most certainly being perceived in China as anti-Chinese. This is sad and not constructive. As was recently said in a demonstration in Paris: the olympics should build bridges, not walls.
Posted by: Oscar D | April 20th, 2008 at 6:47 pm | Report this commentWith regard to tim’s comment, there was also a Soviet era joke that was once reportedly making the rounds in Eastern Europe about the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. The former, according to the story, was studying Russian. The latter was learning Chinese.
This also reminds me of a conversation that I had on a train in Germany in the 1960’s with a German WWII veteran who insisted that if China ever got the bomb (which it did not yet have), the world would come to an end. I was not so rude as to ask him what would have happened to the world if his side had won the war, but my limited command of German would have prevented me from doing this anyway. I notice that the world has not yet come to an end, even though China has long since had the bomb.
It is a huge mistake, and both morally and factually wrong, to try to demonize the Chinese people or attribute mysterious and irreconcilable difference in “culture” or whatever to them. Certainly, China has a different history from the west, as well as a magnificent cultural heritage which has contributed much to world civilization. But it is highly simplistic to follow the Samuel Huntington playbook and try to reduce everything to a “Clash of Civilizations”. This is only laying a foundation for bigotry, as Huntington proved in his subsequent openly racist anti-Latino immigrant tract, “Who Are We?”.
I am certainly no expert on China. But I have been to Beijing within the past couple of years, and it seemed to me that the people I saw there were just as interested in improving their material well being as anyone here in New York or anywhere else. A lot of educated people in China seem to have much clearer ideas about what is going on in the US economy, and the reasons for it, than do most people here in America.
Therefore, objecting to China’s egregious record of human rights abuses has nothing to do with racial or “cultural” prejudice. It has everything to do with a belief in human dignity and freedom for people of every race and color, in every part of the world. This is why I have no plans to go to the Berlin (sorry, I meant Beijing) Olympics. Nor do I intend to watch them on television or to patronize any company that is sponsoring them.
Posted by: algasema | April 20th, 2008 at 7:40 pm | Report this commentalgasema,
Are individual human rights always an absolute? What if they contradict the common good? The Communist Party of China is very wary of a return to a Period of Warring States — a breakdown of the state system and a decline to chaos. Stability and order are the essence of Confucianism; it is not by chance that that philosophy developed in a country so vast that it is naturally ungovernable. That history has mostly shown otherwise is a testament to the countervailing power of cultural norms. Ultimately this has brought civilisational benefit to the Chinese people, and to mankind at large.
Your neat libertarian simplifications are many times alluring, they bear a clear aesthetic appeal (and your clear writing always adds to the enjoyment). But they bear a bare aesthetic, one that disregards the richness of human experience, prompting instead for a ‘one size fits all’ Chomsky ethics, derived as it is in a very specific American context.
Thankfully, the world does not consist of multiple reflections of New York (or at least does not yet).
Posted by: RCS | April 20th, 2008 at 9:13 pm | Report this commentThe human rights thing is a splendid belief of many in our western world. We have not live in the Chinese world as long, hence we are rather inadequate to understand their values in-depth. It’s definitely not something like visiting America or Russia for a couple of days, and conclude that they have a head, four limbs & walk upright, thus they are like us & believe what we believe & cherish what we cherish.
There are surely better ways to engage the Chinese to their perceptions & beliefs on what constitutes “human rights” which we cherish so dearly, yet they can tolerate such “abuses” while still thinking it’s alright. Do they have values that we have yet to appreciate? Or they have perceptions of “human rights” which yet have not discovered? Or they just have different definations? We tend to, being from the self-proclaimed higher civilised society, always view others not of our kinds from our own perspectives & assumptions. That’s why there are people like us propagate themes like “clash of civilizations”. If we truly believe in a globalised world & human diversity, we should not only trade in goods & services, but also in cultures, values & ways-of-life of, with more respects & less fears.
Posted by: thowsin | April 21st, 2008 at 3:24 am | Report this commentI really do not understand all this “cultural relativism” about freedom and human rights. While no thinking person would take George Bush’s notion that the whole rest of the world wants his brand of democracy seriously, that is not because people anywhere enjoy being imprisoned, tortured or executed for their political or religious beliefs, but because Bush’s “democracy” is merely newspeak for authoritarian rule.
To deny that Asians care about freedom just as much as we (supposedly) do in the west is worse than condescending; it is false. China has at least its fair share of political dissidents, human rights lawyers, religious leaders, labor organizers, environmental activists, independent bloggers and other critics of its authoritarian government. The only reason we do not hear all that much about them is because so many of them are in prison and the rest are in constant danger of joining them.
Are these dissenters any less Chinese, or Asian, than their Communist rulers? To take another example, were the Buddhist monks in Burma who were murdered, or arrested and tortured, for demonstrating against the brutal thugs who run their country any less Asian in their values than the military dictators? I had always thought that Buddhism originated in Asia. I very much doubt that the monks had spent a great deal of time studying the works of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison or Benjamin Franklin, or that they knew very much about the French Revolution or the Rights of Man. Yet, they were willing to give their lives to demonstrate against the Burmese tyrants.
I am no authority on Chinese history, but there is a traditional Confucian idea that the ruler of a country loses the mandate of heaven, i.e. the moral authority to rule, when he goes against the best interests of his people. On the other hand, one of the worst periods of authoritarianism in the entire history of China, namely the period of rule by the legalists, was one in which Confucian doctrine was rejected, Confucian works were destroyed, and Confucian scholars were buried alive.
Therefore, when Asian dictators try to hide behind allegedly Confucian or other “Asian values”, they are not only playing people in the west for suckers, but they are doing violence to their own traditions. Most Asians are not foolish enough to believe this nonsense, otherwise there would not be democracy today in countries such as the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and India, nor a movement towards democracy in Pakistan and some Central Asian countries.
Of course, none of these democracies is perfect. How perfect is the Bush/Cheney version of “democracy” in America? It is about time for us in the west to stop looking down on Asians, Their aspirations for freedom are just as genuine as those that we in the west claim to have.
Posted by: algasema | April 21st, 2008 at 4:42 am | Report this commentWhat a potent weapon propaganda is on an ill informed public. The authorities in Beijing understand that very well.
A few years ago the state-run Chinese media infuriated portions of the Chinese population against Japan with their portrayal of the the then Prime Minister Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni shrine. As anti-Japanese riots started to spiral out of control the Chinese authorities ended their rethoric and quickly doused the flames they had helped engender.
Now the Chinese government would have their population and us believe the Dalai Lama is running a terrorist organsation, comparisons are made with Bin Laden and Al Quaeda. Anyone who has followed developments in China and Tibet over the last decades knows that there is no truth in such comparisons, that they make any form of dialogue or compromise impossible, that they inflame public opionion in China not just against the Tibetans but also against those who champion the Tibetan cause or even the cause of dialogue. It is a perception created in the Chinese media that Western support for the Tibetans is inspired by a racist agenda, nothing in the western media or western debate makes a strong racist anti-Chinese bias plausible.
Now we are asked to allow China to crush the Tibetans, their religion, culture and desire for autonomy. If we are not prepared to concede, we will be demonized by their propaganda machinery, which can sway the passion of hundreds of millions and turn China’s progress towards integration with the rest of the world in reverse and make the Chinese believe they live in a hostile world where the rebirth as a nation they seek is seen as undesirable.
If anyone is playing with fire, racism and our fear it is the puppet master cabinet in Beijing.
Posted by: Felix Drost | April 21st, 2008 at 10:43 am | Report this commentFT endoresed Obama! What lovely news to wake up to!….electing Obama would not put a total end to US promotion of Foreign policies based on fear and demonization of peoples and countries …but it would be a huge “step up” from where the neo-cons took us down to…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 21st, 2008 at 12:48 pm | Report this commentA man (inevitably) walks out onto a balcony. Those below are attentive. He breaks open a large crate of red herring and begins to empty it like a blessing on the people underneath. The people in the street struggle with each other to attain the precious items that will bring wealth, enhance sexual dominance and prolong life.
No one notices that the man on the balcony has a clothes pin over his nose.
Posted by: Paskalis | April 21st, 2008 at 1:38 pm | Report this commenthttp://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Do any of the supporters of the Dalai Lama wish to point out the inaccuracies in the above article, written by an American scholar?
There are two sides to any argument, aren’t there?
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | April 21st, 2008 at 1:56 pm | Report this commentLisa-Helene Lawson makes a very important point. Imperial wars such as the one in Iraq and, in the opinion of many people in Afghanistan, that country as well (at least according to a Washington area taxi driver from Afghanistan with whom I had a very interesting converstion recently) would be impossible without denigrating and demonizing the subject population.
Not only Republican neo-cons, but many Democrats as well share this mentality, as shown by the recent ludicrous complaints on both sides of the aisle in Congress that the Iraqi government is supposedly not paying its “fair share” of reconstruction costs out of its oil revenues. I have no doubt that US oil companies would be only too happy to help the Iraqis “reallocate” these revenues, through “sharing” agreements that US is trying to push the Iraqi government to adopt, in a more “productive” way.
This, in a country where the US invasion has caused the death of over a hundred thousand civilians (by conservative estimates) and has created some four million internal and external refugees (of whom only a tiny handful have been allowed into the US, the country responsible for “saving” the Iraqi people). Definitely, Obama would have a different perspective, but not, as the right wing lunatic fringe in the US keeps shouting, because his middle name is Hussein.
Posted by: algasema | April 22nd, 2008 at 8:48 am | Report this commentI meant “very interesting conversation”.
Posted by: algasema | April 22nd, 2008 at 8:50 am | Report this commentRCS wrote: “You must be joking! Which history is that?! For most of the past millenium China was the technological power-house of the world. This person likes to exaggerate. But if he (or she) had said “for half of the past millennium”, he (or she) would have been largely correct.
Posted by: Martin Wolf | April 24th, 2008 at 7:12 pm | Report this commentThank you, Martin. And may I suggest a monumental tome on which he (RCS) bases his comments on the matter : it is Clive Ponting’s “World History - A new perepective” (This is the same Clive Ponting of the Belgramo Affair — a very erudite and clever scholar and an excellent writer). I don’t think Ponting is exaggerating –he presents a very cogent narrative.
Posted by: RCS | April 24th, 2008 at 7:51 pm | Report this commentIt is official: Iraq has becommen a U.S. COLONY with five giant, PERMANENT, U.S. military bases (including the expensive U.S. Macro-Embassy) and a Puppet Government.
Iraq, like Germany and Japan, is not a FREE nation but a nation under control, without sovereignty, a nation the U.S. PARASIT holds from inside leaving it without Freedom, without control of its own resources and Defense.
Iraq is a nation under U.S. Occupation, like Germany and Japan…
Posted by: Enrique | April 29th, 2008 at 4:56 am | Report this commentWhat I mean is that U.S. troops live like a PARASITE inside those nations (Germany, Japan, Iraq) bodies: quiet but with the absolute knowledge if the body does something that affects the security of the parasite, it will be killed without compassion. That´s a permanent COARCION.
Posted by: Enrique | April 30th, 2008 at 5:18 am | Report this commentI mean a permanent coaction.
Posted by: Enrique | April 30th, 2008 at 5:19 am | Report this comment