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China watches the war and waits

Tiananmen Square is the ultimate physical symbol of Chinese politics. There has in fact been more than one "Tiananmen incident" in modern China. The one in 1989, however, reeked so pungently of bloody authoritarian suppression and the murder of idealism by those in power that it acquired the mantle of a historic incident of global importance.

Leaving aside the Falun Gong protests, Tiananmen Square has in recent years mostly reflected the abundant confidence so widespread in China as the country surges forward. After Beijing's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics and the nation's first ever participation in the World Cup finals, the square was spontaneously filled with celebrating people.

While anti-war protests have taken place all over the world following the start of the US-led war on Iraq, there have been no such demonstrations in normally anti-American China. (Some people applied for permission to hold such demonstrations, but their applications were rejected). Only tourists are to be found on Tiananmen Square, and there is not even the faintest whiff of a political atmosphere.

If we want to understand China, we must not look only at form, but at content too. China is actually deeply concerned about the US-Iraq war. But it is observing the war and its possible ramifications in accordance with its own level of development and its own point of view.

Chinese diplomatic activities in recent years have been conducted in a style similar to that of the Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) era. Deng's style was to avoid political conflict with other nations and instead focus all efforts on economic development. During the Deng era, there was a policy to set contentious issues to the side. During the Diaoyutai sovereignty dispute between China and Japan, Deng let the Japanese side know that his generation of leaders would not be able to find a solution to the dispute and that it would be better to leave that for the next generation. His generation of leaders could, however, cooperate when it came to the development of Diaoyutai resources.

China's government is in fact following its own well-trodden road. The collapse of the Soviet Union had a profound effect on China. Of all the many attempts to explain the Soviet collapse, the one most widely accepted in China is that constant US rearmament forced the Soviets to respond with a corresponding arms build-up, and that this broke the back of the Soviet economy.

Even though Chinese nationalism is surging high, and even though there is an urgent wish in China to become a great power and to do so quickly, the Soviet collapse taught Beijing's leaders to observe changes quietly while keeping their intentions to themselves and biding their time.

This is also the reason why the Chinese government in recent years has avoided playing the political card and has instead focused on economics. Chinese officialdom has all along maintained a low profile in bigger political disputes, such as the collision between a US Navy plane and a Chinese fighter in April 2001. On the economic front, China has promoted its favorable investment policies and the advantage of its huge markets to promote exchange with Southeast Asian and European nations. The effects of this policy seem to have been quite positive.

There are frequently political motives behind economic moves, and, in the eyes of some Chinese international-relations scholars, German and French disenchantment over the US-Iraq war seems to provide an opportunity. China is hoping for an international situation with a single superpower, ie, that the US will remain the one future superpower. That would leave Germany, France and China, all of which oppose the US, as the second strongest powers. Together, however, they would be able to constrain the US.

Anti-American sentiment is surging in Chinese society, but the situation among intellectuals is a bit more complicated. In the 1990s, a new left and a new liberalism emerged. The new left was concerned over the relationship between China and the domineering US and the marketization-induced rich-poor gap. The neo-liberals stressed deregulation and development and were therefore concerned about the nation's economic development and the opening up of China's markets.

The proponents of these two schools debated these issues throughout the late 1990s, and during the past two years they have been at each other again. The interesting thing is that, both times, the US has been the catalyst.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the neo-liberals organized a signature drive around an article called "Tonight, we are all Americans," and sent the article together with collected signatures to US President George W. Bush. This move was met with disdain by the new left, which felt that the US brought the attacks upon itself by playing world policeman.

The debate over the US-Iraq war among intellectuals allows China to add some dissenting opinion. But the social significance of demonstrations is to give proponents of a certain way of thinking the opportunity for social mobilization, allowing people with the same ideas to join in showing the government the will of the people.

China, not a participant in the wave of anti-war activities, is in fact indulging in wishful thinking about the future. What should be Taiwan's next step? To prepare.

Hsu Tung-ming is a freelance writer based in Beijing.

Translated by Perry Svensson
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