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US fails to realize power of new Great Walls
By Dmitry Shlapentokh
Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
For 19th-century Chinese, the newly arrived British were strange, loud barbarians with body hair who belched smoke from their beak-like noses. But China eventually seceded territories and spheres of influence to the barbarians, because the Qing government was reluctant to accept the importance of Western innovation and practice.
Now history has come a full circle and the spirit and outlook of the Qing government have moved to Washington, whose observers marveled at China's achievements and rise. They either dismissed China's achievements and believed that the "barbarians," who do everything wrong from the Western point of view, would fail in their efforts, or, if they accepted the Chinese achievements, wondered how China could do this. They asserted that China's implicit social-economic system must be unworkable because it does not work according to their market principles.
A report titled "In China, projects to make Great Wall feel small," recently published in The New York Times could be a good example. The report pointed to China's plan to build a "$36-billion tunnel that would run twice the length of the one under the English Channel," and questioned whether China really needs this much big infrastructure. It quoted many Western experts who incorporated their negative assessments of grand projects in China and related them to negative views of the Chinese economy and sociopolitical arrangements.
The building of the Great Wall required a huge effort and the deaths of many. The wall hardly played any role in defending China from many perils of the 19th and 20th centuries, both the British and Japanese originally attacked China from the sea. But was it an entirely useless project? No. Otherwise, it would have been abandoned a long time ago.
Still, generation after generation, century after century, countless Chinese emperors repaired and extended the wall. This was done not because of hubris, faulty advice and similar reasons, but because the wall played an important symbolic role, inspiring feelings of pride and safety in the people.
There are also other grand projects in Chinese history which played an indispensable role such as the Dujiangyan irrigation system and the Grand Canal.
The residents engaged in these essential projects without consulting "civil society." In fact, if they had done so, no "wall" would have been constructed. This could also be said about the new "walls" planned for creation by the Chinese government. As a whole, they would bring enormous benefits for Chinese society and ensure China's rise as a prosperous global superpower in the future. But why do Western, especially US observers, fail to see the benefits of the new "walls" and, in general, the positive aspects of Chinese political and social arrangements?
The story of the late Manchu government could provide a clue. The Empress Dowager did not like Westernized China, not because she lacked intellectual capacities or even because of bad advisors. The problem was much deeper. The dramatic changes of the country's social, political and economic make-up would undermine the economic interests of the mandarins, the ruling elite of imperial China.
The positive evaluation of China's grand projects and, implicitly, Chinese social, economic and political arrangements, modernization not through market and Western democracy but through command economy and strong power, cannot be accepted for a very simple reason.
It would imply that the US and, in general, the entire Western world's problems could be solved through idiosyncratic "Sinification." This would be absolutely unacceptable, not just for the folks on Wall Street but for the majority of other members of civil society, on whose interests such arrangements would touch.
And for this reason Western observers become similar to the Empress Dowager's government.
The entire body of US mandarins watch with anxiety and perplexity the strange "barbarians," who, while doing everything "in the wrong way," increasingly beat them in economic and geopolitical competitions. The logic and arguments can hardly help US "mandarins" and those who followed them. They would be taught only by their own "Opium Wars," "Great Recession," or similar disasters.
Only at that point might they realize that the Chinese model would provide a valuable template for social and economic transformation and "Great Walls," whether in the past or present or planned for the future, are not just a waste of resources.
The author is associate professor at Indiana University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
By Dmitry Shlapentokh
Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
For 19th-century Chinese, the newly arrived British were strange, loud barbarians with body hair who belched smoke from their beak-like noses. But China eventually seceded territories and spheres of influence to the barbarians, because the Qing government was reluctant to accept the importance of Western innovation and practice.
Now history has come a full circle and the spirit and outlook of the Qing government have moved to Washington, whose observers marveled at China's achievements and rise. They either dismissed China's achievements and believed that the "barbarians," who do everything wrong from the Western point of view, would fail in their efforts, or, if they accepted the Chinese achievements, wondered how China could do this. They asserted that China's implicit social-economic system must be unworkable because it does not work according to their market principles.
A report titled "In China, projects to make Great Wall feel small," recently published in The New York Times could be a good example. The report pointed to China's plan to build a "$36-billion tunnel that would run twice the length of the one under the English Channel," and questioned whether China really needs this much big infrastructure. It quoted many Western experts who incorporated their negative assessments of grand projects in China and related them to negative views of the Chinese economy and sociopolitical arrangements.
The building of the Great Wall required a huge effort and the deaths of many. The wall hardly played any role in defending China from many perils of the 19th and 20th centuries, both the British and Japanese originally attacked China from the sea. But was it an entirely useless project? No. Otherwise, it would have been abandoned a long time ago.
Still, generation after generation, century after century, countless Chinese emperors repaired and extended the wall. This was done not because of hubris, faulty advice and similar reasons, but because the wall played an important symbolic role, inspiring feelings of pride and safety in the people.
There are also other grand projects in Chinese history which played an indispensable role such as the Dujiangyan irrigation system and the Grand Canal.
The residents engaged in these essential projects without consulting "civil society." In fact, if they had done so, no "wall" would have been constructed. This could also be said about the new "walls" planned for creation by the Chinese government. As a whole, they would bring enormous benefits for Chinese society and ensure China's rise as a prosperous global superpower in the future. But why do Western, especially US observers, fail to see the benefits of the new "walls" and, in general, the positive aspects of Chinese political and social arrangements?
The story of the late Manchu government could provide a clue. The Empress Dowager did not like Westernized China, not because she lacked intellectual capacities or even because of bad advisors. The problem was much deeper. The dramatic changes of the country's social, political and economic make-up would undermine the economic interests of the mandarins, the ruling elite of imperial China.
The positive evaluation of China's grand projects and, implicitly, Chinese social, economic and political arrangements, modernization not through market and Western democracy but through command economy and strong power, cannot be accepted for a very simple reason.
It would imply that the US and, in general, the entire Western world's problems could be solved through idiosyncratic "Sinification." This would be absolutely unacceptable, not just for the folks on Wall Street but for the majority of other members of civil society, on whose interests such arrangements would touch.
And for this reason Western observers become similar to the Empress Dowager's government.
The entire body of US mandarins watch with anxiety and perplexity the strange "barbarians," who, while doing everything "in the wrong way," increasingly beat them in economic and geopolitical competitions. The logic and arguments can hardly help US "mandarins" and those who followed them. They would be taught only by their own "Opium Wars," "Great Recession," or similar disasters.
Only at that point might they realize that the Chinese model would provide a valuable template for social and economic transformation and "Great Walls," whether in the past or present or planned for the future, are not just a waste of resources.
The author is associate professor at Indiana University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
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