Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 1 September
My webmaster Critt has pushed me to write something more specific about the two presentations I gave to various Chinese academics and officials in Beijing in mid-August at the start of our grand adoption trip through China. It's a good idea, so let me give you a quick description of each talk and then give you some general sense of the feedback I got from the collective audience.
Both talks came about rather circuitously. It all started with a newspaper article profiling my ideas that appeared in the large Chinese pub known as the Nanfang Daily in early June. The author was a PhD candidate in history at Yale, a Chinese academic by the name of Xue Yong. As a result of the article, Prof. Niu Ke of the Department of History at Beijing University sent me an email, which started a correspondence between us regarding both the possibility of my book being published in China (we are coming to an agreement with Beijing University Press as I write), as well as my speaking there in the future (i.e., I told him about my (then) upcoming trip to China for the purpose of international adoption).
Niu eventually turned me over to a superior of his, Prof. Yu Keping, who
holds more than a few titles, to include being director of the China Center for
Comparative Politics & Economics (CCCPE) at BU, as well as the Center for
Chinese Government Innovations, also at BU. Yu also is a senior official in the
government's biggest publishing house (Central Bureau of Translation and
Edition). So let's just say the guy is very connected.
[Photo: Tom and Vonne Barnett,
Yu Keping, Zhang Yue]
Well, when it became clear that my spouse Vonne was eager to spend more time in Beijing than was allotted by our official tour process, I offered to come a couple of days earlier with an eye to spending a couple of days giving talks at various venues. Dr. Yu was very open to this suggestion, and immediately set up a talk at the prestigious China Reform Forum (a private-sector think tank promoting government reforms) for the 11th of August and another at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Communist Party for the 12th (which would draw academics from the various institutions headed by Dr. Yu). In return, Dr. Yu arranged for a car, driver, guide and translator for myself and Vonne for our first two days in Beijing, not to mention all the meals and tickets to various shows and exhibits. This was not an official US Government trip, but rather something I tacked on to our adoption trip on my own.
The first talk occurred just 12 hours after we landed late on the night of the 10th of August, so I was a bit shaky after all that travel. The venue was the China Reform Forum, which is housed—quite literally—in a beautiful old compound-style house in an old neighborhood in Beijing. When I say compound-style, I mean a walled-off collection of small buildings all carefully integrated with one another and centered around a small courtyard—very traditional.
I was dropped off at the center by our driver, Mr. Liu, our guide, Ms. Zhang Yue, and our translator, who went by her American name of "Jennifer." I was met at the front gate by a young program officer from the Forum, which is apparently set up much like a Brookings Institution here in the U.S., and that is completely by design. This forum, as the Secretary General Wang Xuejun later explained to me over lunch, is really trying to jump start public policy debates in China as a whole, something that we take for granted but which remains largely in its infancy in China. In effect, it seeks to foster open debate among academic and policy wonks regarding future reforms in China in such a way as to both support and push the Chinese Communist Party leadership as it seeks to modernize China's economy, society, and—ultimately—its political system (although the last point is obviously the touchiest and therefore most low-key). The CRF is identified as the "think tank of the Central Party School in Beijing," so it's both officially sponsored and still a private-sector entity at the same time (much like a RAND or any other federally-funded research and development center, or FFRDC). Needless to say, it is a careful conversation, but a far more open one than I think most experts in the West realize, meaning few things are really off the table in these discussions.
The conference room where I gave my talk was full of photos of the Forum's
chief executive, Mr. Zheng Bijian (abroad on travel that day) with various
senior U.S. officials (both past and present)—most notably George W. Bush, Condi
Rice, Brent Scowcroft, and Henry Kissinger. So I was immediately impressed by
the place, even though the setting was rather sedate and low key. The CRF opened
just a few years ago, but already it has strong institutional ties with U.S.
think tanks like the Rand Corp, with whom it hosts an annual conference.
When I first entered the room, I snapped some photos for my memory, and then realized that I didn't see a projector anywhere, much less a screen. I got a bit nervous at that, but minutes later both appeared, along with all of the academics invited to hear me speak. Fortunately for me, all spoke reasonably good English, so no translation was required. I gave a version of the brief that focused on the Core-Gap thesis, the need for an A-to-Z global rule set on processing politically-bankrupt states, and the four flows of globalization. I then ended with a single slide of questions regarding the future of China.
I spoke for about an hour and a half, and then fielded questions for about 30
minutes. The questions were rather expected. Naturally, a significant discussion
ensued about Taiwan.
After the talk I was driven in a car, along with the Secretary General, to a
spectacular restaurant, where we were joined by my wife and her guide for a
lavish Cantonese meal that dragged on for a couple of hours. The discussion here
was more relaxed, but still to the point about the future of U.S.-Chinese
relations.
After an afternoon of eventful sightseeing, plus another great meal, plus
a night at a local tea house, I was back at it again the following morning.
On Thursday, the 12th of August, I was driven first to the CCP's Central Committee
headquarters in Beijing, where I paid a short office call on Dr. Yu Keping
himself. He gave me some of his writings on reforms, and I presented him with a
signed copy of the book (I had brought three, so one went to Dr. Yu, another to
the CRF's head guy, and the third to my new friend Prof. Niu Ke for setting the
whole thing up; Niu, BTW, is now the Yenching Scholar at Harvard for this
academic year, so I hope to interact with him some during his year in Boston).
After the office call, Vonne peeled off with guide Zhang Yue to visit Mao's
Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, while I went upstairs to a top-floor conference
room where I set up and gave a 75-minute presentation, following an intro by Dr.
Yu, to a group of about 50 academics. In this venue, I had a translator, so I
had to cut down my usual verbiage quite a bit, which was an interesting
challenge.
The questions here were similar to the ones I received the day previous,
although more focused on "soft power" issues between the U.S. and China versus
"hard power" stuff like Taiwan. The talk was followed by another long meal with
great conversation at a local restaurant. Then, like the previous day, we spent
the afternoon sightseeing and shopping with our driver, guide and translator,
finishing with a celebratory final meal together and an evening Chinese acrobat
show.
And now, my general impressions from the two talks:
· Chinese academics are no slouches. Their thinking is as sophisticated as anything you'll encounter in the West, and perhaps is better than most of what you encounter in Europe and Japan. They know China's biggest challenges ahead are dealing with its successes, not its failures, so these academics are eager to push the Theory of Peacefully Rising China not simply to put us at ease WRT to the persistent "rising threat" concepts concerning China, but also to open up serious dialogue with us regarding areas of common concern. As such, my treatment of China in PNM is viewed as radically positive from their perspective: here's an influential futurist in the U.S. who doesn’t automatically assume future conflict between China and the U.S.
· Chinese academics know all too well that China's biggest future challenges are internal vice external, but they aggressively seek to balance the two sets of issues in such a way as to make them complimentary, because they know that reforms cannot proceed internally if China faces a hostile world and that China will indeed face a hostile world if internal reforms do not proceed. So, in sum, they tend to think very holistically and system-wide, which—again—makes them very partial to my work.
· Chinese academics tend to ask questions very carefully, so that they get you to reveal your position more than theirs. But how they respond to your answers tells you all you need to know about how they view the problem. In short, they are not inscrutable. In fact, as a professional face-reader (you become one when you give as many speeches as I do), I would say that Chinese are relatively easy to read, meaning they're fairly transparent as audiences go. Having said that, I can't really tell you their views on things so much as tell you what positions I put forth that they seemed to receive well. Here's a quick rundown of my points that they seemed to like (and these points basically corresponded to the bullets I offered in my concluding slide regarding "big questions" for China):
o The biggest fear I have about China is a collapse of its internal banking system. In fact, that is the biggest fear I have right now for globalization as a whole.
o It makes sense for China's 4th generation leadership to focus more on China's rural poor than the 3rd generation did. It will keep China from destabilizing over the near term far better than any saber-rattling on Taiwan.
o I fear that the 3rd generation leaders still clinging to their last vestiges of power (Jiang Jemin especially) are seeking to push the Taiwan issue in order to record that historical notch on their belts before they leave the stage, and so I hope that this temptation will pass without incident, because I believe that China's vision for economic and political integration in Asia needs to be so much bigger than simply trying to get Taiwan back in the fold.
o I said that China's biggest challenge externally comes in the form of Beijing progressively enunciating a political and economic unifying concept that's larger than "China" but that is based around China's rising economic power. In short, Beijing needs to present to Asia and the world a vision of regional integration based on something bigger (and less threatening) than just "rising China." That is why I think the Theory of Peacefully Rising China is so important; it corresponds to the "happy ending" story that China needs to be telling the world right now, just like the U.S. needs to be selling some vision of a "happy ending" regarding the GWOT. Otherwise, fear will prevail, and China cannot afford the friction generated by that fear.
o I pushed the notion that China needed to keep up its relatively swift pace of economic, social and political reforms because if it did not, then gaps would open up between the rest of the Core and China regarding security issues such as Taiwan, North Korea and the Middle East in general. Specifically on those three issues, I said that nothing that Taiwan could do or say would really change the reality of its progressive economic (and ultimately political) integration with the mainland, so China needed to find its confidence level on that one and not let the talk out of Taipei rattle it so. On North Korea, I pushed the notion that an Asian NATO should logically arise out of the "victory" that should soon end the horrific regime that is Kim Jong Il's leadership of that nation. So China needs to define what is a win-win for everyone on that score, and begin that dialogue with the U.S. as soon as possible, because it's eventually going to happen and it should happen on our preferred timetable rather than on Kim's crazy one. On the Middle East, I repeated my usual notion that China was inevitably coming militarily to the region over the next couple of decades, either because the U.S. does a good job of exporting security to the region and China wants to help, or because the U.S. does such a bad job of it that China comes out of fear. Either way, China needs to get its security head straight regarding this inevitable long-term reality, so again, thinking beyond the myopic focus on Taiwan is crucial.
o My big point throughout both presentations was that China needs to stop asking itself what the world "owes" it and needs to start asking itself "What the world needs from China." In short, Beijing itself has the most say over whether or not the Theory of Peacefully Rising China comes to fruition or not. But that future worth creating will only come about as China learns to think more non-zero-sum about global security in general.
The general response I got to all these ideas was extremely positive, primarily in terms of relief. What I mean by that is these academics seemed very relieved to see someone of my stature in the U.S. national security establishment being able to view China not as a long-term threat but as a long-term strategic partner, because it told them that their hopes, as expressed in the Theory of Peacefully Rising China, are not in vain.
Having said that, don't come away with the impression that anyone there saw me as anything but a realist in my views on international security. In fact, both meals were taken up by much discussion about what labels to apply to my thinking. The consensus was that I was no "neocon" in their view, but rather both a "liberal" and a strong "realist." Now, some might tell you that's exactly what neocons believe they are, using "liberal" in the older meaning of that term, but I distinctly heard the Chinese applying it in the more modern way, meaning someone who favors progressive change and sees government in a positive light.
On both days, what I heard from everyone was the distinct wish that views such as mine would become the dominant ideology of the U.S. national security establishment, especially with regard to U.S.-Chinese relations, which—of course—was very gratifying. But more gratifying was the objective way in which they seemed to approve of my vision overall, meaning—again—they saw me as anything but an idealist. And if you know recent Chinese history, you know how much they fear "idealists" in general. That was the best aspect to the trip for me: that sense of being viewed as a pragmatic realist by my Chinese counterparts. Why? It told me that my "reproducible strategic concepts" can easily cross civilizational boundaries (at least as far as the Chinese are concerned), something that my critics often charge is impossible (e.g., my ideas are too "Western" and "rational").
So I walked away from the two days feeling awfully good about the two presentations and the prospects for PNM to have significant broadband impact once it's translated and published in China.
Now on to today's news. I am starting slowly my first day back, so just the New York Times here to get my feet wet:
What goes around in GWOT, comes around in GWOT
"Talks To Disarm Shiites Collapse: Prime Minister Is Said to Cancel Tentative Pact," by Dexter Filkins and Erik Eckholm, New York Times, 1 September, p. A1.
"12 Hostages From Nepal Are Executed in Iraq, a Militant Group Claims: Gruesome images stand out because of the sheer number of the dead," by Sabrina Tavernise, NYT, 1 September, p. A8.
"Beneath Putin's Pedestal, the Ground Keeps Shaking: Russia's leader is supposed to provide stability. But that's what the country is missing," by Steven Lee Myers, NYT, 1 September, p. A4.
What goes around in WTO, comes around in WTO
"Trying to Stay Competitive, Cambodia Joins W.T.O.," by Keith Bradsher, NYT, 1 September, p. W1.
"U.S. Loses Trade Cases and Faces Penalties," by Paul Meller and Elizabeth Becker, NYT, 1 September, p. C1.
What goes around on 9/11, comes around on 9/11
"Handing Out Hors d'Oeuvres, Then Recalling the 107th Floor," by Dan Barry, NYT, 1 September, p. A1.
