A market in Turpan.

I spent two weeks in August 2007 backpacking around Xinjiang, the far western Chinese province that covers the same area as Western Europe. Xinjiang is home to the Uighur people, who are Muslim, speak a Turkic language, and have more in common with Central Asians than Han Chinese. They also happen to make really delicious food. Although they are persecuted much like the Tibetans, their plight—including that of several fruit sellers who are still detained at Gitmo as part of the “War on Terrorism”—receives only a fraction of the attention.

Although this story takes place in Urumqi, the provincial capital of Xinjaing, it does not concern the Uighurs or their plight. Much like St. Petersburg, which is said to be the most European of cities (even though it is, arguably, not in Europe), Urumqi is the most Chinese of cities even though it’s in the homeland of another people. Nondescript off-white apartment buildings and office towers dominate the city and with the exception of the incredibly imposing internal security building downtown, the city could be plopped down in Hunan or Hubei and no one would notice.

On one particularly hot day in Urumqi, I decided to head to a small, hole-in-the-wall dumpling house near the center of the city for lunch. I ordered noodle soup and baozi stuffed with pork and veggies. As my food came, an old, half-drunk Han Chinese man sitting at the table next to me struck up a conversation. As he peered out from over his soup, he began recounting his struggles during the Great Leap Forward.

“When I was young, we didn’t have any meat to eat. People would literally take the bone out of my bowl as I tried to eat it. It was a struggle to survive.” As he was talking, he noticed that two young Chinese nearby were snickering at him. They seemed more interested in the most recent fashion craze than learning from their elders—both had crazy, only-in-China dos, as well as jeans with all sorts of bling on them. “You see these kids,” he said, “they don’t give a damn about the past. They don’t understand what Mao did, nor do they really care. They are only focused on the making money.”

The author at Kanas Lake, near the Russian and Kazakh Border.

Throughout our conversation, I continued to eat the baozi, even though they tasted a little off. Sure enough, by the time night fell, I was violently ill. Instead of finishing my trip off with a few days in Kashgar, I went to the Urumqi hospital, where I was forced to sit in one of 250 recliners pointed towards a TV showing a ridiculously corny sitcom about how smart Mao was as an IV slowly replaced my fluids. It was not the way I had envisioned my three month odyssey ending, but so it goes.

As I sat in that hospital and reflected on my conversation in the dumpling house, I thought about how quickly China was changing—how it was a society hellbent on developing, carving a new future, and forgetting the recent past (the ancient, 5,000 years of “glorious history” were something that people seemed to hold on to). I instinctively wanted to compare this to the U.S., where we confront the dark episodes in our history like slavery, Jim Crowism, Japanese internment, etc. Yet I now realize that drawing this kind of distinction between the two countries was far too simplistic.

In reality, the U.S. is a country with an incredibly short attention span that doesn’t like to look its problems in the eye. We brush things under the rug. We dissemble. We don’t make eye contact with homeless people on the street.

For me, the problem with this is that it undermines our ability to be honest with ourselves. The old man in the dumpling house was trying to teach his young countrymen a lesson, and they ignored him. Maybe it was because he was old, or wearing peasant garb, or because he was half-drunk. Whatever the reason, they ignored him. And it’s hard to gain a new perspective, and wisdom, if we ignore the people around us who have something valuable to share.

J.R. Siegel and Allison Lipps are Boston-based adventurers who met in China. Read this piece and others at The Adventures of Mumpus and Grumpus.

—

Fenwick Smith

The execution of Akmal Shaikh has shocked the West, and Europe has vociferously decried this apparently ruthless treatment of a foreign national by the Chinese government.

Legally, Shaikh was treated no differently than a Chinese offender—possession of even 50 grams of heroin is a potentially capital offence in China, making a 4 kilogram payload an open-and-shut case in the eyes of the Chinese judiciary. In fact, the long stay of execution and access afforded relatives would suggest a certain level of special treatment, as most Chinese offenders convicted of a similar crime would be rushed from customs to cell to grave in a matter of weeks or even days. China’s zero-tolerance policy on drugs is a holdover from the Opium Wars, when the foreign-brokered narcotics trade destroyed China’s teetering economy and brought the Qing empire to its knees. The death penalty is liberally applied to drug offenses, as it has been for over a hundred years. It is overwhelmingly supported by the Chinese populace, who consider drug offenses almost tantamount to rape and murder in its potential to ruin lives. You won’t get clemency from the Chinese for drug smuggling, no matter what mental illness you suffer from. Our land, our laws.

Nevertheless, the world seems to feel Shaikh deserved clemency. Whilst I have no doubt his family felt his unstable mental state reason enough to commute his harsh sentence, I am much more skeptical that Shaikh’s mental condition had anything to do with Europe’s attitude to the execution. The reaction from European politicians is simple indignation disguised as moral outrage. We’re not surprised that the Chinese execute people for drug smuggling. We’re surprised at their audacity in executing an EU citizen.

Westerners are accustomed to special treatment while abroad—police turning a blind eye to our misdemeanors and at worst extraditing us with a slap on the wrist and a temporary travel ban. The very idea that a foreign country would actually execute one of us is anathema, and maybe twenty years ago it would have been unheard of, outside of war zones or the fog of revolution. Consequently, gay Europeans have traveled to Tehran with little fear of a government who regularly hang their Iranian counterparts, and British students have happily puffed away on cannabis in Malaysia whilst its citizens convicted of drug possession are publicly flogged. One law for locals, and another for tourists.

Not so in 2010, when China has finally realized it no longer needs to listen to what the West says. Like SkyNet becoming self-aware, China now appreciates just how powerless other countries are to influence its domestic affairs—look at the brushoff Obama’s human rights entreaties received from Chinese leadership, or Wen Jiabao’s neat sidestepping of China’s Copenhagen commitments. Priorities wise, being seen by its own people to treat criminals with equal severity is way above keeping the EU placated. China is scared of its own population, not foreigners.

It is nigh impossible to dredge any positivity from Akmal Shaikh’s sad story. But the lesson for all of us is that playing by China’s rules has surpassed economics. The Chinese have fired another palpable shot in their struggle for global supremacy, and all Europe can answer with is hot air.

J.R. Siegel

The educational system in China focuses on the century of humiliation—in particular the devastation wrought by the introduction of opium by the British. The Communist Party ties its legitimacy to its ability to lead China toward a new, post-humiliation stage of history in which the Mainland reasserts its rightful place as the leading power in Asia and beyond. Thus the execution of Akmal Shaikh in Xinjiang last week should be understood as a domestic signal that a strong China will not allow brook the introduction of drugs on the Mainland by foreigners—especially the British.

Following the execution the Financial Times reported that it did not expect Mr. Shaikh’s death to undermine the political and economic ties between Britain and China. Although the British protested mightily, they were unwilling to take any retaliatory actions that might have imperiled British access to Chinese labor and markets.

The logical underpinning the British response of loud talk and no action mirrors the policies that the West has adopted vis-à-vis China since 1989. The West will condemn China, but when a confrontation erupts that might imperil Western access to China and its 1.3 billion potential consumers, the West invariably backs down. We saw this in Copenhagen, when China refused to allow international monitors to enter the country and blocked an agreement that would have set international emissions targets for 2050. China has come to believe that if it stands firm, the West would rather meet its demands than risk losing access to the Mainland.

While I am not suggesting that the execution of Mr. Shaikh was the opportune time for the West to begin standing up to China, I do believe that the time for action is rapidly approaching. As the Chinese grow more confident on the international stage, it is imperative that the West stand up for some of the principles its represents: human rights, democracy, and free trade. Indeed, the time has come for China to revalue its currency and thereby help bring the international economy back into equilibrium. If the United States needs to impose a tariff on all Chinese goods until Beijing takes such an action, so be it.

“Bucks for Belchers” will simultaneously introduce and fund four interrelated policies:

• The government will provide significant tax deductions to coal-fired plants that install post-combustion capture retrofits. Retrofitting all of these plants will reduce CO₂ emissions from the coal power sector by 50 percent. The highly respected Electric Power Research Institute estimates that around 59 percent of the coal-fired plants in the US are suitable for these retrofits.
• The government will offer generous tax deductions for investments that increase the efficiency of the remaining 41 percent of coal-fired plants. Upgrades that enhance the steam quality in a plant will reduce its CO₂ emissions by 5 percent.
• The EPA New Source Requirements procedure should be streamlined for all plants that apply to the Program so that businesses are not penalized for trying to become more energy efficient.
• The Program will provide $20 billion in financing for demonstration projects that integrate American-made renewable energy technologies into the portfolios of existing electricity providers. The renewable energy brought on-line by these projects will be subsidized so that electricity from these sites does not cost consumers more than the electricity coming from entirely fossil fuel burning sites.

The cost of this program cannot deter action. According to a recent study, the government could create two million new jobs by investing $100 billion in programs that support renewable and efficient energy use. This $100 billion is less than one-fifth of the amount of revenue earned by listed companies on climate-change-related business last year. Moreover, government backing for the renewable energy sector in Germany has nurtured an industry that employs more than 200,000 people and has had revenues of more than €20 billion ($29 billion) from the erection and operation of plants last year. Renewable energy is going to propel the world economy for generations—and the United States can’t afford to remain woefully behind.

“Bucks for Belchers” has the potential to stimulate green energy investments in all 50 states and help the U.S. become the leading user and exporter of green energy technologies. In the three months after the “Cash for Clunkers” program was passed, 98 percent of the $3 billion dollars earmarked for rebates was approved for payment. Government and the private sector can do amazing things when they work together—and in the wake of the Copenhagen debacle, there has never been a better time to announce that the U.S. is ready, willing and able to lead once again.

—

J.R. Siegel

Every time an American President meets with a Chinese leader, there is an expectation that, this time, the Chinese will listen to us and change their ways. Yet the pattern remains the same: Americans offer advice, the Chinese listen, nod their heads, and ignore absolutely everything that the Americans have to say.

The Chinese define their national interest narrowly—the Communist Party does what it thinks it needs to do in order to remain in power. If it means rolling tanks out on the streets, the Party will do that. If it means keeping the renminbi (RMB) pegged to the dollar, the Party will do that.

The problem with the current pegging of the RMB to the dollar is that it’s bad for everyone. This “beggar thy neighbor” policy is taking low-level jobs away from other developing countries in the region and thereby making them more likely to tilt towards the U.S. than China. At some point, China will need to transition its economy towards more service-based industry and stimulate domestic demand—neither of which will happen if wages remain artificially low. In the short run, mercantilism seems like a good thing; in the long run, it will wreck the Chinese economy.

The irony is that, for once, the U.S. President is trying to help China. In order for the Party to remain in power, it will have to stimulate real economic growth—not investment in fixed assets—by letting the RMB rise and the market play a more prominent role. It is also true that, if Beijing wants to be perceived as a “peaceful and harmonious” global actor, it needs to start sharing some of the costs of global leadership. China cannot simultaneously distort the global economy, peacefully rise, and be perceived as a key international stakeholder.

Ignoring the advice of the U.S. was a strategy that served Beijing well for 40 years. If the Party continues to ignore this advice, it risks throwing away everything it has so carefully built.

George Ding

Obama’s main goal in China was the same as the trips abroad during his campaign: don’t do anything stupid. But this was not a simple fact-finding mission. Long before he arrived in the stately halls of Beijing, the American media was opining on his ability to thread the needle on issues like human rights, the two T’s, and climate change.

In a country where strong opinions are discouraged, the president did a laudable job of gently urging without haughtiness or condescension. The amazing thing was how much Obama said without actually saying it. In Shanghai he brought up issues like natural rights and freedom of information, framing them as a brief history lesson on America. It was suggestion disguised as exposition.

Obama’s trip also accomplished something else. By attending state dinners and visiting the quintessential places of Chinese culture, Obama gave Chinese leaders massive face. The only thing the Chinese government loves more than symbolism and pageantry is face, and Obama’s trip was a mixture of all three. Throughout his trip, Obama embodied a respectful America that earnestly wants to understand and work with China. This is political capital in the new era.

Only time will tell if Obama has ushered in a new chapter in U.S.-China relations or if the two countries will return to bickering as usual. The critics who say he has returned to America with no concrete accomplishments are right. But what he has returned with could be much more valuable: respect from the second most powerful nation in the world.

Fenwick Smith

If a President of the United States speaks in a closed, government-vetted forum, does he make a sound?

Obama in Shanghai displayed once again his abilities as a consummate public speaker. He certainly seemed to believe he was addressing China as a nation, but as any observer would note, the faces behind him, albeit youthful, had the fixed, stiff-necked half-smiles that denote Chinese Communist Party officials. There were few flickers of actual engagement with the content of the President’s address. The democracy agenda was pushed gently, but with a didactic tone far removed from the bullheaded rhetoric of the previous administration. His refreshing humility, more akin in tone if not in content to, dare I say, a Chinese politician than an American one, no doubt warmed his audience to him.

But did he make an impact?

The transcript of Obama’s Q&A has been sought out by Chinese netizens but those are not the people he needs to reach.  The Chinese government within minutes diluted and edited Obama’s speech using their own templates and enabled strict Internet and television controls to limit viewership. Enough encouragements of Sino-U.S. friendship were made to allow his remarks to penetrate into the public arena, but in a format “suitable” for the old hundred names. Essentially, by filling the studio with previously-vetted Shanghai students who were mostly Party members, the Chinese government has kept Obama’s “public” appearance isolated. The Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology was sealed off from the rest of the city, ostensibly “closed for maintenance,” keeping the general public in the dark about Obama’s presence until the last possible moment. Content was not screened live anywhere in China; the text of his speech containing remarks concerning an uncensored Internet were removed from Xinhua websites as quickly as they were posted. I doubt government officials were forcing these deletions—they were more likely an example of the Chinese media’s innate capability for self-censorship. A number of questions, particularly the “randomly selected Internet questions” were blatantly skewed in favor of the Chinese administration.

The President engaged well on a personal level with his questioners, and replied smoothly and candidly, but he was speaking to the Party, not the people, and thus the entire appearance felt—and indeed was—staged. Like a high-level Chinese tourist, or any of his predecessors, Obama was ferried from one photo-op to another, remaining a long way from the political and social realities of the nation he was visiting. And, in the corridors of power where the Internet is uncensored and knowledge unrestricted, the Chinese leadership will nod, smile and dismiss the visit as a publicity stunt well executed. Obama will go home with the feeling that the U.S. will have to continue to negotiate with China on China’s terms. Simply put, China is powerful enough not to listen, and the U.S. is no longer powerful enough to make China listen.

Yulin Zhuang

The key thing to take away from this procession is the lack of any sort of behavior that could be construed as inflammatory or provocative, even by hypernationalist Chinese netizens, whose paranoid frenzies are legendary for their lack of scruples. From declining to meet the Dalai Lama in October to promising that the United States does not seek to contain China’s rise, President Obama has shown a more nuanced understanding of diplomacy as practiced by the Chinese—in public, bland, uninformative, and undistinguished; in private—who knows.

But we can be certain Obama understands that saying or doing anything likely to set the Chinese off would merely be counterproductive to a meaningful dialog. China would be forced to spend its time elaborately posturing to “save face” and Obama would lose the chance to engage China’s cooperation on a wider range of issues. In the view of your average Chinese citizen, China will no longer be dictated to by arrogant foreigners. The orgiastic display of jingoistic pride that was the National Day celebration on October 1st merely served to reinforce this view among Chinese. Sino-U.S. relations may be headed the way of U.S.-French relations—two proud countries eager to put each other down.

The Premier in Bermuda, a British protectorate, agreed to accept the Uighurs without consulting the Foreign Ministry in the U.K. This unilateral move led to large protests across the island calling for his resignation that coincided with the arrival of the Uighurs. 13 other Uighurs have been moved to Palau. None of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay who have been cleared of the charges against them has been released into the United States.

I doubt that any of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay will ever be released into the U.S. The reason for this is fear. After eight years of scaremongering by the Bush Administration, Americans have become convinced that releasing any of these innocent men into America—or placing any of the actual threats into a maximum security facility—would undermine our national security. The theory is that even if some of these individuals did not pose a threat to the U.S. when we arrested them, they do now because of their extended stays at Gitmo. Since they are too dangerous for us to take in, we are asking/prodding/bullying our allies into accepting people who are too dangerous to be part of our society.

Pushing our allies to accept all of the individuals at Guantanamo Bay without leading by example and resettling some of them in the US is a strategy that is bound to fail and, ironically, undermine our national security. The inability of the Bush Administration to conduct a successful unilateral foreign policy demonstrated that the U.S. needs allies in order to conduct a foreign policy that promotes human rights and our national interest. By refusing to take in any of the detainees in Gitmo, we look hypocritical in the eyes of our allies, weaken our moral legitimacy, and decrease our “soft power.” Refusing to send Uighurs to China where they might be tortured is noble, but we’re unwilling to take the next step and actually stand up for what we believe in by allowing those who were wrongly held by our government a shot at a better life here in America. If we don’t want them to be tortured, why don’t we resettle them somewhere that actually wants them and where we can ensure that they won’t be tortured, like Northern Virginia?

The fact that no one in Congress is willing to step forward and offer to relocate some of the detainees who do not pose a threat to our national security in their districts and states shows a lack of moral courage. Such a move might put their chances of reelection in danger, but at some point Congress needs to show some leadership and help take ownership of the solution to a problem that we created. We cannot be considered a good ally if we ask our friends to clean up the mess we made at Gitmo by accepting all of the detainees that we held in the face of strident opposition from those same allies.

The Obama Administration needs to work with Congress to achieve the President’s pledge to shut down Guantanamo within a year. A solution that shirks any responsibility for the detainees beyond flying them to their new homes overseas is cowardly and counterproductive. The President has said that he is willing to tell the American people hard truths. It is time that he explained why the U.S. must make a good faith effort to relocate some of the people formerly held in Gitmo to the United States. If Obama wants to bring change, he needs to work on replacing an air of fear with one of understanding, commitment and, yes, a little bit of sacrifice at home.

The political reality, which is plain for anyone to see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; it has a constitution but no constitutional government.

-Excerpt from Charter 08

December 8, 2008 was the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was also the date on which Charter 08, a 3,200 word manifesto calling for the creation of a government based on human rights and democracy in China, was signed by 303 individuals. Charter 08 is modeled on Charter 77, a document similar in breadth and scope that was signed by 243 Czech and Slovak intellectuals including Václav Havel and many others who would go on to play a prominent role in the country’s post-Communist era.

Because Charter 08 has received a tremendous amount of publicity on the web, this brief post is going to focus on the extent to which the Charter has been influenced by American history. The “Our Fundamental Principles” section the Charter recalls two of the defining texts in American history: the First Amendment and the Gettysburg Address. The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Charter 08 similarly calls for “Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where we live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, among others, are the forms that freedom takes.” A later section of the Charter asserts, “We must guarantee freedom of religion and belief, and institute a separation of religion and state.”

The Gettysburg Address encompasses the essence of American ideals in its brief but enduring 272 words. In his rousing coda, Lincoln declared, “that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

The section of Charter 08 on democracy closes, “In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’” (emphasis added). It is quite plausible that the drafters of Charter 08 hope that their document will help lay the foundation for a new birth of freedom in China.

Charter 08 also recalls a less famous, but no less important, work from American history: the 10th Amendment to the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Another section of Charter 08 reads, “Division of power between provincial governments and the central government should adhere to the principle that central powers are only those specifically granted by the constitution and all other powers belong to the local governments.” Given the historically centralized nature of the Chinese bureaucracy, implementing this reform would require a complete restructuring of the lines within the Chinese state.

Conclusion
Historians may harken back to the signing of Charter 08 as a watershed moment in Chinese history. It also may slowly fade until it becomes a blip in the 5,000 year history of Chinese civilization. Yet regardless of what the future may hold for Charter 08, the extent to which American history inspires it tells us something about our own country.

The ability of America to inspire those around the world lies not with its ability to produce pop music and Big Macs, but with the underlying tenants of our democracy, with the ideals upon which the nation was founded. The genius of the Constitution and Lincoln endure because they resonate with the wants, needs and desires of all people. It is from our past—and how it represents basic human desires—that America derives its enduring strength.

The Political and Economic Background
In the midst of an economic boom in December 2007, Chinese President Hu Jintao unveiled his “Three Supremes” policy during a speech to the Party’s central Political-Legal Committee. In it he asserted that “in their work, the grand judges and procurators shall always regard as supreme the party’s cause, the people’s interest and the constitution and laws” in descending order of importance. This policy comes in the wake of several years in which the Party focused on bolstering the professional competence of all those involved with the legal system. As preeminent Chinese legal scholar Jerome Cohen noted, this change in policy has “demoralized many professionally oriented members of this rising legal class [and they have been] subject to intensive political indoctrination in the theory of three supremes.”

This sense of demoralization may derive in part from the fact that the two most important “Supremes”—the party’s cause and the people’s interest—can be understood in economic terms. The Party and many outside experts believe that China needs to maintain an 8% economic growth rate in order to provide jobs for all of the new entrants into the labor force. Without an 8% growth rate, the Party fears that it will be faced with massive levels of unrest that may challenge its monopoly over political power.

Mr. Zhou Tianyong, a scholar at the Central Party School where the next generation of top cadres is trained, has warned that the economic growth rate may drop to 7.5% in 2009. Signs of this slowdown are already apparent: the officially announced growth rate for the fourth quarter of 2008 was 6.8% and approximately 20 million of the country’s 130 million migrant workers have been unable to find work and have therefore returned to the countryside. Mr. Zhou warned that in such an economic environment “[t]he redistribution of wealth through theft and robbery could dramatically increase and menaces to social stability will grow.” He continued, “this is extremely likely to create a reactive situation of mass-scale social turmoil.” Given that the country experienced 87,000 “mass incidents” (protests) in 2005, when the economic growth rate was 10%, the potential for widespread destabilizing “mass incidents” in lean economic times is high.

Guangdong Province
The case of Guangdong Province provides insight into the practical implications that of the “Three Supremes” policy has had on the government. During his speech at the 2009 Davos World Economic Forum, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao noted that, “The current crisis has inflicted a rather big impact on China’s economy. We are facing severe challenges, including notable shrinking external demand, overcapacity in some sectors, difficult business conditions for enterprises, rising unemployment in urban areas and greater downward pressure on economic growth.” Although Guangdong posted a record high export total of $39.1 billion in September 2008 that accounted for 28.7% of the country’s total exports, more than 15,500 businesses in Guangdong were shuttered during the first 10 months of 2008. Nearly half of these closings occurred in October. In response to these bleak numbers, Guangdong Communist Party Chief Wang Yang repeatedly applauded the closing of such “backward enterprises” in late 2008 because they would allow Guangdong to “empty the bird cage for new birds to settle down.” Yet this official optimism quickly soured and a new, more aggressive policy aimed at maintaining economic productivity was announced shortly thereafter.

On January 6, 2009, the Guangdong Province High People’s Procuratorate, which is mandated to issue arrest warrants, issued an Opinion that instructed its officials on how to proceed with their work. The key section of the Opinion, the “Six Nos“, reads as follows: “not to arbitrarily freeze bank accounts of an enterprise; not to arbitrarily seal accounting books of an enterprise; not to cut communication channels of an enterprise; not to arbitrarily release any report that would hurt an enterprise’s reputation; not to arbitrarily detain any key technicians of an enterprise; and not to affect an enterprise’s negotiations on a major project or its production by law enforcement.” This Opinion can be read as a concrete manifestation of the “Three Supremes” policy insofar as it forces the procurator to refrain from upholding its duty to prosecute those who break the law when doing so may have a negative impact on the economy.

Conclusion
In his speech at Davos Premier Wen asked rhetorically, “Will China’s economy continue to grow fast and steady?” His response: “Yes, it will.” Whether or not the Premier’s optimistic economic forecast will be judged prescient remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that through the announcement of the “Three Supremes” policy and delineation of the Opinion in Guangdong, the Chinese leadership has bet that subverting the rule of law—and not strengthening it—is the most effective way to overcome the international financial crisis.

Yet the “Three Supremes” policy must also be understood within the context of domestic Chinese politics. Throughout the past decade, Chinese economic growth has hovered around 10%. Moreover, the economy has continued to grow at a dizzying speed since Deng Xiaoping began the “reform and opening” process 30 years ago. Indeed, almost all Chinese entrepreneurs have not experienced an economic downturn, or even a slow growth rate—they only know explosive growth. I believe that one of the implications of this growth is that the expectation of breakneck economic growth has been built into the national subconscious of all of the Chinese people, businessmen and proletariat alike. This national subconscious is much different than that in the West, where no country has experienced sustained 10% growth in generations and political frustrations are relieved through elections.

In short, these heightened expectations pressure the government into an almost monomaniacal quest to maintain growth—law and environment be damned. Yet by essentially prohibiting the prosecution and detention of suspected white collar criminals in Guangdong, the provincial government may be weakening the very legal institutions and practitioners that are most well equipped to spur economic growth by requiring transparency and ensuring an equal playing field for management and workers alike.

The past does not guarantee the future. Although the United States will still be the preeminent power in the world in 2012 regardless of who is elected as the next President, there is significant danger that the 2008 election could mark the beginning of the end of the American Century.

The reason is that this election is about the nature of America, the soul of the nation. It is true that America is a self-interested country that does terrible things in the international arena. In this respect, it is no different than any other great power. What is different about America is the mythos that surrounds it, a mythos that is rooted in the American Dream and the centrality of the individual. The idea that “all men are created equal” lies at the very core of what it means to be Americans. Indeed, what makes America different is that, eventually, we live up to this creed—slavery was abolished, women gained the right to vote and the New Deal and civil rights movement made equality the cornerstone of the American experience. Yet, like alliance politics, these past triumphs do not ipso facto guarantee future successes.

Nor is America’s hold on international imagination guaranteed to last. The vision of America as a purveyor of freedom is being muddied. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay are slowly replacing the Statue of Liberty as the symbols of America. We cannot allow this transition to be completed, for it would extinguish the thing that keeps human rights activists and political dissidents working and dying for their causes: hope. America is the idea that hope will win out in the end, that equality will trump inequity, that the poor and rich will all be held equally accountable in when their ballots are counted and when they appear in court. This election is about whether or not this creed will be sustained in the years to come. By looking at the two candidates, we can see that the two conflicting halves of the American self have been pitted against one another.

On the one side, we have the brash, patriotic war hero. By all accounts, he is surrounded by sycophants and driven by notions of courage, patriotism and honor. He will not brook defeat, nor will his desire for victory be shackled by international institutions—the national interest will be his guiding principle. He believes that the withdrawal from Vietnam humiliated the nation and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and he will not let this happen again. Ostensibly, this “can do” attitude is an admirable trait for a commander-in-chief. The problem, however, lies in the details—victory in this war is impossible. History is replete with occupying forces that have brought about their own demise and failed to impose their will on the occupied. What we do not have an example of is an occupying force that was able to successfully end and win an internal civil war.

To think that we can create a constitutionally liberal democracy in Iraq out of the current constituent parts is quixotic. Not only do we not know how to “create” rule of law, a state that enforces contracts and works for the public good, we know very little about Arab culture and the Arabic language. This is not to imply that the Iraqis will not be able to create a tenable constitutional structure for themselves, but to simply note that we, as outsiders, will not be able to force such an agreement to come to pass.

The stubborn patriotic desire to win in Iraq is also at play in the candidate’s refusal to negotiate with Iran. Iran is an enemy, so we can’t give them the legitimacy that will be afforded to them if we negotiate. Well, yes, Iran is an adversary, but the ostrich head-in-the-sand approach is not going to work. In fact, the Iranians were very helpful in Afghanistan and Iraq until the Bush Administration labeled them as part of the “Axis of Evil.” Not negotiating will only serve to strengthen Iran’s current course of action, which consists of meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq and supporting Hezbollah and Hamas.

And as for his Vice Presidential selection, suffice it to say that she represents the ugly id of the American psyche.

On the other hand, we have a candidate who embodies the American ideals of compromise, equality, cooperation and the prudent use of overwhelming force as a last resort. His initial objection to voice concern over the invasion of Iraq should, with the help of hindsight, elicit applause. But approbation for this prescience should serve as the beginning, not the end, of any discussion of his understanding of international affairs. He understands that America is strongest when it binds itself to the international institutions it created during the Truman Administration. To be sure, he has asserted that his administration will work outside of this framework if need be, but only as last resort, not as a standard operating procedure. Moreover, a look at his foreign policy team reveals that he surrounds himself with professionals who will give him honest advice. As no one is omniscient, this ability to seek out and accept advice from top-tier assistants is a prerequisite for being an effective President.

Engaging with allies and forging a tenable solution for exiting Iraq will be top priorities. By extricating ourselves from an un-winnable war and re-energizing the fledgling Atlantic Alliance, he will demonstrate that America is no longer Prometheus unbound. Rather, we will return to our traditional role as the leader of the free world. By working with others, he will restore the moral credibility that has been decimated by the Bush years. Engagement with Iran, while not necessarily accomplishing anything, will show that the U.S. will not eschew all states that do not conform to American norms. More important than Iraq or Iran, however, are the issues looming over the horizon. What will America do about environmental degradation, resource depletion, water scarcity, global warming, and the rise of China?

To adequately address these issues, the next Administration is going to have to engage with China. The Bush Administration should be applauded for helping to bring China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organization. This has tethered the Chinese economy—and with it the fate of the Communist Party—to continued economic growth and the U.S.-led western bloc. But unlike some had expected, China has not become a constitutional democracy overnight. Rather, Hu Jintao has used Chinese economic growth—much of which relies upon the international system the U.S. created, leads, and during the past few weeks has almost managed to destroy—to tighten the reins on the press and political dissension. Thus China is an attractive model for other authoritarian governments that want to enjoy the benefits of the U.S.-led economic order without relinquishing power. These governments want to let their populations become rich, but they don’t want them to become free.

China offers bread for the poor and guns, riches, and power to those already in power. Before discounting the appeal of the Chinese model, it is important to realize that humans want dignity. Dignity entails freedom, but the foundation of dignity is the ability to provide oneself and family with food, shelter and education. China appeals precisely because its model provides basic dignity for the poor and power for the rich.

Instead of shirking from a real debate by unequivocally asserting that humans want freedom, we must reckon with the fact that, more than freedom, people want dignity. Before pointing a self-righteous finger at those who would gladly trade freedom for bread and a job, those of us in the West need to realize that subsistence farming is the most brutal and terrible of all jobs. And that a hungry person will take any job that will end the hunger. A vote cannot buy a person bread—but a job can.

America offers an alternative to China, and this is what excites the masses, the human rights activists and those who care for their fellow man. This is what scares those in power.

This election matters because we cannot afford to lose hope. The foundation of hope is the steadfast belief in the equality of man. This election is about the nature of America—the very fabric of the country. Will we continue to soldier on Iraq and waste American lives and treasure for four more years until we realize that as outsiders we cannot win a civil war? Will we refuse to work with the Europeans, or engage with Iran and thereby lower our international standing to its nadir? Or will we realize that it is time to turn the page of this disastrous chapter of our nation’s foreign policy that the Bush Administration has wrought. Will we finally realize we don’t know how to export democracy and that incremental and cautious change is the best we can hope for?

This brings me back to the issue of decadence. If the electorate does not take a chance on a candidate who is intellectually, descriptively, and philosophically the embodiment of the most salient features of the American experience and what it should mean to be American, then we as a people deserve our fate. But whatever numbers are posted on November 4th, I am proud to say that I have already voted for Senator Barack Obama and currently enjoy the privilege of volunteering for his campaign in Cleveland, Ohio.

What are the implications of China’s space program and the latest spacewalk?  Is it a waste of money or the start of a new space race?  Here are our thoughts.

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Oscar Moralde

Why is China pursuing space development? The answer is simple: space exploration is the sole domain of the superpowers. As in the Olympics, only the United States and the Soviet Union have made it to the top of the leader board in recent memory, and not coincidentally they are the only nations to have successfully launched human beings into space, and only the U.S. has landed a man on the moon. But these days Russia’s space program is limping along, catering mainly to space tourists; while the beleaguered U.S. has relegated its space program to an afterthought when it is not beset by tragedy. This is another opportunity for China to shine on the world stage, another venue that offers prestige without threat, another way for China to show it has the infrastructure and drive to achieve what few other nations on the planet can do.

Is it worth it? Undoubtedly. It is almost disingenuous to label funding of space exploration as wasted money, especially when the same nations barely bat an eye when they maintain million-man armies and enough nuclear weapons to lay waste to the globe. The same people who fail to see the benefit of space exploration would have belittled the discovery of the structure of the atom in the early 20th century. Space research has paid handsome dividends in terms of propulsion technology, material sciences, and advanced communications.

The Chinese push into space is a good thing, if only to give the space programs of the world—the U.S. especially—a kick in the pants. Like Sputnik’s clarion call back in the fifties, maybe it’ll take a Chinese flag planted on the rock that has only known American footsteps to remind people: looking into space is worth the trouble.

Will Coggin

It’s easy to blow off the spacewalk as, “Yeah, the U.S. did that several decades ago,” but to do so would miss the bigger picture.  China is playing the tortoise to the West’s hare, as it is slowly but surely catching up to the West in technological prowess.

The spacewalk highlights China’s capability of self-sufficiency apart from the West in new initiatives.  This theme, which can be seen in Russia’s brazen invasion of Georgia, and its brushing aside of Western criticism, this could be the modus operandi of the two countries for the future.

J.R. Siegel

The Communist Party is willing to do anything that makes the Party and motherland appear strong and this most recent mission to space is no exception.  The thinking in Beijing is rather simple: If the Party demonstrates that it is making China a strong country and returning it to its central place in world affairs, then the people will accept its hold on political power.  If the Party thinks that landing a man on the moon will further legitimatize its hold on power, then it will spare no expense to do so.  If the Party thought that proving the man on the moon is Chinese would place them more squarely in the hearts of the people, it’d take steps to do that as well

Amanda Weiss

There are certain imagined criterion for entrance into the fraternity of first world powers: becoming a nuclear power, developing a massive economy, having a destructive military force, and catapulting men in little capsules out of the stratosphere. In many ways (sewage, average standard of living, customer service, hair styles), China is still a third world country. Thus the development of the space program is designed both to demonstrate that China can match the U.S. step for step on every technological feat and to create a sense of accomplishment, hope and national pride that is extremely, extremely effective propaganda.

Did you notice that Li Ning’s run around the rim of the Bird Nest during the Olympic opening ceremony’s final act looked suspiciously similar to walking on the moon? Not a coincidence.

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Yulin Zhuang

Gold has intense cosmological significance to the Chinese. A friend of mine related the story of a court case involving a large building in Melbourne that many Chinese bought apartments in due to the fact that the top of the building was gold in the model. I’m sure many of us may have noticed that a lot of Chinese restaurants have names like “Golden King” or “Gold Lotus.” The drive for gold medals is certainly given extra fuel by this auspicious association.

But that’s only part of the reason. China’s major drive is to prove to the world that it deserves attention and respect, in any way it can. The Chinese are burning with a desire to prove their country’s eminence, powered by their seemingly unstoppable economic growth. In a country where many people are height-conscious, nouveau riche, and worried about their international image, the Olympic gold medal count provides a visible symbol of China’s rise. They are determined to prove that China is just as good as the United States, if not better. There’s an enormous chip on China’s shoulder where the United States is concerned—conspiracy theories about how the U.S. is trying to suppress China abound. What better way to get over insecurity about China’s place in the world order than to beat the U.S. soundly in the gold medal tally?

J.R. Siegel

The Chinese focus on winning the gold medal count is rooted in the institutional fabric of the nation. China is a country of superlatives—the highest train, the longest bridge over water, the most people, the oldest culture, and so on. For the state, winning the most golds validated the rule of the Communist Party by assuring the population that the Party was working to make China strong again. This is what the Olympics were about—proving that China could compete with, and defeat, the best other countries had to offer. It was about reinforcing beliefs of Chinese exceptionalism.

Striving to be the best is manifest in many other aspects of Chinese culture, perhaps none more so than business and education. Business in China is about haggling harder, making more money and winning. The gaokao is about outscoring your classmates and jockeying for position in competitive colleges. In China, the educational and economic pies are inelastic; if someone else wins a contract or spot at a university, it precludes you from doing the same. The belief that there is a limited amount of opportunity is perhaps the greatest difference between American and Chinese cultures.

American culture and democracy are rooted in an understanding that compromise is a central part of life. Perhaps this is why Americans take a certain pride in being sportsmen, win or lose, and are humbled by the very chance to compete. The lack of compromise within Chinese institutions and the constant focus on superlative achievements, on the other hand, may be why the Chinese were so focused on winning the gold medal tally.

George Ding

I once saw a Chinese woman with a fake D&G bag. I asked her, “Do you like Dolce and Gabbana?”

“What,” came the reply.

“Dolce and Gabbana.”

“I don’t know it.”

I pointed at her bag. “Dee and Gee.”

“Oh! Yeah, I like it.”

I imagine you could repeat this experiment with any number of hard-to-pronounce brand names but the point is, there is a tendency in China to emphasize things without understanding the historical and cultural context behind them, and the Olympics has proven to be another example of this semiotic myopia.

The woman knew that the letters “D” and “G,” when splayed on a purse, meant something important, just as the Chinese government knew that five colored rings and an inextinguishable fire meant something. But what?

The fact that China decided to focus on winning gold medals instead of addressing human rights issues, solving its long-standing internal disputes, or even warning its own citizens about tainted milk, shows that China has completely missed the point.

The plan to dominate the gold medal tally, Project 119, began seven years ago and shows China’s commitment not to athleticism but to winning. So much for the spirit of competition. In Chinese this ability to bend the rules without breaching them is called xiao cong ming—literally, small intelligence.

The emphasis on medal-grubbing cheapens China and the Olympics alike. It belies an insecurity or self-consciousness, like a classroom bully trying to prove something. Ironically, by attempting to showcase its power and gain international respect through the collection of gold trinkets, the government might have done just the opposite.

Oscar Moralde

There is undoubtedly a great amount of prestige associated with being on the top of the medal count; the last time any nation besides the United States or the Soviet Union was at the head of the leader board was Germany in 1936. “Winning the Olympics” via medal count is something that is automatically associated worldwide with being a superpower. The American media this past Olympics was very fond of calling nations “sports powers,” and most often this referred to the PRC.

The Olympics is a perfect platform for China—a non-threatening venue to show off its “peaceful rise” to a global audience. The same characteristics that garner success in the Olympics—a highly motivated and diverse populace, an intense and competitive training network, and the manpower and budget to sustain such a system—generally translate to national success. Each victory in the Games is emblematic of similar such victories in other fields.

An interesting dichotomy between the U.S. and China when discussing medals is the distinction between the gold count and the total medal count. The American media prefers to count total medals, while most of the world, including China, prefers golds when ranking nations. This could be ascribed to the Americans clinging to the count they won in 2008, but the U.S. has used the total count since the beginning of the modern Olympics.

Does this say anything about the two nations’ sports philosophies? One line of thinking is that the preference for total medals reflects the American preference for a sports system where excellence results from individual drive—the wide spread of medals reflects the breadth and depth of sports acumen amongst the entire American people.

The preference for the gold count fits with the viewpoints of smaller, more specialized countries, and nations with centralized, top-down sports infrastructures. For these nations, it doesn’t matter if no one else in the country is any good at a certain sport, as long as the best person in the world at that sport is one of their countrymen. In this view, silvers and bronzes are immaterial.

Which viewpoint is better? Are they even accurate? It’s conjecture, really; but it sounds good, doesn’t it?