During his 'Change or Die' speech to the European Parliament on 22 June, Tony Blair made repeated references to the challenges posed by China and India. This in the wake of a series of recent eye-catching Chinese corporate overtures to buy up faded British industries, first MG Rover and then Marconi.
Now, against CNOOC's unprecedented bid for Unocal, Capitol Hill is abuzz with shouts of 'barbarians at the gates' who must be stopped from raiding America's oil and jeopardizing US national security.
In contrast with the relatively more sober tones in the EU, China bashing is reaching a crescendo in the U.S. Over accusations of surges in textiles imports, on-going infringements of intellectual property rights, failure to re-value the RMB, tension with Taiwan, arms build-up, and human rights violations. China is painted not only as an unreformed Communist but as an ugly Capitalist as well.
As outlined in my previous Newsletters, this is to be expected. China's unavoidable and meteoric rise in an age of globalisation is setting her on a collision course on trade, energy, and geopolitics with the world's only superpower imbued with neo-conservatism.
Much of the heat is generated from a perceived overarching Chinese threat. So how valid is this threat? First, threat is a pre-conceived notion. What is competition to an extrovert economy embracing change for the future could be condemned as a threat by an introvert clinging to the past.
China may well dominate in mass manufactured goods but her production would not be so well linked with the consumer marketplace without the West's global supply-chain giants. Walmart, for example, sources from China the equivalent of Switzerland's entire GDP every year.
Notwithstanding China's notable scientific and technological achievements in recent years, and the astounding output of her best and brightest, she is still miles behind the leading West.
Moreover, lacking in water and arable land, China has to continue to import huge volumes of staple foodstuffs to feed her teeming population.
She also needs all the management and financial savvy she can get from the West if she is to continue with the monumental task of reforming her mammoth SOEs, her creaking financial systems and markets, in order to stay ahead in a post WTO-entry environment.
For the West, the so-called 'China price' is keeping world inflation down to more welcome levels, at the same time acting as a spur to greater overall productivity.
It is a well known fact that US interest rates, and indirectly the buoyancy of her property and consumer markets, are helped by China's holding of US bonds
A richer China is also prone to buy more planes, fast trains, and nuclear energy plants from the West. The West is already welcoming the flood of Chinese tourists, many seeing the outside world for the first time.
This inter-dependency extends to the developing world. The ASEAN countries are benefiting from a trade surplus with China in exports of parts and raw materials such as minerals. Countries like Brazil thrive in supplying her with vast quantities of grains and soybeans.
But such inter-dependencies are not without costs.
The West certainly feels the kitchen heat of job losses in declining industries. Some of the LDCs see drops in investment and wages as even Mexico, for example, cannot compete with the 'China price'. This experience is not unique in the history of economic evolution, but the scale and impact may be different.
As for military build-up, there is no indication that China is expanding her nuclear stockpile, though she is no doubt trying to modernise her dated conventional armed forces. But in per capita terms, China's military expenditure does not even make it to the world's top 50. Against a vast territory and population, any accusation of military ambitions does not seem to be very convincing.
Indeed, China has her hands more than full with pressing internal and external challenges. Just think of the Herculean task of maintaining a robust growth rate of at least 7% for a fifth of mankind, generating sufficient jobs to absorb droves of rural migration and spreading the economic goodies across the poorer masses in the heartlands. 'Peaceful Rise' appears to be more a recipe for self-preservation than an voluble jargon.
This, however, does not translate into a weakened stand against Taiwan separatism. One has to be Mainland Chinese to appreciate the deeply-held national feeling against any secession. Following the recent Beijing visits of Lien Chan and Soong Chu-yu, the rhetoric on both sides has given way to conciliatory gestures. But there is no indication of any Taiwanese willingness for early unification. And Beijing is unlikely to spark off a regional military conflagration with uncontrollable consequences, unless pushed too much into a corner.
Understanding China's national psyche is also instructive in the case of Japan's War history intransigence.. Despite huge economic mutual dependencies, nationalism on both sides remains strong. In China's case, her people have the added psychological burden of centuries of foreign oppression, humiliation and national decline. It is only during the past decade that China can play centre court in the world. Such hard-earned national pride cannot be over-estimated.
As China continues to open up, her people will learn more what it really means to be proud. More returning overseas graduates, more foreign investments, more urbanites and internet users, are all likely to usher in a more mature civil society that respects freedom, dignity, inclusiveness, and the environment. Above all, a beautiful fusion of what is best in the East and the West.
Perhaps that is 'socialism with Chinese characteristics'. Perhaps that is the essence of the Second of Jiang Zemin's Three Represents. Perhaps that would be a more profitable way for the West to engage China.
The Time magazine reports that a Yale-lecturing Shanghai district mayor uses town-hall style public hearings to debate public issues. Several city mayors hire pollsters to gauge the effectiveness of their government. Some 280,000 Chinese NGOs are active in a variety of causes ranging from cancer survivors to the environment. The Beijing Review refers to a Chinese TV talk show where topics like Teri Shiavo and Mark Felt ('Deep Throat') were discussed.
It's early days yet. And a swallow does not make a summer. But would a China better culturally engaged yield more meaningful outcomes than all the bashing in the world?
Recently, two US Senators Joseph Lieberman and Lamar Alexander have the good sense to propose the US-China Cultural Engagement Act of 2005, to 'deepen the scope and breadth of America's relationship with China through the reaching out of our nation's hand in friendship'.
The spirit of cooperation is there as the US, EU, China, Japan, Korea and Russia have just settled on a 10 billion Euro joint project (ITER) for trail brazing research into clean and inexhaustible nuclear fusion power generation..
Peter Mandelson was reported as coming to a deal on a recent thorny EU/China textile dispute with his Chinese counterpart Bo Xilai during their 45-minute walk-together in a Beijing garden.
Engaging China strategically may need more than 45 minutes. But more understanding and less confrontation, perhaps in a more Chinese way, may yield better, long-lasting results for all.
Andrew K P Leung, SBS, FRSA
