4:17AM
Matching Up Priorities in a Globalized Age
Monday, June 22, 2009 at 4:17AM China's global priorities might not match up that well with those of your average American policymaker. But they do match up quite well with President Obama's agenda. That's the sense I got after spending last week in Shanghai with a bevy of China's top foreign affairs academics. Although the workshop I attended was focused on U.S.-Chinese relations, there was no shortage of side conversation on the post-election meltdown unfolding in Iran. And nothing I heard in terms of the Chinese sense of priorities bore any resemblance to what you see these days in American newspaper headlines.
Reader Comments (4)
My beleif is that the Chinese know this history better than the US. They are the largest Asian contingent in US demographics. Many adoptions of Chinese girls in the last two decades. Unbelieveable trade relationships as far as totals. And lending, FDI and bond buying on both sides. So given that OBAMA might very well be the first President in decades to have a foreign policy that does not rely on the use of Armed Force at the go-in the Chinese seem to have bet strategically on their most important relationship being the US for the rest of this Century at least. And it does appear that events are going China's way because the US keeps shooting itself in the foot or worse in its economic relationships, and foreign policy. The Chinese know the US is a sleeping giant just as the US always knew the Chinese were the same. Perhaps I am wrong but suspect the OBAMA Chinese link will be really interesting to watch, not without its difficulties though.
From my personal experience with the rank and file Chinese is that they cling to a dogmatic set of belief centred around what seems to a set of religious nationalistic canon. Showing no signs of independent critical thought. For example speak to the average Chinese person about the positive aspects of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan or about the fact that the original inhabitants of Taiwan were not even of East Asian genetic stock let alone ethnic Chinese but rather of Malayo Polynesian stock closely related to the New Zealand Maori and see what kind of an answer you get.
Unfortunately the overall result of the P.R.C's one party strangle hold of the media and the way that C.C.P faithful are embedded in the education system means that the vast majority of the Chinese masses have a dogmatic view of history drilled into them.