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E-mailCan we work with China?
WASHINGTON
After his visit to Tokyo, President Barack Obama puts even more distance between himself and Chicago-on-the-Potomac -- CHICOMAC (by which name even some outside the president's entourage are learning to call our capital) -- by traveling on to China.
Some thoughts on China, courtesy of two trusted friends, one French and one German, who have lived and operated successful businesses in China for the past 20 years.
The first major question that the Politburo, China's czars or the nonelected governing group that tries to control everything from the Internet through selecting a Chinese Catholic cardinal to creating a new city with over a million residents, is what gifts do the Americans bring?
Like all humans, the Chinese enjoy success. In December, there will be an international conference in Denmark to discuss global warming. So, a gift that Beijing would really value is to be able to go to that conference saying that it and the United States have agreed on laws requiring cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
It's an unlikely gift because it involves agreement in our Senate, which moves slowly on a climate and energy bill that would spell out a national emissions-reduction plan. If such a plan could be produced and announced at a joint meeting between Presidents Obama and Hu, the third major culprit, India, might be shamed into following suit. Reducing the largest source of emissions contributing to the atmospheric cocktail could elevate Chinese diplomacy to new heights at the Copenhagen talks.
China -- with its huge population, manufacturing potential, enormous agricultural growing area and near stranglehold on many exotic African minerals -- could benefit enormously from the export of good old American ingenuity.
Our well-informed Frenchman tells of the increasing need for an improved road network and the modernization of the railway system and of port and harbor facilities. As of now, problems are solved by throwing in more and more labor; U.S. production methods would be more efficient.
The U.S. delegation to Beijing already has prepared agreements on a number of environmental issues such as the use of wind energy, control over flooding in a number of areas ravaged by yearly floods and imposition of building codes.
Our German guest intervened to remind us that the Anglo-American word "gift" has a very different meaning in German. There, and for many German-speaking Chinese, "gift" translates to "poison."
So, anything that the West provides China could change its ages-old system that the Politburo strives to preserve and is, indeed, "poison"!
He reminded us of the difference in Chinese culture from the West. The Chinese "Han," a descriptive like "Spanish," believe and act as if superior to all mankind -- and have for centuries disliked one another.
Chinese living in Beijing consider themselves better than those living elsewhere, such as Shanghai or Guangzhou. Large town residents dislike interlopers from new towns. Urban workers look down on agricultural workers. And no social network exists for the sick, elderly or unemployed.
Even more disconcerting -- when a new law suggesting more understanding between groups or any other major change to the culture is published, the immediate whispered question becomes, "Who has to be bribed now?"
Western or U.N. aid grants to farmers result in bitterness from urban workers. Medical aid is suspect to Chinese cultural medics and support for ethnic minorities such as Tibetans or Uyghurs is suspected as aid for the crime of "splitism."
That, in turn, leads to restoring warlords and destroying the fabric of the Politburo, which is something that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will resist with its dramatically large fighting force.
Here's hoping our president does not underestimate his hosts. Their systems and culture have been extant for hundreds of years. One of their early military philosophers, Sun Tzu, always urged, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer!"
In China our president has an awesome task -- providing assurances to a government that will never become democratic by our standards, without giving up our own philosophy of government.
Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.
