Bridging the growing wide gap between China and the West in all its complex facets of values clashes, priorities, and idiosyncracies is not an easy task.
I know.
I have been in the middle of this thankless effort to try to bridge China and the West in a rational and restpectful way.
I have always maintained that China and the outside world must sail like "a catamaran," on an even keel.
In traversing the knocks from the sometimes turbulent and unpredictable blue seas, the catamaran must be in smooth and strong hands which can adapt, apply the levers, and even the sail.
Unfortunately, better said than executed by many of us, myself included, who have instead seen China and the West often unwittingly struck by manic-depressive mood swings like a pendulum.
I remember during Nixon's era, when Henry Kissinger first went to China and broke the ice with Chairman Mao Zedong, and the "ping pong" diplomacy which ensued.
Those were the euphoric days. Lots of exuberance, curiosity, and warmth emitted from both ends of the globe. The mania from many Americans eager to embrace China, visit China, and eat Chinese food was intoxicating. Caught in the excitement, I too was delirious.
I could have gone on and on the "Love China" bandwagon in those days, and nights too, without viagra. :-)
Fast forward June 4, 1989, the pendulum swung downward in a screaming stridency of demonization and hectoring China's leaders over the Tienanmen student protests and its subsequent horrific narrative. Many in the West were shocked by the utter brutality of the suppression of dissent and protest by Chinese students. 90,000 Chinese students in America's campuses were paroled into the U.S. and given refuge and residency.
America, suffused with compassion and "the White Man's Burden" reached out to poor and hapless students being crushed by Chinese tanks.
Forward again to 2008, the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics Games.
The mood swings between euphoria to hate relative to China's relations with the outside world have again swung to hate.
As usual, it has become an integral part of East-West relations in the context of world civilizational narratives, and whether or not China is willing to "play ball" the American way. Ahem, the Western way.
Most pundits, from the highest echelons of governments, academia, the press, the business corporate world, the NGOs, from both within China's side and the Western side, especially America, don't get it. They can't grasp the mood swings of the pendulum.
And they can't see through the veneer of culture smears.
Consider what is happening now - with Coca Cola hurled into the vortex as an unwitting hostage in the lead-up to this year's Olympics games in Beijing 08/08/08. Good grief. Coke's advertising slogan, 'China red" has caused an uproar outside of China.
What do you mean? Some China bashers screamed, "Coke has flip-flopped. Commie drink!"
The stridency of hate is worrisome. Protesters are screaming "Bloody Mary," if not "Bloody Coke" about China over Tibet, human rights and abuses, on a slew of grievances which has rankled and caused a stiffening not just inside China's officialdom but also among its masses.
In the heat of passion, much venom has been spewed by all sides of the barricades, between pro-China and anti-China "antagonists" mired in this nasty food fight. The barricades are being put up by both sides, and the stiffening of positions is cause for consternation for all of us global citizens of goodwill, from East and West, inside and outside of China.
All said, some academics, on both sides of this dramatically different cultures, East and West, get it.
And Georgetown history professor George Millward, in the following "think piece," seems to be one voice among the few American academics who have gotten most of it. Bless him, even though I am not "His Holliness," the Dolly. But I will do without my saffron robe, and I have a bald head too. :-) I will bless Professor Millward, not just on behalf of the Dolly, but on behalf of Pope Benedict of the Vatican, since I am an "honorary Jesuit" without the priesthood.
Professor Millward's commentary appeared at "Open Democracy," with a refreshing and rational view which I share in many respects.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/governments/how_china_should_rebrand_0
I wish there were more Professor Millwards in the Western world, as I do with China's world.
In the words of Rodney King, the Black man from East L.A. who ignited one of the ugliest race riots in 1991 in Los Angeles poignantly begged:
"Folks, can't we all just get along?" Yes, indeed. Can we ?
Touche.
