Why They Hate China

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12585

Why They Hate China
Well, you have to hate someone…
by Justin Raimondo

China's continuing crackdown on Tibetan pro-independence protesters is a big
, big issue here in San Francisco. Why, just the other day, I was coming out
my front door, and there was one of my neighbors – a very nice woman in
her fifties, albeit an archetypal limousine liberal, typical of the breed.
So typical that she might almost be mistaken for a living, breathing,
walking, talking cliché. She hates George W. Bush and the neocons because
she's against the (Iraq) war, but she's eager to "liberate" Darfur – and,
lately, Tibet. That morning, as she earnestly informed me, she was on her
way to a meeting of the Board of Supervisors (our town council) to exhort
them to vote for a resolution condemning the Chinese government's actions
and calling for "freedom" for Tibet. What she doesn't realize, and doesn't
want to know, is that she and the neocons – the very ones who brought us
the Iraq war – are united on the Tibet issue. I tried, in vain, to point
this out to her, but she just shook her head, cut the conversation short,
and was on her way…

As it turned out, the supervisors voted for a meaningless, toothless
resolution, stripped of provocative rhetoric, much to the dismay of the far-
lefties who argued for a stronger statement. The initiative for this effort
was made by supervisor Chris Daly, an obnoxious left-liberal with delusions
of grandeur, whose pose of self-righteousness is both grating and
characteristic of his sort.

Prior to the vote on the Daly resolution, which was vociferously supported
by the supposedly pacifistic supporters of the Dalai Lama, the Chinese
consulate was… firebombed. This is what the War Party would like to do to
China.

Fortunately, there are a number of restraining factors that get in the way:
in the meantime, however, our preening politicians demagogue the China issue
, and none so brazenly as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, my
congressional representative, who is merely Chris Daly writ large. Traveling
all the way to India, at taxpayers' expense, Madam Speaker visited with the
Dalai Lama at Dharamsala and announced that if Americans don't speak out
against Beijing's repression in Tibet "we have lost all moral authority to
speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world."

Pelosi is a longtime opponent of Beijing – not just the Chinese government,
but China itself. Pelosi and the unions she depends on for political
support despise all things Chinese for the simple reason that China, today,
is more capitalist than the U.S. – in spite of the Chinese Communist Party'
s ostensible commitment to Marxist ideology. Thinly veiled racist-chauvinist
bilge is routinely directed at the Chinese people by union bosses and right
-wing paleo-protectionists, who stupidly claim that the "chinks" (or, as
John McCain would put it, the "gooks") are stealing "American jobs" – as if
Americans have a hereditary right to the very best salaries on earth, a "
right" that doesn't have to be earned by competitive business practices but
is conferred on them by virtue of their nationality. Like hell it is.

Lucrative trade and cultural exchanges between China and California, as well
as the fact that many Chinese in her congressional district have continuing
ties to the mainland, have – so far – failed to deter Pelosi and her
fellow Know-Nothings: politics, as they used to say during the Cultural
Revolution in China, is in command.

These Sinophobic protests, engineered behind the scenes by leftist union
bosses and God knows who else, are focused on the passing of the Olympic
torch, which is slowly but surely making its way to Beijing, where the games
are scheduled to be held Aug. 8-24. Here in the Bay Area, activists in the
"Free Darfur" movement announced they were mounting demonstrations urging
China to "extinguish the flames of genocide" in Darfur in San Francisco on
April 9, the day the flame passes through the city.


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The hosting of the Olympic Games in Beijing is the focus of much pride in
China, seen by the people as well as the ruling caste as symbolic of the
nation's arrival in modernity. As such, the worldwide protests and political
posturing of preening politicians – from Pelosi to Nicolas Sarkozy – are
bitterly resented and have been met with increasingly shrill denunciations
by the Chinese state-controlled media – a sentiment that probably
understates popular resentment of Western criticism in the Chinese "street."

I know we are supposed to believe that the vast majority of the Chinese
people are groaning under the weight of Commie oppression and sympathize (
albeit silently) with the downtrodden Tibetans, but that is hardly the case.
Indeed, the exact opposite is closer to the truth. Every time the West gets
up on its high horse and lectures the Chinese government about its lack of
"morality," the tide of anti-Western Chinese nationalism rises higher.

We saw this when the U.S. "accidentally" bombed the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade during Clinton's Balkan War of Aggression, and again when that
American spy plane went down over Hainan island. In Beijing today, they are
worried about the upcoming Olympic celebration, which will provide a
platform for a wide variety of groups – including ultra-nationalist Chinese
students, whose street antics have augured internal regime change in the
past, and could do so again. "They are worried about a larger number of
things and they are worried about keeping the lid on," according to Arnold
Howitt, a management specialist who oversees crisis-management training
programs for Chinese government officials at Harvard University's Kennedy
School of Government. The same Associated Press article cites an unnamed "
consultant" to the Games, who avers:

"'Demonstrations of all kinds are a concern, including anti-American
demonstrations,' said the consultant, who works for Beijing's Olympic
organizers and asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to
talk to the media."

Any indications that Beijing is compromising Chinese pride and honor by
appeasing the West are likely to be met by demonstrations that are both anti
-American and anti-government – initiated, once again, by Chinese students,
who have often been the agents of political transformation. Remember the
Red Guards? Mao used them to initiate his own "Cultural Revolution," but was
forced to rein them in when they started talking about overthrowing the
Chinese state.

 

The memory of that dark and chaotic era haunts China's contemporary rulers,
threatening to spoil their dream of a thoroughly modernized industrial
powerhouse that is both the forge and the financial capital of the world
economy. The Beijing Olympics represent the entry of China onto the world
stage as a first-class power, right up there with its former adversaries:
the U.S., Europe, and the former Soviet Union. A Chinese nationalist cannot
be faulted for seeing the organized campaign to spoil that debut as a
deliberate – and unforgivable – insult.

Viewed from this perspective – the perspective, that is, of the average
citizen of China – the very idea of Tibetan independence might easily be
seen as a rather obvious attempt to humiliate Beijing and remind it of its "
proper" (i.e., subordinate) place in the global scheme of things.

After all, what if Chinese government leaders constantly reminded the world
that the American Southwest was stolen from Mexico? Imagine the Chinese and
Mexican ambassadors to the U.S. demanding independence, for, say, California
– or better yet, its return to Mexican sovereignty! Shall the Olympics be
forever barred from Puerto Rico, which was forcibly incorporated into the U.
S. "commonwealth" in the invasion of 1898?

Of course not. Yet the Americans and their international amen corner are
daring to criticize China for preserving its own unity and sovereignty. It's
a double standard made all the more insufferable by the self-righteous tone
of the anti-China chorus, whose meistersingers are mainly concerned with
celebrating their own moral purity.

Yes, Tibet was forcibly incorporated into the Communist empire of the Han,
but this was just an episode in the long history of Sino-Tibetan relations
– for the greater part of which the Tibetans held the upper hand. The
Tibetan empire, at its height, extended from northern India to the Mongolian
hinterlands and came at the expense of the conquered Chinese and Uighurs.
It fell apart due to a ruinous civil war. A key factor in this complex
narrative is that Mongol hegemony over China was greatly aided by the
Tibetans, whose conversion of the Mongol nobility to Buddhism legitimized
Mongol rule. Today, pro-Beijing historians point to this period as proof
that Tibet has "always" been a part of China proper, yet the truth is that
both were slaves to the Mongols – the Tibetans as their collaborators, the
Chinese as their helots. (Underscoring Mongol contempt for their Chinese
subjects was an edict forbidding intermarriage between Mongol and Chinese,
although no such barrier to Mongol-Tibetan congress was imposed.) With
Buddhism as the state religion, Tibetan priests, including the Dalai Lama,
became the avatars of Mongol rule.

In short, the popular narrative of the pacifistic Buddhist Tibetans as the
good guys and the Han Chinese as the bad-guy aggressors is the stuff of pure
myth, pushed by union propagandists, lefty Hollywood do-gooders, and trendy
sandal-wearing Western camp followers of the Dalai Lama, who has become a
secularized yet "spiritual" substitute for Mother Theresa.

If the Chinese are wrong to hold on to their province of Tibet, then Lincoln
was wrong to insist that the South stay in the Union – and we ought to
immediately either grant the American Southwest (and California)
independence, or else give it all back to the Mexicans.

The same goes for Taiwan – China's rulers are no more likely to give up
their claim to that island than Lincoln was inclined to let the Confederacy
hold on in, say, Key West, Fla.

China is an adolescent giant: clumsy, unused to exerting its will beyond its
borders, and wracked by self-doubt. Emerging into the company of world
powers, it is thin-skinned – like any adolescent – and prone to wild mood
gyrations. During the 1960s and '70s, the Chinese were in a distinctly bad
mood as they wrestled with the ghosts and demons unleashed by Mao. The
triumph of the "modernizers" over the ultra-left Maoists in the 1980s
signaled a new mood of optimism and inaugurated an era of unrivaled economic
growth. The regime sanctified China's journey down the "capitalist road" by
citing the reformer Deng Tsiao-ping's most famous "Communist" slogan: "To
get rich is glorious!" Ayn Rand meets Chairman Mao (or, rather, Confucius)
– and the result is capitalism-on-steroids.

That's why, in spite of the sclerotic Marxoid ideology that still reins in
and retards the natural entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese people, China
is moving forward by leaps and bounds. That's also why comrade Pelosi and
her union boss buddies have launched this odious Sinophobic hate campaign –
because "their" jobs and sense of entitlement are going up in smoke. For
decades, the U.S. government has preached the virtues of free enterprise and
urged formerly Communist nations to adopt the free market – and now that
the Chinese have taken them up on their offer, Western politicians are
attacking them!

 

The closer China has moved toward our own system – relaxing totalitarian
controls over the economy and allowing a far greater degree of ideological
diversity than was possible during the Maoist era – the more hostile the U.
S. government has become. Nixon went to China at the height of the Cultural
Revolution, where he sat next to Madam Mao during a command performance of
The Red Detachment of Women. These days, however, as China stakes its claim
to a proportionate share of the world market – and Chinese investors fund
the U.S. debt – the resentment and growing hostility of the Americans is
all too palpable.

Why do politicians of Pelosi's ilk join hands with neoconservatives in a
concerted campaign to antagonize China, and even threaten sanctions and
possible military action when the occasion gives rise to the opportunity?

To begin with, China's is a success story, and there's nothing that attracts
opprobrium like success, unless it's success of the wrong color – in this
case, yellow. A crude racist collectivism of a specifically anti-Asian
character has long been a tradition of the War Party in this country: see
the anti-Japanese Dr. Seuss cartoons from the World War II era for a
particularly vivid example. Yes, he was attacking the "Japs," but to
Americans, it's all the same Yellow Peril. This kind of sentiment is easily
invoked in America, and don't tell me Pelosi and her ideological confreres
aren't aware of it – yes, even in "liberal" San Francisco, where anti-Asian
sentiment is part of the city's history.

Never mind the first black president, or the first female president – what
I'm waiting for is the first chief executive of Asian-American descent. I'm
not, however, holding my breath…

Relations with China are cloudy, at best, and those may very well be war
clouds gathering on the horizon. The reason is that Sinophobia is a point of
unity between the Left and the Right: the union of the Weekly Standard and
the AFL-CIO, and perhaps even the majority of my paleoconservative friends,
who quail before the rising Chinese giant and see it as a potential threat
on account of its sheer scale – a third of the world's population, and a
land-mass that rivals our own. Surely such a stirring titan will knock us
out of the way as he takes his place at the center of the world stage.

This reflects a fundamental error on the part of many conservatives, as well
as liberals of the more statist persuasion. They fail to understand that
there are no conflicts of interest among nations as long as their relations
are governed by the market, that is by mutually beneficial trade agreements
voluntarily entered into. Ludwig von Mises said it far better than I could
ever manage, and I'll leave my readers to Mises' ministrations on this
abstruse but important subject.

Suffice to say here that our relations with China on the economic front are
a benefit to American consumers – that is, to all of us. They enable us to
buy inexpensive quality products and keep the cost of living down.
Protectionists who argue that "they" are "destroying American jobs" are
simply arguing for higher prices – ordinarily not a very popular cause, and
especially not these days.

Free trade is the economic precondition for a peaceful world and the logical
corollary of a non-interventionist foreign policy. If goods don't cross
borders, then armies soon will – a historical truism noted by many before
me, and with good reason. Let it be a warning to all those anti-free trade,
antiwar types of the Right as well as the Left – you'll soon be jumping on
the War Party's bandwagon when it comes China's turn to play the role of
global bogeyman. The way things are going, that day may come soon enough.

Finally, a word or two about this nonsensical demand, raised by the "Save
Darfur" crowd, that China must somehow "extinguish the flames of genocide"
supposedly carried out by the government of Sudan. What does China have to
do with Sudan and its government? Well, you see, the Chinese have oil
interests in the region, that is, they are engaged in competition with
Western oil companies in opening up new fields – and, well, that just isn't
permissible.

The Chinese, we are told, have a moral responsibility to either pressure the
Sudanese to let up on Darfur, or else abandon their Sudanese assets. As if
Sudan were a Chinese colony, and the Sudanese authorities mere sock-puppets
of Beijing.

A more arrogant and self-serving argument would be hard to imagine.
Presumably Western interests will fill the vacuum left by this spontaneous
display of Chinese moral rectitude – and that alone should tell us
everything we need to know about what's behind the "Save Darfur" bloviators
and their high-horse moralizing.

If our professional do-gooders of the "progressive" persuasion are so
concerned about the fate of Darfur, let them campaign for the granting of
mass asylum to the survivors of this latest African catastrophe. Give them
sanctuary and green cards, but keep U.S. troops out of Africa, specifically
out of Darfur – and get off Beijing's back.

Like Russia, China is awakening from the long Leninist nightmare, albeit
less traumatically, and with greater prospects for full recovery. However,
it wouldn't take much to push it back into a revival of neo-Maoism – or
worse – and a new dark age triggered by an external threat. A resurgence of
Chinese ultra-nationalism in response to Western pressure – and the
specter of U.S.-sponsored separatism – does not augur well for the cause of
world peace. As is so often the case, we are creating the very enemies we
fear, empowering and arming them ideologically. We are, in this sense, our
own worst enemies.
~ Justin Raimondo

 

Great article, thanks.

That wrinkle-face Pelosi has always been anti-China, no matter what issue is at hand. She doesn't think.

If I were in San Francisco I would campaign to sent her into retirement. Up for reelection this year. With an Asian demographic of 30%, mostly Chinese, we can get her to change her asinine behaviors.