(This is Part 2 of Michael Miller's interview with Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute. To read Part 1, please click on “Oppression and Capitalism” in the upper left-hand corner.)
With the Cold War a thing of the past, why does mainland China still view the Western world with suspicion?
Mosher: China has deep grievances against the West, relating to the century-and-a-half of Western domination over a region that, according to China, properly belongs within its own sphere of influence.
China is particularly impatient to rid Asia of Americans. In a region that used to consist entirely of tributary states, China’s resentment is further fueled by wild fantasies about American omnipotence and malice.
Why did you choose the title “Hegemon” for your new book?
Mosher: China’s reach for hegemony – for total domination of its known world – began over 2,000 years ago. For more than two millennia the Middle Kingdom was the center of the universe, a huge, self-satisifed continent of people whose elite, wealthy and cultured, had only disdain for the barbarians living on its periphery. Smugly convinced of their country’s cultural and military superiority, China’s leaders wanted little from the rest of the world except its deference.
China’s present plans for expansion are based on its history. The elite in the People’s Republic of China look at real maps of historical Chinese empires in order to trace the form of things to come. The Qing dynasty during the 18th century ruled a vast territory stretching from the Russian Far East across southern Siberia to Lake Baikal, then southward across Kazakhstan, eastward along the Himalayas, Northern Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. Korea, Nepal, and all of peninsular Southeast Asia acknowledged Chinese authority and paid tribute. It is this map that springs unbidden to the Chinese mind when the shape of a future “Greater China” is discussed.
Is this view of China's destiny shared by Chinese intellectuals and students today?
Mosher: The Chinese Communist Party is promoting patriotism as the glue to hold China together. A 1994 Party directive ordered that “Patriotic Education shall run through the whole education process… and must penetrate classroom teaching of all related subjects.” Of course, PRC history textbooks have always stoked nationalist fervor and xenophobia. Now, though, the entire K-through-college curriculum has been custom designed to breed young patriots.
Has this resulted in a more aggressive foreign policy?
Mosher: China’s military power is growing apace. The People’s Republic is no paper tiger. Already the dominant economic power in continental Asia, it is rapidly building up a first-rate military machine. This growth is especially alarming in view of decreasing American (and French and German and Russian, etc.) military budgets and the absence of a credible military threat to China’s territory. China is the only major country in the world that is currently undertaking a major military expansion.
Does China's increasing military might pose a national security issue for the United States?
Mosher: Chinese espionage in this country far exceeds anything attempted by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It is successful largely because it is “non-traditional” espionage. Chinese launches of American commercial satellites, for example, provided an opportunity for the Chinese to test – and improve – the capabilities of their Long March ICBMs.
A shocked House of Representatives in 1998 formed a special bipartisan committee, headed by Congressman Christopher Cox of California, to assess the damage done. At a press conference on December 30, 1998, Cox said, “I can tell you today that national security harm did occur.” China’s spying has accelerated its weapons development program. It may have gained as much as 15 years, cutting the United States’ lead in key technologies by one-half, maybe more.
What, in your opinion, should be the diplomatic priorities of Western nations in dealing with the People's Republic?
Mosher: As China’s power grows, the fear it inspires among dovish westerners will drive more and more into the appeasement camp. At the present moment, America is still much wealthier, technologically advanced and militarily adept than the PRC. We are the only power in the world capable of stopping the Hegemon. But our policy is currently frozen in the amber of outdated assumptions about China. Dreaming about strategic partnership with the communist giant renders us unable to act in accordance with our fundamental beliefs and values.
The U.S. should shoulder its responsibility and do the best it can to continue the present Pax Americana. A failure to acknowledge this burden or, worse yet, a retreat into isolationism would only encourage aggression on the part of would-be hegemons like China.
The Great Game of the twenty-first century will be between the United States and China. America’s success in this competition will reaffirm its role as the leading state in the West, foster unity with a global network of democratic allies, and demonstrate once and for all the universality of human rights and representative government.
And if America failed to challenge China’s ambitions?
Mosher: China’s power would continue to grow apace, and many fragile democracies in Asia would be threatened, as would countries further afield. We have to keep in mind that Milosevic’s principal foreign backer was China, which provided not only weapons but also financial support for his machine. As China’s power increases, it will back other non-democratic regimes around the world, preventing the emergence of democracy and undermining it in those countries where it is not firmly rooted.
It is often said that rapid advances in modern communications helped bring down the Iron Curtain in Europe. Is there a possibility of a similar development in China?
Mosher: In the past, Sinologists from the West often trimmed their sails for fear that Beijing would withhold visas or approval for research projects. Today, fewer China watchers are willing to remain silent when the truth about, say, China’s persecution of Christians is distorted or denied by the government, or when one of their number is savaged for reporting it.
There is a lesson here on larger issues. The Hegemon has built up a Great Wall of intimidation around itself; it is time for it to come tumbling down. America’s response to the challenge posed by China rests in large part on the willingness of America’s Sinologists to write without fear or favor. If the China watchers get it right, then the American public and policy makers will, too. And on this hinges our future.
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(Michael J. Miller is a translator and free-lance writer based in Glenside, Pennsylvania. To learn more about Steven Mosher's Population Research Institute you may visit their website at www.pop.org.)
