China-U.S. Cultural Relationship

 

http://justpiper.com/2011/01/political-cartoons-12111-chinese-checkers/

 

Historical Perspective

 

In response to Western imperialism in the 19th century, many Chinese advocated a doctrine known as "Self-Strengthening." The idea was rooted in a "ti-yong" cultural synthesis. The word "ti" meant Chinese learning to maintain the Chinese "essence," while "yong" denoted Western learning for "practical use." In other words, the best approach to reforming Chinese society in the face of foreign control and humiliation was to take in the "barbarian's" material culture while preserving the essence of Chinese non-material culture. Thus, the Chinese, in responding to their unequal treaty situations and to their defeat by the Japanese in the 1890s, should learn about Western technology, industry, military expertise, and political administration while maintaining the essential values and beliefs of Confucian thought. In this way, China could match the foreigners and ultimately surpass them. For example, many Chinese aspired to become as creative and innovative technologically as all those inventors in the United States where in 1895 there were 13,000 applications for patents. 

 

Not all Chinese accepted this self-strengthening reformist approach, which argued that Confucianism could be a humanistic force for change, except of course, for the overthrow of the Imperial system. Indeed, revolutionaries like Sun Yatsen wanted to "throw the baby out with the bath water," remove the Emperor, and gradually over a period of time, establish a Chinese republic. But if in their eyes, Confucianism had become a discredited ideology, what new "essence" or "glue" would replace it and bind the society together? 

 

If we fast forward to 1978, we find China in a similar situation. Reeling from the debilitating excesses of Mao's unwavering commitment to continuous revolution, the Chinese, in particular Deng Xiaoping and other Party reformers, realized that the country needed to open up and learn from the foreigners in order to modernize. Western learning for practical use ("yong") in industry, agriculture, science and technology, and defense would propel China's "Four Modernizations" forward. But China's essence ("ti") in this case, a pragmatic commitment to socialist democracy, would remain unchallenged. Practically speaking, the authority of the Party in maintaining a stable China was sacrosanct. 

 

Not all Chinese subscribed to this policy of moving China forward into the modern world. Some courageous souls like Wei Jingsheng, whose wife was Tibetan and whose father-in-law had been politically persecuted, advocated a "Fifth Modernization," a democracy movement. According to Jonathan Spence, this meant

 

the "holding of power by the laboring masses themselves," rather than by the corrupt representatives of the party state who had imposed a new "autocracy" on the workers and peasants of China. "What is true democracy?" asked Wei rhetorically ... "It means the right of the people to choose their own representatives [who will] work according to their will and in their interests. Only this can be called democracy. Furthermore, the people must also have the power to replace their representatives any time so that these representatives cannot go on deceiving others in the name of the people." (Spence, 626-27)

 

Needless to say, these sentiments did not sit well even with the most reform minded Party officials, and Deng quickly cracked down on the nascent "Democracy Movement" in 1979. New periodicals with names like China's Human Rights, Exploration, Enlightenment, and Science, Democracy and Law, were banned. For his part Wei Jinsheng was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Henceforth economic liberalization ("yong") would not be accompanied by political or "bourgeois" liberalization. 

 

Still, dissidents like Fang Lizhi believed that the Chinese should embrace more than Western material culture. Communist ideology (propaganda in his eyes) was not working as China's essential values and ideas. He told his students,

 

"I, ... , am a member of the Communist Party [he would not be for long], but my dreams are not so narrow. They are of a more open society, where differences are allowed. Room must be made for the great variety of excellence that has found expression in human civilization. Our narrow propaganda seems to imply that nothing that came before us has any merit whatsoever. ... ." (Ibid, 682.)

 

Chinese students were intrigued by American elections and the concept of representative government. In China, the Party was manipulating elections in municipalities and universities (this has changed since 1986 for the most part). Students protested with familiar sounding slogans: 

 

"No democratization, no modernization";   "Almost every day the newspapers talk about democracy. But where can we actually find any?"     "When will the people be in charge?"   "If you want to know what freedom is, just go and ask Wei Jingsheng."   "To hell with Marxism-Leninsim-Mao Zedong Thought." (Ibid, 683.)

 

We know what transpired during the Tiananmen protests in 1989. We know that for the past 22 years, American administrations have walked a tightrope trying to balance a lack of interference with China's internal affairs (i.e. human rights) with vocal objections to China's lack of pluralism in its political culture. It is not entirely clear what Chinese learning ("ti") is binding the society together today. Is the "glue" or "essence" of capitalism? a revival of Confucian humanism? What is also not entirely certain is how much Western learning (values, ideas, beliefs) will be permitted for "practical Chinese use (yong)." 

 

The Subject of Human Rights and Internet Censorship

 

From the Chinese government's perspective, the issue of human or democratic rights needs to be framed differently. Last July, a foreign ministry official addressed the subject at the Asia Society in New York. Some progress has made in terms of political liberalization, notwithstanding the government's response to the Jasmine Revolution of this past spring. The renowned and outspoken artist, Ai Weiwei, was finally released from detention (ostensibly for tax evasion) last summer on condition that he not engage in any public dialogue with the news media. (Ai Weiwei's photo exhibition---227 images of the Lower East side and East Village in New York while he was a struggling artist from 1983-93---was on display at the Asia Society this summer.)

 

Recently, however, Ai Weiwei has been seen on his google+ page, perhaps testing the limits of his freedom. Last year, a Washington Post editorial noted that Google's provocative (from the Chinese government's perspective) and courageous (from the standpoint of American values such as a free press) decision to not have its search engine censored (unlike other American companies such as Yahoo!, Apple, and Microsoft) means that it will no longer collude with the Chinese government in censoring the internet. In September of 2011, a New York Times article described how the U.S. company Cisco may have helped China track down members of the illegal Falun Gong religious organization.

 

In another Washington Post editorial in March, 2010, Harold Myerson asserted that is precisely the U.S.'s dysfunctional democracy (political paralysis and gridlock, an election geared only for plutocrats, etc.) that is causing the Chinese to trumpet the notion that its authoritarian political model not only works but is crucial for the continued success of its economic and growing geopolitical superpower status.

 

There are presently about 500 million Chinese who enjoy the use of the internet. Watching over their online content is a group of some 50,000 censors along with countless software filtering networks. As Brook Larmer writes in the October 29th edition of the New York Times Magazine,

 

To slip past the censors, Chinese bloggers have become masters of comic subterfuge, cloaking their messages in protective layers of irony and satire. ... Coded language has become part of mainstream [netizen] culture, ... . So pervasive is this irreverent subculture that the Chinese have a name for it: egao, meaning ... roughly, "mischievous mockery." ... egao lampoons the powerful without being overtly rebellious. President Hu Jintao's favorite buzz word, "harmony," which he deploys constantly when urging social stability, is hijacked to signify censorship itself, as in, "My blog's been harmonized." (Larmer, NYT Mag., 10/29/31)

 

One notorious blogger, Wen Yunchao, decided to attack the still revered icon, Mao Zedong, by promoting a "de-Maoification" campaign among his extensive online following. As Larmer observes, "Since 'mao' is also the Chinese word for "hair," he [Wen] suggested posting before-and-after shots of shaved body parts---people literally "getting rid of mao." Wen himself proceeded to offer his own "beer-belly" photo, which, while humorous, "was also a manifesto for a more open China---and a dangerous move in his showdown with Chinese authorities." (Ibid)

 

China's foremost animator, Pi San, is a wealthy man. His animation company, Hutoon, boasts a staff of 50, and it makes significant profits with an apolitical series called "Ms. Puff," which appears on Youku, China's YouTube. But Pi San also delves in probing, dark satire, often through his main, South Park-like character, Kuang Kuang. Some of his animations have met the ire of the censors, but he, like so many others, continues to walk the tightrope between "acceptable satire and detainable offense." In January 2011, in a sardonic, allegorical expose of China's social ills, (in his words, "a fairy tale"), Pi San created "Little Rabbit, Be Good," a "greeting card to mark the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, [which] begins as a soothing bedtime story about bunny rabbits, but ... morphs into a nightmare." (Ibid)

 

 

Before the government censors could do their work, the video had managed to reach about four million viewers. Needless to say, Pi San became quite anxious, especially since the release of the satire coincided with the popular upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt.

 

Since the days of Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist Party has always extolled those artists whose works have served the ideals of the revolution. Even during the period of economic modernization in the 1980s, the government was wary of the influence of "spiritual pollution" from the outside world influencing the Chinese cultural scene. In music, Cui Jian, known as the "Father of Chinese Rock," continually "pushed the envelope" and eventually was banned from playing in China for a number of his songs that challenged the status quo. A verse below from the 1994 song, "Eggs under the Red Flag," was not well received by the Party hierarchy. Ciu Jian earned immense popularity outside of China and has performed many times in the U.S. In 2005 he was granted permission to play in Beijing and this past year has performed a number of concerts in China.

 

http://rockmasnewsfm.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

 

Eggs Under the Red Flag

Money is fluttering in the wind We have no ideals The time is now But who knows what we should do The red flag is waving It has no clear direction  Revolution is ongoing The old men are still in power.

 

In 2011, the Chinese government appears to have invigorated its efforts to crackdown on inappropriate entertainment, in one case on the apparently pernicious effects of Hollywood's Harry Potter and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. According to TIME's Fareed Zakaria, no Chinese would be allowed to see either of these films (no any other foreign blockbuster) until the epic Chinese film, Beginning of the Great Revival, had bankrolled $124 million. Unfortunately this film celebrating the rise of the CCP played for the most part to mainly empty theaters and more than 90% of its DVD users described it as "trash." Not surprisingly the government censored any negative reviews.

 

But as Zakaria states, the government's behavior suggests an ongoing uncertainty about what foreign (in this case American) cultural influences to allow to affect China's "moral fabric" (even if it is unclear as noted above what exactly constitutes that essence). In the case of foreign films, China limits the number to 20 each year. (There are 6,200 movie theaters in China). And Hollywood receives only a 13% markup on sales, far less than anywhere else in the world. Zakaria notes that the WTO recently ruled that China's film policy was a form of illegal protectionism. 

 

In September 2011, perhaps motivated by memories of popular revolts in the Mideast earlier in the year and perhaps by the government's leadership change coming next year, the Chinese government instructed its major satellite TV stations to limit entertainment programs and add more news programs in an effort to root out "excessive entertainment and vulgar tendencies." Microbloggers (i.e. Tweeters or Weibo in China) are also being corralled, and it may be that they will have to provide their real names to be allowed to make postings. If not a causal relationship, then at least a correlative one exists between these microbloggers and various protests against injustices in the society, such as a successful effort to close down a chemical plant in Dalian last August and to expose cover ups in the recent high-speed train accident.

 

This past September 17 marked the final show of China's version of "American Idol," called "Super Girl." The government's culture monitors frequently had referred to the talent search program as "poison to our youth" and a "threat to traditional Chinese culture and a blight on our nation." Moreover, the show, at least until 2008, contained serious democratic tendencies given that the 400 million or so who watched could text message their votes to help determine the winner. After 2007 only the audience in the building could vote. Now, Hunan Satellite Television will fill its prime-time slots next year with "programs that promote healthy morals, public safety and 'practical information about housework.'”  

 

     

 

Environmental Concerns

 

China does in fact have a robust set of environmental laws addressing a range of issues related to air and water pollution, lead poisoning, and carbon footprint. There is, however, a problem with the enforcement of those laws as well as with the lack of social responsibility taken by Chinese companies in conforming with the laws. Fortunately a growing number of NGO's is propelling China's increasingly active "Green" movement forward. Public awareness and pressure contributed, for example, to the closing of a solar plant that was polluting both air and water. There has been considerable outrage over oil spills from offshore drilling including one from Conoco-Phillips off the coast of northeast China. And, according to the NGO, Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) in China, it is clear that Apple's suppliers have wantonly disregarded laws prohibiting the dumping of chemical waste into the Yangtze River (or any waterway for that matter). 

 

An extraordinary photographic exhibition, "Coal + Ice," which recently opened in Beijing, explores the causes and effects of climate change. The photographs (taken by American and Chinese photographers, and others including Russian and Canadian) starkly convey the far reaching consequences of greenhouse gases created from the thousands of coal-burning plants in China include the significant melting of ice from glaciers in the Himalayas.

 

 

Journalism/Media Relations

 

Former CNN Beijing Bureau Chief (1987-95), Mike Chinoy discusses his latest documentary film,"Assignment China," in which veteran China journalists compare the challenges of covering events in China today to when they themselves were reporters in China in the 1970s and 80s and 90s. The challenges are different, (for example, it used to be forbidden for ordinary Chinese to talk to foreign reporters), perhaps the largest among them centering on how infinitely and more complex Chinese society has become since the advent of Deng Xiaoping's reforms begun in the late 70s. (Incidentally, the spot where the still unidentified, legendary "tank man" stood is now the largest McDonald's in the world.)

 

 

Head of the Asia Society's U.S.-China Cultural Relations Center, Orville Schell, interviewed Chinoy, TIME Magazine's Richard Bernstein, and CBS News's Bruce Dunning about "Assignment China." The discussion provides a more detailed examination of U.S.-China media relations.

 

Sports

 

 

Notwithstanding the controversies that always seem to plague the gymnastics competitions between the two countries, sports can and has served as a cultural bridge between China and the United States. No better recent example of that fact has been the former National Basketball Association star for the Houston Rockets franchise, Yao Ming. Looming large, literally, over his teammates and the competition, Yao became a celebrity in both China and Houston. Indeed, it's fair to say that he put Houston, Texas on the Chinese map! Only in Houston could Chinese back home watching Yao play see advertisements in Chinese.

 

Yao had a tremendous impact on Chinese athletes who became interested in basketball. He carried the flag leading the Chinese delegation into the Birdnest stadium on opening night of the Olympics in 2008. He was and still is a terrific cultural ambassador for China in the United States. On a visit to the U.S., China's paramount leader, Jiang Zemin, came to Houston and met Yao. After the devastating earthquake in China in 2008, Yao Ming's Foundation has allowed the Chinese to rebuild five schools. 

 

Since the tremendous success of the Beijing Olympics three years ago, in terms of a display of culture as well as actual athletic performance, the Chinese have not had a great deal to cheer about in the international sports arena (save for recent men's and women's gymnastics victories in the world championships) that is, until the remarkable triumph of Li Na in winning the French Open women's tennis championship this past spring. Li, who was not unknown in China, became the first Chinese tennis player (indeed the first Asian) to win a Grand Slam title. She is without question the most prominent athletic celebrity in China today and is currently ranked number 35 on "Forbes China Celebrity List."

 

As Maggie Rauch, an American journalist in Beijing observes, Li Na's success has been due in large part to the government's relaxation of its control over its athletes, in this case, its tennis players, through what is called the "Fly Alone" program.

 

The "Fly Alone" program was rolled out shortly after the Olympics. Basically, the tennis administration gave national team players the freedom to take control of their careers — choose coaches, set training schedules, make their own business decisions and keep much more of their winnings. It went from 35 percent that they could keep up to 88 percent. In exchange, they lose the security of being truly looked after by the state system. Four players opted to "fly alone."

 

It remains to be seen how much more open the government becomes in terms of expanding the opportunities for individual athletes to empower themselves to greater successes. When these achievements do occur, they are measures of China's "soft power" on display for the world to see. At the very least Li Na's celebrity status has enhanced the reach of Chinese sportswear companies as they seek to endorse top athletes in the world. Some female tennis players already have such endorsements, and given Yao Ming's success in the NBA, other basketball players have signed on with Chinese companies. 

 

Education and Cultural Learning

 

Some scholars have described Confucianism as a "civil religion." It is, as Herbert Creel once asserted, "the secular as sacred." Harvard and Beijing University professor Tu Wei-ming subscribes to this conceptualization and argues that the "new" Confucianism can help all peoples, not just Chinese, flourish in the 21st century by learning from others. The Asia Society's Chris Livaccari crystallized some of Professor Tu's thinking at the April 2011 National Chinese Language Conference:

 

[Professor Tu] suggests that Confucianism is much more nuanced, holistic, integrative, and indeed “spiritual” than most people think. He argues that the Confucian tradition contains within it a “critical spirit,” which encourages a continuous process of “learning, un-learning, and re-learning” rather than the narrow acceptance of dogma or tradition. The tradition emphasizes that all human beings have the potential to become sages. And while Confucianism aims most importantly at the transformation of the world here and now, it also contains a spiritual and naturalistic dimension—a commitment to an ethics and morality that is grounded in the larger principles of the universe.

 

 

Lest anyone think that only today's Americans can learn from the study of Confucian principles, rest assured that the value of such thinking was not lost on the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and others. Franklin stressed the cultivation of personal virtue, and knew that individual ethical behavior would lead to social harmony and "the happy state of the whole empire." Both Jefferson and Paine viewed Confucius as a great moral teacher, the kind of role model that American political leaders should emulate. Here is Paine on Confucius's teachings:

 

"As a book of morals there are several parts of the New Testament that are good, but they are no other than what had been preached in the East world several hundred years before Christ was born. Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, who lived five hundred years before the time of Christ says, 'acknowledge thy benefits by the turn of benefits, but never revenge injuries.'" (Education About Asia, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2011, 6)

 

The preeminent architect of the U.S. Constitution and primary author of the Federalist Papers, James Madison, even hung a portrait of Confucius at his home. In addition, the widespread influence of Chinese technology and later trade impacted both pre and post revolutionary America.

 

Before it was banned by the government in 1988, the documentary TV series, River Elegy, had conveyed a not-so-thinly veiled message about China's soul and identity. Using the slow-moving Yellow River as a metaphor, the producers made clear that China had far too long been rooted and stagnated in its traditions and needed to reform politically and socially by embracing the blue ocean or Western learning, including values, beliefs and ideologies (liberal or Marxist in those days).

 

Now it seems to certain degrees anyway, the Party is becoming more of a driving force behind a Confucian revival. The idea is that self-cultivation combined with social responsibility and a commitment to relationships (within the family and among friends) will bring about a harmonious society. It may be that by giving one of China's oldest ethical philosophies a "new" face, the government (i.e. the Party) will legitimize itself more in some peoples' minds. Daniel Bell, a political philosophy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, sees the "new Confucianism" as a potential basis for China's future essence.

 

 

Professor Tu Wei-ming, in an interview with Asia Society President Vishakha Desai, elaborates on his ideas about Confucianism noted above. So, might today's young American students think more about learning Chinese? Perhaps yes. One might argue that the well educated work force of the future will need to be a bilingual one. The Broadway play, "Chinglish," poignantly brings to light both the challenges and importance of communication in cross-cultural understanding for an American businessman who seeks more than business.

 

In the "ivory tower" world of academe, cultural exchange abounds. Over 40,000 Chinese undergraduate students are studying in the United States. American scholars have taken advantage of opportunities for research on campuses being established in China. Some scholars, however, who study such sensitive topics as Tibet or Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province, have had their academic freedom compromised. A few have even been denied entry to China including a group of 13 professors (the "Xinjiang 13"), who authored the book, Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland. The Chinese reviewer, a noted scholar of China's ethnic politics in central Asia, said that "some chapters lacked balance, distorted truth and even attempted to incite U.S. intervention in the name of human rights protection." (Yan Sun, RfD, NYT, 2011) A recent New York Times "Room for Debate" series posed the question, "How Can U.S. Scholars Resist China's Control?" Reasoned opinions vary, but hopefully mutual respect and trust in the academic integrity of all scholars can make progress possible.

 

The Ministry of Education in China continues to fund the creation of "Confucius Institutes" around the world (350 at present) and notably the U.S. (75) in an effort to use "soft power" to spread Chinese language and culture globally. The largesse usually comes with a caveat, namely that university professors associated with the Institute not discuss Tibet. Recently   Stanford was awarded $4 million to establish such an Institute, but did not acquiescence in China's Ministry's pressure. But as Mt. Holyoke College's Jonathan Lipman noted, in today's economy, it's difficult to turn down the intellectual opportunity.

 

For the past 20 years, prominent Chinese-Americans in the United States have been dedicated to cultural understanding and cooperation between the U.S. and China. Their formal organization, the Committee of 100(Committee of 100 website)

Recently, for example, the Committee sponsored a conference in Chengdu (Sichuan Province) focused on innovation. One of the members, Carter Tseng, has established the "Little Dragon Foundation," which provides funding both for poor Chinese students to attend schools and for training for prospective Chinese entrepreneurs and CEO's.

 

"People to People"

 

In less than a fortnight in Beijing, the first U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture will take place. In an era when public policy issues capture the news media limelight, this private "people to people" exchange initiative will help foster ongoing cultural interaction and understanding.