May 8, 2021
The China scare, American story telling
There’s great panic in America, perhaps even in the world, about China these days. Last week, I watched Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, make surprisingly candid observations on China on a CBS 60 Minutes interview. Btw, CBS 60 minutes is an excellent show. You can follow it on Youtube.
On China, first things first: The Chinese government is an authoritarian regime with illiberal policies from banning free speech to oppressing minorities. It has intensified political control at home and pursued an aggressively competitive approach with the US abroad. What I am about to say is not an apology for their serious failings in these matters.
In a few years, China will overtake the US and become the world’s largest economy. As Blinken pointed out, China is a large country and it is not surprising that they will become the world’s biggest economy. The questions are - to what extent does China pose a threat to the world order and how should America address that threat? The consequences of exaggerating or under-estimating this challenge are equally vast. A cold war with China is likely to be more costly than the one with the Soviet Union with a truly uncertain outcome.
Today, there appears to be a bipartisan consensus in America on how to deal with China. This consensus can be summed up as 1) Engagement hasn’t worked because it has failed to change China’s internal repression and external aggression. 2) Beijing represents the biggest threat to the world order created after the second world war 3) A policy of active confrontation will better counter the China threat than the previous approach of diplomacy and negotiations. It’s evident from Biden’s rhetoric that he has signed on to this view that Trump, Pompeo and other Republicans have championed over the last decade.
An entire book can be written on the looming US-China conflict and the strategies to approach it. I’m sure there are experts hard at work on this right now. I’m no expert on China or foreign policy. But, I have this to say - China’s future as a peer or even as a superior to the US on the world stage is a given. By some measures, China is already there. Within 10 to 15 years, they will unambiguously take this spot by any measure. Deng Xiaoping advised the Chinese to “bide your time” when they were just one percent of the world’s GDP. Today they are over 15 percent. The Chinese have bided their time and their moment has arrived. They naturally seek a larger global role.
There was another country back in the 19th century that was rising in strength. It wasn’t nearly as imposing as China is today. The United States in 1823 would have been what we call a “developing country” today, not even in the world’s top five economies at that time. And yet with the Monroe Doctrine, it declared the entire Western Hemisphere off limits to the European powers. While this is an imperfect analogy, I use it to simply make the point that a rising economic power WILL seek greater control and influence over the world. That by itself is not immoral. In fact, it is quite natural.
Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general. In recounting the fifth century BCE wars between Athens and Sparta, he described a tendency towards war when an emerging power threatened to displace an existing one - a trap that can lock the two in costly conflict. If the US defines everything that is done by China as dangerous or threatening, then we risk falling into the Thucydides Trap. China is not the Soviet Union. In China, we would be confronting not just a rival larger than any we have seen before, but an ancient civilization with a culture and history richer than most nations on earth.
The Chinese have a great sense of national pride, just like any of us. They have risen and are now asking for their seat at the table. It would be foolish to deny them. Asking the world to choose between us and them will not be wise. We will not like the answers we get. There is still a very distinct possibility that China can be influenced to be a more responsible world leader. There is no doubt in my mind that they are fully capable of self-reflection, awareness and empathy. The first step towards managing China is for the US to recognize it as its peer and equal.
The old order, in which tiny European countries act as global heavyweights while giants such as China and India are excluded from the first ranks of global institutions simply cannot be sustained. China (and India) must be given places at the table and genuinely integrated into decision making structures. Or they will freelance and unilaterally create their own new structures and systems. China’s rise to global power is perhaps the most significant event in the world in centuries. It must be recognized as such.
Moving on to other things. Last week, I happened to read a 1895 Mark Twain essay on “How to tell a story.” (I’m always trying to read up good advice on how to tell stories :) ) In this, Twain makes the claim that the humorous story is an American invention and it depends more on the manner of telling than the matter it conveys.
“There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind–the humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.” Mark Twain.
In making this exceptionalism claim for American storytelling, Twain may have been right. American storytelling evolved over a time during which there was unprecedented industrial development. American folklore is rooted in a realist, literal tradition, with a bias towards factuality and a stylistic preference for first person storytelling. Humor itself was not the objective. It was a tool used to achieve certain effects. When it is funny, it is incidentally funny by virtue of being wild but plausible. The reaction to Huck Finn’s adventures down the Mississippi is “that’s wild,” and rarely, “that’s hilarious.”
American folklore has always been about an exaggeration of reality rather than a portrayal of fantasies. It’s almost always the story of the Great Hustle in which the hero pulls off victimless cons to get ahead but is too noble hearted to cause genuine harm to others. They are stories of a competitive middle class doing what they needed to do to get ahead in a rapidly industrializing nation. We see a celebration of the hustle in folklore. We see it through Clint Eastwood in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” We see it in J. Peterman’s and Kramer’s wild eyed narratives on Seinfeld. We see it in Hollywood. We now see it in SPACs, cryptocurrencies and Silicon Valley in general. It is a unique brand of storytelling in service of the Frontier Hustle - brought to you live from New York by Elon Musk on Saturday Night Live.
Happy Mother’s Day! Stay safe. Have a great week ahead.
Srini - Yet another great article. Compelling argument on behalf of China and India to give them their legitimate seat at the table. To what extent both India and China should be held accountable for the unfair trade practice? A common practice of both countries is a requirement to set up a joint venture with 51% or more stake for a local company in that venture + surrender any trade secrets, should any non-local company wants to do business? Perhaps countries should walk away than compromise to do business in India/China? Will that curtail their expanding influence and even limit the economic power?
To admit CHINA as an EQUAL to either AMERICA or INDIA, or to call them as SJUPERIOR , is trying to forget that the comparison should always be on an equal footing. None can contradict the undeniable fact, that a NAMELESS COUNTRY, (AMERICA) has risen to the top of the WORLD , within two centuries, overtaking the hoary glorious past of the other two big countries , by virtue of being both LIBERAL AND OPEN MINDED, AND BEING RESTRICTIVE and unresponsive to human sentiments, like a FREE DEMOCRATIC FORM OF GOVT, with an unrestricted level of freedom of speech and expression, inhibits one’s instinct to talk to them on equal terms. No doubt, the dubious policies of the American democratic history and INDIAN COLONIALISM, suppressed both of them from being more vocal, than what they wish to convey. It does not in anyway detract from the fact that SUPPRESSION, REPRESSION AND HIGH HANDED “whiplash “ tactics of CHINA, has made it, what it is today. But to equate all the three in the same category, is to ignore the hard reality, that an adversely impactful relationship of AMERICA with CHINA, has rendered the AMERICAN ECONOMY in a mess, making it, only number two in the World. In the WHIRLPOOL OF POLITICS, INDIA, lost the chance of being a PERMANENT MEMBERBOF THE UNSC, thanks to the fascination of the NEUTEALITY POLITICS adopted by India for more than 50 long years.There is absolutely no point in digging the past, as the present leadership of the COUNTRY, well recognises its importance in the comity of nations, and rise like PHOENIX from the ashes left behind, by a most unrealistic tactics of keeping at a distance, more from the western democracies than the much more humane and practical approach of rapprochement with them, which is what is being followed now. Thirty years hence, I envisage INDIA regaining the HOARY TRADITION OF BEING THE MOST LIBERAL, TOLERANT AND DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY from the rest of the World. The UNSC is poorer by, CHINA, equating another hostile muslim power with INDIA, and insist on BOTH BEING SIMULTANEOUSLY INDUCTED INTO THE UNSC, instead of being realistic in appreciating the role INDIA is playing , as a unifying force, amongst all the nations of the world, irrespective of their political affiliations and religious and philosophical diversities among themselves.