China seems to be the current bogeyman in the world, at least in the minds of America and other western nations. Great condemnation is expressed about its human rights record; about its seeming reach for hegemony in the Far East; about its monetary policies; about its growing industrial muscle; and about its Communist government. American military planners are no doubt even now formulating strategies and deployments to counter the Chinese military "threat".
But is China really that bad? To answer that question we need to look at China's past, particularly its history in the 20th century. For most of its history, China as we know it was virtually ungovernable by one central government. The advent of western powers who came to exploit the Chinese made this even more difficult. With their extraterritorial concessions and their control of much of China's foreign trade, countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany and, yes, even the United States, pretty well controlled Chinese foreign policy and domestic financial affairs right up until 1949. Any time the Chinese tried to combat this exploitation (think the Boxers of the early 1900s), they were brutally put down by the armed forces of these western countries.
Internally, because of the size and population of the country,China was ruled by one ruler after another based upon their ability to gain the support from various war lords who had the real power in the rural areas which accounted for most of the Chinese population. Over 90 per cent of the Chinese population were peasants who owed allegiance to various levels of overlords. They were expected to pay taxes to the village leader, the reagional taxman, the local war lord and the central government. The peasants were poor, uneducated (in the 1930s, the literacy rate was less that 10 per cent), and poorly served by their governments.
My father lived and worked in the International Settlement in Shanghai from 1935 until early 1941 (talk about just in time escape). He was not one of the powerful bankers or industrialists who enjoyed such opulent life styles (watch the beginning of the movie "Empire of the Sun" which shows a good representation of this life). He came to China to work as an instructor and supervisor for the Shanghai Electric Street Railway company which provided all of the transit services within the city. A such, he worked closely with the Chinese drivers and conductors. He came to have a lot of respect for the Chinese workers and, despite the threat from the Japanese, he enjoyed his time there. But he told me stories about the exploitation that went on. About religious orders who lived in luxury while supposedly working for the good of the average Chinaman. About individuals who made themselves rich by availing themselves of precious object virtually stolen from the Chinese. About the western controlled monopolies in manufacturing, banking and trade. And about the simple desires of the average Chinaman. He would tell me that all these people wanted was their one mo of land (about one quarter of an acre) to farm to feed his family without Chinese overlords and tax collectors taking 80 per cent of his crops. Much of the sad existence of the Chinese peasants was confirmed to me in the book "Thunder out of China" by Theodore White and Ann Jacoby. When the Chinese Communists won the civil war and became the government, my father said that it was probably the best thing that could have happened to the Chinese population. But Dad was not a Communist sympathiser.
What the Communist government did was allow the average Chinese peasant to feed himself and his family three meals a day, have a place to live and get an education. All things that we take for granted, but which was something new and extraordinary to these people.
Do I think that China under the Communists is perfect? Of course not. But I do know that, given the conditions that existed before, they have come and continue come a long way. It cannot be easy to rule a country of 1.3 billion people. But the Chinese government is doing a pretty good job of it. There have been tragic events on their path to improvement such the Cultural Revolution and Tienanmen Square. But in the last 30 plus years, unlike Russian Communists who became prisoners of their own dogma, the Chinese leadership has been adaptable and pragmatic. They know that they cannot be too quick with change in order to avoid instability. They have to adapt in such as way that they retain the confidence of the many, not the few who want wholesale change now. Surely western nations must understand this since they themselves try to move slowly on change. This is evident in how little different political parties in each country differ so little on fundamentals.
Do I think that China is a military threat? Not aggressive war, because it could lead to instability which the country cannot afford. But they will fight if they are directly threatened because they know in that case that they would have the vast majority of the country behind them.
If we do not alienate China, that country could be a great asset to western nations, including the United States, capable of maintaining stability in Asia. So look past the bogeyman image and look closely at what China has accomplished and what it can contribute.
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