I’ve heard it several times. You probably have, too. Because of the economy, or simply to forge a new opportunity, so-and-so is heading off to China to share or capitalize on their expertise. As I recently overheard a middle-aged man in a coffee shop say, during a time-out from his Mandarin lesson: “I’m going to China to make a difference.”
Westerners have been going to China to make a difference for centuries, though they often discover the difference made is in them.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Jonathan Spence’s To Change China: Western Advisors in China. A series of vignettes that read like a sequence of tragicomedies, the Yale historian’s book chronicles one ambitious and morally superior Westerner after another (always a man) who gallops off to the Middle Kingdom convinced he will be the one to succeed — in educating the Chinese, in converting the Chinese, in advising the Chinese — where so many others before him failed. In the end, the usually intellectually gifted and well-meaning individual finds himself being used for his know-how before being icily discarded, and sometimes despised. Many of Spence’s cautionary tales come from the 19th and 20th centuries. Things have improved substantially since then, but there are modern-day accounts that eerily echo the professor’s work.
Tim Clissold’s Mr China is one such narrative. In the 1990s, the Briton Clissold raised US$400 million to buy shares in about 20 Chinese companies while providing the technical knowledge to make production more efficient and the bottom-line more profitable. On the surface, it seemed a grand idea: a win-win situation. However, in China, win-win can prove a difficult business.
Instead of a spirit of cooperation, what Clissold discovered was widespread graft and a systematic lack of business ethics. A factory land-deed was transferred without his knowledge; a local manager siphoned off funds to establish an identical plant across town; another manager drained the joint bank account and headed for the hills. The bank manager who allowed for the total-sum withdrawal headed for the hills with him. The Englishman discovered that attempting to remove corrupt factory managers resulted in strikes and riots. Investigations on behalf of China’s anti-corruption bureau were possible, but necessitated bribes.
What the aspiring Mr China realized, well down the road to financial ruin and failing health, was that the China of his imagination and the China of reality were poles apart. It’s something every China expat learns, either with a sense of wonder or horror; their preconceptions had been shockingly wrong.
China has always represented different things to different people. It is a vast and vague entity onto which one is free to project one’s own fears and desires. To the pious, it has represented a sea of prospective converts since the proselytizing Portuguese turned up in Macau in the 16th century.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Europe’s obsession with chinoiserie aided in creating a romanticized version of the Oriental nation. In the 20th century, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was China’s savior and the West’s ally, until the West realized it was brutal, dysfunctional and corrupt. With its rapid involvement in the Korean War, the Chinese Communist Party became the West’s enemy, but since its capitalistic shift, Western perceptions and projections have flourished once more.
At the supposed cusp of what some are predicting as the post-America era, China impressions are changing yet again. For many, the Middle Kingdom is morphing from the world’s gritty factory floor into a dazzling economic beacon: an efficient, command-economy juggernaut steadily eroding Western influence by defeating it at its own game. The US is on the way down; China on the way up. However, to believe the world will belong to one or the other is to subscribe to simplistic dualism. To believe China is great because its economy is great is merely simplistic.
China does not meet the definition of a developed nation, at least not according to the UN, which lists it in 91st spot on its Human Development Index. Concerning GDP per capita, or so says the IMF, China is in 94th place. About 60 percent of Chinese exports come from foreign companies; for high-tech exports, that’s 85 percent. China has astonishing pollution problems, a culture of corruption and an antiquated education system. It also has a millennia-long tradition of authoritarianism.
Indeed, the humanist wonders whether those so ready to applaud China’s economy are also keen to clap for its oppressed society. Reporters Without Borders ranks China 168th out of 175 countries in terms of freedom of the press. The only nations to rank lower are Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Laos, North Korea and Turkmenistan. According to Reuters, China jails more journalists than any other country. The only thing you can know to be true in a Chinese newspaper is the date.
The Reporters Without Borders Web site is banned in China. So are the Web sites for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp and Radio Canada International. Also prohibited are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. For reasons concerning national security, China recently outlawed six new songs by Lady Gaga and one by the Backstreet Boys. Authoritarianism makes for strength, sinophiles might say. Ignorance is strength, says George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. And it is no show of strength when an alleged superpower feels threatened by dance tracks.
In these vexing economic times, China might seem — to those who continue to engage in projection — the land of answers. However, for those who’ve stopped projecting and are carefully observing, it is the land of questions — at least for those permitted to ask them.
Troy Parfitt is the author of Why China Will Never Rule the World.
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
Recent media reports have again warned that traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies are disappearing and might vanish altogether within the next 15 years. Yet viewed through the broader lens of social and economic change, the rise and fall — or transformation — of industries is rarely the result of a single factor, nor is it inherently negative. Taiwan itself offers a clear parallel. Once renowned globally for manufacturing, it is now best known for its high-tech industries. Along the way, some businesses successfully transformed, while others disappeared. These shifts, painful as they might be for those directly affected, have not necessarily harmed society
RSS