Authors: Odd Westad
Over time, perhaps the biggest problem in China’s search for knowledge is its failure to recruit first-rate talent from abroad. More than a third of all US Nobel Prize laureates in medicine in the postwar period were born outside the United States.
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In China, one would be hard pressed to find a handful of full professors of foreign origin in all fields at the country’s top universities. One reason for this is that China is not yet an attractive enough place of residence for the world’s top scientists. But it also has something to do with attitudes in China today. While many people around the world can imagine themselves reinvented as Americans, few think in the same way about China, even after its economic growth has put the country at the center of attention. Unlike the situation when our story began back in the eighteenth century, Chinese authorities and institutions seem to go out of their way to narrow the concept of what it means to be Chinese. If such attitudes persist, China will find it difficult to compete in innovation and knowledge the way they are now competing very successfully in production.
A
S WE HAVE SEEN
, nationalism in anything approaching its Western form is a very recent phenomenon in China. It is largely a product of the tumultuous twentieth century. Today, however, different forms of nationalism thrive in the Chinese political landscape, in variants that
would be easily recognizable to nineteenth-century Europeans. Not all of this is negative. A sense of pride in being Chinese and in the long history of the Chinese people can be a counterweight to regime
diktat
or to the insecurities that have marred China’s relations with the outside world. The problems begin when nationalism is manipulated by the regime for political gain, or when it creates resentment against foreigners or people who look different or behave differently. Most dangerous of all is the nationalism that says, “The world hates us, but we don’t care,” because it may provide license to behave in ways that are truly inhumane against those who are defined as outsiders.
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Related to (but not equal with) the problems of nationalism is the increasing Chinese preoccupation with ethnic or racial characteristics. Again, as we have seen earlier, this is a recent fixation of some Chinese, and it has been stimulated by the Communist Party’s need to find an argument for its continued rule. The Chinese, the line of reasoning goes, are different from other peoples—oriented toward collective gain, coherent policies, and admirable aims. They are adverse to chaos and uncertainty, and in favor of analytical approaches and accurate predictions. Where other peoples are easily led astray into indolence or inconstancy, the Chinese are earnest, hard-working epitomes of common sense. They are also, because of their long history, more authentic and more righteous than others. All of this nonsense stands in the way of developing a reasonable foreign policy for the People’s Republic and deflects its people from dealing with its own problems, most importantly the democratic deficit within China itself.
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On occasion, the CCP borrows the terminology of the small number of Chinese who are extreme nationalists. But the party is also afraid of them, aware that its own imported ideology and adherence to open international markets could make it the focus of ultranationalist attacks. Indeed, both in 1989 and more recently, nationalist slogans have been used against the party and its rule. The CCP wants to use nationalism as legitimacy for its continued control of China, but it is not quite sure
how to employ it without risk. It must be said, though, that some of the party’s propaganda about special Chinese characteristics for development has struck a chord with youth who are eager for something to believe in. A student I was talking with in 2010 explained it succinctly. Even though most people of her generation are aware of the deficiencies created by one-party rule, she said, they are less and less willing to discuss it, especially with foreigners present. In a China that is becoming increasingly internationalized, there must, some of them think, be a part that is truly and uniquely Chinese, and not just an imitation of foreign models, something that helps explain China’s current stride to the fore. The West already has prosperity and democracy. Maybe prosperity
without
democracy could be something for Chinese to be proud of, since it has created unprecedented economic progress. But my student friend was quick to add that her group only thought that way when thinking about China in comparison with other countries. As soon as the conversation turned to China itself, the party’s many failings in governance provoked broad condemnation.
The existence of this dual view of China’s relations with the outside world is supported by recent opinion polls. One has to be careful with data collected under a dictatorship, but some general trends are visible. Younger people feel more threatened by the outside world than older people. In a recent poll, almost two-thirds of all eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds agreed that the United States posed a threat, but only a third of those over fifty-five felt the same way. Men and those with higher education were more likely to find Americans (and Japanese and Indians) threatening. All groups, however, agreed that global processes such as climate change or water or food shortages were more threatening than any foreign military force. When asked
why
the United States posed a threat to China, the whole sample answered that it might seek to restrain China’s growing influence in the world; it might support separatist elements in China; it is more likely to take the side of Taiwan in a cross-strait dispute; and it has a more powerful military than China’s own.
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Those pessimistic about China’s future on the international stage focus on its growing nationalism, but some who are more optimistic dwell on a countercurrent. China’s interest and orientation, they say, are closely linked to the development of international law and to harmony and balance in international affairs. Such a search for a better-organized international community that can accommodate China’s international economic expansion has, as we have seen, as deep if not deeper roots in Chinese history than today’s nationalism. It is striking how often Chinese foreign policy analysts and diplomats use the term “international society” when they describe the conduct of international affairs that they are looking for. Wang Jisi, the influential dean of Peking University’s School of International Studies, argues that “China will serve its interests better if it can provide more common goods to the international community and share more values with other states.”
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But, as Wang would be the first to agree, it can only do so if it throws overboard the concept of a “special path” to modernity for China and the belief that outsiders are inherently hostile to China’s rise.
S
OME HISTORICALLY INFORMED
commentators think that Asia, or at least its eastern parts, is on its way back to the international system that existed when our story began: a China-centered world, where other countries conformed to the symbols of Chinese power. I do not think that is the case, even if there may be some similarities between the situation 250 years ago and today. China is undoubtedly becoming
the
central power in its region and the economic powerhouse that will define Asia’s growth for at least the next two generations. But it is not likely to be easily able to bend others to its will, except in extreme crises. Even during the Qianlong emperor’s reign there was, as we have seen and contrary to a widely held view, no set tribute
system
through which China could enforce its control. Today, the country would face insurmountable obstacles if it were to try to dominate and control its neighbors. Today’s China is nationalist, not universalist. Its nationalism is up
against other nationalisms in the region that are at least as powerful in domestic ideological terms as China’s own; think only about Korea or Vietnam. The United States will not disappear as an Asian power. And, in cultural terms, China is singularly lacking in soft power: No young person of sound mind in Tokyo or Seoul, or even in Taibei or Singapore, is looking to the PRC for music to download, films to watch, or ideas to latch on to.
China’s centrality in Asia will therefore increasingly be expressed in economic terms, as a place not just of production but also of consumption. One of the big stories of the early twenty-first century will be the increase in intra-Asian trade, as economies within the region continue to grow very fast, but not in parallel or even in the same manner. The concept that Asian states have little to trade among themselves has been a myth for almost all historical periods. Even when the Chinese state was at its weakest—from 1880 to the 1910s—trade within Asia grew faster than East-West trade, within what economic historians call an informal Chinese commercial sphere.
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Unless political disasters intervene to stop it, one may think of a significant part of Asia’s future growth as a relay, in which technologies, production, and markets in different countries take over from each other decade after decade. If we use the past as evidence, no Asian nationalism, however virulent, has been able to stop this process.
In the short run, China’s most important regional relationship will be with Japan. In spite of the recent steep worsening in perceptions of the other, there is reason to believe that the two countries will grow closer in their bilateral relationship, especially on economic issues. Each of them needs the other. Japan’s aged population needs Chinese markets for its products and, increasingly, as a place of production. China needs Japan’s technology and its
dégagé
approach as China’s military power grows. There is no doubt that over time China’s power seems to be waxing as Japan’s wanes. But it is unlikely that Japan will try to balance China in any way as this process continues, except through keeping its
alliance with the United States. It is also quite possible that the negative rhetoric in the Sino-Japanese relationship will be kept up from both sides as their mutual dependence grows. Such disconnects between terms of abuse and terms of trade are not uncommon in Asian history.
Korea, once it is united, will probably maintain its military alliance with the United States. Of course, China, through some spectacular diplomacy, might be able to manage the coming North Korean breakdown and offer the South Koreans reunification on terms that it can heavily influence. The latter scenario is very unlikely, however, mainly for historical reasons that we have explored earlier in this book. It is much more likely that Pyongyang simply will run out of time to reform, the North Korean state will collapse from the inside, and South Korea will be faced with a rapid and largely uncontrollable reunification whether it wants it or not. What China does in such a situation will be of decisive importance for its future position in the region. If its leaders realize that a united Korea whose leadership freely chooses its foreign policy orientation may be of more use to China than anything that can achieved by coercive diplomacy, Beijing will truly have come of age in international affairs.
Southeast Asia may turn out to be the easy success story of Chinese international policies, if Beijing plays its cards right. ASEAN is the great experiment in regional cooperation for our times. Although it probably will never be supernational, like the EU, it is setting up a framework for cooperation among postcolonial states that is unique both in format and depth. The main test for China will be whether it is willing to accept a deepening of the integration process in Southeast Asia, which deliberately places Beijing outside the regional framework. In private, policy makers in Beijing very often admit that they much prefer to deal with individual states rather than regional organizations. They are also, of course, aware that despite all kinds of agendas set up to make China a partner in Southeast Asian development and security, ASEAN’s remarkable success has at least in part been due to a fear of the consequences
for the region of China’s rise. There is also the potential for increased cooperation between ASEAN, the United States, and India. But if it plays its cards right—emphasizing economic synergies instead of territorial rivalries—China does have a real chance to form lasting ties with the region, ties that will survive both political changes in China and the ups and downs of Southeast Asian integration.
China’s biggest foreign challenge in the future will be India. It is a very big challenge. We have already seen how the relationship has been pestered by border problems and negative views of one another. Over the past decade, China and India have increasingly become rivals for influence in international organizations. China is well ahead in terms of economic development at the moment, but India has its advantages. While China’s population is aging because of the one-child policy (“China,” some demographers say, “will be old before it is rich”), India has a young and increasingly healthy and well-educated population. By 2050, its population will be fifty percent larger than its northern neighbor’s. India also has a stable political system, and outlets for dissent. It uses English as one of its administrative languages. India already has a fully convertible currency, and, though its market capital is smaller, the transparency and predictability of its capital markets are much greater than China’s. So is its labor mobility.
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While many economists today argue that for these reasons India in fifty years will have overtaken China in terms of GDP, China will probably be able to keep up. It will do so if it deepens reform, especially of the political sector, and gets rid of the disastrous one-child policy. China is today investing wisely in infrastructure, public health, and education, with significant improvement in its citizens’ quality of life as a result. Infant mortality in India is twice as high as in China, and Chinese children on average go to school almost twice as long as children in India do (7.5 years and 4.4 years, respectively). China also has a manufacturing base that is way ahead of India’s. If China keeps attracting investment, the level and quality of its industrial output will, on average,
remain considerably higher than that of India. But first and foremost the relationship between the two will depend on whether each can accept the near simultaneous rise of the other. India will have to tread carefully with regard to its involvement in the Himalayas, and especially in Tibet. But China has the bigger challenge. Being a close ally of Pakistan, which India with some justification regards as the root of most of its foreign policy problems, Beijing can easily be held hostage to whatever conflict with India Pakistan ends up in. In 2011 Pakistan’s president described the closeness of his country’s ties with China as “not matched by any other relationship between two sovereign countries.”
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If this remains so, it will be difficult for Beijing to avoid future rivalries with Asia’s other rising power.