Heartland 01/2000

HEARTLAND IS PUBLISHED WITH THE SUPPORT OF

BIRINDELLI E ASSOCIATIstudio legale

HEARTLAND is a world partner of LIMES, the Italian Geopolitical Review, published byGruppo Editoriale L’Espresso

It is registered in Hong Kong and in Rome, and published by Cassan Press-HK and byGruppo Editoriale L’Espresso

For any information, please contact Limes, viale Castro Pretorio 116, 00185 Rome (Italy).Tel. 0039 06 4940432; fax 0039 06 4940403; e-mail: [email protected]’s website address: http://www.heartland.limesonline.com

Editors: Lucio Caracciolo and Michel Korinman

Managing Editors: Francesco Sisci and Zhang Xiaodong

Editing and Secretariat: Rosa Balfour, Huang Jianliang, Yu Shicun, Xiang Daiyun

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5 Why Heartland7 Romano PRODI - Building Bridges between Asia and Europe

11 ZHU RONGJI - Don’t Be Pessimistic about the Euro

PART I WHAT CHINA STANDS FOR

17 WANG XIAODONG - The West in the Eyes of a Chinese Nationalist31 ZHANG XIAODONG - Geopolitical Changes in the Western Regions47 Francesco SISCI - The Pope in China: Still a Long Way to Go57 Fabio MINI - From the Rim to the Heart71 ZHANG JIE - The Foundationers Associated with Mr W.’s Funds

PART II FROM ASIA TO ASIA

93 Tommy KOH - ASEM is a Sunrise Organisation97 Alison BROINOWSKI - All in the Same Boat?

Australia’s Relations with Asia107 Michel KORINMAN and Lucio CARACCIOLO - There is No Australasia113 Marie-Sybille de VIENNE - What if Dr Mahathir Was Right?121 Paolo COTTA-RAMUSINO and Maurizio MARTELLINI - The European Policy

towards Korea

PART III WHAT IS ASIA?

135 V.K. NAMBIAR - The Indian Bridge141 YUMIKO YAMADA - Asia Viewed from Japan 149 Vitalij TRET’JAKOV - To Stay in Europe, Russia Must Become

an Asian Power153 Frédéric DURAND - A New World

MORE HEARTLAND

159 Luca M. BIRINDELLI - China: One Country, Two Systems, Several Markets (“Go West”)

163 Leonardo DINI, Stefano CELLETTI, Franco CUTRUPIA - Doing Italian Business in China

165 Camillo DONATI - “We Behave Like the Church”

166

contents no. 1/2000

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A NEW SILK ROAD?

WHAT IS GEOPOLITICS? GEOPOLITICS IS THE OPPOSITE OF THE “CLASH OF

civilizations” that the political scientist Sam Huntington made famous.It is more; it is the opposite of racism. It postulates the uniqueness of thehuman species. Every nation has a right to its historical representationsand constructs. Every nation has a right to its arguments. Every nationhas a right to its geopolitical projects.

Geopolitics is also the opposite of exoticism, which in fact is a wayof expelling from a literary point of view entire peoples from ourmindset. Exoticism is a mild form of colonialism. Instead, for usdistance is not significant: the geopolitical dialogue is in any caseequal, even if the interlocutor is thousands of kilometres away. Before“globalisation”, Europeans could believe that the exotic approachserved to marginalise Asia; and Asians could think that it served torestrain European influences in Asia. But now, to close up – and toimpose closure on others – means to be lost. We have moved fromexoticism to “endoticism”: we are all actors of one world. Each with hisown way of thinking.

Why Eurasia? Why are Europeans rediscovering Asia and Asiansare increasingly interested in Europe? For Europeans, to projectthemselves in Asia is also a way of making Europe. Just look at howeasily the Europeans who live in Asia group together. Also, singleEuropean states do not have the appropriate dimensions to establish anequal dialogue with their Asian partners. And it is evident that Asiansare not interested in having the US as their only Western interlocutor.

Why Heartland

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We know that today Eurasia does not exist. But it is necessary thatthe dialogue between Europe and Asia makes a qualitative leap. Econo-mic and trade relations are important, but are not all. Via economics,relations must move onto geopolitics. The Silk Road grows through ageopolitical dialogue.

Heartland, what for? This journal is a tool for the dialoguebetween Europe and Asia. It is not just a matter of exchanging ideas onthe pages of Heartland, but of building a network for debate betweenEuropeans and Asians. Nothing formal or diplomatic, but an open andpromising path. As we all know, the Silk Roads are infinite.

WHY HEARTLAND

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A NEW SILK ROAD?

7

BUILDING BRIDGESBETWEEN ASIAAND EUROPE by Romano PRODI

AT THE START OF THE NEW CENTURY,

the two major themes that have dominated the European political and economicscene in the past fifty years – the positive thrust of European integration, on theone hand, and the resolution of the limitations caused by the division of thecontinent into two opposing blocs, on the other – have changed the face ofEurope completely.

At the same time, the sustained growth of Asia’s economy has radicallytransformed the outlook for trade relations: the main axis of international trademay now be shifting not from the Atlantic to the Pacific – as some authors hadpredicted – but rather to the Asia-Europe route, from the South China Sea to theMediterranean Sea, via the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.

Political developments like the peace process in the Middle East, theenlargement of the European Union and the independence of natural-resource-rich Central Asian countries are contributing to the growth of trade betweenEurope and Asia, as is the accelerating process of establishing a regional identity ina peaceful Asia.

Against this background, relations between Europe and Asia are developing agrowing momentum. When the challenging task of enlargement concludes, theUnion will be able to project its influence far beyond its continental borders, andengage in a genuine partnership of mutual respect and mutual benefit with itsfriends in Asia.

Economic growth in Asia (and in Europe) and economic integration in Europe(and in Asia), and the dense network of relations between “open” economies havecreated a genuinely global market, in which Europe and Asia are no longerisolated partners, but part of a wider system.

These economic processes are increasingly driven more by direct investmentsfrom foreign sources than by traditional trading relations. Consequently, eachcountry’s interest in the economies of the others has increased. Modern companiesdo not perceive distant countries solely as potential markets for their goods, butalso as opportunities for investment, creating employment at the same time. Andsince companies with assets in multiple countries would oppose any attempts atprotectionism, increasing liberalisation is almost irreversible.

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A healthy two-way flow of investments contributes to a country’s wealth; thisgives the economy of each individual country a much greater stake in seeing othereconomies perform well. The increasingly substantial trade and flows of capitalbetween Europe and Asia are as important for today’s economy as the Silk Roadwas in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Europe has realised that it can no longer ignore a substantial section of theglobe, one that includes great nations and will soon be the world’s largesteconomic region. Until it manages to be a player on the Asian stage, Europe willbe unable to formulate a truly global policy.

Trade between Europe and Asia has increased by over 100% more than tradebetween the United States and Asia. This is no accident, and was reflected in theregional policy framework developed at the ASEM summit (Asia-Europe Meeting).

The problems that emerged with the Autumn 1997 crisis in the Far East arenot, in my opinion, structural. Asian economies will continue to grow, as theyhave all the physical and human resources they need to do so. They will alsocontinue to be attentive to the need for economic and financial reform, just as wein Europe must always be vigilant in maintaining a healthy economy.

The major obstacles to progress in Asia are more political and social in nature:tensions between neighbours, concerns over security and the possibility ofdisastrous military conflicts – together with the need to meet the challenges ofsocial and political change that come with rapid industrialisation. Thedevelopment of economic relations can provide a strong incentive to avoidpolitical and social conflicts, but the solutions to these problems must be politicaland social in nature. Matters such as human rights and transparent andaccountable government are vital to meeting these challenges, and indeed areuniversal elements which all of us, in Europe and Asia alike, must address.

China’s growth into a great power will have a substantial international impact.The international community should accept this development, rather than seekingto construct a network of local and global alliances around Beijing. China will playan ever-increasing role in regional and world diplomacy, and will make aconstructive contribution to international politics and the global economy, thusdeveloping interests favourable to the maintenance of stability.

To defuse and isolate potential sources of regional instability, all the regionalpowers should join forces to establish a common definition of acceptable behaviour.The potential economic and security benefits of stability could reward the effortneeded to moderate policies that are not acceptable to neighbouring countries.

Europe’s ability to increase its diplomatic role in Asia depends not only oncloser economic ties, but also on the experience it has acquired in building itsinstitutions. Existing institutions, such as the United Nations and the World TradeOrganisation, could be used to launch productive forms of cooperation.

At the same time, Europe must not just focus on Asia’s economic importance.We must also work together in the political field, and we must also work toincrease our mutual understanding and awareness.

BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN ASIA AND EUROPE

8


When Europe’s first overseas expansion began in the 16th century, Asia wasby far the richest region in the world, and its civilisation was probably the mostadvanced. The spectacular growth of the last few decades, in spite of the recentcrisis, has resulted in a situation in which it would not be unrealistic to expect areturn to that happy state of affairs.

I do not believe that there will be a “clash of civilizations”. There areopportunities to work together, as long as Asians and Europeans are ready toshow each other commitment and goodwill. In the aftermath of the Cold War andits rigid divisions, the old fault lines have failed to give way to new ones. There hassimply been a reaffirmation of the importance of diplomacy as a way of findingsolutions to shared problems that sooner or later would hinder our progresstowards a better future.

In the same spirit of keeping channels of thought and debate open, I wouldlike to wish Heartland every success in its endeavour. In our global economy,time and distance count for less and less. Geographical borders are increasinglymeaningless. Isolation is the way of the past, not the way of the future. In a worldof such rapid change, continued discussion of the issues that shape the destinies ofso many people everywhere is absolutely essential, for the sake of stability, and forthe sake of progress.

A NEW SILK ROAD?

9

THE SILK ROADS

BursaIstanbul

T U R K E YUlaanbaatar

Beijing

Fuzhou

K A Z A K H S T A N

R U S S I A N F E D E R A T I O N

M O N G O L I A

C H I N A

I N D I A

P A K I S T A N

AFGHANISTANI R A N

I R A Q

S A U D IA R A B I A

Y E M E N O M A N

SYR IA

1

23

45

67

1 - G E O R G I A2 - A R M E N I A3 - A Z E R B A I J A N4 - T U R K M E N I S T A N5 - U Z B E K I S T A N6 - T A J I K I S T A N7 - K Y R G Y Z S T A N


A NEW SILK ROAD?

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HEARTLAND Why is the euro in such a bad situation? What could the EU do to chan-ge it?ZHU RONGJI I’m an engineer instead of an economist. However, I have beenengaged in economic work for 50 years, and hence having some experience. Ithink EU is very promising and has actual strength as an economic entity. Ofcourse, in comparison with the economic entity of USA, EU has not been asprosperous for such a long time and its economy has not developed so fast asUSA. However, USA is only a country, while EU includes more than ten countries.There exist some differences between the economic developments of so manycountries, and it is certainly not easy to coordinate the actions of these countries.As an economic entity and an economic community with great differences ineconomic development, I think it is quite an achievement for it to reach thecurrent level of development. It indicates that the European politicians are quiteskilled in organisation and management. Therefore, from a long-term point ofview, EU’s economic development is quite promising and very hopeful. Of course,the euro has depreciated from 1.17 at the beginning to about 0.9 currently. I thinkthis is a very specialised issue that needs to be analysed. There are a lot of causesfor such a situation. I mean it is only a specialised issue but not a full reflection ofeconomic strength. It is also very difficult to maintain a common currencyinvolving more than ten countries and to maintain its stability. As per analysis ofvarious conditions, it is entirely unnecessary to be pessimistic about the euro. Ithink that with the coordinated development of all EU countries, it is unavoidablefor the euro to appreciate gradually. At the same time, China will never undersellits foreign exchange reserve, your euros. Never. HEARTLAND Can you tell me the amount of China’s existing euro reserve?ZHU RONGJI It does not mean I don’t want to tell you. I myself do not know theamount.

Don’t Be Pessimistic about the EuroPremier ZHU RONGJI’s Answers to Our Reporter’s Questions

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HEARTLAND What’s the influence of IT development on China’s politics?ZHU RONGJI This question covers many other questions. I can not give you animmediate and clear explanation. Do you mean the development of China’s e-commerce or the development of network economy or any other things? China’snetworks have developed very quickly, and the number of Chinese Internet usersis almost doubled every half year. China currently has over 10 million Internetusers. With the development of networks, we have encountered many new things.Regulation and legislation are required in many aspects. We are wanting inexperience in this aspect, and it’s a very serious issue on how to manage networksin a standardised way.HEARTLAND Do you think is it beneficial for the EU to strengthen its internalcoordination?ZHU RONGJI That’s sure. But it is not the focus of what I mean. I mean thecoordinated development of the economies of all EU members, since there is agreat difference between the development degrees of them. EU includes somevery developed countries and some moderately developed countries, and thereare some very poor regions in some countries. Therefore, the economic policies ofthese countries are also quite different. These facts lead to their differences inother aspects and different requirements. HEARTLAND What do you think about the Taiwan issue?ZHU RONGJI Concerning our policies toward Taiwan, we remain unchanged. Ourconsistent policy is peaceful reunification and one country two systems, whichwere clearly explained in President Jiang Zemin’s “declaration of eight points”. It’s apity that many countries fail to completely understand what President Jiang said.For example, what we mean by “reunification” and “one country two systems” isvery liberal for Taiwan. We will neither change its current political and economicsystems, nor interfere with any of their matters. Such a policy is more liberal thatthose for Hong Kong and Macao. In other words, Chinese government will notsend army to Taiwan, and the leader of Taiwan may also hold an important post inthe central government of China. Thereby, none of their vested interests will bedamaged. However, we must admit that there is only one China and Taiwan is onlya part of China. This is a clear-cut point. It’s a pity that the current Taiwan leaderdoes not admit there is only one China, and he even dares not to admit that he is aChinese. How can the reunification be realised in such a situation? Our requirementis very simple. We can negotiate about anything so far as you admit there is oneChina. However, after contacting many leaders of European countries, I find quite anumber of them fail to have a full understanding of the one-China policy, and theydo not know the true nature of Taiwan leader’s clamour for independence.HEARTLAND Some people say Taiwan’s direct election is very democratic. What doyou think about it?ZHU RONGJI Is the so-called election in Taiwan really democratic? Why is it so highlyestimated? In Taiwan, he (means Chen Shuibian) only got 40% of the votes. Hehas no experience of holding power at all. They themselves also admit that what

DON’T BE PESSIMISTIC ABOUT THE EURO

12


they are playing at is “black gold politics”. Therefore, such a kind of direct electionis entirely meaningless. In addition, we are very clear that without Li Denghui’splaying of his personal roles, Taiwan would take a totally different standing pointnow. So we may say the so-called direct election can not lead to democracy. Whatis direct election? Even the election systems of those big Western powers are notcompletely same. I think French Presidents are directly elected, while USAPresidents are not. Are the Italian Presidents directly selected? Also no. Then, whatkind of direct election you are peddling to me? The so-called direct election takesdifferent forms in different countries. Both USA Presidents and Italian Presidentsare not produced through direct election. While French President and Premierhave different functions, respectively in charge of internal affairs and diplomaticaffairs. For the difference of political, cultural and historical backgrounds betweendifferent countries, their political systems are also not completely same. Thereeven exist some countries still carrying on the system of constitutional monarchywith kings and queens. According to our own conditions, China currently adoptsthe system of people’s Congress, according to which, the people’s deputies areselected first and the government is selected by the people’s deputies then. I don’tthink such a system of people’s Congress is the most democratic one, and we willnot ask the other countries to follow us. However, such a system is suitable for theconditions of China. We will neither evaluate, nor criticise any foreign country’selection system. But Taiwan is not a foreign country, and we know so much aboutit. While you say Taiwan Presidents are produced through democratic election, wethink it’s quite a joke.HEARTLAND Does China have any new measures to propel its private economy?ZHU RONGJI Our formulation about private economy has been dramaticallychanged. In the past, we said private economy is a supplementation to the socialisteconomy, while at present, we say it is one of the integral parts of the socialisteconomy. We admit and encourage the development of non-public-owned andprivate economic sector. This sector has really seen great development in China inthese years. The development would be greater when foreign-funded economy isincluded. Foreign-funded economy certainly belongs to private economy, and ourrelevant policies have been greatly liberalised. For example, in the aspect of creditpolicies, haven’t these private economic sectors developed under the support ofcredits? They could not gain any development without loans granted by thenational banks. So far as they are beneficial for the development of the wholenational economy, our attitude towards private economy and individual economyis to encourage and support their development. The development of this kind ofeconomy also has a backward and illegal side. For instance, recently a Chinese TVstation reported that some private enterprises in Zhejiang Province had employeda large number of child labourers. Such a phenomenon is absolutely illegal andmust be resolutely eliminated. Certainly, this is only some particular phenomenon,and it will not influence our encouraging and supportive attitude towards the legaland healthy development of private economy.

A NEW SILK ROAD?

13


HEARTLAND Would you please tell me the causes of the decline of trade volumebetween China and Italy?ZHU RONGJI I think it is not declining now. On the contrary, it dramaticallyincreased in the period from January to May of this year. In the past two or threeyears, the foreign trade growth of whole China was null or even negative for theinfluence of the Asian Financial Crisis. However, China’s foreign trade saw greatgrowth in the following five months, and our trade with Italy also increased to ahigh degree. We attach a great importance to the cooperative relations with Italy ineconomy and trade. Personally speaking, I have paid great attentions tocooperation with Italy. Because Italy boasts very good experience in technicalpromotion and technical reform of middle and small-sized enterprises, Icooperated with Italian parties in many projects in the ‘80s. Italian industries havetheir own features, which are very important for China. I believe the cooperationbetween China and Italy is very promising. Our purpose is to further improve theChina-Italy cooperative relations in economy and trade, especially in the aspects oftechnical cooperation between middle and small-sized enterprises.HEARTLAND Concerning the issue of Vatican, when will you invite the Pope to visitChina?ZHU RONGJI We have contacted the Vatican party for many times, and we havemade it clear that our relations could only be established on the basis of only oneChina. It means that Vatican must admit that the People’s Republic of China is theonly legal representative of China, and Taiwan is only a part of China. This is ourprinciple and standing point. Of course, we also insist that the internal affairs ofChina should not be interfered in the name of religious freedom. Religiousfreedom has been included into our law, and hence we maintain and protectreligious freedom. However, such a matter should not be used to interfere ourinternal affairs. I think we are just negotiating about this principled stand. ThePope will be invited to China after this issue is settled. “Is the negotiationunderway”. I think probably yes.

(by Barbara Alighiero and Francesco Sisci)

DON’T BE PESSIMISTIC ABOUT THE EURO

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A NEW SILK ROAD?

Part IWHAT CHINASTANDS for


A NEW SILK ROAD?

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THE WESTIN THE EYESOF A CHINESE NATIONALIST by WANG XIAODONG

TO PROMOTE COMMUNICATION, DEEPEN

understanding and remove misapprehension between Chinese and Westernerswould be to the happiness of all human beings. I feel quite abashed that I havetaken so long to complete this article. One of the important reasons is that Ireally cannot find enough time, or build up enough writing passion to composean article in terms of Western “academic norms”. Frankly, I think that Western“academic norms” often set up a barrier in the expression and communicationof ideas. The so-called “rigid demands” do nothing but raise the “entry barrier”.Removing the “entry barrier” would require a large amount of spare time andmoney. In the Third World, at least in China, it would be very difficult for aresearcher or thinker to have enough resources to meet the Western “academicnorms” without the mighty patronage of Western academic institutions. One ofthe consequences is that what Westerners hear about Chinese ideas, or at leastabout those of the Chinese intelligentsia, is in fact born under Western auspices,and therefore to the Westerners’ liking; otherwise, the researcher might notbenefit from those auspices another time. These “Chinese ideas” are far fromgenuine Chinese thoughts, and from these Westerners will never get to knowthe real ones. Even from a general point of view, leaving aside China, the so-called “academic norms” usually clash with freedom of thought and creativity,barring many intelligent minds from a charmed circle of mediocrities. In thelong run, neither the works by Confucius nor the Bible fit in with “Westernnorms”.

I do hope that the above digression about Western “academic norms” will notbe edited, for this is an ideological exchange, which might not be withoutimportance.

First, I would like to introduce some of my ideas, but the introduction mightnot be comprehensive and profound enough due to the limited space. In fact, tohelp foreigners know Chinese nationalists comprehensively and profoundly, it isnecessary to compile an anthology including the main thoughts of Chinesenationalists. Westerners have published a few, which, however, mainly includecritiques of Chinese nationalists by Westerners and some pro-Western Chinese

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intellectuals.1 Given that few texts have been written by Chinese nationaliststhemselves, could those criticisms be serious, earnest and responsible toknowledge (here we can also see that the so-called “academic norms” ofWesterners cannot guarantee the quality of research)? Of course, one of theimportant reasons for the absence of texts by Chinese nationalists is that theywould not be published (by contrast with the claim by Western researchers thatthe Chinese government has been instigating and making use of nationalists).Fortunately, Internet provides Chinese nationalists with an unprecedented spaceto express their ideas. The texts of Chinese nationalists on Internet are a splendidsight.

The Oppression of China’s National Interests by the USA

If people say that China was aggressive in Mao’s time, then, in the years afterMao’s death, China adopted a completely defensive posture, and even a tendencyto follow the USA. China no longer has the inclination to challenge the US’snational interests. Therefore, the clash of national interests is caused mainly by theoppression of China by the USA.

The oppression of China’s national interests by the USA is represented in afew aspects known to all. First, the issue of Taiwan. The USA has played a criticalrole in severing the state on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Had the USA notintervened, there would be no severed state. However, American efforts to attemptto break up China go well beyond the issue of Taiwan. Often Westerners use theexcuse that the state has been severed for over 50 years and that the USA’s role isto maintain the status quo, without exerting further oppression of China’s nationalinterests. Then American support of the separatists of inland Tibet and Xinjiang is,no doubt, aggressive and invasive. Some might say that the US government hasnot openly indicated its support for the separatists of Tibet and Xinjiang; at most, ithas interviewed the Dalai Lama, or shown concern towards human rights in Tibetand Xinjiang. To this claim I answer that not only do the US authorities interfere,the USA does.

I want to make a special mention of the Tibet issue. It is known to all that inrecent years a movement in the USA to support the independence of Tibet issurging, in which Hollywood and the American media are involved. I rememberan article in an American magazine (Time or Newsweek, I cannot rememberclearly) saying that it has become fashionable in the American entertainment circleto support the independence of Tibet. Their excuses appear justifiable, saying thatChina suppresses human rights and the freedom of religious belief, and so on.Most of these are lies. I admit that there are serious human rights problems inChina. I also know that, having been in contact with Western culture, the DalaiLama has well familiarised himself with Western human rights ideologies, and

THE WEST IN THE EYES OF A CHINESE NATIONALIST

18 1. See for instance J. UNGER, Chinese Nationalism, New York 1996.


knows very well what he should say to fawn upon the Westerners. Viewed fromWestern standards, however, before the People’s Republic of China controlledTibet, the state of human rights in Tibet under the theocratic reign of the DalaiLama was much worse than in the areas dominated by Chinese people of Hannationality. In those days serfdom was practised in Tibet, which is not far fromslavery. Well, the Westerners might argue that it is part of the unique Tibetanculture and religious belief. So why do Westerners claim that human rights are auniversal value? Why has the Chinese substantial and obvious improvement ofhuman rights in Tibet been distorted as a trampling of human rights?

I also want to comment a view expressed in a letter by an American in the1990s to Ma Lihua, a Han writer living in Tibet, which goes as follows: “Thedifference between assistance and intervention rests on whether the other side isseeking it. When Tibetans are seeking help to make progress, and only at thistime, if one will and can offer help, will that assistance be understood as a kind ofsocial progress and be readily received? Then one can become a helper, a knightwith shiny armour and be considered the saviour. And if the other side has noreceptive capability, all the assistance one hopes to give and all the well-meantmotives will be dissipated in a hostile environment. Therefore, assistance mustsought and hoped for”.2 The American’s view sounds very reasonable, but whentalking about some Tibetans seeking assistance, which people of the area does theUS refer to? Some Tibetans have sought assistance: I hear that in the heart of manylate serfs, Mao Zedong is still a Buddha. But when the USA intervened in Kosovo,was it because the Serbs had asked for it?!

Approaching this issue from the human rights perspective, I think Westernersdo not have enough grounds to accuse China and give support to the Tibetanseparatists. It appears that Westerners are full of a sense of justice, but they arecompletely under the influence of an ill-natured propaganda by the hegemonicmedia. When talking about national interests, the misleading propaganda by theWest, the USA in particular, is obviously a threat to China’s national interests. To agreat majority of Chinese, further improvement of human rights in Tibet isacceptable (and in the whole of China), but the attempt to separate Tibet fromChina is unacceptable and those who are conspiring to do this are no doubt anenemy of China. Viewed from the experience of other areas in the world,separatism has brought nothing but revenge and harm to human rights, though itmight play to geopolitical interests of the USA or the West.

American support of the separatist movement in Tibet and Xinjiang is closelyconnected to its geopolitical strategy. In the USA, some people’s hostility to Chinadoes not arise from human rights issues, but from geopolitical interests or racism– human rights are at most a pretext. In 1996, I had a talk with Mr. Ross H. Munro,author of The Coming Conflict with China. In his opinion, the USA’s concerntowards human rights in China is uncalled for, and the key problem is that the

A NEW SILK ROAD?

192. MA LIHUA, Fleeting Soul, Writer’s Press, 1994, p. 212.


USA is an established super-power, while China is a growing super-power(although, few Chinese see their country as a growing super-power). From ahistorical perspective, the only solution to the clash between the two nations’interests is to go to war. In addition, Mr. Samuel P. Huntington, the author of TheClash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, listed the Chinesecivilisation as an enemy of Western civilisation. I think that Mr. Samuel P.Huntington is a racist, whose “clash of Civilizations” is nothing but a euphemismused instead of the politically incorrect “clash of races”. Some Westerners insistthat these ideas are not mainstream and that the US is not set to antagonise China.This is acceptable, as much as it is for China to be alert in case that tendencydevelops. What is more, the armament of the USA, such as National MissileDefence and Theatre Missile Defence, the latter in particular, including earlywarning radars, will be set up at the gate of China to cover Taiwan. Is this not areal threat to China from the USA?

Recently, Westerners like to discuss the “threat from China”. But in our eyes,China makes no threat against Western countries, because it has neither thecapability, nor the intention to threaten others, while the threat to China from theUSA is obvious to all. On this issue, I think that the USA and other Westerncountries have no right to preach “morality and justice” to China. China is notpowerful enough to compete with Western countries either in military strength orin control over the media, so we can only sit still while the Westerners demoniseus. As Chinese nationalists, the lesson we have learned is not to listen to themorality and justice from the mouth of Westerners. In their system, it is strengththat counts; consequently, China must aspire to gain more strength.

The Clash of Ideologies

The clash of ideologies between China and America has two aspects: betweenthe Chinese government and America, and non-governmental groups and America.The two aspects are strikingly different and must be dealt with separately.

The clash of ideologies between the Chinese government and Americafocuses mainly on human rights and the system of democracy. In this clash, theChinese government has a completely defensive position of which I can give apersuasive example.

On October 19, 1996, the Strategy and Administration office sponsored aninformal discussion with Chinese experts in international affairs, and RobertHawke, former Australian Prime Minister, attended. In the discussion, Mr. Liu Ji,Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, “In modernhistory, no diplomacy directed by ideologies has succeeded”.3 Immediately Mr.Hawke retorted, “I cannot agree less to Professor Liu’s analysis. Historical factsshow precisely the contrary: Western diplomatic policy has been dominated by


20 3. See Strategy and Administration, 1996, VI, p. 19.


ideologies, and this policy has achieved a general victory”.4 Mr. Hawke also said alot and eloquently. At that time, the interpreter, Wang Yong, an Associate Professorfrom the Institute of International Affairs of Beijing University, did not daretranslate the words to Mr. Liu Ji, so I decided to interrupt the discussion andtranslated the words to him. I noticed that Mr. Liu Ji was in great embarrassment.

As a senior official of China, Mr. Liu Ji’s attitude was representative: theChinese government does its best to avoid an ideological dispute with the West,and expects Westerners not to challenge their ruling with regard to human rightsand democracy.

The clash of ideologies between non-governmental groups and America istotally different. In the areas of human rights and democratic politics, the generalpublic has no clash with Westerners. The serious human rights and democracyproblems of China cause great suffering in the first place to the Chinese. SomeWesterners think that Chinese nationalists disregard the human rights anddemocratic politics advocated by Westerners. With an air of racial superiority, theyclaim that since the Chinese do not want Westerners to strive for human rights anddemocratic politics for them, and are instead willing to be enslaved, then, whyshould Westerners bother? This is totally wrong. Chinese nationalism meansnothing without human rights and democratic politics. Human rights, democraticpolitics and the protection of Chinese national interests can and should run parallel.

It should be said that, with regard to human rights and democratic politics, theChinese, or the Chinese nationalists, are not that different from Westerners orAmericans. But together with the image of Western, and especially American,advocates of human rights and democratic politics, another image is in the heart ofChinese: they are the oppressors and exploiters of the poor, of the weakest groupsand of states, and they are unjust. From this perspective, Chinese non-governmental groups are not entirely defensive in the clash of ideologies withAmerica. This has been fully proved by Che Guevara, a play recently staged inBeijing. First, Che Guevara, the enemy of America, was killed by governmenttroops trained and directed by the CIA. He was chosen as the hero of the play toshow that America is the oppressor. Secondly, the script is full of derision of theAmerican capitalist values embraced by the upper class of China. The play, a big hitin Beijing, was produced 36 times in a row with full houses for every performance.

By the way, although the upper class in China might be dissatisfied with talksabout human rights and democratic politics by Americans, they are quite pro-American. Those who revolt against America are usually the lower classes. Thereason might be that the Chinese upper class has accumulated a great amount ofwealth in economic dealings with America. Talks about human rights anddemocratic politics have no visible effect in threatening their interests and theircontrol over Chinese society. On the other hand, the lower and middle classes of

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21

4. Hawke’s words that I accounted here are not exactly the same as that in Strategy and Administra-tion, 1996, VI. What I recorded is more accurate, for the equivocal words in Strategy and Administra-tion might be due to political considerations.


China have not found much benefit in communication with America and the West.Recently things are getting worse with increasing numbers of people maderedundant and unemployed – and it could be well founded to ascribe this to thecapitalism advocated by the US.

The ideological challenge to America made by Chinese non-governmentalgroups is still very weak, but its significance is probably far-reaching. China is arelatively strong nation outside the Western club. None of the nations within theclub will challenge the well-established international system dominated by theUSA, for they are the beneficiaries of the system. While weak nations outside theclub have no capability to challenge it, China is a comparatively powerful nationoutside the club that has a large population and a long-standing civilisation.Therefore, once the ideological challenge by Chinese non-governmental groupsgrows powerful, it could be of worldwide significance. This will be good tohuman beings. Without any challenge, all the injustice and unfairness of humansociety would never be improved, and the progress of society would never occur.

Chinese Nationalism as a Response to Domestic Problems

These trends in ideas, even if apparently with an anti-foreign taint, are firstly aresponse to domestic affairs. Chinese nationalism is in the first place a response tosome domestic problems of the 1980s and 1990s. At the beginning, the name“nationalism” was not adopted; it is a label put on by Western academics and massmedia, a point I made clear in the article “Nationalism in China and the Future ofChina”.5 Please forgive my repeating the main ideas of the article.

The reason that the so-called “nationalism of China” is so eye-catching in the1990s is that it contrasts strikingly with the “reverse-racism” of the 1980s (theoriginal meaning of reverse-racism in English is the objective harm done by anti-discrimination to white people. Here, however, the author gives it a new meaningin the Chinese setting). Chinese “reverse-racism” is a spectacular phenomenon: itis a trend of ideas produced by mainstream Chinese intelligentsia, which deemthat the Chinese culture and nation are inferior. The virtuous think that the Chinesenation is disqualified to live on earth until thoroughly changed, while those whoare heavily influenced by racism think that this nation is so inexorably despicablethat it is not worthy of being on this planet.

In the 1980s this kind of “reverse racism” invaded the whole ideological,academic, literary and media fields, the educated broader public, and receivedeven official encouragement. Few Westerners noticed or mentioned that theChinese authorities encouraged “reverse racism” in the 1980s, yet they are rathersensitive to and make a big fuss over the so-called nationalism used by theChinese authorities to “bridge the ideological gap” in the 1990s. This is not strange.


22

5. See China Road Under the Shadow of Globalization, November 1999, Chinese Social SciencesPress, pp. 81-106. Parts of the article were originally published in the September issue of MingpaoMonthly, with the title “From Reverse-Racism to Chinese Nationalism”.


Firstly, the Chinese authorities’ encouragement of “reverse racism” was a peculiarand unusual phenomenon, and well beyond the Westerners’ imagination.Secondly, to give publicity to “reverse racism” in China would mean glorifyingWesterners – and it is hardly credible that the Chinese government, which hadantagonised the West for years, might encourage this. Thus, Westerners believe“reverse racism” was a trend of the intelligentsia, especially of dissidents. In fact,the Chinese authorities greatly supported “reverse racism” publications, sponsoredand even organised seminars on the so-called “cultural strategy”, and broke therules to promote some intellectuals to important positions in control of publicopinion. The case of He Shang 6 explains it all. Although in showing this TV film

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23

HEILONGJIANG

Harbin

JILIN

Hohhot

NEI MONGOLShenyang

LIAONING

Tianjin

BeijingBEIJINGTianjin

JinanSHANDONGHEBEI

Shijiazhuang

SHANXITaiyuan

NINGXIA

Yinchuan

Xi’an

SHAANXI

HENAN

Zhengzhou

Hefei

ANHUIShanghai

JIANGSUNanjing

SHANGHAIHangzhou

ZHEJIANGNanchang

JIANGXI FuzhouTaipei

TAIWAN

FUJIAN

Xiamen

Hong Kong

GUANGXINanning

HUNAN

Changsha

GuiyangGUIZHOU

SICHUAN

Chengda

Kunming

YUNNAN

Lhasa

XIZANG

QINGHAIXining

XINJIANGGANSU

Ürümqi

Lanzhou

Ulaanbaatar

KathmanduThimphu

YangonVientiane

NewDelhi

Claimed by India

Under Chineseadministration

Changchun

Guangzhou

GUAN

GDONG

0 500 km

INDIA

MYANMAR

BHUTANNEPAL

R U S S I A N F E D E R A T I O N

M O N G O L I A

K A Z A K H S T A N

VIETNAMTHAILAND

LAOS

PHILIPPINES

CHINA

NORTHKOREA

P’yongyang

SeoulSOUTHKOREA

Hanoi

HUBEIWuhan

Dhaka

BANGLADESH

6. He Shang, the name of a TV series; “He” refers to the Yellow River, the symbol of Chinese civiliza-tion; “shang”, means “death before growing up”, so the literal meaning of the title is “death of the Yel-low River” (translator’s note).


the producers of He Shang talked about a political risk, it really was a publicitystrategy (the Chinese knew that, at that time, there was no better advertisementthan claiming a political risk). Indeed, the film would not have been madesuccessfully without the authorities’ support; secondly, after it was shown, CCTVas well as other major official media headed by the People’s Daily dedicatedattention and debates to it. The supporters of He Shang said: “The press in Chinahas never paid so much attention to a television series like He Shang, publishingthe commentary, writing reports, comments and discussions”. 7 Of course, giventhe anti-government position that some authors of He Shang held, the Chinesegovernment accordingly changed its attitude. Even so, the “reverse racism”expressed in He Shang still found many supporters in the ideological officials incontrol of China’s media.

How did this “reverse racism”, encouraged by the authorities and raved aboutby the intelligentsia (who called it “cultural hit”), come about? There are severalreasons. The nihilism of national culture denies that its tradition and culture is partof a tradition of the Chinese intelligentsia. The May 4 Movement sometimescontradicted the patriotic calling of the Chinese Communist Party, though on theother hand, from the perspective of historical philosophy, responded to the anti-feudal ideology of the Communist Party. It should not be forgotten that the“Cultural Revolution” began by “breaking the ‘four olds’, establishing the ‘fournews’”, 8 and destroying the remains of Chinese traditional culture. After the“Revolution”, all the policies of that period were denounced, but the outlook ofhistorical philosophy was completely inherited. I have pointed out once and againthat the modes of thinking of many Chinese intellectuals who abhor the“Revolution” point to that as the main characteristic of the “Revolution”. As aconsequence, once the “Revolution” that aimed at the destruction of Chinesetraditional culture was over, all the blame, including that of the “Revolution”, wascast upon Chinese traditional culture, the wave of denouncing Chinese traditionalculture was surging again, and no one ever thought about its absurdity. Apparentlythis time they went much farther than “May 4” and the “Revolution”. “May 4” ideaswere tinted with a “nihilism of national culture”, but lacked such strong “nationalnihilism” or “reverse racism”, and the mainstream was nationalism. Yet from“nihilism of national culture” to “national nihilism” or “reverse racism”, thedevelopment was quite logical.

“Reverse racism” was also encouraged because China in the 1980s needed toopen its gates rapidly to the West for investments, technology, ideas or forms ofentertainment. Viewed as a whole, “reverse racism” met the general policyrequirements.


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7. TIAN BENXIANG, “On He Shang”, Comments on He Shang, edited by Cui Wenhua, Culture and ArtPress, 1988, p. 218. 8. This slogan was quite popular during the “Cultural Revolution”. The “four olds” was used to refer to“old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits”; the “four news” were new ideas, new culture,new customs and new habits (translator’s note).


However, regardless of whether “reverse racism” was needed at the time orhow its “historical effects” can be evaluated, it could not remain in Chineseconsciousness. It would be very difficult for any nation to support ideas thatmaintain its own inferiority, more so for China, a great nation with a quiteglorious and not so far away past, a population of 1.2 billion, and, thoughfrustrated, showing no trace of decline. This does not need to be “proved”theoretically. Every life has a self-affirmative mechanism; otherwise its survivalwould be impossible. From the late 1980s onwards, the Chinese intelligentsiabegan revising “reverse racism”, which developed into a strong trend of“nationalism” in the 1990s. Nonetheless, “reverse racism” is still dominant in theChinese intelligentsia, especially among those in control of the academic andeducational fields.

It must also be emphatically pointed out that the self-abusive “reverse racism”mania of the 1980s existed mainly among intellectuals and college students, whiletoday it has lost much of its market and is confined to the dignitaries and the“liberal” intellectuals. The average public is influenced by this trend, but generallywithout the self-abusive mania. In fact, “the silent majority”, i.e. the average public,have been rebelling against it, as the “liberal” intellectuals clearly see. For thisreason, they criticise “nationalism” and “populism” together. I have made similarpoints earlier in this article: in China, “nationalism” stems from the lower andmiddle classes, while “reverse racism”, pro-American and pro-Western attitudesare common in the upper class of dignitaries, many of whom are corrupt officialshated by the people.

Leaving aside theories and ideas and moving on to facts, these corruptofficials often collude with foreign businessmen to sell off national interests andthe interests of the general public. One example is provided by the tragedies ofthose sweatshops created with foreign investment, in which many womenworkers (sometimes a dozen, and sometimes over a hundred) were burnt todeath. Women workers are locked in shops or dormitories like slaves with noescape in case of fire. In disagreements with foreign businessmen, or commercialdisputes between foreign and Chinese businessmen, Chinese corrupt officialsstand side by side with the foreigners for their own benefits. No wonder that thegeneral public often thinks that Westerners are on the side of the corrupt officials,that their talk of human rights and democratic politics is hypocritical, and that thesocial politics and economic theories that Westerners thrust upon China only servethe corrupt upstarts in China. In this context it is no wonder that nationalism findsloud echoes among the lower and middle classes.

From a certain point of view, nationalism in China is a response to the“reverse racism” embraced by those who believe in “meritocracy” and whoscorn, revile and discriminate ordinary Chinese. It also is a response to thecorruption of those who collude with foreigners and sell out the interests ofordinary Chinese.

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Freedom, Democracy and Hegemony 9

How can freedom be guaranteed? In 1944, Friedrich August Hayek, a well-known liberal thinker, argued in The Road to Serfdom that in a competitive society,the freedom we choose is based on such freedom: if one refuses to satisfy ourhopes, we may turn to another. But with a monopoly, we can do nothing but be atits beck and call. What Hayek referred to is an authority that monopolises theeconomic artery. Once such a monopoly arises, we have no freedom.Understandably, he could not discuss the super hegemony that came about 50years later in international relations. If Hayek’s above judgement is a universalliberal principle (I think it is, and agree with it completely), obviously it will beapplicable to the present international order. Such a monopoly has appeared or atleast is appearing in the present international order with the hegemony of theUSA. For the moment, none of other forces in the world may challenge thishegemony; we can turn to no other force that can counteract the US. In front ofsuch hegemony, what freedom do you say we have?

To a great extent, the fall of the Soviet Union foretold the coming of the day inwhich we would lose our freedom. Some say the Soviet Union was an evil empirethat also had the wild ambition to be the lord of the world. And some even saythat the threat from the Soviet Union to China was more hazardous than that fromthe USA. These ideas might be right, but unfortunately they miss the point. Thekey does not lie in whether the Soviet Union was better or worse than the USA,but whether we have more or less freedom in a unipolar world, compared with abipolar or multipolar one. The liberal principle tells us that an authority thatmonopolises the artery of our subsistence entails our loss of freedom. Therefore,under the hegemony of the USA, the world has evidently lost its freedom: in theyears since the fall of Soviet Union, the USA has started roughing up the worldwithout scruple, promising a dark future.

Some might claim that the several rough-ups of the USA, such as Gulf War andKosovo, had been caused by brutal atrocities, which had to be stopped by themoney, the arms and the people of the USA – a selfless act for the people in otherareas of the world. Had the USA not rushed there to stop the atrocities, those whosuffered would have been totally hopeless. The USA itself often puts on an air that“I don’t want to be the world guard, but whom else can you turn to when theworld needs one?” Here I do not want to plunge into the dispute such as “whetherMilosevic carried out ethnic cleansing or not”. In The Constitution of Liberty,Hayek says that coercion cannot be avoided completely, because the only way toprevent it is to threaten the use of coercion. A free society empowers the countryto enforce the monopoly of coercion in order to restrict the use of the power onpart of individuals.


9. In “Liberalism and Hegemony”, I discussed the relationships between freedom, democracy and he-gemony. See China Road Under the Shadow of Globalization, Chinese Social Sciences Press, Novem-ber 1999, pp. 58-72.26


From the point of view of traditional international law, the USA’s assault onYugoslavia was an outright invasion. Then, why do some “liberals” support it inthe name of justice? In my opinion, consciously or unconsciously, they are willingto endure the US’s monopoly of power. In international relationships, how can theactions of the USA, a peremptory monopoly, be delimited? It must be kept in mindthat democratic politics do not play any role here. We have no right to vote for thePresident of the USA or the members of Congress. If we cannot limit the actions ofthe USA – instead of relying on its self-restriction – the international order isexactly the same as a totalitarian system, not yet bad as that thanks to Russia,China and India.

The emergence of a unipolar international order will never increase thefreedom of the majority in the world except for the monopolising country. I haveno intention of debasing the American civilisation and ideal, but the liberalprinciple tells us that the guarantee of freedom cannot come from the noblemorality of the ruler, but from the restriction of the system. No matter how nobleand free the American nation-founding ideal is, it cannot create a unipolarhegemony in the world, which would bring a horrible totalitarianism in theinternational order (intensive bombing on Yugoslavia by US-led NATO clearlyshows how horrible such an international order is). It may even carry out, asHayek puts it, “authoritative government acts according to liberal principles”. 10

But a liberal knows that the ruler is not reliable. In this case we would have “noone to turn to”. Freedom cannot rely on the ruler, but on another one we can turnto. Therefore, a liberal has to consider how to limit the hegemony of the USA inthe world, and support those countries that are counterbalancing the hegemony ofthe USA.

Liberalism does not only mean abstract principles. If these abstract principleswere not put into practice according to concrete conditions, liberalism and theliberals would be worthless. Unfortunately, few “liberals” stand up to oppose thehegemony of the USA. Have I misunderstood liberalism and the USA, or have theybetrayed the liberal principles and turned away from the decency that is essentialto a liberal? I think it is the latter case. Of course, there are some reasons for whichWestern liberals do not protest (though some have done): they are in the club ofworld conquerors, or have no way to taste what it is like for those who are outsidethe club, or have selfish motives. But the attitudes of Chinese liberals are strange:when American hegemony is overshadowing the whole globe, they opposeChinese “nationalism” instead of standing up to the US. I wonder whether theyknow the meaning of liberalism. If they are true liberals, they should opposeAmerican nationalism instead of Chinese “nationalism”. But they don’t, theyimpudently support American nationalism and oppose Chinese “nationalism”.

If an atrocity such as genocide really were to take place somewhere in theworld, all the people in the world should try to find ways to stop it instead of

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2710. HAYEK, The Constitution of Liberty, 1960.


looking over with folded arms. The “liberals”, however, should not forget theirlectures to us in the past: under totalitarianism we might be less molested bycriminals. But we’d rather discard such kind of “safety”, for the cost is too high.The actual example is the bombing on Yugoslavia by the USA. Though Milosevicwas not totally clean-handed, I think American bombing did far more harm to Serband Albanian civilians. If the international relations of the future are dealt with inthis way, the cost that the world will have to pay will be far greater. If ethniccleansing really were to take place in the present world, do we have othersubstitutes? In dealing with this kind of issue, a few better ways than interventionin the internal affairs of a state can be found. It is also unacceptable for civilisedpeople to stand by and look onto genocide with folded arms. Human beings inthe future should have better solutions, something like a world with Great-Harmony or the like. Why not use the UN? The excuse of the USA is the non-cooperation of Russia and China, which would exercise their right to veto in theSecurity Council. But why wouldn’t Russia and China cooperate? Does the USAhave adequate reasons to intervene in Yugoslavia by force? If it does, why not try itin the Security Council so that all people of the world, including Chinese, can seethe “hideous acts” of “abusing power” and how “irresponsible” Russia and Chinaare? In fact, China has been very responsible in voting at the UN, especially carefulwhen using its veto power and Russia did not intend to shield Yugoslaviacompletely (it lacks the capability as well). Obviously, the USA’s purpose inputting aside the UN and invading Yugoslavia in the name of NATO was toestablish a new international order with US-led NATO to dominate the world byforce. For the rest of the world except the USA or NATO countries, this kind ofnew order is totally incongruous with freedom.

Over half a century ago, Hayek wrote his famous book, The Road to Serfdom.Now the kind of country he referred to no longer exists, and the kind of thoughthe referred to is in low tide. Since his time, this world has been through greatchanges. Have the liberals today noticed the changes, the threats from newfreedoms, and the different sources of threats to freedom in international relationsand internal politics? If the answer is no, the liberals today are unworthy of theglorious word “liberty”. If none of us can realise this, then, a new totalitarianinternational order will descend on this planet, which is a sure new road toserfdom.

Conclusion: The Prospect of a New International Order

An essential world problem is the distribution of natural resources. In order toscramble for natural resources and living spaces, many bloody wars have brokenout in history: World War II, for example, which is still fresh in our memory. Afterthe War, the new argument was that in the postwar free trade system, naturalresources and living spaces are not so important: anyone who wins thecommercial competition may have a happy life. Those who have discarded


28


hypocrisy and are thinking seriously about the problems on this planet will neveragree with such a fallacy.

If one goes to and has a look at the Chinese inland where natural conditionsare extremely inclement but the population extremely dense, he will see thatpeople in those areas are virtually living in despair: the extremely inadequatenatural resources doom them to failure in any commercial competition. Theinclement living conditions also deteriorate their social relations: when everyone isscrambling for natural resources, tolerance, freedom and democracy find nofoothold, and environmental protection is out of the question. Their only hope isto escape to a place where natural resources are plentiful.

Recently in Britain a human smuggling incident scored the highest death tollof stowaways. On the early morning of June 19, when British landing waiters werechecking a Dutch-registered lorry at the port of Dover in the South of Britain, 58(54 male, 4 female) corpses of illegal immigrants from East Asia were found in acontainer, and two survivors were rushed to hospital for emergency treatment.They probably were from China.11 I have read too much news of this kind, andevery time I feel a gnawing in my heart. Some Westerners as well as some Chinesewho are used to derogating China to fawn Westerners might say that thesestowaways were “fleeing a dictatorial regime”. However, every objective and fair-minded person knows they were fleeing insufficient natural resources andcongested living spaces. Others might say that these stowaways were not verypoor, otherwise they couldn’t have afforded the expenses. It has become part ofChinese group subconscious to flee from deficient natural resources and congestedspaces. Every year countless Chinese go through innumerable trials and hardshipsto try to enter areas where natural resources are not so limited and space is not socrowded, and the best places are North America, Europe, and Australia. If not,Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America will also do, and even some parts of Africa.

The examples of the argument that natural resources and living spaces are notimportant and any winner in a commercial competition may enjoy a good life canonly be applied to a few small and very special countries and regions, such asSouth Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Japan seems to be one of theexamples, but Japan gained its original capital by defeating China in wars andplundering its natural resources.

Natural resources and living spaces are never unimportant. But how are thedistribution of natural resources and living spaces determined? No doubt, theyhave been distributed by wars. The rich nations today, mainly the white andJapan, have lived happily by defeating or even exterminating other races (such asin South and North America) and robbing abundant natural resources and livingspaces. This issue can never be evaded. Without mentioning this, it is hypocriticalto talk about “human rights”, “freedom”, “environmental protection” and“peace”…. while those sanctimonious intellectuals and politicians avoid this issue.

11. Telecommunication from Reuters on June 19, 2000.

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Even if the issue is evaded, it still lingers in people’s heart, especially of theChinese, Indians, and peoples of other races in the world.

Another essential problem is that the fate of such a large a population is heldin the hands of a few who do not know or care about them. From the perspectiveof internal politics, this is an issue of despotism; from the perspective ofinternational order, it is an issue of hegemony of the club of the USA and otherWestern powers. I appreciate the democratic system of the USA and other Westerncountries to the utmost. However, from the perspective of internationalrelationships, it is quite similar to that of ancient Rome. In my view, another groupcannot control the destiny of the Chinese, even if the people in that group madethe decision through a democratic procedure, for in this procedure, the Chinesewere not involved. This is where the difference lies between those pro-WesternChinese intellectuals and myself.

Without solving these problems, it would be very difficult for “human rights”,“freedom”, “environmental protection” and “peace” to exist. What really exists iswhat human beings have done in the long river of history: a group of people withstrong fists wipes out another group with weak fists to seek their own benefits. Inthis case, what is the use of those fair-sounding words?

If Westerners really care about these things such as “human rights”, “freedom”,“environmental protection” and “peace”, why not think more about how todistribute the natural resources and living spaces fairly and how to establish ademocratic system with all human beings involved notwithstanding race,countries, religious beliefs and sexes.

(translated by Yao Ximing)


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31

GEOPOLITICAL CHANGESIN THE WESTERN REGIONS by ZHANG XIAODONG

T HE FIRST TIME I GOT TO KNOW “THE

Western Regions”* was at the end of the 1970s, when I took the first CollegeEntrance Examinations after the “Cultural Revolution” and had to stuff my headwith a jumble of things I had never heard of. At that time, “the Western Regions”was a geographical name in history that I had to remember. Later, when I studiedin the History Department of a university, more and more information about theWestern Regions began to accumulate in my mind: Qin’s Moon and Han’s Pass,the exotic pipe and flute, the shining spears and armoured horses, the singlecolumn of smoke and the setting sun…1 and also messengers in Han and monksof the Tang Dynasty who were trekking in the flying sand as well as theindefatigable camel train and trade caravan. Although the Western Regions werestill remote and obscure, the great spatio-temporal vicissitude had sealed it insidethe vast accumulation of historical data.

However, since the 1990s the image of the Western Regions gradually beganto become clearer and more concrete in the depth of my mind. First, since thedisintegration of the Soviet Union, a large number of ethnic nations havemushroomed in the Asian hinterland, a place that is customarily called Central Asiaor Transcaucasia. Soon a region that is closely related in geopolitics, security,religion, ethnicity, culture and economy looms into our view. For such a large areathat includes Western Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of South Asia, onlythe name “Western Regions” can embrace it all. Second, bordering ChineseXingjiang and Tibet, this region not only affects our national security and stabilityof the Great Northwest, but also relates to the development of the West of China,

* According to Word Ocean (1979, condensed version, Shanghai Lexicographical Press), after the HanDynasty, the region west of Yumen Pass (Northwest of Dunhuang, Gansu Province now) was gene-rally called the Western Regions. The word has two meanings: in a narrow sense, it refers to the areaEast of Congling; in a broad sense, it refers to the regions that can be reached through the area East ofCongling, and includes the Middle and West of Asia, the Indian Peninsula, the East of Europe and theNorthern parts of Africa. In this article, the Western Regions refer to the Middle East, Central Asia, theIndian Subcontinent and the Caucasian region, which is a little different from the broad meaning. Butwhile a better word is yet to be found to include the above four regions, “the Western Regions” is nota bad choice (author’s note). 1. These are the widely known descriptions of the Western Regions by ancient poets (translator’s note).

031-046/LiMes/Xiaodong 6-10-2000 15:20 Pagina 31

as well as the economic development of China as a whole in the 21st century. Hereonly the word “Western Regions” can evoke our grand sense of honour and oursense of crisis.

The region must be recognised de novo and the influences of the changes inthis region on our country must be understood. All of these constitute the mainmotives of my retrospection on the Western Regions (please forgive my using aword that had been forgotten for over 100 years) at the turn of the millennium.

The Changes in Geopolitics of the Western Regions since the End of the Cold War

In the vast expanse of the Western Regions, the end of the Cold War wasmainly symbolised by a series of great historical events, such as the Soviet troops’withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Gulf War, progress in the peace talks in theMiddle East and the successive independence of the countries in Central Asia andTranscaucasia, which have not only changed the balance of power and broken theCold War set-up formed since the World War II, but also ignited momentousrearrangements in geopolitics in this region in over 100 years.

First, due to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russian influence inCentral and Western Asia has shrunk on all fronts. From the planned large-scaleexpansion (1700) of Peter the Great to the annexation of Crimea, Caucasus,Central Asia and so on into the domain of Tsarist Russia (Russians entered Pamir in1891),2 it took the Russians about 190 years. After the October Revolution, theSoviet Union not only inherited the territory of the Tsarist Russia but also graduallypicked up its external policy in Asia. In order to compete for supremacy with theUSA, as well as break the encompassing of the USA in the South wing, the SovietUnion took as its main objective the access to the Indian Ocean, snatchingstrategic points and achieving an advantage in geopolitical competition. In itsheyday, the Soviet Union set up military bases in the African Horn and SouthYemen, and maintained close ties with some radical Arab countries such as Syriaand Libya. From the mid 1980s, under the leadership of Gorbachev, the countryundertook a general political and economic reform, which, more like a disasterthan a reform to the whole nation and the people, solved none of the substantialproblems that the country faced at home and abroad, and instead caused the worstchaos in economic order and the ultimate disintegration of the Union. However,this was good news for the USA, the Western camp and those countries that hadbeen under the Russian threat over the past 100-odd years. Through the Gulf Warin 1990-1991, the USA established its dominance in the whole Middle East. In otherwords, it became impossible to solve any problems in Middle East without theactive involvement of the USA, while the Soviet Union (and its heir Russia) turned

GEOPOLITICAL CHANGES IN THE WESTERN REGIONS

322. ZHAO CHANGQING, A Survey of Five Central Asian Countries, Economic Daily Press, Beijing, April1999, p. 30.


into an on-looker of Middle Eastern affairs and an endorser of the Americanscheme. In the North of the Middle East, countries such as Turkey, Iran,Afghanistan and Pakistan, which had been under tight Russian pressure, mayslightly relieve the taut nerve at last. The Soviet troops’ withdrawal fromAfghanistan and the successive independence of three nations in Transcaucasiaand five nations in Central Asia not only drove the threat further North for severalhundred and even over one thousand kilometres, but also provided thesecountries with more space to exert greater influence in regional politics.

Second, an immense political vacuum appeared in the hinterland of Asia. Nomatter how the conquest of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union in Central Asia andTranscaucasia is evaluated, a fundamental fact is that the successive independenceof the three nations in Transcaucasia and the five nations in Central Asia essentiallypresupposes a total renunciation of the Soviet politics, economics, social system,culture and ideology. In view of this, the so-called political vacuum is representedin the thorough “non-Sovietisation” and “non-Russianisation” in the nations ofCentral Asia and Transcaucasia. In the next place, due to the disintegration of theSoviet Union, in an instant, Central Asia and Transcaucasia turned from being aRussian exclusive domain into a “derelict enclave” in international politics. Noeffective influence from any international and regional political power fell uponthis region, and these nations themselves are standing in bewilderment, unable toascertain their identity and future. Just like those nations that have experiencedethnic migration or suffered foreign invasion, the ethnic nations have to make asettlement about the past and a choice about the future. Put another way, thefuture politics, economy and society of these countries are characterised by greatuncertainty and plasticity. Whatever choices are ultimately made, theconsequential influence (upon the peripheral countries in particular) will beimmense.

As a result, nearly at the same time of these countries’ independence, ageopolitical competition with the aim to affect the orientation of the countries inCentral Asia and Transcaucasia began to unfold. Turkey, which is close to CentralAsia and Transcaucasia in language as well in ethnicity, aspires to establish aTurkish community stretching from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China.3

The interests that Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others are pursuing contradicteach other to a great extent, but all of them aspire to restore Islamic features in thisregion. While the USA and other Western countries take it as a matter of coursethat after casting off the shackles of the Russians who had tied them for over 100years, the countries in Central Asia will “throw themselves into the arms of theWestern-coloured freedom and democracy without hesitation”,4 and thereforetheir main goals are to “promote democracy”, “establish a liberal economy” and

3. WU CHUANGUN, “On the Developmental Prospect of Pan-Turkism”, Russia Studies, IV, 1993.4. DONG FANGXIAO, Islam and Post-Cold War World, Social Scientific Literature Press, Beijing, June1999, p. 190.

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33


“help this region merge with international society” 5 and so on. To a great extent,the important strategic position of this region, the abundant petroleum and gasresources in the Caspian Sea area further stimulate the desire and enthusiasm of allkinds of powers to fill up the political vacuum. To achieve its strategic aim, theUSA not only is planning to compromise with Iran, but also does not havereservations in making use of the “Taliban”, an Islamic extremist organisation, toopen up the passage to Central Asia through Afghanistan.6 The Japanese layspecial emphasis on “seizing the opportunity to peek the Chinese and Russiansfrom their back” and attempt to avoid “a gap in politics and economy” in CentralAsia.7

Third, power integration that crosses regional boundaries. In the 2000 yearsprior to the mid 18th century, the political, economic and cultural communicationamong the people in the expansive region that we call Central Asia, Western Asiaand South Asia was probably far more complex and frequent than we know.Comparatively the artificial obstruction of the Russian conquest on the regions ofCentral Asia and Transcaucasia lasted for only 100 years, which might not causemuch damage on the longstanding historical connections. However, the past 100years is a period that characterised not only the rapid growth in economy andtechnologies in human history, but also extreme clashes in ideologies and nationalinterests. These, on one hand, have made an immense difference in material wellbeing, but on the other have widened the gap in spiritual and political life. Itshould be specially noted that, as a result of the formation of the two great camps(East and West) and the breakout of the Cold War after World War II, all thedifferences and gaps widened.

The end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union removedthe artificial communication barrier between the various regions, and provided thepossibility for other international and regional powers to exercise their influence.At the same time, the general emphasis of every country on accelerating economicdevelopment and improving people’s living standards has produced sustainedstimulation for the integration of cross-regional powers.

The first kind of power integration in the Western Regions is the whole-scaleexpansion of Islamic influence. As part of the traditional Islamic world, the regionof Central Asia is covered with fertile soil for an Islamic revival. Furthermore, alarge number of Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and others) addfuel to the fire for the revival of Islam in Central Asia through investments,religious donations, sponsorships for pilgrimages and cultural exchanges. Withthe very help from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries, Central Asiancountries successively joined in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference


34

5. GU GUANFU, “The US Intervention in Central Asia and the Security of China”, Institute of China Stra-tegy and Administration, Analytic Report of International Affairs, 1997-1989, p. 52. 6. As above, p. 54.7. DAIKAKU NAOYA, “Diplomacy along the Silk Road – A Back View of the Strategies of China and Rus-sia”, Japan: Yomiuri Shimbun, February 5, 2000. Quote from: Xinhua Agency, Tokyo, February 5,2000, Japanese telecommunication.


(OIC), 8 thus accomplishing the return to Islam on the official level. Meanwhile,under all kinds of influences from within and without, the religious enthusiasm ofthe general public in this region is continuously surging, and also Islam isgradually becoming an effective weapon of quite a few political oppositiongroups.9 The second kind of power integration in the Western Regions is the Pan-Turkism mainly promoted by Turkey, which actively pushes ahead the relationswith Central Asian countries in all fields, and established and held a “TurkishSummit Conference”. Turkey can make use of ethnic and language relations aswell as the eagerness of the Central Asian countries, in search for a new course ofdevelopment and to accomplish a “non-Russianisation” at the beginning of theirindependence. It is not easy to establish a “Turkish Community”, “GreatTurkestan” or any other Pan-Turkish entity, but the geopolitical shift engenderedin the whole Western Regions by such activities and its influence upon Xinjiang inChine can never be neglected.

The third kind of power integration is probably the most significant andproblematic: the economic cooperation of the whole region. In 1992, the“Economic Cooperation Organisation” (ECO, formed in 1985) founded by Turkey,Iran and Pakistan was expanded to include the five Central Asian countries,Azerbaijan and Afghanistan, formally starting the regional economic operationstretching over Central Asia, Transcaucasia and the Northern part of the MiddleEast. In spite of the summit conferences held in the few ensuing years and quite anumber of agreements reached in the fields of banking and infrastructureimprovement, few of them have been put into practice. The activities of ECO havevirtually stopped, especially when Turkey and Iran placed more attentionrespectively on the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Association (BSEC) andCaspian Sea Users, two organisations focused respectively on each of thecountries.

Fourth, the Eurasian continent crossroads. Prior to Russia’s complete controlover Central Asia and the Caucasus, this region, the core of the Eurasian continent,had played a unique role in the whole ancient world. For one thing, the “SilkRoad” leading to the West from China went through this region, the cities on theway were not only the distributing centres of all kinds of goods, but also posts thatmaintained the security and smoothness of transportation; secondly, this regionwas also the only passage for the nomadic ethnic nations in the North of Asia to godown to Mesopotamia, Iran and India. Of course, not all of those who weretrudging along the “Silk Road” were travelling merchants, not all of those whowere galloping on the Central Asian prairie and in the harsh desert were thecavalry of the barbarian ethnic groups. The region of Central Asia and theCaucasus had in fact grown into a crossroads where the politics, economics andcultures of a few cultural areas on the ancient Eurasian continent converged and

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8. DONG FANGXIAO, Islam and Post-Cold War World, Social Scientific Literature Press, Beijing, June1999, p. 177. 9. MIR ZOHAIR HUSAIN, Global Islamic Politics, Harper Collins Publishers, 1995, pp. 255-256.


interacted. As René Grousset, a French scholar, described in his monumental workThe Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, “along this road, trade wasgoing on and religions were spreading; along this road, came the Greek arts of theAlexandrine successors and the people who preached Buddhism fromAfghanistan. From this road, Greek-Roman merchants went to and tried to takecontrol of Saraga (a name used by Ptolemaeus to refer to Luoyang, which he alsocalled Thinae, author’s note), a place Ptolemaeus had mentioned to be plentifulwith silk, and the generals in Eastern Han Dynasty of China had ventured toestablish communications with Iranian world and the Eastern part of the RomanEmpire”. 10

In the 1990s, having been out of view of the world politics and internationalcommunications for over one hundred years, the region of Central Asia and theCaucasus once again resumed its geographic advantage of linking the continentsof Europe and Asia. If increasing globalisation were taken into consideration, itsgeopolitical advantage would probably be far more prominent than in the past.Obviously the leaders of the Central Asian countries have realised the close tiebetween the geopolitical advantage and the future development of their countries.“As a result, all countries have eagerly declared their desires one after another tobecome the new ‘tie’ and bridge”. 11 Of course their performing capability hasbeen seriously hindered by underdeveloped economies, fragile infrastructures,complicated religious and ethnic conflicts, but their potential advantages ingeography, strategy and even economics cannot be indiscreetly brushed aside.This might be the important reason for which Russia is re-establishing its presencein the region and for which the USA, European Union and NATO are gettinginvolved.

The Western Regions and the National Security of China

On the Eurasian hinterland and bordering the Pacific Ocean in the East, Chinawas troubled by the invasion of the nomadic ethnic nations in the North andNorthwest in the past feudal dynasties. Hun during the Qin Dynasty, Turk duringthe period of Sui-Tang, the Northern chaos caused by war during the FiveDynasties, the confrontation between Northern Song and Nuzhen, and later, thesuccessive entrance in the Central Plains of Mongolians and Manchurians, allaccounted for a simple fact: the invasions of the nomadic ethnic nations were themajor threat to the external security of past dynasties. The rock-firm Great Wallthat has been standing for hundreds and thousands of years vividly interpretsChina’s focus and main orientation in security. With the establishment of theWestern maritime hegemony and the rise of capitalism, the main threat against the


36

10. R. GROUSSET, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, translated by LAN QI, Commer-cial Press, Beijing 1999, pp. 10-11. 11. SUN ZHUANGZHI, Foreign Relations of Five Central Asian Countries, Contemporary World Press,Beijing, April 1999, p. 35.


security of China shifted from land to sea. During the 110 years from the OpiumWar in 1840 to the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, there werenumerous invasive wars against China launched from the sea, and China’s capitalwas captured and ransacked three times: in 1860, the Allied Armies of Britain andFrance burnt Yuanming Garden; in 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces occupiedBeijing; and in 1938, Japanese Devils caused a blood bath in Nanjing. It should benoted that even in this period, threats from the North and Northwest had by nomeans subsided. The territory and borders in the depth of the continent hadundergone tremendous changes, from which the threat had not been felt until the1960s-1970s: from the utmost Eastern part of the Wusuli River to the Pamirs in theFar West, China was half enveloped by the Soviet Union from North to West; thethree provinces in the Northeast, the base of China’s heavy industry, werebetween the hammer and the anvil, and even Beijing, the capital, was within therange of a lightning war.

By 1991 the threats from the West and the North had generally undergone twostages. The first stage started around 221 BC and ended in mid 19th century, whenthe main threat against China came from regular invasions of the Northernnomadic ethnic nations. When the central dynasties were comparatively strong,the invasion caused no more than wars on the Northwestern frontiers; when thecentral dynasties were vulnerable, the whole Northern regions would fall in thechaos of war including the Central Plains under foreign occupation. Fortunately,although the well-developed civilisation in the Central Plains “had beenconquered, yet in the end, it conquered the barbaric and uncivilised victors byinebriating and doping them, and ultimately wiped them out”. 12 From the mid 19th

century, the threat from the Northwest underwent substantial changes. First, Russiareplaced the nomadic nations and became the main invader from the North, forthe expansion of territory cast a spell over Tsarist Russia; second, both the Tsaristand Communist reigning groups were frequently under strong fanatical impulsesto launch large-scale invasions and military strikes against China; and third, unlikethe regular invasions of the nomadic nations, Russian pressure on the security ofChina was overwhelming and longlasting.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union in December of 1991 and the followingindependence of the Central Asian countries marked the dawn of a new era inwhich the security environment in the West and North of China would undergogreat changes. Optimistically, the disintegration of the Soviet Union relieved Chinaof the most intense military pressure along the continental border, and in theforeseeable future, there will be no threat of large-scale military invasion in theNorth and West of China. Even the possibility of border clashes also dropped tothe lowest point in history, for China has not only solved the majority of borderissues with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries, but also achieveda common view through dialogue and negotiation au pair on border disarmament

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3712. R. GROUSSET, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, translated by LAN QI, Commer-cial Press, Beijing 1999, p. 18.


and reliance establishment. “The Shanghai Five” in particular, has become acooperative paradigm in the security field of international society.

Nevertheless, it should not be neglected that security in the West and North ofChina still faces serious uncertainties. The first is related to Islamic extremism andethnic separatism. Viewed from the whole, the international and regionalenvironments since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 are propitious tothe promulgation of Islamic extremist and ethnic separatist thoughts. From theinternational perspective, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the frustrationsuffered under Socialism have not only provided space for the overflowing of allkinds of political and religious trends, but also helped their natural justification: aslong as they are trying to shake off Russian control and influence and oppose theSoviet political and economic pattern, they will earn wide support andacclamation in international society. What is more, with the Kosovo war as theturning point, the new interventionism of the USA and NATO has come intoshape, represented especially in their support to the “Kosovo Liberation Army”, anextremist faction, and their position on the later Chechen issue. This will stimulateall kinds of separatism. From the regional perspective, both Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism have a ready market in Central Asian regions. One reason for this is thatsome countries studiously preach and hawk these thoughts in pursuit of their owninterests; the other reason is that, to a great extent, these thoughts filled theideological vacuum during the post Soviet era, and provided a certain ethnic andcultural identity and authenticity. In such great a setting, all kinds of religiousextremisms with an Islamic colour and ethnic separatism became active as neverbefore, from the Balkans to the Caucasus, from Central Asia to Afghanistan andKashmir, that is, along the boundary between the Islamic world and the Easterncamp.

To sum up, the Islamic extremism and ethnic separatism active in this regionhave some common characteristics. First, without exception they lump religious,ethnic and political issues together to evoke widest international sympathy andsupport; second, while constantly advocating noble religious and political goals,they take up kidnapping, assassination, explosion and other terrorist practiceswithout hesitation as means to achieve their goals; third, in order to acquirereliable resources, the area they control has become a workshop of drugs. It isreported that opium produced in Afghanistan is three times the total amountproduced in other areas in the world. In 1999 only, the opium produced inAfghanistan was 4600 metric tons, double the 1998 output. 13

In China there are 10 ethnic groups that believe in Islam, with a population ofabout 18-20 million, who mostly live in the Northwestern regions. If it was truethat during the Cold War, China could cut off the tie between Xinjiang and CentralAsia through tight border controls and other security measures, at present it isimpossible: in ethnicity, language and religion Xinjiang has a far-reaching

13. AHMED RASHID, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism”, Foreign Affairs, November/December 1999,p. 33.


38


connection with the Western Regions. The bi-directional flow of people,information and materials into and out of the Western Regions is not only theoutcome of Xinjiang’s opening to the outside world, it is also the prerequisite offurther development. It has been proved that Xinjiang has become the covetingobject of extremist religious factions, terrorists and drug dealers, as well as themain infiltration target of “Pan-Islamism” and “Pan-Turkism”. The security andstability of Xinjiang has aroused the unusual attention of the Chinese academiccommunity and governmental departments.

The second uncertain element in security that the West of China faces isrelated to the clash between India and Pakistan. Centred on the dispute ofKashmir, the clash between India and Pakistan has lasted for 50-odd years. Unlikethe situations in the past, it is possible that Kashmir will trigger a general warbetween India and Pakistan. Owing to the disappearance of the Soviet Union,Pakistan has lost its weight in the global strategy of the USA. In the eyes of manyAmericans, the former strategic ally and hero, which resisted the southwardexpansion of the Soviet Union, has degenerated into a sheer ruffian: corruptpoliticians, the servicemen are unbridled in their truculence and extremistIslamism overspreads; in international politics, the country recklessly developslarge-scale weapons, brazenly acts in collusion with Islamic extremist forces, andgravely jeopardises regional stability and peace. On the contrary, India, in the pasta “spoiler” in the eyes of the Americans, becomes the exemplary citizen: India isthe largest “democratic country” in the world, so it can become the motor ofdemocracy; India puts forth no territorial claims on its neighbours, so it is theprotector of the regional order in Southern Asia; even when India riskedeveryone’s condemnation to conduct nuclear tests, its action was considered areasonable security demand, and Americans believe that, unlike North Korea andother countries which attempt to possess large-scale antipersonnel weapons, Indiais one of the most responsible.14

In Southern Asia, India is an absolute leading power. The balance withPakistan was maintained for over half a century because that the big powersconditioned each other. The collapse of the Soviet Union and especially theadjustment of the USA in its policy concerning Southern Asia have seriouslybroken the fragile balance in this region. It should be especially noted that, whentalking about the so-called “China threat”, the USA and India found a commontopic. This might cause India to have an illusion that it has acquired enoughfreedom and strength to act in Southern Asia, and can solve once and for all thedispute with Pakistan. Unlike before, the dispute probably will lead to seriousnuclear confrontation: in the dry tree, Pakistan may fight desperately, while India,holding all the trumps, may well catch the ball before the bound and perform asurgery on Pakistan. It seems that Kashmir has become the “one of the mostperilous places in the world” as Clinton, the American President, puts it.15

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14. MOHAMMAD AYOOB, “India Matters”, The Washington Quarterly, 23:1, Winter 2000, pp. 27-39.15. XINHUA AGENCY, UN, April 16, 2000, English telecommunication. 39


To China, an India-Pakistan clash would definitely bring tension and disorderin the Western frontier of China, and even a disastrous influence on the economicdevelopment in the area. However, the real danger lies in that it is possible thatChina will be beguiled into an unexpected clash in which it did not intend to beinvolved in at all.

The Western Regions and the Security of China’s Energetic Source

Over the past 20 years, China has been one of the countries with fastesteconomic growth. When we are proud of the economic achievements and enjoythe convenience brought along by them, we must give enough attention to one ofthe important elements that support economic growth – the production andsupply of petroleum, and the consequent security issue of the energetic source. In1993 China became an importing country of crude oil, but strains in its productionand demand had appeared before this. As early as in 1978, China’s oil outputexceeded 100 million tons (reached 104.05 million tons), while by 1990, outputhad only increased to 138,3 million tons, which meant that the output onlyincreased 34.25 million tons in 12 years, with an annual increase rate of no morethan 2.7%. Compared with the annual increase rate of 11% 16 before 1978 (from1952 to 1978), there really was a world of difference. There are various indicationsthat the room for oil increase in China is very small. It is virtually impossible forChina’s oil output to get onto a new stage unless there are big breakthroughs in oilprospecting. In the meanwhile, the tempo of the opening and reform of China iscontinually accelerating, and due to the rapid economic development, the demandfor oil increasingly swells up. In 1980, oil consumption was 87,574 million tons, in1985, 91,688 million tons, and in 1987, exceeded 100 million tons and reached103,122 million tons.17 Throughout the 1990s, the conflict between supply anddemand was not relieved, on the contrary, it became worse than ever. In the lightof statistics, Chinese output of crude oil in 1995 was 149,064 million tons, in 1996and 1997 they were respectively 157,292 and 160,441 million tons. From 1998,however, output has been decreasing: in 1998, 160,256 million tons; in 1999,158,786 million tons; 18 and it seems that even at its best, the oil output in 2000 ishardly more than a return to a little over 160 million tons. In striking contrast withthe fluctuation of oil output, its demand repeatedly broke the record. According tothe statistics and forecast of IEA, the demand for petroleum in China in 1996 was3.70 million barrel/day; in 1997, 4.10 million barrel/day; in 1998, 4.20 millionbarrel/day; and in 1999 and 2000 it will reach 4.40 million barrel/day and 4.60million barrel/day respectively.19 Put another way, the insufficiency between oilproduction and demand in China will be as high as 70 million tons.


16. MA XIUQING, Petroleum-Development-Challenge of the Economy of the Middle East — Ahead forthe 21st Century, Petroleum Industrial Press, Beijing, February 1995, pp. 200-201.17. China Statistical Yearbook, 1988; 1994.18. International Petroleum Economics, vol. 8, no. 2, March 20, 2000, p. 55.19. IEA, Monthly Oil Market Report, February 11, 2000.40


With the improvement of people’s living standards and the expansion of theChinese economic scale, and the acceleration of the structure readjustment inenergy resource due to the increasing pressure of environmental protection, oildemand in China will further increase. According to the forecast of a reportentitled “Studies of the Tendency and Countermeasures of China’s PetroleumImportation” issued by the Economic Research Centre of the China StateCommission of Economy and Trade, in 2005, the consumption of crude oil inChina will reach 243 million tons, and in 2010 and 2015, 296 million tons and 360millions respectively.20 If no large oil fields are discovered and the oil outputremains at 160 or 170 million tons, the insufficiency of supply will be as large as200 million tons. The estimation of IEA is more alarming: by 2020, China will dailyimport more than 8 million barrels of crude oil, or 400 million tons in a whole year.

No matter how huge the discrepancy in the estimates on Chinese oil demandin the forthcoming 20 years, a simple fact is that the enormous gap betweensupply and demand has to be made up by imported oil, while in the presentworld, the main source of the imported oil is in the Middle East, the Gulf inparticular. It is unnecessary to provide the already well known figures on reserves,output and export volume of oil in the Middle East. A glance at the figures in thefollowing table 1 will make one understand more than enough the role played bypetroleum from the Middle East in meeting China’s oil demand.

At present, the influence of Middle Eastern oil on the energy security ofChina is limited because, though since 1996 China has become a pure importingcountry of crude oil, the proportion of the imported petroleum in the totaldemand is not very high. At the same time, China annually exports some crude oilto the USA, Japan and some Eastern Asian countries. Thus, on balance theproportion of imported petroleum will be much lower. In 1998 for instance,China imported 27,322.90 thousand tons of crude oil, 13% of the total demand(210 million tons, 4.20 million barrels/day). In the same year, China exported15,600.70 thousand tons to Japan, the USA, South Korea, Singapore and others.On balance, imported crude oil is 11,722.20 thousand tons, taking 5.58% of thetotal demand. Suppose that it was impossible to import crude oil (16,668.30thousand tons) from the Middle East for some reason, if the worst comes to theworst, China would stop exporting crude oil to Japan, the USA and others, thusthe actual insufficiency would be only 1,060 thousand tons. Obviously this wouldbe far from enough to endanger China’s energy supply and economic security.Nevertheless, the alarm bell is ringing, and oil from the Middle East will ultimatelybecome the critical element in affecting China’s energy security. In 1999, whenthe amount of imported crude oil increased considerably, the export amountdecreased by a large margin (only 7,166.60 thousand tons). With the domestic oilprice gradually coming in line with that in international market, this tendency willbe strengthened. If the forecasts are accurate, in the 20 years ahead 50% of the

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20. http://cn.yahoo.com/headlines/000803/busi/huasheng/20000803jjgjtxt2.html 41


demand in China will have to be provided by imported petroleum, of which atleast half will be from the Middle East.

Chinese policy-making institutions and academic circles have fully recognisedthe significance of Middle Eastern oil in meeting China’s demand, and also realisedthe hazards of excessive reliance on it. Therefore, while strengthening domesticprospecting and production, China takes the diversification of importing sourcesas its main strategy in risk-spreading. Statistically, Africa and some Southeast Asiancountries are two additional importing regions besides the Middle East. However,given the frequent chaos of wars, booming local demand, or the limits inproduction increase and importing volume, it will be difficult for the two regionsto exercise a decisive influence on China’s reliance on the Middle East. By thistoken, petroleum from Central Asia, and Caspian region in particular, should begiven an important position in China’s diversifying strategy. In other words, tostrengthen petroleum cooperation with Central Asia, the Caucasus and Russiamight be of potential significance. First, the high petroleum reserves and lowexploration are advantageous to cooperation between China and relatedcountries. In the light of statistics, the proved oil reserves in the Caspian Basin areas much as 15-29 billion barrels, which, though not a match with the Gulf region,is on a par with the USA (22 billion barrels) and the oil fields in North Sea (17billion barrels). During the Soviet period, the oil capacity in the Caspian regionhad not been fully developed, while nearly all the reserves in Azerbaijan, 30-40%in Kazakhstan and Tadzhikistan are under the sea.21 Second, the countries inCentral Asia and the Caucasus are particularly interested in internationalcooperation in the petroleum field. After their independence, these countries haveaustere situations in economic development. To introduce foreign capital andstrengthen international cooperation in the field of energy is one of the fewchoices to cast off economic crises. What is more, these countries also faceproblems in national economic security: to get rid of dependence on Russia in

21. IDE SPOT SURVEY, The Caspian Basin Oil and Its Impact on Eurasian Power Games, MANABU SHIMZU

(ed.), Institute of Developing Economies, Tokyo, June 1998, p. 5.


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Table 1.(Unit: thousand tons)

Year Total importing From Middle East Percentage ofamount Middle East %

1996 22,616.90 11,962.00 52.89

1997 35,469.70 16,781.60 47.31

1998 27,322.60 16,668.30 61.00

1999 36,613.70 16,903.90 46.16

Source: International Petroleum Economics, vol. 8, no. 2, March 20, 2000, p. 7.


technology, production and transport, a variety of partnerships in energy havebecome a common policy trend. Lastly, China and Central Asian countries aregeographically connected, which greatly facilitates Sino-Central Asian cooperationin the field of energy. Of course, at present there are more hindrances thanconveniences in cooperation, such as incessant religious and ethnic clashes,unstable politics, underdeveloped infrastructure and so on in Central Asia. Butfrom a long-term point of view, cooperation in energy with Central Asia ought toand surely will exercise considerable influence on the security strategy of China’senergy source.

On China’s Policy Concerning the Western Regions

The end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resultingseries of large-scale geopolitical shifts all help China’s establishment of a continentalpassage to Central and Western Asia, Southern Asia and even to Europe through thetraditional “Silk Road” and the Eurasian heartland. The Western Regions, a wordthat sparked the imagination of the ancient literati and was buried in oblivion forover 100 years, sailed into the view of the Chinese policy-makers with an entirelynew connotation. With the accelerating development of China’s economy, andespecially with the gradual unfolding of the development strategy in WesternChina, the ties with the countries in the Western Regions will be much closer, andChina’s interests in this region will be represented on numerous levels. Therefore,the academic community and the government departments should well notice sucha diplomatic strategy by evaluating accurately and taking hold of the relationshipsbetween China and the Western Regions and the developing trends. At the present,however, the issues of national security, triggered by religious extremism andethnic separatism, and of energy security due to oil supplies, are two key areas inChinese diplomatic policy in the Western Regions for the next years.

With regard to national security, Chinese diplomacy should unfold on threelevels. First, it should have good relations with the big countries, such as Turkey,India, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan. These countries hold the balance inregional relations, including in the security and stability of the West of our country.Turkey is the main base of Xinjiang ethnic separatist exiles, India is theheadquarters for the Dalai Lama to instigate Tibetan independence, Saudi Arabiaand Iran have wide influence in the Islamic world, while Kazakhstan shares thelongest border with China and is the largest Central Asian country with bothIslamic and Turkish characteristics. Developing relations with these countriesshould be the main focus of our diplomacy in the Western Regions. If thesecountries stick to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and fully understandthe regional harm of religious extremism and ethnic separatism, this wouldexercise a positive influence upon the improvement and development of bilateralrelations and on regional security and stability. To the regular communication ofthe cross-border ethnic groups, China bears no objection and it would welcome

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heartily a constructive dialogue on the basis of the principle of mutual equality andrespect. But under all circumstances, China strongly opposes intervention intoother country’s internal affairs under the pretext of ethnic and religious issues.

Second, China should strengthen cooperation with Russia and other WesternRegion countries. It should be acknowledged that the difference in politicalsystems and ideologies, the complexity of religious and ethnic composition, theimbalance of economic and social development and the national interest conflictsin various fields severely impair mutual trust between China, Russia and othercountries in the Western Regions. It should also be acknowledged that China,Russia and most countries in the Western Regions are the victims of religiousextremism, ethnic separatism, terrorism and cross-border crime, which, as a result,undermine the cooperation potential of these countries in the field of security.China and Russia ought to be the active participants in the security cooperation.Without a full understanding and cooperation between China and Russia, therampant growth of religious extremism, ethnic separatism and internationalterrorism cannot be effectively checked. In the meanwhile, China and Russiashould also encourage more Western Regional countries to join this form ofcooperation. Only through a larger scale of information exchange, personneltraining and concerted efforts can the reticular connections of these internationalcriminal organisations be cut off, especially their come-and-go in funds, personneland trans-national traffic in ammunitions and drugs. At the recent Summitconference of “the Shanghai Five”, great progress was made between China,Russia, Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan and Kyrgyzstan, united against religiousextremism, ethnic separatism and international terrorism. Just as Putin, the RussianPresident, put it, “the Summit between China, Russia and the Central Asiancountries that aimed to solve border problems became a Summit for theprevention of international terrorism and to promote cooperative relations”. 22 Thehistorical change of “the Shanghai Five” indicates that an increasing number ofcountries have realised the importance of cooperation in security.

Third, China should watch out for the strategic intentions of the Westerncountries in this region. While China, Russia and other countries have discardedthe Cold War mentality and are exploring new paths in international and regionalsecurity structures, the US-led Western countries still cling to bygone dreams andare infatuated with patching up and just modifying the decade-old Cold Warmachine: the NATO and Japan-US alliance attempts to contain China and Russianstrategically. In the West, NATO’s tentacles have extended to the Caucasus andCentral Asia; in the East, to consolidate the alliance with Japan, the USA hasattached great strategic importance to the improvement and development ofrelations with Vietnam, and India in particular. Through the war in Kosovo and the50th NATO anniversary, the US-led Western countries made an attempt to establisha new form of interventionism. We are more than willing to take their motivations

22. XINHUA AGENCY, Tokyo, July 6, 2000, Japanese telecommunication.


44


and goals as kind and noble, but the outcome of the war in Kosovo and thedouble standards in human rights have shattered our imagination and a severereality lies in front of us. We would rather believe that this judgement is far fromtrue: when the influence of the USA and NATO infiltrates Central and SouthernAsia and begins to harangue human rights, large-scale of chaos in Xinjiang andTibet will not be very far.

The second diplomatic key question for China in the Western Regions is toensure the stability and security of oil supplies. It must be made clear that theinterests of China, the USA, Europe, Japan and other countries are exactly thesame in obtaining petroleum supply from the Middle East, and the Gulf inparticular. Consequently, China should not only give active support to but also tryits best to be involved in any suggestions and efforts aimed at the promotion ofregional security and stability in the Middle East and the Gulf. It has to be pointedout, however, that there are divergent opinions on how to bring peace andstability in the Middle East and the Gulf, and ensure the continuous flow of oilfrom the Middle East to the international market at an acceptable price.

Therefore, China’s policy on the Middle East should first focus on multilateralcooperation and opposition to irresponsible unilateral action. Second, multilevelcooperation with oil-producing countries in the Middle East should besubstantially strengthened to realise the best combination of economic interests ofoil supply and production. Chinese policy-makers should bear in mind that asingle tie of petroleum supply and demand, or a high complementarity in trade,would be insufficient to ensure that oil-producing countries sell petroleum toChina under any circumstance. Only full-scale cooperation in oil prospecting,production, transportation, refining and related petrochemical fields can ensurethe security of oil supplies from the Middle East. Third, the Middle East and theGulf are unstable regions, as much as the sea route from the Gulf to the Far Eastthrough the Indian Ocean, Malacca Strait and South China Sea is unsafe. Thus, themaintenance of security in transport should also be addressed.

The prospect (or rather reality) of importing most oil from the Middle East isan even greater challenge to the security of China’s energetic source. Were thereanother major potential supplier in the Caspian region, it would be pressing todevelop a wider ranging policy. Presently, China is not a powerful competitor inthe development of Caspian oil: we have neither the favourable geographicalposition of Russia, nor the abundant financial resources of Americans andEuropeans. Therefore, it is not easy to pick the first fruits. Nevertheless, China haspotential advantages that other countries lack: among those that can reach theCaspian Sea without passing a third country, China is the one with the fastestgrowth in the economy and in oil demand. For the countries in the Caspian and inCentral Asia that want to achieve economic and social development throughdeveloping resources, China is more appealing than the pure petroleumdevelopers. Furthermore, Pacific Asia is a region with great potential in the comingdecades. In China, the Central Asian countries can find not only a most reliable

A NEW SILK ROAD?

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buyer of oil and other resources, but also the most convenient track for theireconomies to integrate into Pacific Asia. If the Central Asian countries consideredthe potential capability of the second Eurasian continental bridge and the immenseinfluence of China’s Western development, surely they would think over the roleChina could play in the development of the energy source in the Caspian Sea andin Central Asia. In view of this, China should not worry about present difficulties,or abandon its fundamental positions in order to pick the first fruits. For theChinese government and enterprises, the two fundamental principles in energycooperation in the Caspian Sea and in the Central Asian region are a far-reachingstrategy and commercial feasibility.


46


A NEW SILK ROAD?

47

THE POPE IN CHINA:STILL A LONG WAY TO GO by Francesco SISCI

THE HISTORY OF RELATIONS BETWEEN

China and the Vatican is fraught with misunderstandings. It is fascinating,especially from the Catholic side, but ridden with mistakes with far reachingconsequences for both sides. Just recall the controversy of rites that pulled theJesuits out of China in the 18th century, or the war of attrition between the Pope,committed to an anti Communist crusade in the 1950s, and Mao’s comrades, whichended with the expulsion of foreign missionaries from China. Over the past twoyears, two men with very different personal backgrounds and ambitions put acompletely different spin on bilateral ties, starting a new and crucial phase in thissensitive relationship and drawing in the rest of the world. The two men are LiHongzhi, head of the Falungong cult, and Chen Shuibian, president of Taiwan.

The Falungong Threat

On 25 April 1999 over 10,000 Falungong followers held an unprecedenteddemonstration around Zhongnanhai, the residence of Chinese top leaders inBeijing. The Chinese Communist Party was challenged for the first time not byspontaneous protests, but by a large, well organised, semi-clandestine organisationwith clear political ambitions, a strong religious ideology and whose leader wasresiding outside China. Moreover, Chinese leaders realised they had not heededthe many alarm signs against the sects and cults that were mushrooming all overthe country. They had underestimated the political dangers posed by the sects,had not received accurate intelligence on them, and genuinely theorised a policyof greater tolerance towards religions. Many senior officials were followers of thenew sects and did all they could to cover up their actions.

The end result was that the many warnings from all quarters passedunnoticed. In the spring of 1999, Chinese leaders discovered that the previous yeara senior Buddhist priest, Chen Xingqiao, had written a book to refute theFalungong (Foujiao qigong yu falungong, The Buddhist Qi gong and theFalungong). Not only. Discreetly but clearly all “traditional religions” – thoserecognised by the state and including the official Catholics – had warned against

047-056/LiMes/Sisci 6-10-2000 15:20 Pagina 47

the spread of new cults. But until the demonstration, the leadership would rathertrust the new sects than the “old enemies”, the traditional religions that had beenfought by the old Chinese Communist Party. The CCP had been reading the signswrongly, thinking that the hostility of traditional religions towards the Falungongand their likes stemmed from normal animosity in the face of the competition. Thenew challenge of the cults did not drastically change the CCP’s suspicion towardstraditional religions, but put it into a different perspective.

The CCP began to realise it had lost its old appeal on people’s mind. TheCommunist Party in the past 20 years had become secularised and no longerclaimed to provide a total answer to people’s problems. Its appeal to MaoistCommunists had been watered down by Deng’s new dogma “no matter if the catis black or white as long as it catches rats”, i.e. be pragmatic and cast aside high-flying theories. Its hold on power had been kept by running the country well.Deng’s approach reversed the priorities of Maoist times: he would manage thecountry well, improve people’s life and gradually loosen old ideological bonds.

This policy received praise from everywhere but left a spiritual vacuum, asCommunist leaders realised already in the early 1980s when they launched thefirst of their campaign against “spiritual pollution” against the dangers of Westernideas pouring in, unhindered, through the open door policy. They did not payany attention to the new Qi Gong wave that spread in China. On the contrary,masters of the old breathing technique, were given ample coverage on TV andradio. Official papers gave credit to the miracles they could perform and evenelderly leaders sought their advice and cure for ailments. Youngsters taughtthemselves Qi Gong by reading old and once forbidden books or by looking forold monks. Incredible stories were circulating of masters capable of flying,passing through walls, and materialising miles away within seconds. As early as1988 there were unheard calls for prudence. Young students experiencedphysical and psychological problems while practising Qi Gong without thesupervision of trained masters. Taoist and Buddhist monks, who had beenpreserving the technique for centuries, warned that Qi Gong could turn out to bedangerous.

Officials did try to pay attention to these calls but they did so in a way thatultimately made matters even worse. The government kept an eye on thephenomenon by having Qi Gong associations registered under the SportCommission, implicitly leading many people to believe Qi Gong was a harmlesssport rather than a new religion. In the early 1990s dozens of masters appearedfrom nowhere and organised their styles, and also brought in new beliefs fillingthe vacuum left by traditional Communism, accompanied by new organisationsthat collected money for the master and spread the technique. The diffusion ofthose ideas was so powerful that hardly no one can claim to have never practisedany Qi Gong. It also contributed to bringing back a tradition worth preserving, andappeased millions of Chinese with an important part of their cultural legacy. Lastbut not least, the new Qi Gong wave provided spiritual support for people who

THE POPE IN CHINA: STILL A LONG WAY TO GO

48


had lost faith in everything and felt deeply disoriented in a fast moving societywhere old values were dying out.

The people and government preferred trusting new Qi Gong masters ratherthan old Buddhist and Taoist monks or Protestant and Catholic priests. TraditionalTaoists or Buddhists were also associated with the Guomindang tradition of theNationalist party, the sworn enemy of the Communists for almost a century.Buddhism was dangerously close to the religion practised by the Dalai Lama,spiritual head of the Tibetan ethnic group with many grievances against Beijing.Compared to Buddhism, newly founded Qi Gong sects appeared quite tame andmanageable. The objective of the Beijing government, in line with the imperialtradition, was to hinder the growth of organised religions that aspired to sharepower with the State. China has never known wars of religion and has seldom hadconflicts of interests and power in any way comparable to those between the Popeand the European sovereigns. Given China’s tradition of religious tolerance, thepolicy up to 25 April was to keep traditional religions, considered moredangerous, under firm control and let other sects develop.

This policy was first reviewed in 1998 when the Falungong held manydemonstrations against the media, radio stations and newspapers, guilty ofcriticising the cult. In all instances the media retracted their allegations, and thewriters and scientists who had discreetly attacked the sect were warned by thePropaganda department. The pattern was clear: the government did not want anyconflict with the Falungong or any other sect and saw those criticising the sect asstirring up trouble by upsetting the social balance the sects had somehowcontributed to maintain.

However, the growing number of people complaining with the authoritiesabout their relatives being swayed and harmed by the sects, and the increasingnumber and dimension of Falungong demonstrations drew the attention of theofficial departments. At the end of 1998 the government estimated that thosepractising Falungong were tens of millions, though not all as blind followers. TheFalungong had reached the army and the security department, which hadintroduced Qi Gong practice as part of their martial arts training. Its organisationwas tightly knit, with a clandestine pyramidal structure, emulating the CommunistParty’s, with a kind of politburo and central committee and many local branches.Now the party suspects that as early as 1998 the Falungong was actually preparingfor a struggle with the party. Although far from illegally, Li Hongzhi had left thecountry to the US that year, and had organised, according to official reports 1 threelevels of clandestine leaders, so that anybody arrested could be easily replaced.

Officials said that until the 25 April demonstration the government had nointention of cracking down on the Falungong. On the other hand, I have been toldby followers that a repression was in the offing since early 1998 and that they weresimply trying to resist it, citing Li Hongzhi’s flight to the US as proof of his personal

A NEW SILK ROAD?

491. See People’s Daily Commentary, October 28, 1999.



50

AFRI

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danger. But in this case the official version seems more credible. The 25 Aprildemonstration appears to be a pre-emptive defensive attack in by the cult. Theparty was unprepared for confrontation with the Falungong, as demonstrated bythe two feverish months the party took to ban the sect. Furthermore, most of thearrests and identifications of followers occurred during the demonstrations: werethe party planning a crackdown, it would have long prepared lists of names tokeep under surveillance. The subsequent repression on the Falungong and allother “creepy” Qi Gong sects creates a different environment for traditionalreligions, in particular for Catholicism.

The Catholic Opportunity

Chinese leaders became genuinely frightened of the Falungong, which hasrepeatedly shown signs of intolerance, by protesting against foreign journalistseven mildly critical of the sect. The Party feared it because of its organisation, itsstructured ideology/faith, its experience of confrontation with the Party, and itsleader safely outside the country – all the elements that had made the success ofthe CCP over half a century before. The Falungong could reap the benefits ofsocial discontent due to economic reforms and it could, if unchecked, constitute athreat to the country’s stability.

The government’s analysis is sound from the socio-political point of view, buta repression of the Qi Gong sects would leave yet again a spiritual vacuum. Inspring 1999 the party launched, without much success, a science and Marxismcampaign to cater for the spiritual needs of society. Chinese scholars were soonsceptical of its possible results. The people craved for a spiritual bond with theworld, with the after life and the cosmos, and science so far has been unable tosatisfy this craving. The most fanatical form of Marxism, which claimed to providean exhaustive answer to human needs, is now out of question in China. As thecountry is set to join the club of the developed nations, and conduct its affairsaccording to the international standards of the World Trade Organisation, a returnto Maoism is impossible.

This leaves no choice but reconsider the policies towards traditional religions,which, because of their history and their now proven integration in the Partyapparatus, could become reliable partners in what the state considers its duty tomanage the people’s spirituality. Catholicism could stand out as the most interestingamong the traditional religions. Thanks to their strong organisation, Catholics couldbe tough adversaries, but also reliable allies. It would be best to join hands with themost organised religious group that is most likely to follow Party directions once anagreement with its leaders has been reached. The path is not easy but things arechanging rapidly. The Catholics of the Patriotic Church, loyal to the Party, havebeen slowly moving towards reconciliation with Rome. Catholic officials admittedthat the Patriotic Church is conducting a dialogue with many bishops of theunderground church, who could join the official Church once ties with the Vatican

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are normalised. Catholics, along with other traditional religions could then expectto enjoy more freedom to do missionary work in the country.

Of course this will not come without a price for the Vatican, which perhaps ishigher than expected. Vatican officials claim to be informed that tougherregulations will be applied on the Catholics’ activities in China after thenormalisation of ties. They are privately worried that these new regulations areaimed at stopping religious activities while cashing the international points Romecould offer to Beijing, which will be discussed in the next paragraph. In a way theVatican seems to miss the logic of the reconciliation for Beijing.

The new relationship can work on purely utilitarian grounds because there isa possible win-win solution. The Party has an interest in Chinese people becomingCatholic rather than Falungong, once and if the Catholics guarantee that they willnot use the strength gained through the new converts to destabilise the country,but to stabilise it. But how can the party be sure of the honesty of the Vatican’sintentions? The answer is by imposing a close monitoring of the Catholic activities.

The Falungong grew because it went unchecked by Beijing, but governmenttolerance created a direct challenge to its legitimacy, and greater intolerancetowards intellectuals, who had grown far more fearful of the Falungong than of theparty censorship. The Falungong went unchecked until it decided – unprovoked –to move against the party leadership, grossly overestimating its strength. This is amistake party leaders cannot afford again, lest loose the country. As a matter of fact,from a structural point of view the Catholics are just the same as the Falungong:well organised, a structured ideology/faith, an experience of confrontation with theParty, and their leader is safe outside the country. The Party can and has an interestto do business with the Vatican, but cannot underwrite a blank check to the Pope.

Certainly the Pope can claim none of Li Hongzhi’s weird ideas, and canpositively affirm to head an organisation known for its reliability. While these aregood enough reasons to start talks, guarantees, i.e. strong checks, are necessary ina new venture, especially for the CCP. On the other hand Beijing appears definitelyinterested in opening a dialogue with Rome, which represents the only religionthat can offer an internal solution as well as an external advantage.

Taiwan

The election of Chen Shuibian as president of Taiwan last March has furthercomplicated Beijing’s sentiments about the island.

Since the mid 1990s Beijing has been very worried about Taiwan’s drifttoward a formal declaration of independence. Several steps taken in Taiwan wereperceived as moving to this end. President Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the US in 1995was followed by the vocal presidential election of 1996, when Lee was elected andthe American intervened in the Taiwan Strait with two aircraft carriers groups. In1999 the controversial announcement of the “special two state theory” wasconsidered by Beijing as a further move to independence and, finally, the


52


candidate of the pro independence Progressive Democratic Party Chen, waselected in March 2000 despite the Mainland’s stern warnings against him.

Since 1996 economic relations between the two sides of the Strait haveimproved but political distance has increased. Bilateral trade increased from $18.9billion dollars in 1996, to $19.8 billion in 1997 and to $20.4 billion in 1998. Butduring the same period Chinese scholars perceived a growing cultural distancebetween the two sides, denouncing a “taiwanisation” of culture. The authorities ofthe island tended to emphasise the local cultural identity in contrast with theMainland. Minanyu, the language of the majority of the island’s population and inthe Mainland’s province of Fujian, is gaining more prestige at the expense ofMandarin, seen as the language of unification. Museums feature a new history ofTaiwan, illustrating the island’s individual culture, first inhabited by people ofMalay stock, rather than the Han origin of the present population. Beijing has littlehope of influencing “taiwanisation”, and does not appear to have started thinkingabout a counter cultural strategy. In the mid 1990s the dominant idea was thatbetter economic ties would reverse the drift toward independence. But theexperience of recent years proves that other means must be found. Taiwan’s bidfor greater independence could be contrasted by reducing its diplomatic room formanoeuvre and proving to public opinion that “taiwanisation” will lead nowhere.At the moment the Vatican is the most important of the 28 governments holdingdiplomatic ties with the island.

Taiwan is the big prize at stake in the normalisation of relations betweenChina and the Vatican. New ties could convince some Latin Americangovernments to switch sides in the diplomatic tug of war between Beijing andTaipei. They could also improve China’s image in the US where the CatholicChurch is very influential and, within a couple of decades, with the growth of theHispanic population, could command the loyalty of the majority of voters. The tieswould have huge positive impact in Europe and in the rest of the world, andwould further isolate the Dalai Lama’s position. It would be more difficult for hispeople to understand why the Dalai cannot reach an agreement with Beijing if thePope could. It would have a positive impact on China’s human rights record. Inother words better relations with the Vatican could trigger the start of a badlyneeded tidal change in China’s image abroad.

In China there were past fears of very close links between the Pope and theUS. Suspicions of an American-Vatican alliance to bring down the East Europeanblock have grown weaker for many reasons. In the past 10 years the agenda of theVatican and that of the US have increasingly diverged. Moreover, neither wants tobring about the collapse of the Communist party, which could cause an evengreater implosion of the country than the one experienced in the former USSR.The US administration has proved its best intentions by signing a ground breakingWTO agreement in November 1999 and by campaigning with Congress to extendthe Permanent Normal Trade Relations treaty to China. The NPTR is a major step inbuilding better relations on the two sides of the Pacific.

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The intentions of the Vatican are less apparent and certainly need to beclarified to the Party. Despite the risks, the benefits for Beijing could be huge. Therisks should not be underestimated because China’s leadership tends to be verycautious on issues touching yishixingdai, ideology in a very broad sense.

If Beijing is interested in this big prize it must act swiftly. In the Vatican there isno consensus on the benefits of normalising relations with Beijing. Allegedly PopeJohn Paul II is personally in favour of the re-establishment of relations, but noteverybody agrees with him. With a new Pope and agenda, China might have tostart all over again. A strong constituency in Rome thinks the Holy See cannot trustthe Chinese Communists, and certainly the CCP has no particular interest in orsensitivity to Catholic issues. Dealing with the Communists would be a new ballgame for cardinals and bishops, used to relate to political leaders who showsensitivity if not outright respect or worship for their religion. The pros and conswould have to be measured in purely geopolitical terms, without the plus ofreligious influence, which can be played worldwide in most occasions. It wouldcertainly be a challenge new to many princes of the Church, and arguablysomething John Paul II, because of his personal experience in Communist Poland,is more ready to deal with. However, not even in Poland or former USSR was therethe deep rooted, almost callous, insensitivity to Catholic issues one can experiencenow in China.

Catholicism per se is not a problem: four million Catholics are well organisedin a established Patriotic Church, the other four million of the underground Churchare less important compared to the Falungong and represent a small fraction of the1.3 billion population of China. The Catholic issue becomes important for Beijingonly in geopolitical terms. But the Vatican might think it is not worth the effort.Rome has waited 50 years for China, it could just as well wait another 50 andrespect the sacrifices of the millions Chinese who upheld their faith in dire straitsand never gave up their loyalty to the Pope. Cutting a deal with Beijing could seema betrayal towards those people, who are the backbone of Catholicism in China. Ifthe time is ripe for the Vatican, because of the present Pope, things may changerapidly in China. In a couple of years both the Taiwan and Falungong issues mightbe under control by different means and without the Vatican. In which case a dealwith Rome may appear less interesting for Beijing.

Historically, the Catholics had an important chance at the beginning of theQing dynasty in the 17th century that Rome did not understand and missed. Therenow is a broad consensus in the Church that in the 17th century Rome made amistake with China, so the logical outcome would be avoid another mistake andstrike a deal now. In a few years, without formal ties with the Vatican, theunderground Church could stop being Catholic altogether. It is currentlyexperiencing serious problems. In the 1980s, because of the anti Christianpersecution that made it impossible for Rome to monitor events in China closely,the Pope granted the right to appoint their bishops without his approval to theChinese underground Church, but the situation is allegedly getting out of hand,


54


and in ten or twenty years what now is the backbone of the Church could becomevery unreliable for Rome.

Both the Party and Rome are fully aware that bilateral relations are a newpolicy of opening up. Through what might appear just a small opening, new waterwill flood into China. No matter how small the opening is initially, the waterpressure will naturally expand it. The trend will continue even if, as it is likely, theChinese authorities intervene to reduce the opening, which might grow to becomean internal cleavage. In other words, the agreement for the Vatican could be onhow to create an opening and how to keep it of a reasonable size. With theecumenical aspirations of the Church, can the Holy See afford to miss a secondchance in China? It is important to focus on the entire picture rather than on themany tricky details. For both parties it is worth thinking of Deng Xiaoping. It isimportant to open the window, though remembering that once the window isopen flies will come in along with the fresh air.

In mid September bilateral relations took an unexpected twist. Cardinal RogerEtchegaray was invited – after a seven years’ absence – to China to discussreligion, but was then received with courteous yet firm protest about the Vatican’sdecision to “sanctify” 120 Chinese martyrs on the following 1 October, China’snational day. China saw the ceremony as a provocation, and objected to thechoice of martyrs. Many of the martyrs were killed during the boxers’ uprising,which China considers a first anti colonialist movement. The Vatican delegation inBeijing appeared genuinely surprised by this fierce reaction. This proves that theVatican did not mean it as a provocation, but also shows the great distance inunderstanding between Beijing and the Vatican.

On 6 January 2000 Beijing ordered six new bishops: it was a clear provocationby Beijing that chose the traditional Catholic day for their appointment. Was thenthe October celebration a tit-for-tat? It will still take weeks to clarify whathappened, but it is certainly clear that bilateral relations, although in theory helpfulto either side, are hampered by reciprocal misunderstandings. Beijing is not clearabout the Vatican, and somehow the Vatican has many misconceptions ofCommunist China. The first bridge to establish relations is thereforeunderstanding, which for the Chinese means first that Catholic missionaries haveto become more Chinese, and not vice versa. Today this means that the Catholicshave to understand fully the trappings of the Chinese Communist system (veryChinese and little Communist), which is ingrained in society, and is not just aveneer. It is a matter of nationalist sovereignty for Beijing.

This takes us back to Matteo Ricci and the controversy on the rites.Understanding the Chinese Communist system could be seen as a betrayal of thetrue faith and as an easy concession. How to strike a balance? Or is it necessary tostrike a balance at all?

The other road for the Vatican is to wait for the fall of Communism in China.But who knows when this will happen and if the next government will be lessnationalist than the present one.

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A NEW SILK ROAD?

57

FROM THE RIMTO THE HEART by Fabio MINI

ALMOST ALL THE GREAT GEOPOLI-

tical forecasts have fallen short of the mark. Models of the remote past linked togeographic considerations have not been of any great benefit in makingpredictions, even though they did rationalise possible scenarios. The inability toforesee the collapse of the Soviet bloc was the greatest demonstration that,notwithstanding an enormous intelligence apparatus and teams of dedicatedanalysts, reality is always uncertain. Today, no one hazards any grand projectionsand many experts limit themselves to detailed examinations of the present or therecent past, at times making it seem as if the present were the past and vice versa.With respect to Asia, a good exception is the study by Cass and Schwarz (C&S) 1

who in 1993 analysed three hypothetical main scenarios for the next decade.These scenarios are worth outlining, as they are still plausible. In fact, one of them,the least favourable, prognosticated the Asian economic crisis along with some ofits related political and social consequences. The two experts identified some ofthe driving forces of Asian development in the following factors:

• resources and influence of the overseas Chinese network;• the constraints of a rapid economic growth;• the uncertainty of regional security;• the increasing importance of intra-regional commerce and flow of capital;• the emergence of sub-regional development;• the affirmation of Asian capitalism (defined as “monolithic capitalism”) as

the dominant socio-political-economic model.An analysis of each of the above factors had lead to some interesting

deductions that in many ways are still valid today, seven years from their initialformulation. Specifically, Cass and Schwartz identified some of the limitations toAsian economic growth in the education and qualification of the work force. Withthe growth rate that existed during that period, it should have been clear that thenational educational systems would not be able to assure a qualitative replacement

1. S. CASS and P. SCHWARTZ, From Silk Road to Silicon Road-Managing the Challenges of Success in theAsia Pacific During the 1990s. This work is the result of a project conducted by Global BusinessNetwork in 1992 to study future scenarios for the Asia-Pacific region.

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and renewal of the productive force. Indeed, given that the field of massproduction into which Asia plunged rapidly exhausts markets and, at the sametime, makes them more sophisticated in their requirements, it should have beenobvious that without an adequate educational system, competitiveness would fallshort and growth would either slow down or stop altogether. This phenomenon isstill in full development and is truly a limiting factor, especially for China.

Another factor of deceleration would have been the excessive urbanisation ofdevelopment. The examples of the megalopolis of Bangkok, Djakarta, Beijing,Seoul and Tokyo anticipated a certain type of structural collapse. In material termsthis collapse has yet to take place, but we have witnessed the collapse of real estateprices and a consequent reduction of returns on investments. Furthermore, theimplosion of the megalopolis is pre-announced by the overcrowding of suburbanareas. Today, in China, a huge mass of people lives on the outskirts of large cities,yet officially resides in the country and is computed as rural work force.

Another trend that should have had a positive influence on development wasthe Asian model of capitalism. Cass and Schwarz defined it as a monolithic model– although not much is monolithic in Asia – and viewed it as substantially differentfrom Western models since it was not based on the relative “laissez faire” of theAmerican system and was far removed from the European welfare system. Theprincipal characteristics of this capitalism were viewed as:

• high level of government/business integration both in the definition ofeconomic objectives and in policy implementation;

• relatively weak multi-party systems, with a tendency toward favouring thesoft authoritarianism of a predominant party or a charismatic leader, whether thisbe the Chinese Communist Party or Suharto;

• a relative lack of concern for social welfare or for “safety-net” mechanismscompared to European or North American models.

These characteristics are still largely valid, as much as Cass and Schwarz’sobservation on the fact that while the United States are incapable of integratingnational and foreign policy with economic and military policy to reach commonobjectives, their Asian counterparts have no difficulty in achieving this. In addition,Asian capitalism is little influenced by ideology or politics or by what in the Westare called civil liberties or individual rights.

According to the prevalence of one or more of the aforementioned drivingforces, the two experts of the Global Business Network foresaw three interestingscenarios: regional integration, in which there is a strong connection betweenAsian economic and political forces; sub-regional integration, in which thisphenomenon is limited to lower level economic areas; of dis-integration, in whichnationalist forces and protectionism prevail over designs of coordinated power andthe Asian economy does not succeed in assuming a guiding role on a global level.

Regional integration. In this scenario the dominant forces are the network ofthe Chinese diaspora and the growth of intra-regional market of capital and trade.

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Together with an open world market, the Asian region maintains a high growthrate and becomes highly integrated. On a global level, commercial blocs such asNAFTA and the European Community resist protectionist pressures and becomesupporting elements of an even more integrated global economy. The Chinesediaspora practices a type of capitalism never before seen in the West: authoritarianand Confucian, accepting economic freedom but neglecting democracy, despitethe increasing role of a growing middle class.

Sub-regional integration. If the dominant driving forces are sub-regionaldevelopment and a weak regional security structure, Asia, according to Cass andSchwarz, can reject integration in favour of a more localised approach todevelopment and cooperation. In this case Asia develops into 4 sub-regions, fromNorth to South:

(1) The Sea of Japan (or Greater Korea) based on the $30 billion project of theTumen River (TRADPT – Tumen River Development Program) which incorporatesthe areas of the two Koreas, Northeast China, Siberia and Japan.

(2) Greater China, which includes the Southern provinces of China(Guangdong, Fujian, Guanxi, Hainan, Hong Kong) and Taiwan. With a populationof 120 million inhabitants and a GNP of $320 billion (1991), this Greater Chinaalready has a pro capita GNP of 2700 dollars, compared to the $200 of the interiorprovinces. 75% of direct foreign investments come from Hong Kong and Taiwan.Other provinces that could become part of this zone are Zhejiang, Shanghai,Jiangsu, followed by Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui.

(3) Greater Indochina, centred on Thailand and inclusive of Vietnam, Laosand Cambodia, Burma, the Chinese province of Yunnan and Singapore.

(4) An insular Southeastern Asia based on the development triangle ofSingapore, the Malaysian state of Johore and the island of Batam in Indonesia. Thisarea includes Brunei and the rest of Indonesia as well as Papua New Guinea.

This sub-division appears to be the natural evolution of a process of synergybetween sources of capital, labour, raw material and productive capacities tomaintain rapid growth and reduce the effects of infrastructure bottlenecks intransport, communication, energy and labour. In this scenario, there is no clearpolitical regional leader and the US presence continues to be crucial for the area.But China’s security policy toward the exterior and its doctrine of external defencebecomes increasingly superimposed onto the need to ensure resources andcommercial routes. China’s movements towards the South China Sea appear evenmore threatening. Only American presence and naval cooperation with Vietnamwould make China more reasonable. This initial fear of China leads ASEAN tobecome a significant political and economic force. Military cooperationaccelerates, as does the sale of weapons. ASEAN becomes a military alliance withan anti Chinese and anti Japanese function. This scenario also contemplates apotent player in a subsequent phase: a unified Korea, causing Japan and China toreconsider their relations.

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The reunification of Korea would be the first result of sub-regionalisation. Butgiven the German experience, South Korea is in no hurry to ally itself with thepoor economy of the North. As part of its strategy to achieve development prior tounification, South Korea invests in the North and in the Tumen project. Sub-regional development becomes diversified and triggers a new investment marketin the region.

Dis-integration. This is the final scenario. The driving forces indicate thatthere is another possible future, one in which Asia does not succeed in managingthe challenges of success. In a world of growing protectionism, if obstacles todevelopment are not confronted appropriately, growth in the Asia-Pacific areaslows down. The limited development of qualified labour, excessive centralisationand urbanisation, restrictions imposed by energy requirements and environmentaldeterioration become real impediments to the economy. The social result is thegrowth of nationalism and militarism.

In this context economic problems begin to generate political friction. Thenew “ideological” conflict and nationalism emerge from the global competition ofdifferent models of capitalism. Protectionism develops as soon as the breakingpoint with Asian economies that refuse to “play according to the rules” is reached.Europeans raise protectionist barriers to halt immigration and preserve the politicsof welfare that are so dear to them. The Asians are confused and distressed byEuropean and US insistence on “opening” and other issues like the environment,the rights of workers, copyrights and a number of other intangible factors that leadonly to greater problems for Asian affairs.

Triggered by the deceleration of regional economy, Chinese political relationsalso suffer. A repressive foreign and security policy and the lack of security in Asianourish each other in a downward spiral of intra-regional political tensions. Chinamoves to fill the gap created by American and European isolationism in SoutheastAsia and sets its sights on the Indian Ocean. Japan increases its military role inIndochina to secure resources and markets. Soon China is perceived by otherAsian nations as an arrogant power in search of regional hegemony. South Korea,Japan and Singapore lead the effort to contrast Chinese expansion but arehampered by their own economic and social problems. While China expands intothe South China Sea, towards the Senkakus Islands and up to the Indian Ocean forresources, environmental confrontation escalates due to the increase in CO2 andthe problem of water supplies.

Because of its identification of the Asian structural problem and its vision ofthe consequences of a global economic break down, this final scenario hassomething prophetic. Today we are witnessing many of the signs and factors ofthis scenario, though its catastrophic effects are not yet visible. For example:Indonesia is falling apart, China expands, India itself is looking for a way to theSouth China Sea, the “fear of Asia” is driving Australia towards a “sheriff’s role” thatis not recognised by anyone and is far from stabilising the situation.


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With respect to China, this latter scenario is as likely as the others. Chinapossesses the potential to guide the region or a sub-region or even to find its ownway in the general chaos. But since 1993, the year of the Cass and Schwarz study,the Asian geostrategic picture has changed significantly and China’s positionmerits new consideration.

A New Geostrategic Framework for China

Even though the Cass and Schwarz scenarios are excellent examples ofstrategic analysis, they limit China to the Asian context, and, most important, viewthe latter in a marginal framework with respect to the rest of the world. Attention isstill centred upon the United States and the Western world. But something ischanging and perhaps this viewpoint is no longer appropriate to interpret globalgeostrategic phenomena. There are a great many areas of tension in the worldtoday and it is absolutely and unquestionably true that the United States are at thevery centre of all of them: their global interests and the divine mission they havetaken upon themselves to keep the world from sin place them at the centre of theworld. It is nevertheless a centre that is strictly political; a centre that is involvedout of interest, not survival: no one is threatening the territory of the United States,no neighbouring country is having tantrums or seeking to remove itself from theircontrol. This attribute has led the United States over the past few years to developa mania for extraterritoriality. Since US territory is not threatened it must defend USinterests wherever these may be, without regard to the sovereignty or the will ofothers. It is a role that historically is so anomalous that it cannot last for long and isdestined to set off new balances or imbalances of power. In this sense, China’sposition is totally different, and, if we will, historically more comprehensible: at themoment it is the only country that is in the direct centre, and in contact with,development, trade opportunities, tensions and conflicts of any nature and of aglobal scope. What has happened and what could happen?

From the “rim” to the “heart”. Communist China has for decades been placedat the periphery of the developed world. This was something downright offensive,not so much due to China’s marginal economic role but by reason of its politicalsignificance, since it was and is a member of the United Nations Security Council.Even in periods of greatest external influence, when it exported revolution toThird World countries and fomented extremist movements in Western countries,China did not succeed in assuming a global dimension. The vision of a tripolarworld as contemplated in the 1970s was a pure academic exercise. The powerfactors upon which China based its presumed race toward hegemony, or at thevery least the consideration of the powerful, were completely anachronistic orscarcely credible. Anachronistic was the demographic factor. To base the extent ofone’s power upon the number of mouths to feed was a concept the West hadabandoned at least a century before. Anachronistic was the economic factor based

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on agriculture when the world had already gone on to industrialisation.Anachronistic and superfluous was mass industrialisation when the world hadalready graduated to advanced technology and the development of serviceindustries. Scarcely credible were factors of military power based on a people’sarmy and a militia that was ill equipped and incapable of carrying out anyconcerted operation outside of its own territory. In fact, until the 1980s the greatChinese military exercises consisted of biblical movements of men on trucks or onfoot for the classic 10,000 li (5,000 kilometres). Scarcely credible, as a threat againstthe exterior, was the strategic concept of a people’s war or guerrilla warfare or ofthe “you fight your way I’ll fight my way and I’ll always beat you” method.Following years of support for Vietnam in a strictly anti-American and anti-Russianfunction, when the Chinese army decided to teach a “historical lesson” to thatcountry, winner but martyred nevertheless, it revealed its total strategic and tacticalinability to conduct conventional operations of the pre-modern type. And this was1979. Scarcely credible also was the strategic nuclear threat. A strategy ofdeterrence based on a confrontation of thousands of warheads and highlysophisticated systems to provide either party with the ability to react or survive asurprise attack – exactly four intercontinental missiles, perfectly identified bysatellites and of a technology that could be easily downed in flight – did notrepresent a serious threat to anyone. Unless the “first use” was to apply. But Chinaalways rejected this possibility increasing suspects and decreasing its already weakcredibility.

Overcome on the continent by the Soviet Union, thwarted at sea by Americanpower, forced to autocracy not by political choice but by social and economicconditions, uninfluential in the economic marketplace and limited along itsinternal border by the impossibility of acting upon its external one, until the 1980sChina was the suburb of the world – exotic, idealised, but non-existent as a power.It was in this China that the United States could allow itself the luxury of installingintelligence gathering posts, the USSR could acquire territories and Taiwan andother Asian tigers freely draw upon low cost labour and young virgins for theirbrothels.

With the end of Maosim and the advent of the reforms of Deng Xiao Ping thepicture begins to change. Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia andIndonesia shift economic attention to the Pacific Rim, the “border” of the PacificOcean, of which however, the United States remains the principal manager. Chinais gradually, but at an increasingly accelerated pace, integrated into this economicpicture and up to 1989 becomes one of the countries of the Rim, one of theplayers, if for no other reason that the market absorption it can offer othercountries. The crisis of Tiananmen was at once a consequence of this newinternational Chinese dimension (the students did not wish to bring down thegovernment or the Party but wanted a little democracy and commercial freedomas in the other Asian nations) and reason for the freezing of the process ofinternationalisation. Tiananmen however turned out also to be the good fortune of

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the Chinese system in a political sense. The isolation to which China was subjectedby the international community, and which China imposed upon itself, allowed itto come to grips, without any restrictions and external interference, with the globalchanges taking place at that very moment: the breakdown of blocs and the end ofthe Cold War. During the years of probation and supervised sovereignty broughtabout by Tiananmen, China had the time to reflect on the failure of the Communistsystem and the collapse of the Soviet empire, on the effects of the Perestrojka andthe wild development that China itself had set off. Thus it was able to re-organiseits leadership, make plans, tighten up, encapsulate its centrifugal forces anddevelop a new nationalistic conscience by re-launching the great themes ofreunification.

This is the period of the establishment of a leadership that allied themurderers of Tiananmen with the moderates and cast aside those who, like ZhaoZiyang and Yang Shangkun, had supported democratic appeals in order to subverta tottering power system. However, the system itself became stronger and evenfrom a military perspective China grasped the occasion to tear down old schemesno longer suitable either to managing internal power or facing up to externalchallenges. During the Tiananmen crisis the weakness of the military had becomeapparent as military regions and army corps commanders refused or hesitated infollowing Beijing’s orders. The armed police forces had demonstrated theirineffectiveness; there were no rapid reaction forces within the army or in thepolice. Tiananmen brought about significant changes both on the political and themilitary sides, while on the front of conventional warfare, the Gulf Wardemonstrated clearly and without the shadow of a doubt what type of militaryinstrument any power had to have to participate in the global political-diplomaticgame. And it was an instrument the Chinese did not have and which they realisedthey would not have soon. But the upgrading of the entire apparatus does beginduring those years. The cadres of the Yang clan, asserting local power on the basisof personal acquaintances, were purged; the regularisation of the armed forcesbegan, as did the reduction of conventional forces, the strengthening of strategicforces, and the development of collateral activities connected to the acquisition oftechnology and funds required for modernisation and the establishment of rapidreaction forces. Command and control is concentrated in the central militarycommission not only in political terms but in operational ones as well. The militarybegin to make national, economic and foreign policy. It is a veritable social,economic and military revolution that goes almost unnoticed because Europe andthe United States are apparently satisfied with the Madrid sanctions, fully intendingto ignore them if it is a question of making money. From the ashes of Tiananmenemerged a new China, fully conscious that it must and can take on a new regionaland global role, even though it is not yet sure which, and aware that it needs theeconomic, political and military instruments to exercise this role.

The primary political instrument, in this sense, is the affirmation of a searchfor stability along its borders as well as domestically. Stability becomes a slogan


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that tends to reassure the exterior and prevent any dangerous deviations from theinterior. The China of today, while the Madrid or Washington sanctions are stillactive, but Tiananmen almost completely forgotten, is no longer simply one of thecountries along the Pacific Rim but is the centre of a vast area of globalgeostrategic significance. Notwithstanding the claims of a search for stability,China is at once the centre and the container of tensions, conflicts, positiveferment and instability. And all these things are not limited in causes and effects tolocal and regional factors but involve the entire world. In this sense, China hasonce again become the Kingdom of the Middle (Zhong Guo) of the imperialperiod of 2000 years ago.

Centre of continental power. The new central Chinese dimension is notconnected to the old imperial power, which was essentially one of protecting theinterior from the exterior while expanding its influence, but the exact opposite: thenew imperial power of attraction of the exterior. In this sense China is expanding itsinfluence. At the same time it is like the bordering areas into which investments andexploitation of the West may be poured, greedy and on the constant look-out tosafeguard its own standard of living by exploiting those who have no suchstandard. China itself is the centre of this vast continental area that possessesenormous resources yet is not capable of exploiting them properly. It is surroundedby a Russia undergoing a profound crisis, but which is also another unnatural blackhole into which the resources and investments of the immense surplus of theWestern world may be poured. It borders with Central Asia, which is just waiting forinvestments to return twice what was put in. To the Northeast, the great project ofthe economic zone of Tumen stagnates even though large investments had alreadybegun. The Siberia of Vladivostok is flooded with approximately 300,000 Chineseoperators while the province of Heilongjiang becomes the conquered land ofRussian operators. Mongolia depends almost entirely on its commerce with Chinaand is not at all happy with this state of things. To the West, the area of Central Asiais the site of an economic boom without precedent. Immense resources and theability of new governments to avoid social and international tensions place this areaamong those with the highest potential for growth. China has more than oneinterest in the area and has developed both agreements and infrastructure networksthat allow for osmosis with neighbouring countries. It is nevertheless an area ofturbulence because the greatest Chinese player in this new frontier of economicdevelopment is the province of Xinjiang, with a majority of Uygur separatists andbreakaway groups, and a new generation of native sons (heirs of the Chinesetransplanted by force) that is centrifugal or at the very least federalist.

To the South is the great Indian sub-continent with its human resources,culture, intelligence, productivity and immense consumption potentials. AndSoutheast Asia itself, connected to the continent, one peninsula behind the other,like branches in an ocean that itself becomes a continent, with its myriad islandsand enormous reserves of energy. China is the centre of this great pole of

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attraction and it is also the only country that can, at this time, ensure the security ofthe sole great continental route that connects the world of the satiated with that ofthe hungry.

Centre of ferment and economic instability. China is at the centre of a vasteconomic area of great turbulence as well. The Asian crisis that has struck Japan,South Korea, the “Tigers”, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and others, has been toosuperficially defined as a financial crisis and too simplistically treated with financialand currency measures. In an all too banal manner, this crisis is considered to haveno influence on China itself simply because China does not participate in themechanisms of global financial markets. Superficial also is laying the blame onAsia for the so-called domino effect that the Asian crisis supposedly would haveset off in world financial markets. A chain reaction is the most natural effect ofspeculative investments, on callous private and public, international, multinationaland supranational interventions that view government and geospolitical systems intransition only as an opportunity for a quick profit. It is these investments thatdraw the attention of these same states away from real problems and tempt leaderswith the chimeras of easy wealth and participation in global politics. Crises, on thecontrary, are symptoms of the great difficulties in which Communist or formerCommunist systems, or those with centralised economies (such as Russia andalmost all the other Republics of the dissolved USSR) and systems withoutplanning and control (like Latin America) find themselves in their transition to amarket economy. This transition is the condition imposed by the Western worldand by international monetary bodies to grant funds and guarantee investments. Itis the condition for achieving what the Clinton administration maintains is thehighest expression of democracy: market democracy. All these countries intransition, or en route to constructing a stable economic model, had clearlyperceived only the immediate advantages of that passage: those resulting fromfinancial speculation, and they are now feeling the mid-term effects they hadneglected in their race to easy money. Thus the Asian crisis is the first issue tocome to light, followed by the Russian one and Latin America.

In reality it is a profound structural crisis that involves systems of powermanagement (politics), development management (economy and social policy),and security systems (defence and geostrategic balance) and that provokes socialimbalances that become more dangerous as they become more evident. Thisstructural crisis has struck and will make itself felt increasingly in China unlessappropriate measures are taken. Because this is the crisis of governmental systemsof production freed of the economic reality of the market (the most seriousproblem in China). It is the crisis of priorities in development with excessiveemphasis on services infrastructure (which in China is somewhat macroscopic,given the growing number of 5-star hotels and obsolete factories). It is the crisis ofproduction unfettered by research (something which in China is shameful asresearch is understood to be simply the acquisition of the technology of others). It


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is, furthermore, the crisis of a social system that bears no burden because itexcludes welfare (in China social costs are not borne by the government but byproductive units and new high technology companies still bear no costs as theyhave hired only young people, have almost militarised production and foresee nounion movement). It is the crisis of a generation renewal in the leadership ofpolitical and economic systems (something that has occurred only marginally inChina). In fact, there has been no political change in most of the countries touchedby the crisis: power is in the hands of the same people and, above all, is managedusing the same logic. It is the crisis of employment because this has never beenconsidered a social factor and can now no longer be ignored. It is the crisis of thebanking and credit system used to great risks in favour of the powerful (as isdangerously becoming obvious by the bankruptcy of the Guangdong InternationalTrust and Investment Corporation and the suspicions of insolvency that nowweigh upon other financial institutions and on the “red chips”) and no risk to assistthe small (translated into enormous suffering for the state and no incentives fornew businesses). Finally it is the crisis of a fiscal system unable to collect inaccordance with contribution capacity.

Today much praise is being heaped upon China for its resistance to thedevaluation of the yuan or restraints placed on the liberalisation of money. TheUnited States, Japan, Korea and dozens of other countries thank them. 2 Chinaassumes the role of saviour of the world to increase its international influence,acquire global recognition and the power to influence the decisions of others.These are the true Chinese objectives and to attain them, China, as always, is readyto sacrifice its resources and even the life of its people. If these objectives may bereached by also allowing the Chinese abroad who support the economic policy ofthe PRC, and the mainland Chinese, who have invested widely in Wall Street ratherthan Shanghai, to make a few deals, so much the better. The fact that the financialcrisis in Asia emerged in the countries supported by the capital of the overseasChinese, precisely when Communist China re-launched infrastructure investmentsthroughout its territory and wished to contain Japanese and Korean commercialpre-eminence, is symptomatic rather than accidental. It is also singular that thesocial upheavals taking place in Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia this time haveonly marginally involved Chinese expatriates. In 1969 a similar situation inIndonesia lead to the massacre of more than 200,000 Chinese, considered the “Jewsof the East”. The fact that the greatest effects of the Asian crisis (or the Russian one)are visible in the financial markets is due to the extremely dynamic nature of thismarket which, thanks to global computer technology reacts quickly to any pressureand is, in fact, able to precede pressures to the point of actually provoking them.

Indeed this factor also is cause for further reflection on Chinese involvement:it is no accident that the crisis occurred at the exact moment in which the greatest

2. “We also appreciate what China and Hong Kong have done and the price that has been paid tostabilise the situation”, Statement by Bill Clinton in Honk Kong, South China Morning Post, July 3,1998.

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technological and commercial battle in the world concerned the acquisition of theChinese telecommunications market first, the Asian one second and finally theglobal one. Nor is it an accident that over the past few years the Chinese havededicated themselves body and soul to developing a communications networkand to exploiting space launches for telecommunications. The 55 million Chineseof the diaspora who control 75% of the capital market in Asia and who aremassively present on Wall Street began only a few years ago to entrust their owntransactions to cellular and computers rather than couriers and to evaluate thepotential of other regional markets.

Centre of geostrategic instability. This Chinese centrality of a financial andeconomic nature corresponds, in an even greater measure, to a geostrategiccentrality on political and military issues. China has become the “centre of gravity”for tensions that have an explosive potential. Regions that China perceives asinternal are in fact buffer zones, in contact with others that are already highlyunstable. The explosion of conflicts in these areas may extend outwards, just asexternal conflicts may extend to the interior of China or threaten its system byprovoking reactions that would be extremely dangerous to global security. Inaddition to Xinjiang, which has connections with Afghanistan, Kashmir, Pakistanand India, there is inner Mongolia in which a Mongolian minority demandsautonomy and towards whom Mongolia, and even Russia, are not indifferent.Then there is Tibet which, following the resurgence of hostility between India andPakistan and the dangerous nuclear show, has once again become crucial toChinese control of the Indian sub continent. The Dalai Lama sees it as the nervecentre from which peace in Asia may be achieved. This is true and not only forreligious considerations. To the South there is the question of the Spratley Islands,considered Chinese territory by the Chinese but also claimed by Taiwan, thePhilippines, Vietnam and others. The province of Yunnan has become thethroughway for organised crime from the golden triangle and a theatre of localinstability due to the drastic measures that the Chinese periodically, butalternatively, adopt with respect to a population consisting of more than 26 non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Southern and Eastern China Seas have become atheatre of piracy that for the moment is commercial, but which neighbouringnations accuse of being nurtured by units of the Chinese navy. To the South, thequestion of Taiwan, stubbornly considered by the Chinese as one of its rebelprovinces, is explosive in the truest sense of the term: the echoes of the missilelaunches of 1995 and 1996 can still be heard and the development of politicalrelations based only on common interests presupposes that there are advantagesto be attained rather than crises to share. To the East, China’s support of the NorthKorean regime is perhaps lukewarm but not over. Among other things, Chineseinfluence on North Korea is the only way the rest of the world has to dialogue witha disagreeable interlocutor. To the Northeast, border problems with Russia for theterritories of the Amur-Ussuri appear subdued, but the district of Vladivostok and


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the Cossacks of the Transbaikal do not forgive the Duma in Moscow nor do theyforgive Gorbachev for ceding the territory of “Great Mother Russia”. In addition,the entire area of Manchuria (provinces of Heilongjiangm Jilin and Liaoning) is oneof the most unstable from a social and economic perspective. It is the traditionalarea of the great Chinese government industry; which is now presented as failingand deficient, which is induced to bankruptcy, to reconversion and to dismissinghundreds of thousands of workers. This area feels victimised by Beijing and isincreasingly turning to Russia and to Japan.

Centre of international relations. This new central dimension is stronglyperceived by the Chinese who, to tell the truth, had never stopped considering iteven when the world was going in the opposite direction. It is obvious, frompolitical and diplomatic relations and from the position China holds with the restof the world, that it considers only a few countries as privileged interlocutors andnot all of them for reasons of objective power.

With Europe its relations are unfocused, one of the reasons being that Europe,for the Chinese, is not even a geographic expression. The European Union is aninteresting entity only for its commercial aspects, but bilateral relations with eachmember country are favoured. Germany and Italy receive priority consideration,the first for its quality products, the second for its culture and design. Franceenjoys excellent cooperation, which, however, it pays dearly with a policy ofacquiescence. Great Britain has been, and will for a long time to come, beidentified with the coloniser, the arrogant one of the opium wars, the power thathas oft times humiliated China and whose original sins shall not be forgiven, noteven by returning Hong Kong which, nevertheless represented the first of manysigns of a national reawakening. Eastern Europe still has close ties with China, andthe former Yugoslavia still manages somehow to maintain its current regimethanks also to Chinese support. In this instance the Chinese position is not somuch in defence of the Serb regime as it is in defence of non-interference andresistance to NATO, viewed as the armed wing of American and Western politicaland economic power.

In North Africa, relations with Algeria, Libya and Egypt are good but notsignificant. More important are its relations with Israel with which it has a truetechnical and political military association by virtue of which China acquirestechnology and is, in return, viewed as placatory with Syria and Iraq for Israeliinterests. With Iran and Iraq cooperation is important and respect is mutual. In Asia,relations with India continue to be tense and those with Pakistan of total support.Traditional cooperation in the area of armaments was only tempered by recentPakistani acquisitions in Eastern Europe, in particular of T80 tanks from theUkraine. But this has not prevented China from openly defending its old ally duringthe Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. The prospect that Pakistan may becomeradical and align itself with Afghan Taliban and Iranian fundamentalists is anotherfactor that prevents China from changing policies with this ally or with India. Good

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relations with Pakistan, Iran and other central Asian republics are for China the soleguarantee that the enormous region of Xinjiang will not escape them.

In Latin America, China has long had great commercial interests with oil andmineral producers in Argentina. With Australia, its relations are good even thoughthe Australian defence white book cites China as a potential threat from the North.With Japan, cooperation continues and although the scenario of a regional triadbetween China, the US and Japan has not yet come true, this is only due toJapanese economic and political difficulties. The leadership of the two countries isslowly being assumed by leaders who have little or no memory of the past and ofthe wounds China suffered at the hands of Japan. This will aid cooperation and apragmatic industrial and commercial synergy, apart from any atavistic diffidence,cannot be excluded. With South Korea and other countries touched by the Asiancrisis, the attitude is one of superiority. The same, but with more caution andrefinement, holds true with respect to Russia which is adequately considered foropportunities of industrial cooperation, especially in the field of armaments and asa counter-balance to the United States, but is no longer feared. The dissolution ofthe USSR was a great lesson for Beijing. But the evolution of power in Russia isnow followed with great interest and concern and no longer with the arrogance of1990, when the Chinese viewed the failure of real Communism and thestrengthening of their own characteristics with such satisfaction.

As can be seen from this rapid and incomplete chronicle, today’s Chinabelieves it has only one interlocutor at its own level: the United States. And eventhe US is perceived as a “virtual” centre of political and military power; animportant dimension, but not as important, to Chinese eyes, as the geostrategicand geospolitical continental centrality represented by the world of Sino-centricinstability. This instability is at the moment an instrument of political power, butshortly it could evolve into a controlled ferment of development. At any rate, if thetechnological brains and the purse strings are in the West, the heart of the world,today as hundreds of years ago, throbs in Asia, and China is perhaps the centre ofgravity of this new continental dimension. It has nothing else to teach, norideologies or technologies to export. It has, however, an immense attractionpotential that can succeed in obfuscating and seducing the brain as it can loosenthe purse strings, especially for those who require the circulation of money (anykind, anywhere and for any purpose) to permit the survival of their own ideologyand way of life.

China, for the moment is also the only nation that is succeeding in managingthis potential of attraction by itself. And not always under peaceful conditions, onthe contrary, often by fighting on several fronts. If its culture is not furtherexportable, if its political system is at the very least non-reproducible and largelynot proposable, its example of independence and stubbornness may become theconduit for reawakening the entire continent and make it again the Heartland.

(translated by Jo Di Martino)


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The Foundationers Associated with Mr W.’s Funds

Not all artists are the same. History and the strategic conditions of their countriesheavily weigh on their behaviour, as well as on their work, causing clashes

of personalities almost as loud as those of civilisations.A geopolitical comedy by one of China’s greatest writers on the backdrop of a Western arts foundation naively convinced that all artists are equal.

ALTHOUGH THE DOCTOR HAD NOT

told him anything, Mr W. sensed the imminence of his end. He was not ill, he wasjust about to leave this world. Folks tend to name such doom “a natural death”.

Except for a few sketches which were still affixed to the walls of his oldhouse, he had already donated to national museums his entire collection –including paintings, sculptures, manuscripts left behind by some 18th or 19th

century authors, and relics (such as spectacles, tufts of hair, pieces of music,batons) belonging to some deceased composers.

The only thing he was not at peace with regarded the way to dispose of hisimmense fortune.

He had a sadly transient married life that left him issueless, apart from some,not lasting amorous experiences. And it was not incumbent on him, he calculated,to bequeath anything to his nephews or nieces.

Remembrances of his bygone days did occur to his mind, though!Life for him was literally all plain sailing. However, in the privacy of his

thoughts he was haunted by only one gnawing suggestion that all his exertionstowards making himself an art expert remained forever unrequited.

He was in love with art as a man would be with his beloved woman. But, tohis bewilderment, art seemed to have never requited him with the same passion.

In his youth he learned to play the piano, practised painting, and tried tomould a writer out of himself.

by ZHANG JIE

071-092/occhLiMes/ZhangJie 6-10-2000 15:24 Pagina 71

For all his immeasurably great fortune, he took to living the way of a pennilessartist, finding shabby accommodation, without curtains on the window. He threwaway an old air conditioner, as large as a printing machine, with the body filled ofmany years of dust; he fed himself on a low-priced diet, and sometimes he went asfar as collecting lunch or dinner from one of those places dispensing free meals tothe poor. Especially in emotional moments like at Thanksgiving or at Christmas hewould go and collect those kinds of meals. Many of these institutions bore thename of his family and its merciful deeds, so that well brought up parents couldnot say or think anything strange about it. He drove a second, or even a fourth-hand car, the engine of which would stop even when it was not too cold. Then MrW. would start the car with the winch, which he carried on his shoulders. He woresecond-hand duds bought at three kg per buck.

He was happily at one with pauperism, so long as he was obsessed with thecraving for fashioning himself into an artist. That was just the line of conduct invogue with some of his contemporary young people who, being fervently dedicatedto art, would care for nothing in life but art. To tell the truth, these people, sounceremoniously addicted to art to impose themselves almost as an eyesore uponthe local community, could exist only in Mr W.’s days. Although usually arrayed insecond-hand duds got at the price of three kg per dollar, Mr W., a billionaire, wasafter all not likely to be reckoned as socially on a par with those artists dressed induds worth 0.33 cents per kg because that was all they could afford.

Museums were his everyday haunt. “If you can’t find me in the cafe”, I mustbe just on my way there.” This is a popular saying about cafe addicts and is mostfit for characterising Mr W., if the wording is aptly modified: “If you can’t find mein the museum, I must be just on my way there.”

Each time some allegedly unique exhibition or show was scheduled to takeplace in a museum, he was bound to be there exactly out of the reason ofbroadening his professional horizon. Sometimes he would keep waiting inunwearied patience at a place, yearning to be met by and have some professionalexchange with an art celebrity. (It goes without saying that his endeavour to meeta star in the realm of art had nothing in common with stardom-cult-motivatedantics of some fans.) Moreover he was constantly on the lookout for a chance thatwould enable him to patronise a prospective art star, having little scruple aboutwhether the patronised would be interested in accepting his favour. In a word hisardour in promoting art and real effort to improve his artistry were most probablymore intense than that of some dedicated artists. But he remained, after all, anoutsider to art circles for all his lifelong devotion to art.

Then a miracle happened. There were people saying: “Oh, Mr W. I’m veryembarrassed to say this... But you really look like that famous writer Hemingway.”To This Mr W. politely smiled.

There are all kinds of people on the theatre of life, but few are the ones whoact on purpose. Mr W. was one of those few who had taken an acting part in fullconscience. Mr W. knew this imagination was stronger than any literary

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comparison, and if it did not come from the soothing intentions of a friend it camefrom the worship inspired by his money.

Mr W. was very generous. In the world there are plenty of people who don’tget anything – isn’t it just fair if you let them have something? So he didn’t bother ifhe really looked like Hemingway, and carried on his life as usual.

In the course of time his family fortune accrued unfailingly, and it stung hisears to learn that his position in the national GDP had moved up and his wealthhad grown like a pestilence. Yet Mr W. wanted to be a normal person with hiswhole soul, and in those long days he would just shake his head.

At the beginning he would stop longer and longer in front of the mirror, butthen his eyes were quite objective, he hadn’t become like Snowhite’s stepmother.He could draw a good comparison in front of the mirror; no matter how he movedhis long face, he had little to share with Hemingway’s square profile. Afterwards,almost carelessly, he let his beard grow on his chin, had a half an inch stub, andcut his long hair. In this way he felt that he looked like Hemingway. Although themirror was the same one, the image he saw in it was somewhat different. Thenwhen people told him he looked like Hemingway he silently accepted it.

However, even if other people or Mr W. himself felt there was something incommon between him and Hemingway, Mr W. could not become an artist; nomatter how hard he tried he didn’t know where the problem was.

In the end, he gave up his art pursuit and fell back on looking after hisenormous fortune and making business. In the business world the ebbs and flowsof various “curious” trades were simply unmanageable. To cope with them he wasvirtually compelled to do the impossible since he fared even worse than he did infollowing art. In the realm of art, however ungifted he was, he could be rated asappreciably professional in his approach to artistic creation. His art collectioncould cogently attest to this.

He never treated his fortune with the scrupulous care he would lavish on art.But, however carelessly he handled his property and however mindlessly he madehis investments, his fortune accrued unfailingly; and he prospered irrevocably.

Very apathetically, he perceived his fortune multiply; and money cascadedinto his wallet without him knowing it. To put it another way, he could so totallyeffortlessly have all the returns from his investments that in the twilight of hiscareer he felt even a sense of revulsion at making money.

Supported by such a frame of mind, Mr W. was completely free of impact ofany earthly pathos, lingering in his eventual composure and expecting theimpending and final relief that soon he was going to have nothing to do with lucreand was going to wash his hands of any forms of profit.

Unaccountably it occurred to him one day that he could use his money to setup an arts foundation through which all the impoverished artists in the worldwould be adequately supported so that they could be able to concentrate onartistic creation. Thus he immediately sent for his secretary, lawyer, and stewardand informed them about details of his plan to create an art foundation, the aim of

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such a foundation and the requirements each of the beneficiaries would be askedto meet. At the end of the fireside meeting in his old house he ordered that his willbe drawn up.

Not unlike most of the billionaires in the world, he had organised for himselfan unusually qualified domestic affairs staff. Soon the staff succeeded in setting upfirst an administrative body that would be responsible for the establishment andthe control of the foundation after its birth. Then the staff proceeded to recruitexecutives to man the hierarchy of the foundation. Mr W.’s very imposingmansion, which had been an irresistible attraction to make every passer-by slowdown his pace to have a glimpse of the building, was in the shortest possible spellconverted into a condominium containing separate apartments which were mostsuitable for a contingent of artists who would live there concentrating on artisticcreation. Each apartment was unique in its architecture as well as decorations withthe purpose of meeting different habits, tastes and practical needs of artists fromdifferent continents.

Every apartment had a toilet, a sitting room, a bedroom, and a studio. In everysitting room there was invariably a folding couch that could serve to accommodatea visitor of the prospective occupant of the apartment. There was also akitchenette, where it would be possible to cook some dishes prepared accordingto the cuisine of the occupant’s own country.

Sitting in a wheelchair pushed around by his steward, Mr W. inspected everyapartment in the remodelled mansion; then he ordered that a white marble statueshould be erected in the midst of the rose beds in the garden of the mansion. Then,he began to complacently brood over the prospect of a multitude of talented artistsemerging in the limelight after having stayed for a period of time in this mansion.

Finally, he examined the name’s list, which was submitted by theadministrative body of the foundation, of the first batch of applicants for allowancesfrom the foundation. These applicants were all luminaries from different fields ofart. One of them had won an award from the United Kingdom. Although the awardwas practically negligible, it carried clout of honour. However, Mr W. didn’t thinksuch an applicant would be substantially eligible for getting help from hisfoundation, because his concept of a qualified candidate was based on the lifeexperience of a vagabond artist shuttling between museums with his palette andframed canvas. The type of artists Mr W. was particularly fond of should have been– like him – not only aspiring but also still unknown to the world!

What was extremely regrettable was that Mr W. died before the arrival of thefirst group of artists. His demise was not at all preceded by anything suggesting thethroes of death; there he lay in the perfect likeness of a celebrated artist, ratherthan of a charitable billionaire.

The first artist admitted to the condominium was from the country of E. Hecame wearing a pair of jeans and other articles of clothing reminding of a cowboyin the early days of the American West. Nothing unusual about him indeed!Nowadays youngish sorts tend to keep in their wardrobes a pair of jeans and to be


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dressed like a cowboy in the early days of the American West. But what wasappallingly unusual was the pair of cowboy boots with colossal and solid soles hewore. When the boots were set in motion, they bore down upon their destinationlike two tanks roaring out of a marsh. Thus after they had crossed the Persiancarpet an indelible line of footprints was left behind.

The instant the footprints greeted the eyes of Miss M., the receptionist, shepromptly averted her gaze to look out the window. It goes without saying that shewas not responsible for cleaning the carpet. Her only concern was receivingguests.

She was not sure whether she really liked to work as a receptionist there.However, she had to quit her previous job because she could no longer standher boss’s sexual harassment. While leaving it, she had the chance to read thead, placed by the foundation, of a receptionist job. She applied and got itwithout ado after undergoing an interview. She guessed that being multilingualhad helped her secure it.

The new comer casually slung his travelling bag on top of the piano that wasstanding in the reception hall. The metal fittings hammered on the piano makingthe keys moan helplessly in response. With his hands tucked deep into his hippockets, the newcomer whistled and then hissed, “Remarkably nice, here!” Butthis elicited no reaction whatever from the receptionist. She was completelyengrossed in jotting down all the needs and requests of any newcomer and lookedso dutiful and so ready to comply with them.

The next artist was a dramatist from the country of B., looking so cultured andamiable. He was in a long cream-coloured windbreak, sporting a European tastein the matter of colour. His hair was combed backward from his brow. Havingbeen offered by the receptionist the allowance for the very month he arrived at thecondominium, he counted the money with meticulous care; then he asked thereceptionist,

“Where’s the phone? I want to call.”“Pay phones are available in every apartment,” she answered.“Can you give me,” asked the dramatist, patting his pocket where he had just

slipped his allowance in, “some change for a pay phone call?”Now the receptionist set about ransacking her handbag for some change and

happened to ferret out some.“This change is not enough;” protested the dramatist. “I want to make a lot of

phone calls and have a talk over the phone with a publisher about some details inthe contract I am going to sign with him.”

“In this case,” said the receptionist stolidly; “you’d better go to the bank for thechange you need.”

Having already installed himself in a sofa, the artist from E. hailed a “Hi” in thedirection of the dramatist. However, without bothering to stop and call a greetingto the artist, the dramatist just speeded promptly away, casually slinging over hisshoulder “Very glad to meet you”.

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“Hey, hey, don’t turn your back on me. Aren’t we old acquaintances?Remember, we were alumni of the same foundation before we took this one; andyou borrowed money from me and sneaked away without paying the debt.”

Neither to succumb to the exhortation nor to refute it, the dramatist headed inthe direction of the garden. There he was stunned by its beauty and wasirretrievably befuddled by the motivations underlying Mr W.’s generosity increating such a foundation. If he were Mr W., he would bequeath his large fortuneeven to his remotest kin rather than to this medley of so-called artists who hadvirtually no connection whatsoever with him.

The barest truth remained that if he were as wealthy as Mr W., he would ofcourse be spared the ordeal of a vagrant.

Every commodity has to be bought at a given price, and nobody – not evena national leading luminary – an get it at even a cent less than that price. If theprice of a loaf of bread is five, you aren’t likely to leave the store with it bypaying only four ninety-nine. This explains why the dramatist chose to sneakaway rather than paying what he owed the artist before they parted company.

The world is too small to let the dramatist forever shun his creditor! “Andhow nastily the artist talked to me!” the dramatist was now fuming. But whatcould he do as a resourceless debtor to salvage his self-respect? And now, theawareness that he had to pretend to be fairly well off was even moreunbearable!

Was the artist superior to the dramatist in some respects? Not really. Theformer was no less a scavenger than the latter in cadging a living from allmanner of foundations across the world.

To tell the truth the dramatist and Mr W. were not gentlemen of the sametype. The latter died, being disappointed with his failure to become an artist,whereas the former had been a famous playwright leading practically anaristocratic life before the disintegration of the state apparatus in his owncountry. In those pre-disintegration days, the dramatist had not only belonged tothe top his own country’s intellectual elite but he had also been nominated – onthe strength of his overwhelming popularity – as a candidate for the presidencyof his country. These were, for him, memories indeed excruciating!

In his heyday he could boast legions of mistresses and might be rated as“Champion sower of wild oats”. He was, in those days, intoxicated with his manlystunt of spicing his literary career with acts of chivalry as buying a necklace for oneof his girls from time to time or escorting another to a posh restaurant.

To tell the truth, it was the women who were ultra-sensitive to the tragicpower structure disintegration. But what was his womanhood in essence? Acluster of leeches! Can a successful man exempt himself from being victimisedby such leeches? On the other hand, such leeches can serve as tokens – just as aluxurious car, a château, a champion racehorse, etc. – to publicise a man’ssuccess in life. Conversely, it is precisely such “leeches” that are always the firstto give their host the initial experience of crucifixion resulting from his fiasco.


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No Romeo’s or Juliet’s counterpart can be found in our world nowadays!Womanhood of our epoch is unique for its ability to detect or discern. Nothing canescape a woman’s detection or discernment. A leech of a woman can readily – andalmost accurately – figure out the balance of her host’s account, the working of hispolitical or financial budget, etc. Once she is aware that a deficit is unavoidable inthe settlement of his host’s political or financial account, he forfeits forever eventhe right to have access to her phone number, not to say access to herself in bed.Such are traits of our womanhood, which “career manhood” of our epoch isbelieved to have been fully acquainted with.

Just as the saying goes: “politics is as fickle as a flirt”. Owing to thedisintegration of the power structure in his country, the dramatist had beendeprived of his aristocratic way of life as well as of his opportunity to become apresidential candidate; moreover he was later pilloried by the new power structurein his country. Thus he had to flee his country and eke out a living abroad bybegging alms from various foundations, however distasteful and disgusting suchalms might be!

It was reported that things had been rather auspicious for him in the end. Hiscountry was actually the worst off among those countries that had experienced apolitical structural disintegration. A piece of news awakened some expectationsin him. According to the news, capitalism was being revived, or restored, in hismotherland. Hence his plan: after having wound up his current business with MrW.’s foundation, he would travel back to his motherland to find out the realconditions there. Once in his own country, if he had found that things there notso rosy as he now expected, he would come back to Mr W.’s foundation for arenewal of its grant. Anyway he would carefully proceed by taking the lesser oftwo evils.

The fate befriended him once, while he was having an interview with afemale compatriot who was believed to be a leader of a recently founded sect. Shewas able to make him “hook up” with a very popular and generous culturalfoundation in a very affluent country on condition that he would pay her a sum asfees. Through her good offices, being reluctant to go back home, he could staylong in that affluent country, avoid any degrading menial work such as washingdishes in a restaurant, and earn a respectable and comfortable livelihood byhaving himself associated, as an artist, with a cultural foundation.

Then the artist from E. appeared in the garden, casually drawing on hiscigarette. The dramatist went up to him, intending to talk the artist out of theresentment for the debt not paid back.

“This condominium is hell!” said the dramatist quite endearingly to the artist.“Neither a woman nor a bar can be found within the walls! You have no idea ofhow a playwright like me lived in my country. In those days I lived in the capitalof my country.”

“I know you lived in a house that looked like a junkyard,” said the artist notinterested in increasing the intimacy between them.

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That evening a banquet in honour of the newly arrived artists was given bythe foundation in compliance with the concept of liberality advocated by itsfounder. The banquet took place in a notable restaurant that had a very longhistory behind it.

Completely oblivious of his surroundings, the dramatist gorged himselfindulgently at the banquet table, because he had been forced to survive onsandwiches – the cheapest sandwiches, to be exact – and mineral water for ages.In chewing his food, the movements – definitely rhythmic and continuous – ofhis upper and lower jaw were as fast as those of a rabbit. Every time, afterhaving lifted morsels of food into his mouth four or five times with a fork orspoon, he set his jaws to work. In the course of time his mouth was graduallycrammed with only partially chewed food. Still he kept sending food into hismouth. As his oral cavity could no longer take any extra load, the uninterruptedsupply of viands made his facial integument work strangely; consequently hiseyelids began to turn inside out, and his chin began to assume an angular shape.As he had the habit of using only his incisors to chew his food, juice from thefood he was chewing and saliva were inevitably extruded through hisimperfectly closed lips.

Others at his table involuntarily lowered their heads because of a sense ofshame. In the face of such an epitomised representation of grim starvation, allthose who had never experienced the ordeal of hunger ought to feel the prick ofguilty conscience. Only the artist from E. dared to offer to the dramatist a littlecomment, “I presume the roast beefsteak you’ve helped yourself to must be morethan one kg.”

The day after his arrival the dramatist asked the receptionist to pass on to thefoundation administration his request that he should be given a couple of months’pay in advance, because he needed to travel far and wide to make extensivecultural contacts and could not stay put in this isolated condominium. Thereceptionist faithfully took down every word he said.

From then on, he went to town every day and showed no intention to carvean art career for himself or concentrate on artistic creation within the framework ofthe foundation as Mr W. had expected.

Time flew. One day the dramatist drove back to the condominium in asecond-hand car. Before then, nobody had been curious to know how he went onwith his cultural contacts in town, because nobody there was like people in hishome country who took great pleasure in intruding upon other people’s privacy.Moreover just like slices of bread provided free of charge in a small containerplaced on the table in a pub that usually attracted no attention, a second-hand carwas nothing to merit attention from the inhabitants of the condominium.

The second-hand car had already a decade of usage behind it. However thedramatist believed it could be sold easily in the market of his own country in casehe could have it shipped there and that he could reap handsomely from selling itin his home market because of the exigent dearth of car supply there.


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Recently the dramatist had been behaving exactly like such a petty landlord asdescribed in Turgenev’s or Tolstoj’s novels: By the peep of day he was seenalready at the door of his apartment. Soon he would begin to cough complacentlyand fervidly. Then holding his hands behind the back and in the typical gait of aRussian petty landlord, he would stroll toward his second-hand car before hehovered about it, showing off his fairly sexy legs and stout torso.

Soon the condominium’s sanitation worker would appear in time to do hiseveryday cleaning duties. The dramatist would take advantage of his tools to cleanhis car so that it could shine dazzlingly and look like a SAAB or BMW.

The artist from the country of E. was infuriated at last. “Why do you choose toclean your car outside my window while I am working. The noise simply preventsme from concentrating on my work. I am going to call the police if you keep onharassing me”, the artist warned.

From then on the dramatist would kindly offer the other condominium’sinhabitants – except the artist from E. – a lift when any of them needed to go totown for shopping. But the dramatist’s Soviet-style Cold War tactic failed to makeany inroad into the fortress of hauteur put up by the artist from E.

Unexpectedly, before long the engine of the second-hand car was out oforder. Thus the dramatist consulted a great number of car experts about remedialexpedients. However the consensus of those experts was this: the reparationwould invariably cost one quarter of the price the dramatist had paid for the car.

The dramatist had been experiencing annihilating pangs since his car brokedown. He seemed to have thus contracted a heart disorder. One morning he wentout to the circular corridor. There he met a writer from I.

“There must be something the matter with my heart,” he said to the writerfrom I., “would you please feel my pulse?”

After feeling his pulse for a while, the writer from I. said, “Your pulse’s ok, Sir.”“But would you please feel my bosom? My heart’s about to leap into my

mouth.”“No,” said the writer from I. “Since your pulse is normal, your heart must be

ok. They work in unison.”One day the dramatist told the receptionist that he had contracted a chronic

psychosis.“My request that I should be given of a couple of months’ allowance in

advance has not been granted so far,” he reminded the receptionist; “though youhave entered my request in your notebook.” He stared sharply into thereceptionist’s eyes, insinuating that a mental patient could have the acumen of asorcerer to see through all sorts of stratagems.

Afterwards the dramatist would either stay all day long in the garden, staringblankly and motionlessly into the sky or roam the garden throughout the night,sending out in the dead of nocturnal quietude a thrilling growl like the howl of awolf. His growl woke all other inhabitants of the condominium. Eventually theyseemed to begin to suffer a breakdown like the engine of the dramatist’s car.

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And now other inhabitants of the condominium were convinced that thedramatist was really in the grip of a chronic psychosis.

The receptionist was worried to the utmost as it dawned upon her that in casethe dramatist lapsed again into a nervous breakdown and thus incurred somecalamity, the foundation administration would certainly inculpate her because ofher undutifulness in attending upon him, though she had filled an entire notebookwith all the requests he had dictated to her. However she needed not to wait longbefore finding out that her worry in connection with the dramatist was totallymisplaced.

It was not until after the dramatist invented a way to circumvent the carengine crisis that other condominium inhabitants could regain their right ofnocturnal relaxation. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t stayed in the garden and staredblankly into the sky in vain. His long meditation there led him in the end to pin allhis hope on Mrs Lu, who lived just next door to the office of the condominium.

In almost all other parts of the world culture and art had already beenrelegated to virtual pariahdom. Consequently, the instant a gentleman engaging ina field of artistic creation had no alternative but to admit he had taken it as hisoccupation, he would be at the same time seized with a sudden shame as if hewere confessing that he was leading the idle life of a sponger like a beggar – and,for that matter, a completely shameless, yet tricky, beggar! But here the dramatistnow stayed in a country deeply imbued with its traditional culture. Here, in thiscountry, people were still unable to get rid themselves of the enthralment bred ofits traditional culture. Besides, rather than in a city buoyant upon the avant-gardetorrent branching off some ultra-contemporary stream of culture, the office of thefoundation was located in a small town always developing at a half the speed of acity, so much so that residents in this town could never bring themselves tocompletely give up their addiction to arts and culture which were altogether notlucrative. It was precisely in such a milieu that Mr W.’s moved to establish hiscultural foundation and the first batch of international artists were met withunreserved local adoration.

It happened that at the gallery inauguration sponsored by the foundation, MrsLu was so lucky as to take back home a painting by the artist from the country ofE, in addition to a small statue done by a South An sculptor. So it is imaginable thatif the foundation could survive for aeons, her house would certainly be turned intoan art museum bursting with all manner of artistic products. It is against such abackground that Mrs Lu willingly ordered her son to repair – for nothing, of course– the dramatist’s car engine by using the components supplied free by her son, inaddition to her son’s tools.

The crisis of the car engine being over, the dramatist’s mental disorder wasbrought to an end even without any treatment.

Having emerged intact from his psychosis, he started to frequent again thecorridor. Every morning the circular corridor, through which all the apartments inthe condominium were made mutually accessible, would become a milieu of an


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international coffee-drink exposition, because every morning would see all theinternational inhabitants in the condominium take their cups of coffee preparedaccording to various recipes of their own country to the corridor and drink it there.The circular corridor served also as a dining hall where not only theseinternational inhabitants’ breakfast but also their lunch and supper were served. Ina sense the corridor functioned as a reviewing stand; and the dramatist wasparticularly keen in taking advantage of this.

One evening while preparing his supper, the writer from I. suddenly found hehad ran short of his cooking oil. The dramatist adroitly took advantage of thisopportunity to demonstrate to all other inhabitants that he could be in a wayuseful to their community. Thus he held high a bottle of cooking oil – as if he wereholding his national flag – and paraded back and forth in the corridor, instead ofmarching straight into the Italian’s kitchenette.

In the face of such a pretence the artist from E. turned to address the South Ansculptor, “Doesn’t his antic remind us of one of the British blatant acts ofcolonisation?”

“I can never convince myself,” said the South An, “that a man of his calibrecould have the chance of being nominated for the presidency. Aren’t you awarehe used to rake in anything, cigarettes, cakes, and small change we casually left ondining tables?

“In his home country everything that would be inconceivable in other parts ofthe world can happen indeed;” said the artist. “No politicians would behaveotherwise, I assure you.”

“But do you think Churchill, Roosevelt, or de Gaulle did behave likewise?”“It is true that politicians are contradictory in terms of personal behaviour, as

well as artists.”Having tasted all sorts of coffee at the international coffee-drink exposition,

the dramatist declared that he preferred Italian coffee to any other sort of coffee.On the strength of such a declaration he would often take up a seat at the tablewhere the writer from I. sat to eat his breakfast. Everybody knows that not onlyItalian coffee but also Italian food is among the best in the world. The writer from I.was not only hospitable but also very fond of preparing delicious dishes. In thegathering gloom the condominium would be bathed in pleasant flavour of garlicenriched by the sweet fragrance of Italian spices. Such an atmosphere served tosharpen all the faculties of not only other artists in the condominium but also oftheir neighbour, Mrs Lu. Thus motivated by the olfactory stimuli they would moveof their own accord in the direction of the corridor now functioning as a dininghall. Naturally the dramatist would present himself on time at the writer from I.’sdining table. As soon as the dramatist was seated, he would most impatiently movethe principal dish from the centre of the table to the side of his plate. Then hewould recklessly and unabashedly ferret out all the most delicious titbits throughthe agency of his fork and knife and very agilely popped them into his mouth in aprolonged volley. Therefore before others sat at the dining table, the demolished

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dish which the writer from I., an inveterate devotee of fine arts, had taken pains tomould into a most charming objet of art, had been already degraded into a tinyheap of unnameable litter fit only for the trash bin. In case the main dish waschicken, it would be metamorphosed in a short interval into a jumble of chickenskin and bones under the auspices of the dramatist’s gourmand frenzy!

“Excuse me, but I can’t help leaving the chicken skin and fat untouched;” thedramatist explained. “My family reports a medical history of hereditaryhypertension.”

While he was chewing his food energetically with his eyes being almost shut,he was actually highly watchful of every move made by any other member at histable. Whenever someone held out his fork or spoon to get some food from thetable, he would promptly follow suit and add some new morsels to his plate,though more often than not a new addition to the food already heaped in his platetended to induce a “landslide” that would usually spill a fringe of food down thebrim of his plate.

Mrs Lu offered him her advice, “Please do try to eat less and at a lower speed.Otherwise your stomach would begin to ache.” Her advice was not at all pointless.Days before she harvested pailfuls of Spanish plums from a plum tree in her yard.Thus almost all containers in her house were filled with fruit. Accidentally thedramatist came over to pay her a visit, asking for her advice on how to approach alocal theatre to accept a play newly written by him. She offered him a bowl full ofSpanish plums. He took them home but did not feel an urge to taste them, becausethere were great amounts of various fruit trees – such as cherry, apple, pear,apricot – in the condominium. Although the dramatist was not familiar with allparts of the condominium, yet with little difficulty he found a ladder in astoreroom. He took the ladder to the yard and placed it against a cherry tree. Heturned to talk to the Italian writer contentedly, “Do we need to get some fruit fromthe supermarket?” Enlightened by his interlocutor’s sagacity, the Italian queried,“Incidentally would you please tell me where the storeroom is? I hope I can find apair of pliers there.”

The dramatist did not think the Spanish plums palatable until he tasted acouple of them. Thus he let himself have the plums to his heart’s content. The nextmorning, at two o’ clock, Mrs Lu was woken up by thunderous poundings at herdoor. She opened her door to find the dramatist there in the throes of unbearablebellyache. He thought he contracted appendicitis and believed he could not drivehimself to a hospital. Thus Mrs Lu was obliged to take him immediately to ahospital. There he was admitted instantly to the emergency room. The diagnosissaid it was intemperate eating and drinking – rather than appendicitis – whichcaused his stomach to suffer because it was overworked. The doctor prescribedsome medicines that could aid his digestion and told him to let his stomach take abrief respite.

In addition to his hereditary chronic psychosis, he developed gastritis duringhis stay with the foundation; and it turned acute each time he shared a supper with


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the writer from I. For all the illnesses he had put on much weight since he came tolive here, his face looking more than ever before like that of a petty Russianlandlord. His cheeks were so puffed up as to eclipse his ears – as if he hadcontracted acute mumps – and reminded his mates of the configuration formed ofthe swept-back wings of a jumbo-jet.

He no longer bore the likeness of what he had looked like when crossing thethreshold of the condominium for the first time in his life. At least his amplifiedcheeks were something eloquently suggestive of jolly plumpness.

Except for the writer from I., nobody else in the condominium was on goodterms with the dramatist whose isolation here was not terminated until the arrivalof a Russian composer. Consequently – so it seemed – the dramatist found an allyin this newcomer and then contracted the new habit of often strolling in the yardhand in hand with the newcomer; and together they reminded all the onlookersthey walked past of Stalin’s time!

Close together they hobnobbed over vodka and crooned Slavic arias. Themurk of the deepening evening gloom lent a particularly desperate ethos to theircrooning emitted from their souls forlorn and damned. Lethargised by theheartbroken tunes everybody else in the condominium would become touched bythe pathos they managed to evoke and demurely whisper to anybody withinearshot, “The nation that has created such mournful tunes is simply tragic!”

“Slavs are mournful in disposition;” commented the artist from the country ofE. “Immediately after they get out of their beds in early morning they begin singingand sing persistently while they are eating their breakfasts. This is the habit of allof them, men and women. They learn to chorus together with their mums whilethey were in an embryonic form of existence in the wombs of their mothers. Howcan Slavs be otherwise than sorrowful?”

Since the arrival of the Russian composer the receptionist had been muchbusier, jotting down requests dictated to her by the condominium mates. Butnone of the requests recorded in her notebooks had ever been fulfilled.Although temperamentally resigned, the South An sculptor could not helpcommenting eventually, “I will reveal to the TV correspondent scheduled tointerview me next week how the foundation is operating and the problematicside of its operation.”

To tell the truth, the Russian composer should be rated as much more astutethan the dramatist. Only a couple days after he took up his residence in thecondominium, he had the gall to ask Mrs Lu to lend him her car. But he refrainedfrom approaching the dramatist for borrowing the latter’s car, though both of themwere so buddy-buddy as could not leave the other alone in crooning Slavic arias.

The composer was affable though candid. He frankly told Mrs Lu that he wasabout to travel to two neighbouring cities to perform at concerts there and thatsince he could not afford to stay in hotels while sojourning there, he would beheavily indebted to her if she would allow him to use her car so that he could bespared not only the greyhound fares to and back from the two cities but also the

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hotel expenditures, as he could sleep in her car during the nights he was to spendin the two cities. Never allowing himself to behave as parsimoniously as thedramatist who had never lifted a finger to return the favours she had done him, thecomposer took to her house tapes recording the songs and tunes composed byhim and offered them to her as a gift. On the top of the wrapping enclosing thesetapes he put down his autograph.

Such a move on the part of the composer cornered her. But she managed tosay at last, “But I regret to say I can’t afford to dispense with my car any day.”

“Well, in that case would you please oblige me with some warm clothes thatyou have planned to discard?” asked the composer humbly.

“That’s something in my power to do;” said she unexpectedly filled withgenerosity. “My son bought a warm eiderdown jacket. He needed it for his journeyto Hong Kong on an errand. I don’t think he is to travel there any more. So he canspare that jacket for you.”

The receptionist thought the composer very polite and gentle. Every time heasked her to come to his room for a talk, he was bound to offer her four cookiespiled on a small plate in addition to a cup of tea. Soon after his first arrival at thecondominium she was presented a gift comprising tapes of his works enclosed inan autographed wrapping.

To her great surprise, she was summoned one day to the police station whereshe was instructed to take the composer back to the condominium, because hehad held a solo concert in the plaza in a nearby city without the permission ofauthorities concerned. Thus the police there took him into custody. After he wasdetained the police discovered that his visa had already expired.

She was stupefied, because, as a rule, the validity of his visa ought to havebeen synchronous with the inauguration of the foundation. How come his visa hadexpired? Was it because, she pondered, the composer had arrived in this countrymuch earlier than the foundation was established? But how could a foreigner havemanaged to travel into this country before the foundation was created? Indeed aforeigner was in most cases much more capable than a citizen of this country!

Under such circumstances the foundation had no alternative but to ask thecomposer to go back to his homeland to undergo the process of applying for anew visa. But he refused to do so. He not only refused to be repatriated but alsorequested to have all his family members migrate to this country. The argumentshe offered to support his request were not only convincing but pitiable: hishometown was Chernobyl, the place of the nuclear leakage that had stunned theworld. His children were victims of lethal radioactivity. Therefore it was imperativefor him to try his best to move his family out of that dangerous place.

“In order to provide my family with accommodations in this country,” hecontinued; “and in order to save the government of this country the trouble ofsupporting my family after they come here, I went to give a solo concert in theplaza in that city. Besides I want to earn and save up money so that I can buy ahouse for my family after they come here. Furthermore my family members have


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to apply to the Russian government for passports; that would certainly cost us afortune. I would be boundlessly grateful to the foundation, in case it would kindlyhelp me out with overcoming all the difficulties besetting their migration.”

The dramatist willingly canvassed everywhere on the composer’s behalf.Sympathy made the rest of the condominium inhabitants forget both theirresentment against the composer and the dramatist and all the indecenciescommitted by the two of them. While the rest of the condominium was makingpeace with both the dramatist and the composer, the hatchet was unexpectedlytaken up by either against the other; and the dramatist’s car was the last straw.

After Mrs Lu’s refusal to lend her car to the composer, the latter was left noalternative but to have recourse to the dramatist’s car. At first the dramatistreluctantly complied with the composer’s requests for using his car because hehad been very frequently cadging meals from the composer. Each time after thecomposer drove away in the car borrowed from the dramatist, the latter promptlygot the jitters, giving vent to his rancour by slamming his door nervously. Then itsuddenly dawned upon him that he could resort to the stratagem of talking thecomposer into buying a second-hand car. Consequently the composer wasrepeatedly driven to town; and the dramatist showed him around in a number ofsecond-hand car markets in order to coax him into buying a second-hand car. Butinstead of taking second-hand car purchase seriously, the composer went aboutdealing with a lot of his personal affairs in town by taking advantage of theopportunities when the dramatist drove him there expressly to cajole him intopurchasing a second-hand car. Finally the dramatist saw through what thecomposer was really up to. The dramatist thought aloud, “Having taken advantageof all the opportunities I drove him to town he has been shrewdly and slylydealing with all the affairs he needed to take care of in town. That accounts forwhy he has never for once asked me to lend him car recently.”

The dramatist had already reached an agreement with a second-hand cardealer that if he could persuade the composer to buy a second-hand car from him,fifteen percent of the price paid by the composer for the car went to the dramatist.Now that the composer refused to buy a second-hand car, the dramatist was deniedthe windfall of fifteen percent of the car price. Feeling embittered because hethought the composer had been intentionally fooling him, he told the composerpointblank, “From now on you have to pay me for half of the gas needed to coverthe distance to be travelled whenever you want to have a lift with me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re calling the shots here, man. Know your place;” spewedout the composer in contempt.

“Don’t tell me you’re calling the shots here, Mr Superpower,” retorted thedramatist in deadly defiance; “remember you’re no longer in a position todominate and abuse me as you country did with its satellite states withoutincurring an impending disaster of self-destruction.”

As a matter of fact what the dramatist said to the Russian was nothing but astark truth, rather than some indecent remarks. With the two of them the only

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crucial problem was that in the wake of the power structure disintegration intheir respective country their lives and careers had been calamitously deorbited.This constituted their current source of torment and disgrace and left thembehaviourally upset and intellectually unanchored. The history of Russia or thatof any of her former satellites is not void of records of foreign conquest ornational humiliation. The lapse of almost a score of centuries has alreadybenumbed the pang derived from such foreign conquests or nationalhumiliations. But the pang given rise to by torment and disgrace arising from thecontemporary cataclysm in a country is, generally speaking, too acute to bearindeed. Therefore the pang fashioned the behavioural anomalies displayed bythe two of them. Such a phenomenon deserves commiseration indeed.

Ironically such behavioural anomalies tended to furnish both the dramatistand the composer with elation and vivacity. As either party was deeply familiarwith the past of the other party, every charge from one party was invariably fatallydevastating for the other party. Consequently such an infernal duel could leadnowhere but to the most pristine violence.

In the end the bottles of tomato juice, wine, anything that were the propertiesof the South An sculptor or some other condominium mates now became guidedmissiles ejected by either warring party at his foe. A hand-grenade of tomato jamhit Mr W.’s portrait on the wall before long. Instantly his face was rougedcharmingly. Nevertheless he smirked with good humour at the two raving knights.

Feeling quite outraged when he looked up at the sullied portrait of thefounder of the foundation, the South An sculptor shouted, “Stop it, you, good-for-nothing Slavs! Dirty pigs!”

Abruptly the two warriors stopped their rivalry simultaneously and turned inperfect unison in the direction of the South An sculptor, both being ready to makean onslaught on the South An.

“Dare you insult us in Hitlerian jargon?” boomed the two combatants inchorus.

“Whatever jargon I used is not important. I simply can’t tolerate such ashameless mêlée. What a bestial scene you’re making here? More degraded thandirty pigs!”

Thus began a scuffle involving the three hostile parties. However the martialart proficiency of the South An was deadlier than that the two Slavs could exhibit.On the verge of being mortally wounded the dramatist swiftly manoeuvred himselfout of the arena, because he knew he had his second-hand car to take care of. Itwould be outrageously stupid for him to die before his car was shipped back toand sold at a most profitable price in his home country, he believed.

Then the two Slavs went to report to the receptionist what a dirty andHitlerian language the South An sculptor had used to insult them. She reacted byexpressing her deep regret for how the South An had conducted himself, saying,“That’s truly deplorable!”


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“But,” pursued the two Slavs, “do you mean to say we should take all thislying down?”

“What else can I do, Sirs?” answered she. “One is entitled to unrestrainedly airwhat is on one’s mind, even if that might offend somebody else.”

The dramatist could not bring himself to accept this. In the meantime helearned from some local newspapers that a local movement to fight the revival ofFascism was unfolding. He reacted unhesitatingly and called the editors of thosenewspapers, telling them that evident traces of revival of Fascism could be foundamong the foundation beneficiaries. Some reporters could not wait to rush to thefoundation for a timely coverage. But other reporters objected, declaring that sinceall South Ans were suffering because of the recent bombardments carried out byAmerica in South An, it would be an utterly inhumane move to censure a South An,instead of showing him sympathy. Thus the matter was dropped in a precariousequilibrium between the pros and cons voiced in local journalistic circles.

Consequently, none of the rest – except for the Italian writer – of thecondominium mates would associate themselves with the two Slavs.

“How dare you,” shouted the dramatist angrily at the rest of the condominiumpopulation, “deride or look down upon the two of us? Aren’t you, like the two ofus, cadging a livelihood with this departed benefactor? All cadgers are on an equalfooting. Don’t you see that?”

The foundation would have remained so far a commonplace undertakingblessed with plain sailing but for the conflagration that terminated its existence.The conflagration devoured part of the condominium and was alleged to haveoriginated with a burning cigarette butt carelessly left to kindle the bedclothesin the couch of the artist from the country of E., after he went to sleep inexhaustion. The ignited bedding spread the fire to everything around it. Of allthe condominium inhabitants, the artist suffered the heaviest loss because hispainting collection and his own paintings were lost in the holocaust. Thanks tothe foresight of the foundation administration, the artist received an enormouscompensation from an insurance company, since the foundation had had theproperties of all the condominium inhabitants insured. The artist professedquite unperturbedly, “An artist is entitled to claim any compensation for his lossfrom an insurance company since artistic works are all priceless articles, youknow.”

“It’s a fiendishly predatory dog that never barks before it snatches;”commented the dramatist from the country of B.

“And you must be a dog that never snatches before it barks!” offered the artist.The compensation secured by the artist gnawed jealously at the dramatist’s

heart, because none of his properties, his second-hand car included, was damagedby the fire. However he managed to wrench from the insurance company someindemnity for the loss that made his health suffer because the shock he receivedfrom the conflagration had aggravated the symptom of his chronic psychosis.

After the fire the first round of activities of the foundation came to an end.

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Every condominium inhabitant was about to part company with thefoundation. Being fully aware that he was no longer able to be copiously cateredto by the wealthy foundation, the dramatist was overwhelmed with sadness andturned for the worse. Notwithstanding, he was sensible enough to know that hecouldn’t help it.

All of a sudden it occurred to him that his backache might help him invent anexpedient to tide over the crisis. While his chronic psychosis was an illness moreimaginary than real, his backache was a sterling illness more real than imaginary.His backache tortured him day and night; in extreme cases he suffered fromdevilish insomnia because of it. He had studied extremely carefully the prospectusand documentation of the foundation before he decided to apply for anallowance; later he drew up a plan listing in detail what he intended to acquirefrom the foundation. One item in the plan was acquisition from the foundation ahealth insurance. Now, in view of the fact that once he was repatriated after theconclusion of the foundation activities, the cost he would have to pay for atreatment of nuclear magnetic resonance in his homeland could be exorbitant, heasked the receptionist to arrange for him to take such a treatment before he left thefoundation. She did. But the findings from the treatment indicated that there wasnothing wrong with his back. This delighted not only her but him as well. Forthough his “backache” was eliminated as a pretext to enable him to prolong hisstay at the foundation, he could rest assured that he would be spared all theworries connected with his back after his repatriation.

Since backache was demolished as the last pretext he could use for aprolonged stay at the foundation, the dramatist no longer pretended to havecontracted any illness. Now his only request he asked the receptionist to take careof was that she take him to a hospital every day and arrange for him to have aback massage there. So long as he was now proclaimed sound in body, he took toreclining comfortably on his sofa, smoking, drinking whisky, watching TV. He waswaiting for the day when he was to leave the condominium.

The foundation’s first round of activities concluded triumphantly. All thecondominium inhabitants were ready to leave. The foundation helped the Russiancomposer obtain permission from authorities concerned to continue to stay andsecure a job in this country. The artist from the country of E., who had anundisguised contempt for the dramatist from the country of B., now turned toanother foundation for a chance to carve out a new career. The writer from I.returned to his own country. With the help of a humanitarian organisation theSouth An sculptor went to work for the anti-racial discrimination movement in theUnited States. Inspired by the prospects of securing profuse returns by selling hissecond-hand care in his own country, the dramatist drove it to traverse theContinent of Europe.

Before making his adieus to the condominium, he was looking everywhere inthe building for the receptionist because she kept a handsome sum of money,which were rewards paid by parties concerned for the lectures he had given them.


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She ought to have passed on those rewards to him as soon as they had beenhanded over to her. Now she explained to the dramatist that she had forgetfullyleft them in her home but assured him that she would take the money to thecondominium the next day without fail. But from the next day onward she neverturned up at the condominium again. Later the dramatist called the office of thefoundation and was told that she got leave of absence from the office and was nolonger in the city. Besides he was informed that nobody had any idea of when shewould be back at the foundation.

Miss M., the receptionist, had a grave and dignified bearing. The dramatist hadthought very highly of her, thinking that she must have very noble character andmight not stoop to anything as low as he himself had been accustomed to. Thosewho looked noble or dignified in bearing, so he concluded, were not necessarilymore noble-minded than he. This was what he learned from his years of vagrancyacross a number of countries. Certainly he oughtn’t have been sneered at when hehad repeatedly expressed his worries about the safety of his rewards kept in thehands of the receptionist.

A few miles after his second-hand car crossed the border into his homecountry, the dramatist met with disaster in a car crash. Having been informed ofthe tragic news, the foundation people said, “If he were still here, he was bound toinvent some expedient to force the insurance company to pay him compensationfor the crashed second-hand car.”

But nobody was sure what had really happened to him or his car.Some said he was driving when drunk.Others reported his car was destroyed in a spontaneous combustion in its

engine.Still others asserted that his car crashed into a big van. But a better informed

source had it that his car crash just camouflaged an attempted murder.Some later revelations indicated that the dramatist emerged unscathed from

the car crash but he had from then on gone by a new name and manoeuvredthrough a general election in the country of B. to become president.

A source intimated that the dramatist had created a foundation of his own andthat it was different from Mr W.’s foundation in that it was a profitableorganisation, by dint of which the dramatist was no longer obliged to cadge aliving with any other foundation across the world. Moreover, through his ownfoundation he succeeded in setting a good example for all the foundations acrossthe world to follow in how to turn a non-profit institution – such as a foundation –into a profitable one.

Still another source hinted that he had associated with a new foundation. Andit was further inferred that there he might again encounter the artist from thecountry of E.

* * *Miss M., the receptionist, never showed up again. She was so grave and

dignified in bearing that accusing her of having evaded paying back the lecture

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rewards to the dramatist by hiding herself seemed to be incriminating her unjustly.Still the hideous fact remained that the dramatist had forfeited forever theconsiderable lecture rewards. But her notebooks that were excessively repletewith “details” in her handwriting of the numerous requests which all thecondominium inhabitants had dictated to her and which they had asked Mr W.’sfoundation to comply with were very convincing and, therefore, very useful – asfar as the foundation was concerned – real documents to attest not only to herfunctioning efficiency as a receptionist but also to the generosity harboured by thefoundation towards all its beneficiaries. The “details” were quoted copiously in thefoundation’s periodical statements on its regular work; and these statements wereas a rule carried by numerous bulletins and gazettes. All these developmentscontributed to Miss M.’s advancement in the ruling hierarchy of the foundation.

All of a sudden the entire staff of the foundation disappeared altogether; andthe condominium was evacuated. Those who knew nothing about the totaldisappearance of the foundation staff thought that all the staff members had beenfired by the foundation hierarchy or were on strike or a long furlough. But as amatter of fact all of them were still paid generously by the foundation.

The condominium, still looking magnificent from a distance, was able towrench admiration from passers-by who would in most cases linger there a littlewhile to appreciate it. But inside it suffered terribly because of long absence fromit of the care of sanitation workers. Even if all the officials of the foundation hadleft the condominium on a long furlough, its hardworking sanitation workersshould have been still on duty. Anybody who chanced to enter the condominiumnow would be mystified on discovering swarms of maggots were creeping inevery room in the condominium. The sights of kitchenettes and bathrooms wereparticularly nauseating.

On all the walls of a kitchenette was a layer of dirty grease looking like a queercoating. There was nothing in a room in the condominium but was greasy to thetouch. In fact since no inhabitant in the condominium had ever cooked in hisapartment except for the Italian writer, the greasy coating on the walls of everyroom in condominium remained a mystery. Piles of unwashed kitchen utensilswere not heaped where they should be deposited but in sofas, on floor, or in sinks.Not a single piece of dinner services remained undamaged. They were cracked orjagged, or had a missing handle, spout or lid. Everything in the condominiumseemed to be just a relic of an earthquake or war. All bedding items, includingpillowcases, in any bedroom stayed no longer where they belonged. Instead theywere spread all over the floor of the bathroom in an apartment. In every bathroomthe floor seemed to have been flooded by seeped water coming out of nowhere.

On the narrow walks criss-crossing the yards in the condominium and thegirders in all the bathrooms were grown densely with large and puffy greymushrooms.

Yes, it was a nice season, proper to the growth of mushrooms.


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Part IIfrom ASIA

to ASIA

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ASEMIS A SUNRISEORGANISATION by Tommy KOH

T HE ASIA-EUROPE MEETING, OR ASEM,

brings together the fifteen European Union countries and ten countries of EastAsia. This inter-regional group is unique. The group’s history is brief, having beenestablished only four years ago in 1996. The leaders of the twenty-five membercountries and the President of the European Commission have met once every twoyears, in Bangkok in 1996 and in London in 1998. They will hold their thirdsummit in Seoul in October this year.

ASEM Fatigue in Europe?

Some commentators have recently expressed the view that although ASEM isonly four years old, some of our European friends seem to be suffering frompremature ASEM fatigue. Is this true? Other commentators have wondered aboutthe continued relevance of ASEM to the EU. They have pointed out that the EU hasbilateral summits with the three largest Asian members of ASEM, namely, China,Japan and Indonesia. What additional value does ASEM bring to EU?

Negative Perceptions of ASEAN

Compared to 1996, when ASEM was established, today, ASEAN is not viewedin a favourable light by public opinion in the EU, for several reasons. Theadmission of Myanmar in 1997 created a chasm between ASEAN and the EU.Market analysts do not seem impressed with Thailand’s reform and restructuring.As a result, investor confidence in Thailand has not returned to the pre-crisis level.The protracted negotiation between the government of the Philippines and theMuslim rebels in Jolo, over the kidnapped foreign hostages, has created a negativeimpression of the Philippines and, by extension, of ASEAN. The prosecution andconvictions of Malaysia’s former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, hasattracted the EU President’s criticism. Finally, ASEAN is seen to be backtracking onits ASEAN Free Trade Area commitments. This has raised questions about ASEAN’scredibility and competitiveness vis-à-vis other countries and regions of the world.Can ASEAN compete, for example, with Northeast Asia, and especially with China?

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Sunrise or Sunset?

In view of the doubts and questions which have been raised it is pertinent toask whether is ASEM a sunrise or a sunset organisation. I would argue that ASEM isa sunrise organisation, basing my argument on three main reasons.

Economic Prospects of East Asia

Firstly, most of the economies of East Asia have bounced back from thefinancial and economic crisis of 1997 and 1998. East Asia, minus Japan, is growingstrongly again. According to a recent essay in The Economist by the eminentAmerican economist, Dr Fred Bergsten, the world is becoming a three-blockformed by the US, the EU and East Asia. According to Dr Bergsten’s computation,based on 1997 data, East Asia’s combined GDP was $6,382 billion, compared tothe EU’s $8,093 billion and the USA’s $7,834 billion. Using PPP (Purchasing PowerParities), the GDP figures were $9,431 billion for East Asia, $7,559 billion for theEU and $7,665 billion for the US. East Asia’s trade with the world, at $1,380 billion,was close to the EU’s $1,640 billion and to the $1,586 billion of the US. When itcomes to foreign exchange reserves, East Asia tops the table with $668 billion,compared to the EU’s $380 billion and only $71 billion of the US.

The conclusion is obvious. The economic rationale for ASEM remains as validtoday as it did in 1996. East Asia is already an important economic partner of theEU and will become more so in the coming years and decades.

Towards a Multipolar World

Secondly, one of the reasons that brought the Asians and Europeans togetherin 1996 was their common aspiration towards a transition from a unipolar to amultipolar world. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of theCold War, the world has been dominated by one superpower, the United States. Itis a safer world than during the Cold War, when the danger of a nuclear war wasever present. However, Asians and Europeans would prefer to live in a multipolarworld in which the EU and a more united East Asia could constitute two otherpoles. Such a world would be more balanced, more comfortable and more stable.

This rationale for ASEM is as valid today as it was in 1996. Indeed, I wouldargue that it is more relevant now because East Asia is more cohesive and moreunited today than it was four years ago. Only a cohesive and united East Asia canconstitute a pole in a multipolar world.

What has happened since ASEM I? The first East Asia Summit, modestly calledASEAN + 3, was held in Malaysia in 1997, the second in Vietnam in 1998, and thethird in the Philippines in 1999. The fourth summit will be held in Singapore inNovember this year. The process is being institutionalised and has already broughttogether East Asia’s foreign ministers, finance ministers, central bank governors

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and senior officials. It is not just empty talk either. Already, the group has agreed toadopt a region-wide currency exchange arrangement that would help them dealwith any future Asian financial crisis. It is also significant that Japan has started FTAnegotiations with Korea and Singapore.

My conclusion is that developments in East Asia over the past four years showa positive trend. The countries of the region are getting together, developing ahabit of consultation, increasing their comfort level and engaging in concretecooperative projects. If this trend continues, East Asia will be in a better position toconstitute a pole in a multipolar world.

Thirdly, one of the biggest challenges of the post Cold War world is thecultural dominance of the world by one country. The US possesses both hard andsoft power. The soft power is represented by its food, beverages, fashion, music,movies, television, universities, research and development, and Silicon Valley.Asians and Europeans would like to counter this trend and to build a world ofcultural diversity. This is one of the common aspirations that unites Asians andEuropeans in ASEM.

In the past four years, ASEM and especially the Asia-Europe Foundation(ASEF) have tried to build many cultural bridges between East Asia and theEuropean Union. We have brought together cultural leaders, cultural industries,arts managers and administrators, education, cultural and television networks,universities and think-tanks, editors and journalists, students and professors,artists, musicians, dancers and many others. East Asia and Western Europe areblessed with rich and vibrant cultures. They should therefore not be mereconsumers of American culture. Asians and Europeans have much to contribute toworld culture.

Conclusion

I would like to reiterate my thesis that ASEM is a sunrise not a sunsetorganisation. The three reasons which brought the twenty-six Asian and Europeanleaders together in 1996, in Bangkok, Thailand, are just as valid today as they werefour years ago. ASEM makes good economic, political and cultural sense. Let ustherefore prepare for the third summit in Seoul with a confident heart and a clearmind. ASEM is beneficial to Asia, to Europe and to the world.

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ALL IN THE SAME BOAT?AUSTRALIA’S RELATIONSWITH ASIA by Alison BROINOWSKI

1. ALL AUSTRALIANS, AS THE INHABITANTS

of the world’s only island-continent are fond of reminding themselves, are boatpeople. The Iraqis, Afghanis, and Chinese who in 2000 arrived illegally onAustralia’s northern shores in boats were hardly the first to do so. AboriginalAustralians had arrived in the same way some 40,000 to 60,000 years earlier. In the18th and 19th centuries, when convicts from England and Ireland and free settlersfrom Europe, gold-seekers from China and North America, pearl-fishers fromJapan, cameleers and itinerant traders from India sailed to Australia, they simplycame ashore, and the indigenous people were pushed aside.

Australia is moving towards Asia at six centimetres a year, a pace that seemstoo fast for some, too slow for others. Historical sea-links and island bridges toAsia, and centuries of commercial and personal traffic between Australians andpeople in Asian countries have not prevented peaks of mutual enthusiasm beingfollowed by troughs. Lasting freeways of identity between Australia and the regionhave yet to be built. Australia is the only “Western” country – apart from its smallneighbour New Zealand – that is located in the Asia-Pacific hemisphere, and it isthe only one whose relationship with Asia is such a contested issue.

But, to ask a more complex question, are Asian countries any more closelyidentified by anything other than “race”? Have Pakistan and Singapore, Japan andBangladesh – all Asian countries – more in common than each has with Australia?

Australia is not a member of any Asian organisations that do not include other“Westerners”, and it is not a member of the Asian bloc at the United Nations.Australians persist in speaking of themselves as “Western”, habitually comparingthemselves with other OECD countries, and identifying with the Western alliance.In 1999 they failed to agree to become a republic with an Australian head of statein place of the British monarch. Unlike the Canadians, Australians have not agreedto replace the national flag, a quarter of which is taken up by the Union Jack.Although Asian Australian faces are visible in every Australian city, in mostschools, and increasingly on television, and although 50% of Australia’s trade iswith the region, official emphasis on engagement with Asia has recentlydiminished. With the post Cold War empowerment of Asian identity politics,

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Australia is being excluded from Asia by both Australian and Asian definition. Andwith new regional economic structures being formed after the East Asian financialcrisis that explicitly distance the West from the rest, Australians are consideringwhether they will be disadvantaged by having no say in them.

To understand why Australia is stuck on the razor blade of identity, it isnecessary to consider, first, the origins of Australian thinking about its place inAsia, and then how, throughout the same century, Asian ideas of Asia havedeveloped in a way that of necessity excludes Australia.

2. Australian leaders’ pronouncements about associations with Asiaconsistently display the four things they most fear: isolation, facing attack orinvasion, economic disadvantage, and being held up to ridicule. To seek“mateship”, a reassuring strategy of identity with a protector or a group against abully is the instinctive Australian response, learnt in the schoolyard, to such fears.But Australians have always been mistrustful of their protectors too, and the lessattracted Australians are to identification with Britain or the United States the morethey have from time to time considered identity with Asia as an alternative.

The earliest Australian colonists included idealists like James Matra, E.G.Wakefield, and the Rev. James Jefferis, who recommended a break with the OldWorld and an invigorating union with the new. Australia could become the Athensof an Australasiatic Mediterranean, as Marcus Clarke speculated in 1877.Pragmatists of the same period, like Sir George Young and members of the SydneyChamber of Commerce, saw Asian labour as the best means of developing thecountry, to replace the feckless convicts. Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, an admirerof India and of theosophy but a supporter of White Australia, united idealism andpragmatism, predicting mastery of the Pacific as Australia’s future. Others in the1910s and 1920s, Piesse, Sadler, and Murdoch among them, advocated the studyand appreciation of Asian, particularly Japanese, societies both for intellectualenrichment and as the best form of security.1 But for many, Australia’s proximity toAsia constituted a continuing threat. Defence Minister Sir George Pearce,representing Australia at a Washington conference in 1922, declared: “The Far Eastis our far-North... Whilst racially we are Europeans, geographically we are Asiatic.Our own special immediate Australian interests are more nearly concerned withwhat is happening in China and Japan than with what is happening in Belgiumand Holland”. John Latham returned from an official tour of Japan in 1934 toannounce: “What the ‘Far East’ is to Europe... the ‘Near East’ is to Australia”. Liberalleader Robert Menzies in 1939 picked up his inversion of geographic convention,and used it to suggest the danger looming over Australia: “The ‘Far East’ isAustralia’s ‘Near North’”. Latham, as Australian Minister in Tokyo in 1941, took upthe identity issue with Japanese who saw Australia as within their sphere of

ALL IN THE SAME BOAT? AUSTRALIA’S RELATIONS WITH ASIA

1. A. BROINOWSKI, The Yellow Lady – Australian Impressions of Asia, Oxford University Press, 1992,Melbourne 1996, pp. 3-4, 24.98


influence: “I may with respect suggest that you get your geography books right, sothat in your schools at least they will know that Australia is not part of Asia”.

Many Australians spoke with pride of their connection to England throughmonarchy, government, education, language, law, religion, trade, defence, culture,and sport; even the Suez Canal and the telegraph were called Australia’s “lifelines”.In the Federation process that culminated in 1901 (and has recently beencommemorated in London), Australian leaders were united by their concern topreserve White Australia and the protection of the Royal navy. British tradepreferences enabled Australian governments to mount a tariff wall against Asiangoods, and the Immigration Restriction Act enabled them to exclude Asianpersons. For decades Australian leaders on both sides of politics – W.M. Hughes,S.M. Bruce, R.G. Casey, R.G. Menzies, A.A. Calwell – made no excuse for thesepolicies, publicly identifying themselves and their country as white or British orboth. Even two eminent Australians in China, G.E. Morrison and W.H. Donald,were in no doubt about their Britishness. Australia underlined this by loyallyjoining in wars against several Asian enemies, always as the ally either of Britain orof the United States, and by using postwar Repatriation Acts to expel Asians whohad taken refuge in Australia, but not Americans, British, Dutch, or even Germansand Italians, who were instead encouraged to settle.

But among intellectuals in the 1930s and again in the late 1940s, the idea of an“Austral-Asiatic” future was attractive. As Foreign Minister, Dr H.V. Evatt boldlypursued Asian regionalism, an idea that Prime Minister E.G. Whitlam would latertry to promote as an Asian Forum. But Evatt could not rid himself of WhiteAustralia, and even after Liberal leaders began that process and Whitlam, asLabour Prime Minister, completed it in 1973, none of them considered undoing thealliance with the United States. These remained the two key factors that setAustralia apart from newly independent countries in Asia: immigration was nolonger racially based, but security appeared to be. Conservatives on coming topower repeatedly retreated from their predecessors’ claims of identification withAsia to warn about the threats that it presented and to offer development aid dehaut en bas. Asian societies were seen as “Friends and Neighbours”, not as family.So Foreign Minister Barwick asserted in 1963 that “for the purposes of security,and for the resolution of many problems, we are part and parcel of the Asianregion”. As an anti-racist Prime Minister, but one concerned about Third WorldCommunism, Malcolm Fraser compromised: Australia was “Western with adifference”. But, he told the Indian Parliament, Australia was Australia, “not anappendage of Europe” (1979).

Labour politicians increasingly advocated “engagement” with Asia in the1980s and 1990s. They hoped to gain economic stimulus for Australia throughproximity to the high-growth East Asian economies, defence security for Australiathrough closer association with Asian leaders, population expansion of Australiathrough migration of literate, hard-working Asian migrants, and political influencefor Australia through Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the ASEAN

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Regional Forum (ARF). At the same time, growing prosperity in East Asia gaveAustralia opportunities to export more raw materials, food, manufactures, andhealth, education, and tourism services. As ALP Opposition leader Bill Hayden,shortly after an ABC radio series predicting Australia’s Asian Future, hadventured to suggest that Australia was “becoming a Euro-Asian country” (1980).Bob Hawke, Prime Minister from 1983, spoke more boldly of “enmeshment withAsia” and of “finding our true place in Asia”, and his Education Minister embarkedon a program of “Asia-literacy” (1983-91). As East Asian growth rates escalated,Hawke’s successor Paul Keating sought a personal initiative that would save theAustralian economy, cost nothing, and conform to the ALP platform. He pickedup the Republic, Australia’s “historic shift to Asia”, the “Asianisation” of Australia,and cultivated ASEAN’s grand old man, President Soeharto. (1992-1996) HisForeign Minister, Gareth Evans, redrew the map to show Australia as: “a countryin the East Asian hemisphere”, “an East Asian hemisphere nation” (1995, 1996).State Premiers and Ministers were particularly prone to declare identity with Asiawhen it suited them, and when there was money to be made (Peter Beattie in1998, Shane Stone in 1997, Mark Birrell in 1997, and Peter Dowding in 1989, forexample).

Labour leaders outdid each other in their enthusiasm for Asia in the early1990s, but their pronouncements about a shared identity became more cautious in1996, when East Asian economies were foundering. What FitzGerald, a formerAmbassador to China, said of ALP spokespeople applied to most Australianpoliticians: that they “danced in turn towards and away from a definition of being‘part of’ Asia”.2 Keating and his conservative successor, John Howard, both pickedup Fraser’s tautological truism and used it repeatedly: “Australia is Australia”, thatis, neither Eastern nor Western. Howard detected no conflict between Australia’sgeography and its history: Australians, he said, “do not claim to be Asian”, and nocountry “can be asked to deny its history, principles or culture”. Australia, he toldAsian leaders many times, was “not part of Asia” (1996). Foreign Minister Downerrepeated similar sentiments in Beijing in 2000, when he distinguished Australia’s“practical” relations with Asia from the “cultural” ones that Asians had with eachother. Resonating in the minds of these leaders, and their advisers, were the anti-Asian statements of One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, a disenfranchised Liberalelected to Parliament in 1996, and the support they attracted from voters whoopposed multiculturalism and Asianisation: “I don’t want to be Asianised”, shedeclared.

The revised version of Australia’s identity in 1999, according to theDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was that Australia was no longerpursuing membership of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) either on the Asian orthe European side “as a policy objective”, since Australia already saw itself as “fullyintegrated into the region”, and “we don’t need ASEM to prove we are part of the


2. S. FITZGERALD, Is Australia an Asian Country? Can Australia Survive an Asian Future?, Allen &Unwin, St. Leonards, NSW, 1997, p. 38.100


region”. Perhaps Huntington was right: Australia was a “torn” country, confusedabout what it was and to what it belonged.3

3. In the years when Australia was seeking to define its identity, Asiancountries began to re-establish theirs. The process occurred in four waves, andtheir cumulative effect was to reject Western views of Asia and Westerners’statements about identification with it. The Asianisation of Asia, as FunabashiYoichi called it in 1993, sought on the one hand to subsume differences betweenAsian societies and to emphasise their similarities, and on the other to stress thedifference between Asia and the “West”, ignoring differences between the UnitedStates and other Western societies, just as Westerners had been guilty of doingabout Asians.

The first wave of Asianisation of Asia rose in Japan, China, and India late inthe 19th century, and found prominent intellectual leaders in Okakura Kakuzo,

3. S.P. HUNTINGTON, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon & Schuster,New York 1996.

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A.U.S.T.R.A.L.I.A.

NO LONGER DOWN UNDER


Mohammed Iqbal, Jose Rizal, Sun Yat-sen, Rabindranath Tagore, and theirinfluential nationalist successors. Although none rejected Western technology ormodernity, all hailed the advent of an “Asian Renaissance” that would unite Asiancountries in gaining independence and would usher in an era of Pan-Asiancooperation and prosperity. Paradoxically, they were all Western-educated, andwere encouraged by American and European Asianists to appreciate what wasunique about their own cultures and histories. Fortified with that reassurance, theybased their Pan-Asian vision on the antiquity and richness of their shared Asiantraditions and religions, and on the superiority of Asian spirituality over Westernmaterialism.

Japan’s victory over the Russian fleet at Shimonoseki in 1905 was aninspirational event for many, including Sun, Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, and J.N.Nehru. It demonstrated what an Asian power could do by combining Westerntechnology with national self-belief, and it set off a second wave of Asianisation.Japan’s territorial expansion was accompanied by promises to free Asian countriesfrom colonial oppression, under the slogan “Asia for the Asians”. Japanese Pan-Asianists sought to establish Japan as a role model for other Asians, and to spreadtheir sphere as widely as possible, urging Australia, too, to throw off its Westernyoke and acknowledge that it was part of Asia. In the 1930s and 1940s, young menwere impressed: Aung San in Burma, Lee in Singapore, Sukarno and Hatta inIndonesia, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Marcos and Laurel in the Philippines, andMahathir in Malaysia. In spite of their resentment at Japan’s high-handedness,Asian nationalists were not eager to welcome the Western colonialists back.

The leaders of the postwar, third wave of renewing or “Asianising” Asia, wereNehru and Sukarno; their doctrine was independence by peaceful means; theircode was Pancasila; and their support base was as many African and Asiancountries, independent or approaching independence, as they could attract. Theyheld three early meetings: two in New Delhi in 1947 and 1949 and one in Bandungin 1959, and the outcome was the Non-Aligned Movement. Australia was invited tosend observers to the first meeting, and a minister to the second, but Australia didnot officially attend the third. Nehru, nevertheless, went so far as to describeAustralia as “a component part of Asia”. Sukarno, however, identified Australiawith the OLDEFOS (old established forces): only non-aligned, non-white statescould claim status as NEFOS (newly emerging forces). In the future, Asian leadersdeclared, Asian nations would cooperate with the West only as equals, and wouldform “some sort of an Eastern Commonwealth of their own”.4

The fourth resurgence of the “Asian renaissance” was propelled not by Japanor India, nor by foreign admirers of Asian achievements, but by the leaders ofASEAN countries. Picking up speed in the 1980s from the rapid growth of Taiwan,Hong Kong, Korea, and Singapore, as well as from the stimulus of Japaneseinvestment and China’s trade liberalisation, Southeast Asian leaders selectively


4. K. NAG, Discovery of Asia, The Institute of Asian African Relations, Calcutta 1957, p. 781.102


used neo-Confucian ideas, “look East” emulation of Japan, long range planning(“Vision 20/20”) and “Asian Values”, to inculcate economic progress while keepingpolitical change under firm control. As their incomes grew rapidly, Asian leadersgave exceptionalism the credit and urged Western societies to learn from the“Asian way”. Nevertheless Anwar Ibrahim, in The Asian Renaissance (1996), tooka moderate line, harking back to the first two “Asian renaissance” waves byaccepting Western influences that could be put to good use, but stressing thecentrality of religion and culture in Asian societies. Lee Kuan Yew did the same,but with rather more emphasis on education, discipline, and hard work. His fellowSingaporean, Kishore Mahbubani, writing in 1995, claimed the fusing of Westernand East Asian cultures in the Asia-Pacific region was an “unprecedented historicalphenomenon” (just as Okakura had done in 1903). East Asians, he wrote, wererealising that “they can do anything as well as, if not better than, other cultures”.5

China had already contributed to the fourth wave of Asianisation by declaringan interpretation of human rights that privileged economic development and thecollectivity over the rights of the individual. Right-wing Japanese also opposed theUnited States by taking up Ishihara Shintaro’s advice (1989) to “say no” to theWest, and similar slogans appeared in Chinese and Malaysian publications. Asiancountries were asserting for themselves what it meant to be Asian, though notunanimously. Dissent came, for example, from Kim Dae Jung, who objected toclaims that democracy was not an “Asian value”,6 and from Aung San Suu Kyi andXanana Gusmao, who had good reasons to argue for universal rather than“guided” democracy. Filipinos were annoyed when Lee Kuan Yew told them theirattachment to democracy was excessive.

But the ASEAN countries (6 of them by 1986, 10 by 1999) were determined tobe in control of membership of their club, and not to have its status diminished bythe larger APEC edifice. Mahathir proposed an East Asia Economic Caucus thatwould include Northeast and Southeast Asian states and no others: an “Asiawithout the Caucasians”. Prominent intellectuals had met in Kuala Lumpur in 1992as the “Commission for a New Asia” to discuss beliefs, principles, and ethics theyheld in common. They distinguished these not so much from Western ideas butfrom Western practice, which they considered was often arbitrary, hypocritical,and based on double standards.7 But the Commission was an exception, in thatattendance was based on a wider definition of regionalism that included SouthAsia and Australia.

Other important meetings to which Australia was not invited included the1993 Asian Human Rights conference, and the 1996 and 1998 Summits of theAsia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Australia was defined as Western by exclusion from

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5. K. MAHBUBHANI, Can Asians Think?, Times Books International, Singapore 1998, pp. 115-137.6. KIM DAE JUNG, “Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Asia’s Anti-democratic Values”, Foreign Affairs, 73, 6,November/December 1994, pp. 189-194.7. S. FITZGERALD, Is Australia an Asian Country? Can Australia Survive an Asian Future?, Allen &Unwin, St. Leonards, NSW, 1997, p. 133. 103


ASEM, in what FitzGerald argued was a “defining moment” on the way to theformation of a future East Asian community.8 Australia was not included, either, inthe new, post-crisis structures by means of which East Asians sought to reinventthemselves: the Asian Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), ASEAN+3, and ARFA (AsianRegional Financial Arrangement) through Japan proposed to fund non-IMF-stylecurrency repurchases. When Australia in 1999-2000 led InterFET, a 19-nationforce sent to secure peace in East Timor in preparation for UN-fosteredindependence, Indonesian and Malaysian leaders complained on racial groundsthat it included “not enough brown faces”, and in the same breath accusedAustralians of white supremacism. The UN Secretary General had said Australiashould be accepted as an Asian country for the purposes of InterFET. But theeditor of the Bangkok Nation, even though Thailand had contributed troops anda deputy commander to InterFET, took issue on racial grounds with Kofi Annan’sproposal that Australia was Asian: “Unfortunately it is not an accepted fact in thispart of the world”.9

As Western societies became more responsive to the injustices of colonialism,to civil and human rights, and to the Orientalism of the past, intellectuals grewmore careful to distinguish Asian societies from each other and to avoid racist,essentialising accounts of them. But their scruples were not often reciprocated byleaders in Asian countries.

4. Certainly, when Asian prosperity faltered, Asian enthusiasm for talk of a“New Asia” or an “Asian Renaissance” also diminished. One of its proponents wasin jail in Malaysia. One more, at least, should have been, in Indonesia. Had theAsian Renaissance come and gone? some asked. Was the 20th, and not the 21st, the“Asian Century”? Were Asian values still superior?

Scenes of communal violence in Indonesia, with the government’s guns andbatons being turned on the people yet again, seemed to contradict claims thatharmony and community cohesion were “Asian values”. India and Pakistan testednuclear weapons and glared at each other again across Kashmir. Evidence ofleaders enriching themselves and their families in Indonesia and Malaysia, andbribing supporters in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines, seemed toundermine assertions that Westerners were materialistic, while Asians were thriftyand spiritual. Some corrupt former leaders were jailed in China, South Korea, andJapan, but many more remained unpunished there and in Southeast Asiancountries, suggesting that their claims to filial respect from their people weremisplaced. The imperialists’ security acts were kept in place in Singapore andMalaysia and used against the governments’ political opponents. The plight ofmillions of unemployed, whose leaders had scorned the West’s welfare societies,threatened that worse was to come. Whatever the outcome of Mahathir’s case

8. As above, p. 53.9. K. CHONGKITTAVORN, “Regional Perspective: Australia is an Asian Partner, but…”, Nation, September27, 1999.


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against Anwar in 1998-99, or his argument against Western/IMF free marketorthodoxy, “Asian values” were no longer required reading, even among Westernconservatives who had endorsed them in the past. Clearly, Asian leaders more thanever needed the solidarity and empowerment that exclusion of the West provided.So they increased their efforts to reinvent Asian regionalism, and Australia provideda harmless exemplar of how they could rhetorically marginalise the West.

Asianisation, however, had variants with which neither most Australians norAsians would wish to be identified, but which they seemed in the 1990s and in2000 to share. In Australia, with the Howard government’s retreat frommulticulturalism, “Asianisation” in the late 1990s took on a negative character, theopposite of what Australians had come to understand by it under Keating, whenits connotations ranged from positive to euphoric. Both governments, and some oftheir predecessors, behaved like some Asian leaders: they sought to imposeideologies, often through the media. As well, they broke promises, adoptedselective industry assistance, retreated from environmental targets, sought toreduce minimum wages and work conditions, cooperated with employers toreduce the power of unions, cut expenditure on social services, health, andeducation, confined the independence and scope of public broadcasting, keptexpenditure for defence at a high level, and were unable to reduce unemploymentand borrowing. Like some Asian leaders, they failed to achieve decent livingconditions for indigenous people. The Keating government, like many in Asia,sought to censor television and to jail journalists who breached “national security”.The Howard government took the country further in some of these directions,virtually silencing Radio Australia, bragging about Australia being the “strong manof Asia” and having what journalists called a Deputy Sheriff role to the UnitedStates in the region. As a result, Australia began to look like some Asian countriesin ways the pro-Asianisation rhetoric did not envisage.

This sort of like-mindedness was not, according to Malaysian-born AustralianProfessor Wang Gungwu, what Asian countries expected of Australia, nor whatwould admit them to the Asian club.10 Yet Australia, Stephen FitzGerald argued,could belong to the region without being what East Asians were.11 But coming ontop of a history of oppression of Aborigines for which Howard refused to say thenation was sorry, several other factors contributed to reducing Australia’s capacityto influence Asian governments and to reconfirming long-held views aboutAustralia: Howard’s evident lack of empathy with Asian societies, his position onhuman rights and Aboriginal claims, his ambivalence about distancing himself andhis party from anti-Asian racism, and his declared insouciance about how Australiawas regarded in the region. Howard repeated that Australia was not part of Asia;yet his government asserted Australia is “fully integrated into the region”. It was

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10. WANG, “The Australia Asians Might Not See”, in D. GRANT and G. SEAL, Australia in the World:Perceptions and Possibilities, Black Swan Press, Curtin University of Technology, Perth 1992.11. S. FITZGERALD, Is Australia an Asian Country? Can Australia Survive an Asian Future?, Allen &Unwin, St. Leonards, NSW, 1997, p. 9. 105


just as well that regional identity was now a matter for Asians – it seemed to bebeyond most Australians, including many Asian Australians, to decide.

5. Further waves of the Asianisation of Asia will break in the twenty-firstcentury, and will wash up on Australian shores, if for no other reason than thatAsian leaders will continue to use Australia to enhance their collective poweragainst the West. But at a personal level, this is an age of diaspora, of mobileworkers, merged families, and rapid travel, when, as Salman Rushdie has said ofIndians, every family has someone living abroad. Many children are growing up as“third culture kids” – living with languages and societies that are not those of theirparents, who, in turn, have left those of their parents. Perhaps what is wrong withclaims of an Asian Renaissance is their exclusivity and exceptionalism: perhaps inthe 21st century a more appropriate goal would be an Asian Enlightenment, whenAsians become citizens of the world, including of Australia, and when it isacknowledged that Asia’s and Australia’s boundaries are porous. Perhaps then,being Australian in Asia will also be more inclusive, and less debated.


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1. IHE AUSTRALASIA OF COLONIAL ORIGINS

lumped together in the same concept Australia, New Zealand and the nearbyislands. It was the imperial province of the Far South, distinct from Asia. As JohnFoster Fraser wrote in 1910, “Australia, which is so vast that you could drop theBritish Isles upon it and not find again for years”. 1 The geographer Elisée Reclus, agreat lover of toponymy, claimed enthusiastically: “If the lands from New Guineato New Zealand were united to the main body, the surface that would emerge inthe Pacific Ocean would be only slightly smaller than Europe”. 2 This idea ofAustralasia has resisted the test of time, as current British and Americandictionaries confirm. 3

But in the 1980s and 1990s it has become fashionable in Australia to give theword a new meaning to describe the relationship between Australia and Asia. TheLabour governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (1983-1996) reached over toAsia attracted by its economic growth: now 60% of Australian exports are for Asiancountries. Japan, South Korea, China/Hong Kong and Taiwan are Australia’s maintrading partners together with the US. Back in 1975, having recognised Mao’sChina, the Labour government of Edward Gough Whitlam approved Indonesia’sannexation of East Timor. Until 1999 this was Canberra’s dominant Asian policy; inturn Indonesia supports Australia’s integration in the regional organisations ofSoutheast Asia.

1. J.F. FRASER, Australia: The Making of a Nation, London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 1910,Cassell and Company, p. 3.2. E. RECLUS, Nouvelle Géographie Universelle, vol. XIV, “Océans et terres océaniques”, Hachette, Paris1889, p. 711.3. See, for example, the definitions of Australasia in the Longman Modern English Dictionary,Longman, London 1976, p. 72: “Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and their insular territories”;Webster’s II / New Riverside Dictionary, Riverside, Boston 1984, p. 1437: “Australia, New Zealand,New Guinea and associated islands”; The Encyclopedia Americana – International Edition, Danbury(Connecticut) 1984, vol. 2, p. 704: “Australia, New Zealand and nearby islands”; The Oxford ReferenceDictionary, Clarendon, Oxford 1986, p. 54: “Australia, New Zealand and the nearby South Pacificislands”; same definition in the Wordsworth Encyclopedia, Wordsworth, Ware (Hertfordshire) 1995,vol. I, p. 161; The Times Atlas of the World, Times Books, London 1998, map at p. XIV: “New Guinea,Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and nearby islands” (8,923,000 km sq.).

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Some geographers have mapped this cultural shift. According to them,Australasia includes “the Australian continent and the large island of New Guinea”,the “Philippine and Indonesian islands”, and perhaps even Malaysia, whose“Eastern part, Sarawak, is, overseas, the Northern coast of Borneo”, while “theMalaysian peninsular is so long and thin that could be nearly be an island”.Indonesians and Malaysians belong to the same civilisation and to the world ofIslam and are united by the “same mistrust towards the important Chineseminority”. 4 The background to all this are amusing “epistemological” digressions.This “geopolitical set” of 9 thousand km from North to South and from East to West(more or less the size of Africa), paradoxically should be able to spot “theemergence of potential conflict” from within: rich against poor, extremedemographic imbalance – an “empty” Australia of just 19 million inhabitants againstan overpopulated Indonesia of 210 million people, with New Guinea as a “cushionzone” and “outlet” for Indonesia’s population excess. And lastly, there are threats toAustralia from the “North”, which in fact is getting ready to counter them.5 We’llleave it to the specialists to discuss the details of such arguments and just limitourselves to registering the birth of this rather oxymorous “set”, as the (baroque)poet would say. A “set” constructed to demonstrate its non-existence.

After all, there is nothing new in this. At the start of the nineteenth century, theGermanic tradition produced “Geochoren” to overcome natural obstacles toterritorial expansion; later on the French “corèmes” of modern and “scientific”geography were invented to satisfy the commissioning institutions. And let us notforget to place the choregraphy of the late 1980s between the two, a peculiar“theory of sets” that demonstrated that such “sets” do not exist – for example in thecase of Australia’s Nordpolitik. Enough of “epistemological” contortions! Thisdebate does not make sense. As the Australian Ambassador in Rome Rory Steeleexplained to Limes: “There now is a national consensus on the uselessness ofdefining ourselves as Asian. It is better to think of us a part of the Pacific Asianregion together with our allies the US and Canada”.

2. And now let’s move onto the basics. On August 11, Manila’s Business Worldand London’s The Times published some extracts of Joint Vision 2025, a Pentagonreport. The study was conducted during the summer of 1999 at Newport’s USNaval War College, Rhode Island, with the participation of the CIA, of experts suchas Graham Fuller of the Rand Corporation, Aaron Friedberg of PrincetonUniversity, Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute. The report’s“geopolitical” invariable is: the next enemy is China. Beijing’s government willmobilise nationalism to prop up its rickety legitimacy and will develop its nuclearpotential. So various scenarios appear. For example: Chinese forces occupy a largepart of the Philippines and attack Indonesia, “damaged by violence”, but are

THERE IS NO AUSTRALASIA

1084. Y. LACOSTE, “Australasie”, Hérodote, janvier-mars 1989, pp. 3, 10.5. As above.


stopped by the US Navy. Next, a military coup at Beijing. China intervenes inSiberia, in the Russian Far East, or in Kazakhstan to control its energetic resources.We are at the doorstep of a nuclear war.

There is another more likely scenario – less pleasing to the Pentagon: Chinamanages to isolate and de facto subjugate Japan, to neutralise the Indian “softbelly” and a by now unified Korea to assert its pre-colonial hegemony on Asia.Beijing would avoid a military confrontation with Washington that it would nodoubt lose.

For the Pentagon analysts, the worst-case scenario would be an Indian-Chinese power co-habitation over Asia, given that the US does not have enoughmilitary bases in Southeast Asia. A war between India and Pakistan would be amuch better alternative, involving an American intervention against Islamabad andthe explosion of both Pakistan and Taliban’s Afghanistan. In this case China wouldbe the great loser, cut off while a new Indian confederation arises as the dominantpower in the region, allied with a democratic Iran and the Gulf states – all togetherin an American-Asian axis.

The Pentagon thus keeps its distance from the business lobbies and thegovernment circles favourable to engagement with China, a strategy that aims topromote trade with China to force it to open up. The critics of this strategy believethat it would strengthen the enemy. Joint Vision 2025 supports a policy ofcontainment, the isolation of China to avoid any alternative to Americanhegemony in Asia. Of course it is a report among many, blown up for the media,the publication of which was meant to “send a message” to Beijing. But PresidentClinton was not particularly surprised, if we believe The Times. The two sides thatare confronting each other over American policy towards Asia do share one view:they think of the world in terms of macro-regions, of Grossräume, to use adefinition of the German geopoliticians of the 1920s. Hence “Asia-Pacific” isfashionable, in America and elsewhere.

3. Australia is not even mentioned in what was made public of the Pentagonreport. Fact is that the American analysts do not “choregraph” any kind ofAustralasia. In America the island-continent has nothing to do with Asia. AndWashington knows all too well that Australia has always sided with the West –otherwise how could it feel secure? It was the then Australian Foreign MinisterPercy Spender to develop a first taste of the “domino theory” in 1950. And then,from the mouths of the various Conservative Prime Ministers, flourisheddeclarations of loyalty to the United States: Harold Holt in July 1966: “All the waywith LBJ!” (in Vietnam, with Lyndon Baines Johnson, editor’s note); John Gortonin May 1968, for Richard Nixon: “We’ll a-waltzing Matilda with you” (theAustralians will happily defend American interests in Vietnam to the notes of theunofficial national anthem); William McMahon in October 1972: “Where you go,we go”, still thinking about the war supposed to stop the expansion ofcommunism in Asia.

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The Americans keep this in mind. But they do not trust the Labourgovernments very much (1972-75 and 1983-96), whose socialdemocraticgeopolitics they often find irritating. Americans consider it a little bit to sly, becauseit uses the crucial alliance with Washington, tied somewhat loosely in the ANZUS(the Australia-New Zealand-United States pact), to allow itself very profitableeconomic openings towards Asia. But the US is worried about destabilisation inAsia, now that since 1991 there is no Soviet Union to counterbalance China. Sothere is no more room for the Australasian fiction.

The “Howard doctrine” – from the title of an article of September 28, 1999 bythe journalist Fred Brenchley in the Sydney Bulletin that referred to an interviewwith the Australian Prime Minister of September 17 – fits in the picture. Brenchleyclaims that John Howard himself appreciates the expression “Howard Doctrine”,which he then tries to minimise. On September 21, the Liberal leader remembersPalmerston’s statement to the Chamber of Representatives: in the long term,nations do not have friends but interests. The 1997 Asian crisis and the temporaryinterruption of the “miracle” have destabilised the region. More specifically, thereare no security guarantees on the sea communication routes between Australiaand the Far East. Canberra needs more than ever the American guardian, the worldpoliceman of which Australia considers itself the deputy in Asia. The Australianswill intervene in East Timor at the head of the InterFET mission, with the UNmandate to bring the area back to peace, and with the full backing of the US,which cannot afford another military expedition after Kosovo. The operationdirected by General Peter Cosgrove is successful.

This is a strategic turning point for Australia. Canberra can no longer limititself to “continental defence”. Australians could enjoy a decisional and operativeautonomy with regard to the vicinity of the island-continent, as prescribed by the1980s doctrine. But there still is a question mark around the financing of the newstrategy. To strengthen its armed forces, which now employ only 50 thousand fulltime men, Australia would have to increase its defence budget from 0.8 to 2.5% ofGDP. But the Howard government itself cut 4 thousand jobs in the forces between1996 and 1999. This is a big problem for the Americans: if Canberra sticks to amartial rhetoric without providing the necessary means to act as the DeputySheriff, the rest of the region could understand this attitude as a green light to theAsianisation of the military balance, a decline of American presence without itsjunior partner filling in the gap.

The Asian “partners” – Thailand, Malaysia (traditionally hostile to “white”Australia’s integration in the Southeast Asian structures) and Indonesia – have nointention of granting the role of regional sub-protector to Australia. East Timor is adangerous precedent. The Asians see Australia’s strong presence in the InterFETmission as a strategic rather than humanitarian objective. Does the West intend tostart other military missions every time an Asian country shows signs ofdestabilisation?

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Indonesia is especially angry. It sees itself betrayed by Australia, the onlyWestern nation that in 1989 had recognised its annexation of East Timor and haddrawn a curtain of silence on Djakarta’s genocidal policy. Hence the incendiarybombs thrown in the Indonesian capital against the Australian embassy and thethreats of economic retaliation that Indonesia will find other wheat and cottonsuppliers.

If the countries in the region ever believed in Australia’s Asian vocation, nowthey accuse Canberra of returning to a colonial past and denounce the “racist”attitudes of Australian officials. It is unlikely that there is unanimous consensus inCanberra on the strategic change. Some might fear the long-term consequences fora country in which the Asian population increases: around 5% today, estimated at7.5% in 2031, and 40% of new arrivals in 1997-98, without mentioning the moregeneral demographic weakness of the island-continent. Howard, worried aboutAsian reactions, will deny that he is trying to reduce his country to a sub-supplierof the United States, but it is too late… Asia locuta causa finita.

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WHAT IFDR MAHATHIRWAS RIGHT? by Marie-Sybille de VIENNE

MALAYSIA’S LONG-SERVING PRIME

Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad,1 was born on 20 December 1925 in Alor Setar,capital of the state of Kedah (looking over the Indian Ocean, on the bordersbetween Thailand and Malaysia), where his father taught at the Malaysian primaryschool.2 He went to school in his hometown, firstly at the Malaysian school, then atthe boarding school founded by the reigning sultan, Abdul Ahmid. His father beingrather strict, he spent his time reading. Indeed, he ran the college library andacquired a solid general culture,3 which served as a prelude to a brilliant universitycareer. Like many cultivated young Malaysians, he joined the United MalayNational Organisation (UMNO) from its creation (1946). This party aimed atdefending Bramiputra’s (indigenous children) interests against the other ethnicgroups, particularly the Asians and the British, whose views about Malaysianindependence threatened the traditional referents of Malay political identity,sultanates, by putting forward a multiethnic state. Mahathirs’s “modernist populist”conscience emerged together with his political involvement in his community: in1947 he won a place to study medicine and qualified in 1952. At first an assistantphysician, he obtained a post in his town (1954). Later he married a colleague, DrHasmah,4 daughter of a Muslim dignitary, and eventually set up a private practice(1957).

Finally freed from material concerns, Mahathir could develop his politicalchoices within the UMNO. Becoming gradually known by the members of the

1. The distinction between Malaya and Malaysia will be kept. The first corresponds to the federation ofthe States in the Malay Peninsula, which lasted from 1957 to 1962; the second was adopted whenSingapore and two others states in Northern Borneo, Sarawak and Sabah joined the peninsula in 1963.2. At the end of the Second World War the situation in the peninsula was critical: it hosted three mainethnic groups, indigenous Malay (45% of the population), Chinese (35%) and Indian (15%). TheChinese community was mainly urban, and controlled the modern sectors of the economy; themajority of Malays were peasants; Indians were represented in the plantations and liberal professions.Moreover, while Chinese people organised a Communist guerrilla to resist Japan during the war,Malaysians partly collaborated. 3. “Dr. Mahathir’s world analysis”, Mainichi Daily News, April 6, 1999,www.mainichi.co.jp/english/mahathir/03.html4. Hasmah’s father, Mohamed Ali, was Head of the Department for Religious Affairs in the State ofSelangor: Mahathir and Hasmah had three sons, Mirzan, Mokhzani and Mukhriz, and two daughters,Marina and Melinda; they also adopted two other children.

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upper class frequenting his practice, he began to manifest a growing interest forinternational affairs at a moment when the place and future of Malaya in theregion took the centre stage in the political debate. When a deep regional crisisexploded because of the annexation by the Malay federation of Singapore and thetwo British territories Sarawak and Sabah, he appeared as the perfect man torepresent Malaysia at the UN (1963).

His political ascent thus started. From the beginning he presented himself asthe champion of Malaysian national identity. In 1964 he was elected Member ofParliament (for UMNO) in Kota Setar,5 then in 1965 he became part of the rulingcircles of the UMNO. In this position he directly participated in the decision toexpel Singapore and to erode the socio-economical rights of the Chineseminority,6 who did not forget it. They indeed made life increasingly difficult for thecoalition government UMNO-MCA7 (Malayan Chinese Association) and radicalisedboth electorates: the Chinese electorate turned its back on the MCA, and part ofthe Malays,8 considering the government too soft with the Chinese, did so with theUMNO. At the 1969 elections Mahathir lost his seat and went back to anonymity.He exited the political scene powerless, with no legal means to resume hispolitical career and, what is more, at a moment when the government, faced withthe gravity of the anti-Chinese clashes, suspended Parliament.

Mahathir risked everything with a media coup: in the name of “malayty” hepublished Dilema melayu (The Malay Dilemma),9 so iconoclastic a description ofthe Malaysian cultural profile that the book was immediately censored but enjoyeda great diffusion under the counter. Reinvigorated by this success, Mahathir stuckto Malaysian radicalism, attacking the Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman in anopen letter for neglecting Bramiputra people. The coup succeeded: he becamefamous even though he was expelled from the party and had lost his means ofpolitical expression. But Tunku Abdul Ahmal resigned; this eviction of one of thehighest dignitaries on the political arena10 opened the way for the Deputy PrimeMinister, Tun Abdul Razak,11 a committed Malaysian. On assuming high office in1970, the latter launched a campaign based on training and investments to

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5. One of the districts of the capital of Kedah; see ASEAN Who’s who,Kasuya Publishing, KualaLumpur 1992, vol. 3.6. Malay became then the only national language and the Bramiputra businesses started receivingalmost all available state funding.7. Founded in 1949.8. Including Sarawak and Sabah.9. The Malay Dilemma, D. Moore for Asia Pacific Press, Singapore 1970.10. Tunku Abdul Rahman (1903-1990) was the son of the Sultan of Kedah and of his sixth wife, a Thaiprincess; see TAN SRI DATUK MUBIN SHEPPARD, Tunku, His Life and Times: The Authorized Biography ofTunku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj, Pelanduk Publications, Petaling Jaya 1995; by TUNKU himself,(with J.S. SOLOMON) Challenging Times, Pelanduk Publications, Petaling Jaya 1985; Lest We Forget:Further Candid Reminiscences, Eastern Universities Press, Petaling Jaya 1983. During the Japaneseoccupation (during which the Japanese gave Kedah to Thailand), Tunku Abdul Rahman wasappointed Supervisor of education, thus becoming the superior of Mahathir’s father.11. Tun Abdul Razak (1922-1976), son of a Malaysian dignitary of Pahang (a sultanate on the Easterncoast of Malaysia), was a jurist who trained in London at the end of the ’40s, where he created theMalaysian Forum.


promote the Malay ethnic group.12 His government needed new as well asexperienced political personalities: the successful and popular Dr Mahathirseemed the right choice. Mahathir was hence invited back into the party, andappointed head of the Council for Education. Faced with the possibilities openedby this position, he took the risk of leaving his practice and launched into asuccessful career. He was appointed Senator (1973), President of the FMA (aBramiputra organisation for the development of the agro-industrial sector),13

Member of Parliament (1974), this time for the constituency of Kubang Pasu(located in Kedah as well, and offered to him on a golden plate as he was the onlycandidate), Minister of Education (1974), Deputy Prime Minister (1976), Minister ofCommerce and Industry, and Vice-President of the UMNO; finally, Prime Minister(1981), an office he stills holds today.

An Increasingly Critical Stance towards the West

Mahatir eventually fulfilled the role of a modern Malay, having managed bothto remove the prerogatives of the traditional elites from Malay political life (bycutting back on sultans’ attributions, in 1993) and to weaken the Chinese positionin the economy. This modernity finds a further expression in his skills in usingmodern communication technologies (he has a web-site14 and is responsible sinceFebruary 1999 of a monthly review of one of the most important Japanesenewspapers, the Mainichi Daily News).

However, he also took the risk of opposing both the Malay elite and theChinese communities. And he cannot expect any support from the Muslimextremists, either. They are, in fact, his direct political rivals, for they also aim atthe Malay electorate. Hence, everything seems to lead him towards a Westernmodel and vision.15 Yet, far from being an emulator of Western values, Mahathirhas imposed himself as one of its main detractors with aggressive as well ascoherent diagnostics. During his political activity at the head of the country, hehas developed his thesis in some ten books: Challenge (1986);16 Regionalism,Globalism and Spheres of Influence (1989);17 The Voice of Asia; Two LeadersDiscuss the Coming Century,18 with Ishihara Shintaro (1995);19 Europe and the

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12. The Malaysians’ revenue was at that time less than 40% that of the Chinese, and their influence inthe modernisation process derisory (less than 2% against 36%, the rest remaining in the hand ofWesterners).13. Kumpalan Fiam bhd, a governmental agency with the task of developing the sector: it started in1972 with pineapple plantations and was later privatised thanks to Bramiputra’s capitals.14. www.smpke.jpm.my15. He ordered the construction of a Versailles replica by a French architect, in Putra Yava.16. The Challenge, Pelanduk Publications, Petaling Jaya 1986 (translated from the Malay Cabaran!).17. Regionalism, Globalism, and Spheres of Influence: ASEAN and the Challenge of Change into the21st century, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 1989. 18. MAHATHIR MOHAMAD & SHINTARO ISHIHARA, The Voice of Asia: Two Leaders Discuss the ComingCentury, translated by F. BALDWIN, Kodansha International, Tokyo & New York 1995.19. ISHIHARA, a strong nationalist, wrote with AKIO MORITA (founder of Sony) A Japan That Can SayNo, Why Japan Will Be First among Equals, Simon & Schuster, New York 1991; he was electedgovernor of Tokyo in 1999.


Islamic World: Correcting Perceptions, the Way to Better Understanding (1998);20

The Way Forward (1998);21 The Challenges of Turmoil (1998);22 A New Deal forAsia (1999).23

The first book’s topics are mainly economic and technical. Every timeMalaysia has undergone an economic crisis, since 1985, the presumed adept ofAnglo-Saxon methods pointed his finger at Western hegemony. World history is,according to him, “a series of conquests and subjugations by the strong over theweak,”24 the world economy being nothing but a power relation among diverginginterests.25 Liberalisation of capital26 and goods27 (which has nourished a“generalised monetary speculation”)28 has done nothing but reinforce Westernsupremacy, never as strong as today. Over the years, he has denounced asociological manipulation: international institutions are structurally organised tomaintain Western hegemony. The winners of the Second World War haveattributed to themselves a right of veto, which fundamentally contradicts thedemocratic functioning of the UN.29 Under the aegis of the UN, the Westmanipulates weapons, maintaining “a fear of a war, a clash between China andJapan”,30 which nourishes the arms race in Asia. The danger, however, does notcome from there, as all the area’s military budgets put together cannot competewith the $265 billion of one Western country”.31

According to Dr Mahathir, however, the worst manipulation is an ideologicalone. The West wants to impose, in fact, its own cultural paradigm on the rest of theworld.32 Yet the universality of its values is contradicted by the mere existence ofAsian societies,33 and if put in their historical context, they would be rightly


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20. Europe and the Islamic World: Correcting Perceptions, the Way to Better Relations, Institute ofIslamic Understanding Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 1998.21. The Way Forward, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1998 (deals with socio-economic relationsamong the different ethnic groups in Malaysia and with the “New Economic Policy”, operative since1970).22. The Challenges of Turmoil, Pelanduk Publications, Subang Jaya 1998.23. A New Deal for Asia, Pelanduk Publications, Subang Jaya 1999.24. Ucapan Perdana Menteri (speech of the Prime Minister), opening session of Internationalassociation of historians of Asia, July 27, 2000, Magellan Sutra Hotel, Kota Kinabalu. 25. Ucapan Perdana Menteri, Tokyo, speech for the 6th international conference on “The future ofAsia” organised by the Nikkei Shimbun, September 6, 2000.26. Ucapan Perdana Menteri, speech given in Maputo, Mozambique (one of the poorest countries inthe world) for the conference “Global 2000 international smart partnership”, August 21, 2000. In thisoccasion, Mahathir referred to financial markets traders as “cash cows”.27. Daily transactions rose from $15 billion in 1973 to more than $900 billion in 1992. In 2000 thesewill amount to more than $1000 billion a day; Ucapan Perdana Menteri, “Global 2000 internationalsmart partnership”, August 21, 2000.28. Hong-Kong, Annual meeting of the World Bank, September 20, 1997.29. Ucapan Perdana Menteri, International association of historians of Asia, July 27, 2000.30. Ucapan Perdana Menteri, “The Future of Asia”; Mahathirs’ position might be supported by thePenthagon report Joint vision 2025 (see Korinman and Caracciolo’s article).31. Ucapan Perdana Menteri, “Towards Asian Renaissance”, New Asia Forum, Kuala Lumpur,November 1, 1996.32. “You must accept democracy and human rights, otherwise you will see how we, the democratic,will forcefully eliminate your rights and your freedom of self-determination”, International associationof historians of Asia, July 27, 2000.33. “Towards Asian Renaissance”.


considered a historical accident. Western infallibility is all but against the facts:“We, the Malay people, would have remained a British colony had it not been forthe Japanese conquest, which revealed that those who seemed invincible were notsuch”.34 At the end of the day, “the Western model will vanish just as those whopreceded it”. “All systems – be they feudal, republican, capitalist, socialist, orcommunist – have been regarded as faith”, and consequently any questioning ofthem was considered heresy. The reality is, however, that they have beenquestioned. The same destiny will “when the time is right, come for democracy” asfor all human ideas: “All systems with which Mankind thought to improve societywere imperfect and became more so when clever people sanctified it”.35 Toconclude, according to Mahathir, the West continues to put its hands on itspresumed universality precisely because it is the only ideological instrument that isleft to the only survivor of the Cold War: the West itself.36

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34. As above.35. “The Future of Asia”.36. International association of historians of Asia, July 27, 2000.

CelebesSea

BandaSea

0 400 km

C H I N A TA I WA N

K a l i m a n t a n

B R U N E I

THAILAND

MYANMAR

LAOS

H a i n a n

S u m a t r a

S u l a w e s i

SouthChinaSea

PacificOcean

AUSTRAL IA

I r i a nJ a y a

VIET N

AM

J a v a

IndianOcean

Taipei

Wenzhou

Fuzhou

Hong KongGuangzhou

Vientiane

Hanoi

Bangkok

PhnomPehn Ho Chi Minh City

Yangon

T i m o r

Arafura Sea

Kuala Lumpur

Jacarta

Palembang

P H I L I P P I N E S

ManilaPhilippine

Sea

Sabah

Sa rawak

KotaKinabalu

Banjarmasin

Halmahera

SeramBuru

ASEAN countries

1997 estimates

Capital city

Other town

COUNTRYPopulation

MYANMAR46,600,000

INDIA

LAOS5,000,000

VIETNAM77,000,000

THAILAND61,000,000

CAMBODIA11,300,000

MALAYSIA21,000,000

MA L A Y S I A

SINGAPORE3,000,000

INDONESIA200,000,000

I N D O N E S I A

PHILIPPINES73,000,000

THE ASEAN STATES


Who really is Dr Mahathir?

The apparent contradiction between the image of a modernist Malaypolitician, a pro-Westerner, and an increasingly anti-Western agenda remains tobe explained. A first level of explanation could consist in the fact that the personMahathir cannot be explained solely on the basis of his “malayty”, his truecharacter being much more complex. Certainly, his mother was Malay, fromKedah, a region belonging at different times to the Siam area. But his father wasIndian, which relates him to foreign minorities. This melting pot is reproduced inthe following generation, as two out of five of his children married foreigners.37

To this, one must add a hybrid education in the name of modernity: Mahathirstudied at the University of Malaya in Singapore, an English speaking butculturally Chinese territory, and attended a Harvard course in international affairs(1967). Moreover, he published in Malay as well as in English. His Muslimdimension too – which is more than evident when he calls himself Malay as allMalays are Muslim – should be understood as a sign of modernism. At an Islamicconference he dared say that the reason for the lack of success of Islam’suniversalistic project lied in Muslim people themselves, adding that to prepareoneself for the other world while refusing education and science in this one, is away to ignore Allah’s will.38 His diatribe with George Soros39 (during the FMIsummit) is better explained by a desire to highlight the financial menace,40 ratherthan by anti-Semitism.41 The latter is a general characteristic of every politician atthe head of a Muslim country who, as such, must be officially anti-Semitic eversince the creation of Israel.

Hence, behind a first impression of Dr Mahathir as a modern Malay, there is amore complex man of networks, which far from being hazardous constitutes a


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37. His eldest son married a Chinese, related to Liem Sioe Liong (alias Sudono Salim) owner of thefirst Indonesian industrial conglomerate (Salim Group) and a Suharto partner; admittedly Mahathirwas not enthusiastic about this marriage. His eldest daughter married in the ‘80s a French manworking for the Club Méditerranée.38. According to Mahathir, the process of industrialisation failed because of divisions within theIslamic world, whereas a disproportionate focus on doctrinal questions put an halt to the cognitiveprocess: see Ucapan Perdana Menteri, inaugurating speech for the 7th Islamic Conference of ForeignMinisters, Kuala Lumpur, June 27, 2000; see also his Perspectives on Islam and the Future of Muslims,Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (IKIM), Kuala Lumpur 1993.39. Soros Quantum Investment Fund gained $1 billion in profits speculating with the pound in 1992:see BBC News, December 6, 1998, news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business: “Mr Soros has aspirations tobe more than a speculator…”; later the market turned his back on him as Mr Soros lost a large amountof money in 1998, forcing him to close a fund and restructure another one. Yet his book, The Crisis ofGlobal Capitalism, Public Affairs, New York 1998, does not entirely contradict Dr Mahathir’s views onfinancial matters (BBC News, December 4, 1998). However, this does not stop the two to hate oneanother: Mr Soros publicly ask for Dr Mahathirs’ resignation. 40. The crisis had as a consequence the eviction of the potential heir and Ministry of Finances AnwarIbrahim: father of 6, former responsible of the association of Muslim students, he was accused ofcorruption and sodomy, and sentenced to 6 years in 1999.41. A strong feeling of anti-Semitism gives to Mahathir a politically correct image: with regard to this,he prohibited S. Spielberg’s Schindler’s List in 1993. See J. SIKES end P. ENGARDIO, “Malaysia’s Mahathir:Leading a Crusade against the West”, Business Week, April 25, 1994.


sociological type, as old as the peninsula itself. In fact, by virtue of its geopoliticalsituation, Malaysia needs to operate a synthesis of the different influences it camein contact with in order to exist.

This situation mirrors the more general one of Southeast Asia. Mahathir thusplays the role of spokesperson of the area, with the mission of contrasting thestrong threat represented by the US. To do this, he deliberately choosesprovocation as his communication style, which for a small but rich country (big oilexporter, with a stock market capital corresponding to half that of Germany, andabove world average) is the surest, and safest, way to be heard. Japan, (the secondworld power and the first world creditor at the end of the last century) is in hiseyes the perfect example for contradicting the universality of Western values and,as such, the perfect example of a modern Asian model. As Western outspokencritic is has all credentials: his father supported the India ultra nationalist Hose,who fought the Japanese during the Second World War.42

Mahathir hence perfectly represents Southeast Asia, a structurally fragileregion surrounded by three Empires, Indian, Chinese and Javanese.43 As a result,local identities underwent a twofold process. On one hand, they becamepolitically isolated being attached to their cultural specificity. On the other, theintegration of the area was possible thanks to Chinese, Indian, and Arab diasporaswho controlled goods and capital circulation

To conclude, Mahathir appears neither a buffoon nor a nationalist. He ratherillustrates the situation of an area 44 which, energing from a fifty-year period ofdecolonisation and more than a century of colonisation, wants “to decide thingsfor itself”.45 Taking as his the debate about Asian values, launched by Leen KuanYew at the beginning of the ‘90s, he has won over other Asian countries. Theyindeed declared in Bangkok in 1994 that “if unspecific human rights are universal,then one must consider them in a dynamic process of putting in placeinternational norms, considering the regional and national particularism”.46

Moreover one must acknowledge that the attitude of Western propagandists

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42. See the ambassador R.D. PALMER, “Globalism vs. Economic Nationalism: The Southeast Asia Case”,American Diplomacy, www.unc.edu.depts/diplomat/amdipl 12/palmer global1.htm. Subah ChandraBose (1897-1945), was elected president of All India Trade Union Congress in 1938, with the explicitmission of contrasting the British. The following year, however, he broke off with Gandhi, whom hefound too conciliating. Bose founded the Forward Block and launched an anti-British campaign. Hefled to Germany in January 1941, where he founded the Free India Centre, then left to South EastIndia. He became an ally of Japan, which in turn helped him organise a liberation army (Azad HindFauz) and instaure a provisory government in Singapore. This army managed to take over a part ofBritish India (today Manipur, near Burma), thanks to the support of many Southeast Indians.43. See the Majapahit Empire (14-15th centuries), around Java. It stretched over a great portion oftoday Indonesia.44. See G. SHERIDAN, Asian Values Western Dreams: Understanding the New Asia, Allen & Unwin,London 2000.45. Executive Intelligence Review, February 19, 1999, interview of Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir binMohamad.46. Preparation meeting for the World Conference on Human Rights.


nourishes Dr Mahathir irredentism, the former showing no complex whatsoeverabout their past as oppressors, and talking with great arrogance. WarrenChristopher’s words, uttered in the mid ‘90s, perfectly illustrate the case: “There isonly one way of acting which is acceptable on a world level, and the US will applyit in every country (…) we cannot make of cultural relativism the last refuge ofrepression”.


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KOREA PRESENTS SOME UNIQUE

aspects in the present-day international situation. Firstly, it is the last country stilldivided between a Communist and a non-Communist state, both of which areinternationally recognised. Korea has been resisting unification for more than adecade following the collapse of the Soviet Union and still now it is totally unclearwhen its unification will happen. Secondly, North Korea experienced in the recentpast an incredibly severe economic hardship, something that is generallyunexpected in an industrialised and (formerly) developed country duringpeacetime. Finally North Korea has been on the forefront among the countries thatare “of concern” regarding nuclear and missile proliferation. These three problemsare correlated and ways out should be sought that would address the complexityof the Korean situation.

Let us first start with a quick review of some economic indicators of theDemocratic People Republic of Korea (DPRK). The 1990s have been characterisedas the “lost decade” for North Korea. Practically all the economic and socialindicators are written in red ink. For instance:

(1) The variations of North Korea’s GNP have been consistently negative from1990 to 1998. Estimates of the decrease of GNP are highly dependent on theassumptions made. According to one estimate of the Bank of Korea,1 thevariations of North Korea’s GNP are as follows: 1990: -3.7%; 1991: -5.1%; 1992:-7.7%; 1993: -4.2%; 1994: -1.8%; 1995: -4.6%; 1996: -3.7%; 1997: -6.8%; 1998: -1.1%.The corresponding per capita GNP decreased from $1064 in 1990 to $573 in 1998.Only in 1999 can we see a modest GNP increase and a modest improvement of theeconomic situation. This dramatic drop of North Korea’s economic conditions canbe related to specific environmental problems (such as climatic events affectingthe agricultural production), but more fundamentally to the demise of the Socialistpolitical and economic community.

1. Reported in J.A.B. WINDER “The Economic Dynamics of the Korean Peninsula Peace Process” (May26, 2000), available at the website of the Korea Economic Institute of America (www.keia.org). Seealso P.M. BECK, “Beyond balancing: Economic Cooperation on the Korean Peninsula”, paperpresented at the US Korean Security Studies 14th Annual Conference, October 27-30, 1999.

THE EUROPEAN POLICYTOWARDSKOREA by Paolo COTTA-RAMUSINO and Maurizio MARTELLINI

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(2) North Korea’s external trade declined probably by a factor 3 in the period1990-1998.2 To explain the decline in trade one should take into account the factthat, since the beginning of the 1990s, the traditional trade partners of the DPRK,namely the Socialist countries and particularly Russia, stopped subsidising theDPRK and required commercial transactions in convertible currencies. Chinacontinues to supply the DPRK with some food and combustibles but to a degreethat has been insufficient to sustain the basic needs of the DPRK.

(3) Energy production and consumption, and food production dramaticallydeclined during the 1990s. The grain production fell from 8 million tons in 1990 to2.5 million tons in 1996. In the same period the consumption of fertilisers fell by afactor 6, while energy, oil and coal supplies all decreased by more than a factor 2.3

By comparison the Chinese contribution of grain is now of the order of magnitudeof 1-2 million tons per year.

(4) The problem of DPRK’s energy production (and distribution) is aggravatedby the status of the electric infrastructure that relies entirely on old, worn outSoviet equipment. A modernisation of this infrastructure would require access tomodern technology and to foreign investments that are at present unavailable. Theconsequence of this has been an increased reliance on the rationing of bothenergy and food with priorities given to the military and political apparatus.

(5) The agricultural production during the 1990s has been also affected byadverse climatic conditions, but the drop of external trade (implying the decreaseof agricultural supplies from abroad) or, in other words, the increasing reliance onautarchy (the so called “ju-che” policy) probably is more relevant to explain theagricultural failure.4 The net result is that, despite Chinese and other internationalhelp, the food situation in North Korea caused an unknown number of famine-related fatalities (maybe over a million) and an incredible hardship for the citizensof the DPRK. In this the rural areas have been much more affected than the urbanones that are accorded a more privileged status by the present regime.

The political situation of North Korea is also peculiar among the (former)Socialist countries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the ColdWar, the cooperation between the DPRK and the countries of the former Sovietblock was sharply reduced (including military assistance). An alternative option (intheory) would have been for the DPRK to shift to more extensive cooperation withcountries with market economies. Examples of similar shifts were not missingincluding China itself, or Vietnam. But this opening would have probablyjeopardised the very existence of the DPRK. After all there was already a capitalistKorea, and the example of the end of East Germany, and of the destiny of the

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2. As above.3. J. H. WILLIAMS, D. VON HIPPEL, P. HAYES “Fuel and Famine: Rural Energy Crisis in the DPRK”, PolicyPapers 46 of the Institute on Global Conflicts and Cooperation (IGCC), University of California SanDiego (2000) available at http://www-igcc.ucsd.edu/publications/.4. H. SMITH, Y. HUANG “Achieving Food Security in North Korea”, contributed paper to the Forum onPromoting International Scientific Cooperation in the Korean Peninsula, (Landau Network - CentroVolta and Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Rome, June 1-2, 2000.


leaders of most of the other socialists states, was not projecting a bright future forthe DPRK and its leadership. Another obstacle to such cooperation had to do withthe past behaviour of the DPRK, characterised by unpaid debts, the default beingalmost immediate and “recidivous upon repeated rescheduling”.5 The total amountof the defaulted debt relevant to the period 1970-75 is $1.2 billion in hard currency.6

Finally, the goal of Korean unification was traditionally seen by the leadershipof the DPRK as the prevalence of a strong North over a weak and unstable South.As a symbol of strength, the DPRK always made an outstanding (political andeconomic) effort to keep a strong armed force (1.25 million men in 1987.7 In the1990s the situation may have looked rather different and more worrisome to theleaders of North Korea. By 1992 all the countries of the former Socialist block(including China) had recognised South Korea. Differently from the case of theDPRK, the economic development of South Korea has been outstanding (despitethe 1997 crisis) The GNP of South Korea is now more than 40 times bigger thanthe one of the North and the per capita GNP is over 20 times bigger.

Compared with South Korea the North appears politically isolated and a dwarffrom the economic point of view. It was the military strength, the missileproduction and the nuclear program that had the effect of keeping the DPRK atthe front stage of international politics.

North Korea and Nuclear Weapons

The motivations that influenced Kim Il Sung to begin the nuclear militaryprogramme somehow between 1989 and 1990 may include:

(1) The desire to maintain and enhance North Korea’s security in a verydifficult time. The DPRK had problems with her major military allies: the SovietUnion was in disarray and China was dialoguing and expanding trade with SouthKorea and the West. In the meantime the DPRK had to continue facing anopponent armed with nuclear weapons, namely the US.

(2) The assumption that nuclear weapons may be cheaper than largeconventional forces.

(3) The desire to acquire political and diplomatic attention in the internationalarena and obtain consequently political and economic advantages.

In about three years (1990-93) the DPRK shifted from denying any nuclearweapon program to threatening the withdrawal from the Non Proliferation Treaty(NPT) that it signed in 1985. This happened despite some events that should havepartially eased the security concerns of the DPRK. In 1991 the US withdrew allnuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula and the two Koreas signed a jointdeclaration pledging “not to test, produce, receive, possess, deploy or use anynuclear weapons” and “not to possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium

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5. As above.6. See note 1.7. N. EBERSTADT, “The End of North Korea”, The American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC 1999.


enrichment facilities”.8 The DPRK announced her intention to withdraw from theNPT on March 12, 1993 and the Agreed framework between the US and the DPRKwas concluded on October 21, 1994. During this 19-month crisis there was a majorrisk of nuclear proliferation involving a country that is part of the NPT. The risk ofwar was also considerably high, as appears from the July 1993 statement ofPresident Clinton that if North Korea developed and used nuclear weapons, theUS “would quickly and overwhelmingly retaliate. It would mean the end of theircountry as they know it”.9

An indisputable merit of the Agreed Framework was exactly the capping ofthis serious danger of nuclear proliferation and of a major international crisis, byfreezing the nuclear weapons capabilities of the DPRK at the 1993 level (enoughto construct few bombs, about two).

The provisions of the Agreed Framework (replacement of graphite-moderatedreactors in the DPRK with light-water reactors, delivery of 500,000 tons annually ofheavy oil, disposal of the North-Korean spent fuel) clearly place some economicburden on the US and on the international consortium (KEDO) that was institutedfor the implementation of the Agreed Framework. But the perspective of a morepeaceful and stable situation in the Korean Peninsula certainly offsets thesefinancial costs.

But the limits of the Agreed framework (and of KEDO) are intrinsic: theAgreed Framework is not aimed at addressing the global economic, agriculturaland even energetic problems of the DPRK. It is only aimed at addressing thespecific threat of nuclear proliferation with a compromise solution that keeps theDPRK inside the NPT. Also it is not aimed at addressing the problems related to themissile program of the DPRK.

The uncertainties concerning the future of the Agreed Framework are many:first it is practically certain that the deadline of 2003 for the completion of the LWRs(Light Water Reactors) in the DPRK will not be met. Moreover, before deliveringkey elements that would make the reactors operational, many legal requirementshave to be satisfied, including a precise accounting by the IAEA of all DPRK pastand current nuclear activities. Before the new reactors become operational, manytechnical problems have to be addressed, and not minor ones! The present DPRK’selectric grid is unable to receive the electricity from the new LWRs under safeconditions. Dramatic improvements should be made that would be expensive andwill take time.

How the DPRK will react, facing the missed deadline of 2003 is yet to be seen.But it should be evident that the problems related to the implementation of theAgreed Framework are to be addressed in a more comprehensive approach thatwould take other aspects of the Korean crisis into consideration, such as themissile programmes, economic and political cooperation between the two Koreas


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8. See R. COSSA, “The US-DPRK Agreed Framework. Is Still Viable? Is it Enough?”, Pacific Forum, CSIS,Honolulu 1999.9. As above.


and more generally the economic cooperation between the DPRK and the externalworld.

DPRK’s Missile Programme

The DPRK acquired short range ballistic missiles (SBRM) in the ’60s and ’70sfrom both China and USSR. Indigenous production of SBRM’s began at the end ofthe ’70s with the Hwasong series. The original military rationale for the productionof such missiles was the need to hit directly the main targets in South Korea. TheHwasong missiles are modifications and adaptations of the Russian Scuds.International cooperation with Egypt has been apparently fundamental for thedevelopment of the DPRK missile programme.10

A reorganisation of the DPRK missile production facilities went underway inthe late 1980s. The short range missile Hwasong 6 was the first result of thisreorganisation. It is a missile of about 500 km range with a warhead of about 700kg. There may have been produced something between 600 and 1000 Hwasong5/6 missiles of which between 300 and 500 have been sold to foreign countries.11

These countries include Iran, Syria, Egypt, possibly Libya. The price of a Hwasong6 missile is thought to be about $2 million.12 The production and export of SRBMhas become then an important source of revenues for the DPRK.

The production of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) began in the1990s with the so-called No-dong missile with a range of 1300-1500 km and morerecently with the Taepo-dong missile with a range of 2500 km. In both cases theweight of the warhead is most likely between 700 and 1000 kg.13 As for the shorterrange missiles there are two motivations to be taken into account for the DPRK’sproduction of IRBM: a desire to improve the military capabilities of its armed forcesand the possible advantages deriving from the selling of the missiles and/or of therelated technologies to other countries. In this respect we notice that the PakistaniGhauri missile is an adaptation of the No-dong and so is the Iranian Shehab 3.

The next step for the DPRK may be the acquisition of Intercontinental BallisticMissiles (ICBM). Already the modified Taepo-dong tested over Japan in August1998 has apparently a range of about 4000 km. The new Taepo-dong 2 shouldhave a range of over 6000 Km.

The DPRK’s missiles programmes raised a general concern in the internationalcommunity and particularly in the US. The first concern comes from the spread ofSRBM to critical areas like the Middle East where a short range missile has a“strategic significance”. A second concern comes from the fact that IRBM, andmore so ICBM, are military useless unless the relevant warhead contains a nuclear

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10. J. BERMUDEZ JR., “A History of Ballistic Missile Development in the DPRK”, CNS Monterey Instituteof International Studies, Occasional Paper, 2, 1999.11. As above.12. As above.13. As above.


(or chemical or biological) weapon. A conventional warhead on a missile with arelatively low degree of accuracy (as is presumably the case of DPRK’s missiles)will not be effective in war and will be extremely costly.

So the danger derives from the combination of longer range missiles withweapons of mass destruction. A word of caution is needed at this point. Having along range missile and a weapon of mass destruction separately is not the end ofthe story: one needs also to adapt the warhead to the missile. This adaptation mayconstitute a serious technical problem since one wants the warhead to resist theheat and the severe stress experimented during the flight. More fundamentally onehas a compatibility problem between warhead and missile that involves the designof the weapon itself. So even if the DPRK had an intercontinental missile and thecapability to build few [crude] nuclear weapons, it would be premature to cry wolfand assume that the DPRK would be on the verge of having the capability to hit atarget at intercontinental distance with nuclear missiles.

Concerns about the missile program of the DPRK are now extensively used asthe main motivations to justify the National Missile Defence (NMD) project in theUS and similar programmes for the defence against theatre ballistic missiles in EastAsia.

So we see the beginning of a chain reaction: the missile programme of theDPRK, the antimissile programmes of the US, a possible increase of the ICBM fleetof China that may feel its deterrent power to be diminished by a US NMD, apossible Indian reaction to Chinese actions and again a possible Pakistani reactionto India.

It is then of paramount importance that a negotiated stop of the DPRK missileprogramme is carried on as soon as possible. Already some openings exist on theDPRK side. The best solution would probably be to carry on an agreement wherethe interruption of the DPRK’s missile programmes may be compensated by theend of the Western sanctions and embargo against the DPRK and by the removalof DPRK from the US list of terrorism-sponsoring states.14

The problem of the long range missile programmes of the DPRK may beconfronted with an approach bearing some similarity with the approach of theAgreed Framework. In both cases the solution may lie in a diplomatic settingwhere restraints are compensated with reassurance and concessions of politicaland economic nature.

Economic and Political Cooperation with North Korea

The recent Summit between the leaders of the two Koreas (June 2000)highlighted the possibility of a different political cooperation in the Koreanpeninsula. Everybody agrees that it is too soon to have overly optimistic


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14. L. SIGAL, “Negotiating an End to North Korea’s Missile-Making”, contributed paper to the Forum onPromoting International Scientific Cooperation in the Korean Peninsula, (Landau Network - CentroVolta and Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Rome, June 1-2, 2000.


expectations, not to mention prospects of Korean unification. It is also too soon toevaluate the results of the Summit. The suspicion has been raised that for now theresults are essentially cosmetic in nature. As an example, we notice that even arelatively easy problem as family reunification (involving at maximum 80,000people) has been treated with an outstanding degree of bureaucratic stiffness.

But the Intra-Korean dialogue, the cornerstone of the pacification of the region,is a reality. Interestingly enough, the Summit happened after a period of dramaticincrease of the Intra-Korean trade. From 1990 to 1999 the Intra-Korean trade rosefrom a negligible amount to over $300 million.15 South Korea is now the biggestsource of hard currency for North Korea.

If the Intra-Korean economic exchange and political dialogue is the mostpromising recent evolution, the cooperation between the DPRK and someWestern states is also important.

Italy and Australia recently recognised the government of the DPRK; this is anexample that could be easily followed by other states. An international Forum onthe Korean Peninsula was organised in Rome by the LNCV (Landau - Centro Volta)and by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on June 1-2, 2000, just before themeeting between the two Koreas. The Forum had a wide international participa-tion of governmental and non-governmental institutions, and was concluded withan appeal to the international organisations to foster dialogue and cooperation inKorea (see Annex).

Cooperation and dialogue between North Korea and the countries withmarket economies should be promoted. This cooperation should address mainlydifferent areas of North Korean economic and civic life such as the rehabilitationof the energy production and distribution infrastructure, the improvement ofhealth service, the restructuring of agriculture.

In the aftermath of the Summit between the leaders of North and South Koreain June 2000, the EU needs to reflect on its role with regard to the KoreanPeninsula and with the DPRK in particular. The start of an inter-Korean dialogueand intensified contacts between the DPRK and a number of other nations havecreated a momentum that should not be missed, lest the EU be marginalised. Thisis the time to intensify the EU-DPRK political dialogue and to break new groundfor cooperation between the EU and North Korea aimed at the latter’s economicrecovery and development and its integration into the international community.

An Enhanced EU Role in North Korea

There are three main reasons for EU engagement with North Korea.(1) The need to promote peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, as well

as security in the region. After half a century, the state of war must end. So mustNorth Korea’s threats to the region and beyond. Isolation will only lead to further

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radicalisation of the regime and more human misery in the country. Promotingregional and international security is also consistent with the EU policies of therecent past.

(2) North Korea urgently needs assistance with its social and economicdevelopment. We cannot afford to look the other way even if we may bedismayed by some of the regime’s policies and its human rights record.

(3) The EU has an interest in taking a stake in the development of the NorthKorean economy, which would only be enhanced after unification, with acombined population of approximately 70 million. The economic vibrancy of theregion as a whole should also be taken into consideration.

Now that North and South Korea are publicly committed to reconciliationthrough dialogue and concrete cooperative programmes and that many countriesare seeking to normalise their relations with Pyongyang, EU policy towards theDPRK should move beyond its present scope, which is limited to a politicaldialogue, annual financial contributions to the Korean Peninsula EnergyDevelopment Organisation (KEDO) and humanitarian assistance, especially foodaid. By extending the dialogue into engagement through cooperation, the EUwould fall into step with and strengthen the engagement policies of its partners inKEDO, thereby reinforcing international policy objectives such as DPRK accessionto non-proliferation regimes and its continued moratorium on missile testing. TheEU should also coordinate closely with other countries that have a politicalleverage on the DPRK and that have shown a readiness to support it economically,such as China and Russia. Involving regional countries in an action plan for NorthKorea’s economic rehabilitation could serve as an important regional confidence-building approach which could induce Pyongyang to adopt the necessary policies.

The geographical distance of the EU from Northeast Asia makes it anacceptable, useful and welcome non-regional partner in an evolving multilateralprocess. Continued financial support for KEDO activities is an obvious first optionfor providing EU assistance to North Korea. Euratom membership since 1997 hasbeen highly appreciated by the other three members of the KEDO ExecutiveBoard, the US, South Korea and Japan. The EU Council is likely to extend the EUcontribution to KEDO for 2001-2006 to a level of almost half the US annualcontribution of $35 million.

The Agreed Framework and KEDO have been essential in averting a crisis andinitiating cooperation with North Korea. But they do not provide a framework forEU policy. Hence the need to look beyond. If current political trends persist,KEDO need not remain the sole avenue to cooperation with North Korea. Inaddition to provide continued support to KEDO, the EU should consider throwingin its economic weight in order to strengthen South Korea and international effortstowards integration of the DPRK in the international community.

Given the economic situation in the DPRK and taking Pyongyang’s ownpriorities – power, agriculture and infrastructure – as a starting point, EU support inone or more of these sectors seems natural. Among these options a strong case


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can be made for the rehabilitation of the power sector, especially of the DPRKelectrical power grid and/or assistance in the field of energy efficiency. There aretwo reasons for this preference. First, power is rightly viewed as a DPRK priority.The North Korea economy badly needs to upgrade its national electrical powergrid in order to be able to attract foreign investment as well as for domestic needs.With around 5000 megawatt, annual power generation in North Korea is down toless than 25% compared to ten years ago. Lack of reliable power has broughtdown economic development and accounts for social disruption.

A no less important reason is the need for continuity and consistency. Therehabilitation of the power sector in the power sector would complement the $4,6billion investment in North Korea’s energy sector through the KEDO Light WaterReactor project, to which the EU has contributed 75 million euro since 1996. TheAction Plan would thus reinforce the effect of funds provided to the DPRK by theEU and its KEDO partners. Interaction between two activities within one sector, forexample the power sector, would add value to both. Beyond being a welcomedownstream complement of the KEDO-LWR project, to upgrade the electricalpower grid in North Korea is also technically necessary for the successfulcompletion of the LWR, as both reactors will need to be duly tested before theirownership can be handed over to the DPRK.

Executive Summary of the International Forum on “Promoting InternationalScientific, Technological and Economic Cooperation in the Korean Peninsula:Enhancing Stability and International Dialogue”, Istituto Diplomatico MarioToscano, Villa Madama, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rome, June 1-2, 2000.

Fostering Dialogue and Cooperation in Korea

The Korean Peninsula is one of the most critical areas of the world, wherelong-term hostile relations have been coupled with the presence of strong militaryforces, the risk of nuclear proliferation and the proliferation of other types ofweapons of mass destruction, the development, deployment and export of ballisticmissiles. At the same time the economic situation is a source of serious concern:the gravity of food shortages and of the economic crisis of DPRK as well as otherhumanitarian concerns are well known to the international community.

Cooperative security – combining reassurance with reciprocity, possibilities ofcooperation on condition that potential proliferators accept constraints onweapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs – is the mostpromising strategy for preventing proliferation and ensuring peace and security inNortheast Asia.

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Mutual accommodation through diplomatic action has succeeded so far insuspending nuclear proliferation in the Korean peninsula. On the contrary,deploying missile defences – apart from their unverified effectiveness – couldantagonise other countries and promote an arms race.

A change in DPRK’s strategy should be welcomed and encouraged. Defusingtensions, opening to international cooperation, not using military-related activitiesto induce international economic aid, establishing cooperative relations with theRepublic of Korea are all important steps that need to be taken.

In order to maintain peace and security in North East Asia it is essential: (1) toensure that the competent authorities of North and South Korea exercisemaximum restraint and in any event, do not rush to military confrontation; (2) tohave DPRK and all the other countries of the region as fully compliant parties ofthe NPT, of the CTBT, and of the other multilateral arms control and nonproliferation regimes; (3) to implement the joint (North-South) Declaration on thedenuclearisation of the Korean peninsula; (4) to find solutions for dissuadingDPRK from developing, testing, deploying and exporting medium- or longer-rangeballistic missiles; (5) to advance reconciliation between the two Koreas, to allowthe meeting and rejoining of divided families, to cooperate in order to achieve apeaceful reunification of the peninsula, and (6) to advance international (political,economic, scientific) cooperation between the international community andDPRK. Emphasis should be placed on the improvement of the economic situationand of the life conditions of people in the DPRK.

The June 12-14 North-South summit meeting has the potential for being oneof the most hopeful developments in Korea since the Korean War. If the two sidesdeclare an end to their long-standing enmity, that could lead to a period ofpeaceful coexistence opening the way to far-reaching changes. They should beencouraged by the international community to continue and expand their directdialogue and to establish a true cooperation.

Multilateral talks may defuse the military confrontation in Korea. New peacemechanisms could work out detailed confidence-building measures to reduce anddisengage forces heavily concentrated along the DMZ. Arms limitation talks couldlead to mutual steps to reduce military tensions. The role of China and Russiashould be emphasised. The Four Party Talks represent an important forum forseeking peace and stability on the peninsula. A revitalised non-aggression pactbetween the North and the South might be reinforced by international guarantees.Ultimately, the Korean reconciliation process could culminate in a peace treaty toformally end the Korean War.

Parallel to this process, the United States and the DPRK could declare an endto adversarial relations. As a practical step toward that end, the United States couldfurther lift its sanctions. In return, the DPRK could agree in writing to a formalmoratorium on missile testing.

Japan and the DPRK are moving expeditiously to normalise relations,including recognising their past history. The DPRK could encourage such


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progress by doing its utmost to account promptly for any missing Japanesenationals.

KEDO remains a cornerstone of security in the Korean peninsula. The role ofIAEA in the region will be extremely important in the future. The internationalcommunity must ensure that these international organisations have the means andthe resources to fulfil their missions.

The international community’s stake in Korea is however not limited to non-proliferation. It could do more both politically and economically to facilitate arelaxation of tensions. For instance additional countries could establish diplomaticties with DPRK (as Italy did) or intensify their present contacts, promotemultinational aid to upgrade DPRK’s infrastructure in energy and transportation,cooperate in the development of enterprises with a technological basis andpromote sustainable development in agriculture. Such initiatives should beaddressed by innovative multilateral approaches based on the KEDO model. Animportant role can be assigned to the cultural cooperation with the DPRK (at thelevel of Universities, research centres and cultural institutions) and also to theexchange of visits for cultural and training purposes. The EU and its Member Statesshould play their part in this process and strongly support such efforts.

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Part III

What ISASIA?

A NEW SILK ROAD?


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THE INDIANBRIDGE by V.K. NAMBIAR

THE INTERCOURSE BETWEEN INDIA AND

Europe has been virtually continuous over the ages, despite the obstacles ofgeography, language and ethnicity. The connections between the Hindu cultureand Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and Greece go back to the earliest periods ofrecorded history. The similarity between the social structures as well as the beliefsystems of the Aryans in the Indo-Ganges plains and those of Greece were soclose as to reveal shared cultural roots. Yet, historically, India’s primarycontribution to the world has been its unique spiritual perspective into themeaning of life as well as into man’s quest for deeper expressions of his identity.Interactions with the outside world, whether eastwards with China or westwardswith Europe, in the realm of values and ideas became evident with the spreadinginto these regions first of the Upanishad and later of the Buddhist concepts andarguments about the nature of the “self”, the provenance of desire and thetransitoriness of the outward appurtenances of our material existence. Theseconcepts provided the original perspectives of the Indian view of life. Unlike thescriptural injunctions of most of the great religious traditions outside thesubcontinent, rather than focussing on the certainty of values they stressed theirtenuousness, the need for balance and inward integrity, the continuous inquiryinto the nature of truth which was uncertain, the only certainty being that which isuntrue. They also placed a great value on individual judgement and responsibility.

In their contacts with the outside world in the economic, social or politicalsphere, these interactions were more diverse and many-sided. Although ancientIndia did boast a mature political tradition based on the Panchayat system ofprimitive grassroots democracy, this did not prove to be resilient in the face of theauthoritarian urges of feudal society. The system of agrarian bureaucracy in Indiawas in some ways less developed than in China, with an entrenched tradingcommunity and a privileged aristocracy that were not even threatened by theMuslim invasions. The structure of rural society, which was organised through thecaste system, provided a framework for all social activities from pre-birth to after-life at the village community level, making the role of central government largelysuperfluous. Change, innovation and heterodoxy were absorbed without majorsocial turbulence by the formation of new castes and sub-castes. The fact that this

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system survived the arrival of the Moguls was an indication of its resilience andabsorption capacity. However, in turn, the Mogul structure eventually collapsedfollowing the dynamics of increasing exploitation produced by its tax collectionsystem. Unlike the character of society in some parts of East Asia where a sectionof the native elite used the economic surplus as the basis for industrial growth, inIndia, with the coming of the colonial powers, the foreign conqueror, the landlordand the money-lender absorbed and dissipated this surplus causing economicstagnation.

Throughout history, India’s relationship with China has been beneficentthough distant. There has been more giving than taking. With the spread ofBuddhism, India’s cultural influence spread over East Asia both by sea and byland. The names of Bodhidharma and Kumarajiva became as well known as thoseof Fa Xian and Xuan Zang symbolising the intense spiritual engagement betweenour two civilisations. Buddhism attracted both the masses and the Chineseintelligentsia, arriving, as it happened, at a time when the country was divided intovarious contending kingdoms engaged in anarchic warfare. With the unification ofthe country under the Sui dynasty, the religion adopted from abroad became astabilising force within the empire. In due course, Buddhism was, in turn, fusedwith Taoism and incorporated beliefs and superstitions of indigenous cults. Butthe concept of the Karma was firmly engraved in Chinese thought and foundresonance even after the decline of orthodox Buddhism. The interaction withChina included other important areas like art and trade. As in the case of tradewith the West, incense, fruit, flower and spices were the Indian export products.From China, Tang silk flowed westwards to India along the legendary Silk Route.We are told that an Indian scholar tried to introduce the zero and the table of sinefunctions into 9th century China. He was apparently unsuccessful in obtainingChinese acceptance of these inventions. As far as art goes, however, Chinesecraftsmen showed a greater amenability to absorb a new structure of subject andstyle together with the introduction of a new religion. Indian art forms were tocreate a profound change in the artistic world of China.

During the Middle Ages there was little or no direct contact between India andthe West. Contact was established in 1498 when Vasco da Gama landed in Calcuttaand launched a new epoch in history. It was only by the end of the 16th centurythat a party of English merchants set out for India by the overland route andreached the imperial court of Emperor Akbar. Shortly after, in 1608 the East IndiaCompany received the permission of Emperor Jahangir to set up a factory in Surat.This marked the beginning of the British Empire in India.

Coming to today’s world, while it is generally recognised that a shift has takenplace in the global centre of gravity away from the Atlantic to the Pacific Rim andthat the rise of Asia after five centuries of European dominance is an event ofhistoric importance, it would be premature to declare definitively any decline of theAtlantic and the Mediterranean. With the growing prospect of a United Europeemerging as an area of renewed growth, optimism and dynamism, this proposition

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needs all the more a balanced assessment. Meanwhile the absolute and relativepower of the US shows no sign of decline. What are the implications of such apossible shift for Asia, particularly for India? Undoubtedly, India can be expected tobenefit from the emergence of Asia. For at least three centuries India has had almostexclusive links with the countries of Europe, mainly with Britain. It had becomenecessary for us to find an appropriate balance between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The rise of East Asia and the even more spectacular fall of the Soviet Unionhave led to the so-called end of history and to the confirmation of the newlyaccepted dogma of the primacy of international economics over internationalsecurity. Economics is now being viewed as the new catalyst for ensuring security.

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Jammue Ka shm i r

Pun j ab

H imacha lP rade sh

Ha r yana

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Ra j a s t han

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Wes t e rnBenga l

O r i s s aMaha ra sh t r a

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Goa

Pond i che r r y

Ke ra l a Tam i l Nadu

INDIA

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Chandigarh

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Patna

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Mumbai(Bombay)

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Bangalore Chennai

Trivandrum

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Lakshadweep

Andamanand N i cobarI s l and s


The emergence of global financial markets, of supranational regional groupingsand the pervasive influence of transnational corporations are being accompaniedby new expressions of cross-border crime, by spontaneous and sometimesunregulated population flows, and by an exponential growth of knowledgeindustry as well as of global awareness due to the impact of satellite television.Amidst these momentous changes, the Old World has collapsed. New mindsets areneeded to cope with these dramatic changes especially in the developing world.Those who have the greatest information will be able to use it best. Informationflows will be difficult to control. New networks created on the basis of commontastes and interests will straddle regions and transcend geography. This is likely toaffect the rhythms of traditional societies. Media power has begun to exacerbatediscontent and reinforce prejudices. Where they are driven by purely commercialconsiderations, they are difficult to manage. But, side-by-side, barriers of race, casteand colour are being increasingly challenged. Technology will continue to changebringing with it a transformation of social relationships. The role and relationshipsbetween state and non-state partners are also changing. As getting rich becomesglorious around the world, the search for fungible goods – the need to have powerresources that can be converted from one type into another type with minimal costor complication (money being the most fungible of assets) – grows in all areas ofenterprise. Within national boundaries there are challenges ranging frombreakaway ethnic movements to growing vocal pressures from subaltern groupswithin society seeking greater empowerment. The emphasis on greater opennessand transparency, while laudable by itself, sometimes tends to smother the interestof the poor sections of society and the underclass. The need for a pluralisticidentity, while undeniable, also results in fears of dominance by oligarchic interestgroups and, at a global level, in the emergence of a new colonialism.

In this kind of international milieu, India cannot be expected to be able tocarve out a role for itself if it is to remain inured to the compulsions of change orof globalisation. No country can hope to become a great power without a solidand prosperous economy. Nor can it afford to remain impervious to the demandsof international competitiveness. But the answers are not easy. New strategies areneeded. We must overcome the effects of years of neglect of primary education,basic health and make effective use of our human resources. Our infrastructureneeds to be built up drastically and ambivalence towards foreign investment to beovercome decisively. In all these areas the state machinery can and shouldfunction not merely as facilitator or as provider of the fundaments of legalstructure or as bureaucracy but essentially as the arbiter of public good.

China lies at the very heart of Asia. It is poised in time to become the largestsingle economic power in Asia and possibly the second largest military power inthe world. Coping with such China will be a big challenge. It is necessary tosidestep facile assumptions of confrontation whether in terms of a clash ofcivilisations or of the more conventional character. For this to be done credibly,India would have to develop the capacity to assert its strategic autonomy and

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civilisation weight not just in a regional sense, but in terms of its largerresponsibilities in the international stage. This can only be done through thegeneration of a more confident self-image and an active regional and trans-regional role. It would also mean tackling basic problems in the domesticdevelopment agenda and the maintenance of systemic strength based on ourliberal, pluralist and democratic values.

India was one of the first developing countries to accredit its diplomaticmission to the EEC in 1962. The first commercial cooperation agreement with theEEC was signed in 1973, the first to be signed with a non-associate memberdeveloping nation. The agreement, inter alia, provided for a highly powered Indo-EEC Joint Commission to sort out periodic trade and commercial problems and toplace long-term trading interests between the two parties on a rational basis. Thiswas expanded in scope and content in 1981 and a further “third generation”agreement on partnership and development was signed in December 1993.

Until recently, Asia has been a continent historically neglected by the EC.However, the new Asian strategy put in place after the Essen Summit in 1994 hasraised Europe’s profile in Asia, promoted enhanced political dialogue, andgenerated a sense of urgency in its engagement with this continent. While Europehas predictably sought to leverage the growth prospects of East and SoutheastAsia, India has remained on the periphery of the EU’s Asian strategy largely due tothe relatively slow pace of the economic reform process in this country. Ourexclusion from the ASEM process to date is a reflection of this lack of urgencythough the winds of change seem to be affecting both ASEAN and Europe. Anexpanded ASEM is likely to foster a new balance among the two continents andNorth America. As traditional images and stereotypes of India change, we areviewed less as a backward, conflict ridden and poverty stricken sub-continent inthe throes of natural and manmade disasters. The readiness with which we haveembraced the information technology revolution and the steady transformation ofthe policy landscape in India has begun to carry out credibility, and theinstitutional strengths as well as the resilience of our civil society show our abilityto withstand the ill-effects of outside induced destabilisation measures. India andthe EU are now building up a strong multidimensional relationship based onshared interests and adherence to shared principles. The India-EU Summit held inLisbon in June this year is witness to the growing importance that both sides haveattached to the relationship. It has provided a unique forum for structuredexchange of ideas on a large number of issues concerning trade, finance,investments and information technology. The Lisbon Summit declaration on the“Prospects for EU-India Relations in the Twenty-first Century” and the Agenda forAction provide both the evaluation and the operational bases for such apartnership. There is the need to build on this through not only official efforts, butalso more intensive exchanges at the media, business, specialist-academic as wellas political levels, in order to fill the information gap and, at the same time,contribute with greater sensitivity to each others core concerns.

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ASIAVIEWEDFROM JAPAN by YUMIKO YAMADA

THE G8 SUMMIT MEETING IN OKINAWA HAS

just finished. 1 For the very first time, the Japanese government received thedelegations of the major economic world powers outside Tokyo or Kyoto, anunthinkable event until recently. The demonstrations that marked the arrival of BillClinton reminded the whole world that the presence of the American militarybases since the aftermath of World War II is now opposed by the population of theisland – the theatre of terrible clashes between imperial Japan, an “Asian” power,and the United States, affirming its leadership in the West. This event induces us towonder about Japan’s current position at a geopolitical level: is it really, as theAmericans believe, a mere “place of anchorage” of the Western world in the FarEast? 2 The fact that Japan is the only Asian member of the G8 leads us to poseadditional questions. How do the inhabitants of the archipelago view theircontinent and what is the role that they would like their country to play fifty yearsafter the end of World War II?

Is Japan in Asia?

One of the main characteristics of Japan is its insularity. In addition to the fourmajor islands, it comprises nearly seven thousand isles and islets. This is thereason why Japan is separated from the continent and, from a historical point ofview, was quite often left on the fringe of the events. There is no doubt that thisinsularity moulded the identity of the Japanese, who often feel a separate people,even with respect to the rest of Asia. After a period of intensive relations from the17th to the 19th century with its closest neighbours and the Southeast of thecontinent, under the rule of the Tojugawa shoguns, the country withdrew intoitself. With the reinstatement of an open policy from 1854 onwards and, inparticular, during the Meiji age (1868-1912), Japan turned towards the West. In sodoing, even though Japanese identity did not disappear, the country turned itsback to Asia. Naturally, the country as a whole is still imbued with values shared

1. July 21-23, 2000.2. See Z. BRZEZINSKI, The Grand Chessboard, Chapter 6, Basic Books, New York?

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by a number of Asian countries. Suffice to mention giri (sense of duty), ninjo(compassion), or haji (sense of shame) – values of Confucian heritage that remainpart of Japanese culture despite the apparent westernisation of life style. Indeed, intheir private life, most Japanese keep on living like many other Asian people,sitting on the floor on their tatami, and practising the cult of their ancestors, sinceeach home is provided with a Tokonoma, a small consecrated space devoted tothis purpose. Nonetheless, the Japanese do not feel likened to their neighboursand, when asked to which country they feel closest, they generally answer thatJapan is unique and that it may not be compared with any other country in Asia.

The Asian Heritage

In any event, despite its insularity, Japan has been deeply influenced by itsclosest neighbours. In ancient times, it imported from China its writing system, itsliterature, the Confucian philosophy and the Buddhist religion. At those times, itwas customary for Japanese monks and students to move to the continent tostudy. Korea was often a mandatory halting-place in these study tours. It isreasonable to assume that, most of the time, the Korean peninsula filtered Chineseinfluences. In any event, the “Asian” civilisation – basically Sino-Korean – wasintroduced in the Japanese archipelago and subsequently “Japanised”. Hence,going back to the writing example, after having adopted the Chinese ideograms(that they called kanji) the Japanese developed two phonetic alphabets (kiraganaand katakana) that were unknown to Chinese and Korean people.

How Do the Japanese View Asia?

Keeping into account this “cultural indebtedness” of Japan, but also itsopening to the West that dates back to the Meiji age and that became more markedsince the end of World War II, it seems reasonable to ask how the Japanese viewtoday’s Asia.

The Japanese historical heritage causes one to think first and foremost – if notexclusively – to China and Korea. Besides, the presence in Japan of communitiesfrom these two countries is a definite reminder of both their geographical andcultural vicinity. Quite curiously, what comes to mind is Mongolia, a country that isgenerally liked. Sumo, the Japanese wrestling, is assumed to come from there andthe Mongols are believed to have the same physical physiognomy as the Japanese.The blue spot that newborn babies have on their buttocks is called “Mongol spot”!Even if it arouses nostalgia for their origins, Mongolia remains a mysteriouscountry for most Japanese, and those who have visited the country are quite rare.The same applies to the countries of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. While nowadaysit is certainly easier to go there, there are but a few Japanese who are able to locateVietnam, Laos, Cambodia or Burma on a map. Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailandare better known given to the important economic relations that Japan has with

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these countries. 3 And by now a number of Japanese tourists go there on a regularbasis.

In any event, even though no Japanese disputes the fact that these countriesbelong to Asia, they are not perceived as culturally close to Japan – the onlyexception being the ancient kingdom of Siam – since they belong to the Islamiccivilisation. The Japanese have the same feeling about the Filipinos, as they belongto the Christian faith. Indeed, however unconsciously, the Japanese often identify

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1433. After all, at the beginning of the 1990s, the Japanese Economic Planning Ministry encouragedJapanese enterprises to shift their investments towards the ANSEA countries.

US BASES IN JAPAN

Sapporo

Hiroshima

SHIKOKU

Tokyo

Osaka

Seaof Japan

NorthPacific OceanEast

ChinaSea

Fit Activities Sasebo

Camp Fuji

Yokohama

Naval Port of Yokohama

Yokota AB

Sagami Depot

Camp Zama

Fit ActivitiesYokosuka

NAF Atsugi

Misawa AB

MCAS Iwakuni

HOKKAIDO

KYUSHU

OKINAWA-JIMA

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Asia with Buddhism. Traditionally, in the Japanese subconscious, the Indian sub-continent has not been considered to be a part of Asia. Instead there now aremany that include it in Asia in view of the fact that, although “ethnically” different,Indians gave birth to Buddhism. Vice versa, no one considers the Middle East,including Iran, a part of Asia.

On the other hand, the former Soviet region of Central Asia remains anextremely elusive entity for the Japanese. Some are now including it in Asia, butthis seldom happened prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. At any rate, withthe exception of experts, no one is able to locate these countries on a map or evento mention their names.

The great majority of the Japanese agree that Siberia should be “excluded”from the continent. For instance, they answer nearly unanimously that under nocircumstance may Vladivostok be considered an Asian city, notwithstanding itscloseness to Japan. “Ethnic-cultural” differences draw a definite boundary and,therefore, the eastern border of Europe is set… in the Far East! Nowadays, out ofthe Asian territories belonging to Russia, only the Kuril islands 4 – in JapaneseHopooryodo, the “Northern islands” – have always been considered as belongingto Japan and, therefore, to Asia. Owing to some rare form of nostalgia, this appliesalso to the Southern half of Sakhalin.

Stereotypes and Prejudices

Given their immemorial historical links with Japan, the two countries thatcome immediately into focus when dealing with Asia are China and Korea.Nowadays, however, the Japanese have ambivalent feelings in their respect. Asmentioned previously, from ancient times until the Middle Ages, the Japanesewent there to study and perceived these countries as a model to be imitated. Thesources available refer to the visit of Korean delegations for shogun successions, atestimony of the mutual respect that existed between those two countries.

However, from the Meiji age, Japan no longer had the same consideration forChina and Korea. Having opened its boundaries to the influence of the West, thecountry aimed to develop its economy and to create a powerful army, with nopotential rivals in Asia. At that time, Japan did not mean to enter into competitionwith its Asian neighbours, which in its opinion had already been excelled. Japanmeant to compete directly with Europe and North America. Hence, China andKorea – the countries that from a historical point of view had transmitted theircivilisation to Japan – turned with the passing of time into the main objective of itsexpansionist policy. At that time, a “strong” country needed to have colonies.Officially, Japan claimed to “protect” its neighbours, by then deemed to be“inferiors”. The country mentally started to “abandon” Asia, considering itself on the


4. In the Shibya quarter of Tokyo, the associations of refugees from the Kouriles islands, backed byorganizations of the extreme right, are constantly demonstrating to make public opinion aware oftheir major claim: the restoration of their region of origin to the Nippon archipelago. 144


same footing with those Western powers with which it ended up catching up. Fromthen onwards, the continent it was connected to geographically and historically,appeared to Japan as a series of countries with a varying degree of backwardness,since none of them was able to compete with the West, regardless of its past might.At the time of World War I, Soho Tokutomi had formulated Japan’s “Monroedoctrine” for Asia. He had elaborated the concept of a “sphere of joint prosperity ofEast Asia” that, later on, was to warrant the conquests of the Japanese imperialism.According to this theory, which affected the Japanese in the period between theFirst and Second World Wars, Japan was entitled and had a duty to manage Asia’sproblems. The Japanese superiority over its neighbours was justified on the onehand by the stage of development Japan had already reached at that time and, onthe other, by “supernatural” reasons linked, in particular, to the cult of the emperor.In 1930, a few strategists of the Japanese imperialism, such as Kanaji Ishihara (1889-1994), 5 had also anticipated a division of the world between the West, which wasto be dominated by the United States, and the Nippon Empire, ruling over all ofAsia, including the Soviet Union, but with the exception of the Middle East!

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1455. See EGOCHI KEIICHI, Taikei Nihon non rekish futatsu no taisen, Shogakuran, Tokyo 1988, pp. 188-189.

US BASES IN OKINAWA

NAHA

Ie Jima Auxiliary Airfield

Central Training Area

Yomitan Auxiliary Airfield

Station Torii

Air Base Kadena

MCAS Futenma

Camp Foster

Camp Kinser

Naval Port of Naha

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Camp Courtney

Tengan Pier

Camp Hansen

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Camp Schwab


These were the reasons why, by that time, the Japanese had been viewing thepeoples of Asia with contempt, and they have kept on doing so more or less to thepresent day, well after the 1945 defeat. While the postwar development turnedJapan into the second economic power in the world, it has certainly furthered thepersistence of prejudices against the Chinese and the Koreans. Quite often, theseprejudices have been transmitted by families that, still today, dissuade theirchildren from marrying citizens of the two nearby countries, even if they havelived from quite a time in the archipelago. The Chinese who live in Japan arealways complaining about their integration difficulties 6 and a few Koreans of thesecond or third generation at times feel the need to “Japanise” their name in orderto avoid being the victims of racial discrimination.

If “Chinese” and “Korean” were words with a negative connotation for the warand “postwar” generations, it should be pointed out that slowly things arechanging. The younger generations are aware of the geographical but also culturalvicinity of Korea and China, which they no longer forcedly perceive in a negativemanner. The recent economic development of a few Asian countries, such asSouth Korea or Taiwan, causes the latter to look increasingly more like Japan. Thisstrengthens the idea of a common belonging subduing the sense of superiority onpart of the Japanese. We are dealing with a recent evolution but, by now, Asiaseems like it were more accessible and many more Japanese youths are travellingthere, taking advantage without a guilty conscience of their favourable prices.Over half a century has elapsed since World War II and, as far as they areconcerned, those events are a heritage of schoolbooks. They consider theirgrandparents responsible for the tragic war events and do not feel directlyinterested in what happened. Prejudices tone down a little at a time, and theJapanese are less mistrustful of or hostile to their Asian neighbours. After all, theeconomic cooperation that is being furthered gives another and more positivemeaning to the expression “sphere of joint prosperity of Asia”.

What View for the Future?

Today, Japan may succeed in attaining with peaceful means what it hadintended at the time of its colonial venture. It may even do so respecting theintegrity of its neighbours and, indeed, Japan would like them to forget its negativeimage. Japan is aware of being the only Asian country that, so far, succeeded inequalling – and indeed, excelling in a few fields – the West, and its neighbourswillingly acknowledge it. At the same time, Japan is the only country in Asianumbered among and acting as host to the richest countries in the world (G8).Without saying it plainly, today’s Japan would like to present itself as the “natural”


6. In the 1980s, having held Japanese courses for Chinese students in Tokyo, quite a number of timesI listened to their complaints about the difficulties they were meeting in their integration into theJapanese society, as much as the latter is imbued with “Asian” (Confucian) values transmitted moreoften than not… by China.146


representative of Asia with respect to the rest of the peaceful world, provided thatit is actually acknowledged as such by its neighbours.

In the face of such a project, once again Japan needs to confront with its majorrival: China. Japan’s historical model, the Middle Empire, was the victim ofJapanese expansionism during the first half of the 20th century and continues to bedistrustful of it. On the other hand, present-day Japanese regard with astonishmentthe spectacular development of China. Indeed, they feel giddy in front of thepotential of this state that, in their eyes, is boundless on account of both itsterritory and its population. They are aware that, in the medium or long run, thereis a chance that their big neighbour might catch up with them or even excel them.If the philosopher Wataru Hiromatsu was right in writing that “it is possible forNorthern Asia to be the major artificer of the future history”, 7 it will be necessaryto take China into account. In the future, Japan may hope to develop aconstructive cooperation with China, allowing the two countries to share a defacto leadership in Asia. In any event, in order to do so they will need to get overthe contentions inherited from recent history.

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7. H. WATARU, “Tohoku Asia ga rekishi no shukayu ni”, Asahi Shimbun, March 16, 1994. 147


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TO STAY IN EUROPE,RUSSIA MUST BECOMEAN ASIAN POWER by Vitalij TRET’JAKOV

STRETCHED ALONG THE ENTIRE EURO-

Asian continent, Russia has always had to have two foreign policies: one forEurope and the other for Asia. A digression into the history of these two policieswould be extremely interesting and telling, but for these purposes I will take themas a historical fact and tradition.

Even as a European country, most of Russia’s territory is in Asia. The famoussaying “A Europe from Brest to Vladivostok” is paradoxical only from the point ofview of geography, not of culture. The Russians who have always or forgenerations lived in Asia have never seen themselves as Asian.

Furthermore, many Muslims live in Russia, as well as Buddhists: now 13% ofthe Russian population is Muslim, but at the time of the USSR the percentage washigher. If religion (in this case Islam) is an indication of Asian identity, Asia starts inthe European territory of Russia: in the Northern Caucasus, in Tatarija, in Bashkirijaand in other regions of the Urals and of the Caspian Sea.

Leaving aside Turkey and Azerbajdzhan, whose belonging to Europe is in anycase relative, Russia is not just the only “Asian” country in Europe, but also theonly European country through which Europe spills into Asia and Asia intoEurope.

The frontier between the two civilisation runs in Russia, and over the past fewyears has become increasingly conflictual. Asia invades Europe through Russia’sterritory; it invades it biologically. And if Russia becomes weaker, the frontiers ofEurope will shift immediately towards the West, on the line that runs from theBaltic Sea to the Black Sea.

The subject of the article is not “Europe and Asia”, but this introduction isnecessary. Notwithstanding its national interests in Asia, Russia, for objective andinevitable reasons, has been forced in the past – and will be in the future – tosustain the burden of being Europe’s outpost in Asia, to act as a cushion betweenthe two civilisations, and has done so reluctantly and often hampered by otherEuropeans.

Moving on to Russia’s interests in the Asian “super-region”, there are manyserious issues, some of which the Russiam President Vladimir Putin has recently

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made public for the very first time. In the past, these issues were confined tounofficial and non-public debates.

The first problem regards the scarcely populated regions of Siberia and theRussian Far East, followed by the ongoing and spontaneous expansion of theChinese in those areas. Thirdly, the Asian regions are isolated from the centreand are economically backwards compared to the European regions of thecountry. The fourth problem is due to the rich natural resources of the regionthat makes it interesting to Russia’s geopolitical competitors. The last issue is thepopulated and dynamic China, with which Russia shares 4,000 kilometres ofborders.

Most of these issues should be addressed through Russia’s internal rather thanforeign policies, but any failure of the first will have to be compensated by thesecond.

Assuming that Russia manages to develop a more or less positive internalpolicy towards its Asian regions, there still are two issues that require furtherexamination: the economic backwardness of Siberia and of Russia’s Far East, andChina.

It is worth underlining some of the main objectives and priorities of Russianforeign policy in the Asian sub-region, understanding foreign policy in its broadmeaning and not strictly diplomatically.

(1) The South (the former Soviet republics, now the Southern states of theCIS): maintenance of partnerships with these states, as allies or even satellites;economic expansion towards them on the basis of the traditional ties formedduring the Soviet period; opposition to Chinese and especially Turkish expansionin these countries; contrast of any Afghan-Pakistani threats.

(2) The search for strategic allies in Pacific Asia.(3) A highly active policy as one of the main diplomatic and economic players

in the Asian-Pacific area, which globally is the sub-region number 1 in the 21st

century.(4) Competition – even in the form of cooperation – with the hegemony of the

US and of China.(5) Preparation to face any possible negative consequences of unexpected

developments in China or in its policy towards other states.(6) Exploitation of the economic and financial potential of Pacific Asia for the

development of Russia’s Asian regions.How and in what ways can Russia reach success in pursuing such objectives?

The answers are not obvious and would require elaborating alternative scenarios.But in this article I will limit myself to highlighting what I consider the bestscenarios, leaving aside analysing the alternatives.

First, Russia’s foreign policy towards Asia, in its broadest sense, must becomeat least as vigorous and important as its Euro-Atlantic policy.

Second, it is necessary to recover Russia’s military and maritime power in theregion to reach the Soviet levels.

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Third, it is necessary to establish exclusive diplomatic, economic and strategicpartnership ties with Japan and India, two key countries of the region, and toinclude Siberia and the Russian Far East in the process. In view of the inevitablereform of the UN, Russia should pursue the case for enlarging the Security Councilto include these countries among the permanent representatives. These countries,and Japan in particular, should be given exclusive privileges to exploit Siberia andthe Russian Far East together with Russia and in exchange for investments inRussia.

Fourth, Russia should become one of the patrons of the unification processbetween North and South Korea.

Fifth, Russia should respond to China’s economic expansion in South Siberiaand in the Russian Far East by developing a strategy aiming at economicexpansion in all Chinese regions, regardless of their proximity to Russia.

Six, the much talked about idea of building a transport corridor from Europeto Asia through Russia must be carried out (a Northern Sea route, a Trans-Siberianhighway).

Seven, Russia should have a clear position, develop initiatives and cooperatewith third countries on all issues, be they with regard to the Pacific Asian region(and in Asia in general) or to the main countries of the area.

Eight, the main Russian cities in the region, Vladivostok or Khabarovsk, mustbecome political, cultural and financial cities comparable to Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul,Shanghai etc. – they must be among the capitals of the region.

All these objectives, and the ways to pursue them, are certainly extremelyambitious. But Russia has no choice. Should it not achieve something comparable,it will cease to be an Asian power within the end of the century, for the simplereason that it will de facto lose most of its territories beyond the Urals.

The crossroads is either a highly proactive policy in Asia or an exit from Asia.The latter option would not even solve all the problems. Even without its Asianterritories, Russia will never be free of its frontiers with Asia. Here lies Russia’sbiggest problem and the main incentive to do something about it.

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A NEWWORLD by Frédéric DURAND

ALTHOUGH ASIA AND EUROPE BELONG

to the same “Euro-Asian” continental sphere and share a common “Indo-European” cultural background, Asia keeps on being a geographical area thatdefies any easy circumscription by Western Europeans. The area may hardly bedelimited: Eastern Asia, Asia Minor, Central Asia, Southeastern Asia? Furthermore,at least three major types of representation overlap. There is the one peculiar to“oriental scholars”, the specialists of the countries of Asia that, nowadays, includeeight to ten thousand researchers throughout Western Europe. There is the oneperceived by the media and public opinion, coloured by exoticism and too oftenby the dramatic recent events. And, finally, there is the one acknowledged bypolitical establishments and economic circles.

Through the latter, which often draws its inspiration from the other tworepresentations, the Western European view of Asia experienced at least threemajor phases since the Second World War and is currently at a critical turning pointwith respect to the contemporary world system.

The Surfacing of a Third World Asia and an Asia of Dragons

At the end of the war in Europe and in the Pacific, Europe discovered an Asia,which, after glittering millenarian civilisations and extensive colonisation,launched itself with all its might into economic development. This rapidly led tothe surfacing of two Asias. An Asia addressing the West, which had to be backedand supported to avoid the unchaining of the domino theory that would havecaused these countries to move over towards the other Asia – a Communist Asia.Hence, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the rising ASEAN, succeeded in attractingboth the attention and the support of the West. These countries offered cheaplabour to relocate a few industries and to supply the European markets with low-cost products or components. Those were the times when Asia “imitated” the Westand, in so doing, succeeded in attaining a strong economic growth. This was anAsia that, besides Japan, included four newly industrialised countries – Taiwan,Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea – having local wildlife qualifications ofdragons or tigers.

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This success supported the image that Europe had of itself, its strong belief inthe power of its industrial development and social values. For Europe, Asia’sachievements were a reference point for the countries in Africa, Latin America, or theMiddle East – counter-examples that reaffirmed a “rule” whereby all the Southerncountries would have attained their development by following “its” example.

Such certainties were a bit shaken in the early 1970s, when the US accordedtheir political preference to Beijing rather than Taipei. In any event, the potentialsignificance of the Chinese domestic market warranted this exception. Suchcertainties were shaken even more in the early 1980s, with the surge ofunemployment in Europe and the awareness that the Asian subcontractors werebecoming actual competitors. Asia was no longer content with imitating. It hadexcelled the model, it was investing in research and development, and it wasinnovating, causing concern in such leading sectors as shipbuilding, electronicsand even car manufacturing. Did the development of Asia entail the beginning ofthe decline of old Europe? The 21st century was going to be the age of Pacific Asia,as a few Asian and North American managers were starting to believe.

Asia at the End of the Bipolar World

The close of the 1980s marked the initial turning point in Euro-Asian relations.The downfall of the Soviet block brought our bipolar world to an end andstrengthened the belief in a triumphing liberalism. By then, only a single modelappeared feasible, and that was the Western model. Paradoxically, thestrengthening of yesterday’s certainties was giving rise to much more concern thanrelief. The disappearance of the Communist alternative failed to accelerate thehegemonic tendency of an America resting on an Asia whose model wasbecoming increasingly more Washington or Hollywood rather than the myriad ofdiscordant European capitals.

Europe met the challenge in a dual manner. From a domestic point of view, itaccelerated the construction of a Union with stronger Community institutions anda single currency project. With respect to Asia, it launched ponderous programs ofeconomic, cultural and social cooperation. Without necessarily daring to admit it,Europe by now needed Asia in order to exist from both a political and aneconomic point of view. This period, which coinciding with the Gulf War laidemphasis on the American military supremacy, witnessed also the onset ofglobalisation. Within the latter context, the European enterprises entered a wildcompetition to win over the increasingly more important markets in the Asiancountries, which were experiencing two digit growth rates not only in thetraditionally allied countries, but also in a few countries of the former Communistblock, such as Vietnam. On their part, the European countries proved to be readyat times to come to compromises either to entice the investments of the Japaneseand South Korean conglomerates – a synonym of jobs creation – or to refrain fromdealing with such sensitive political issues as East Timor or Tibet.

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If Asia taken as a whole could seem attractive, a map was being drawnincluding centres of greater interest and minor spaces, leaving aside problemsrelated to natural resources. From the point of view of European investors, theheart of Asia comprised Japan and the four major dragons for economic andindustrial cooperation, as well as “active” China, on account of its formidabledemographic and productive potential. The second sphere of interest included thedynamic areas of the small ASEAN tigers, particularly Thailand, Malaysia,Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, for reasons quite similar to thoseapplicable to China. Notwithstanding the significance of its population and itsintellectual potential, India was perceived as being relatively self-centred andseemed to escape these “priority” areas.

Had Europe found the ways and means to establish a long-lasting partnershipwith Asia? The 1997 crisis had not been anticipated.

The “Heralded” Turning Point of the 1997 Asian Crisis

Even though most media appeared surprised by the 1997 crisis in Asia, it wasdefinitely to be expected. In 1991, the burst of the speculative bubble in Japan hadshown to what extent most of the Asian economic progress could be artificial. Astock exchange overvaluation, an all-out real property speculation hadrepresented a deceptive part of Japan’s growth. Notwithstanding this initialwarning that had brought the second economy in the world to its knees foreighteen months,1 showing an astonishing blindness, most Asian countries relatedto the West followed the same path. In a number of cases, this was supplementedby extensive phenomena of corruption and abstraction of public and privatefunds. In Indonesia, for instance, everybody knew that the relatives of PresidentSuharto used to withhold a high percentage of development assistance funds andcontracts. Insofar as it concerned the World Bank loans, withholdings were in theorder of 20%. Notwithstanding the frequent censorship, this was often reported inthe local press and, at any rate, was known to those European investors andinstitutions that wanted to take the trouble of acknowledging it. In any event, mostof them preferred to turn a blind eye to it or just enter the “baksheesh” game ratherthan running the risk of losing a contract.

Now, apart from the difficulties still being met by a number of countries, Asiais leaving this crisis behind. In any event, however paradoxical it may seem, weshould consider the development experienced in recent decades by Asia and theother countries in the South. By contrast with what most Westerners had imagined,it seems reasonable to state that Asia developed first of all thanks to its own values:the value of labour, sense of the community, moral rigor – Asian values that are alltoo often discredited without due analysis. On the other hand, Asia went towardsfailures especially when it pushed to extremes a few Western defects, such as the

A NEW SILK ROAD?

1551. E. DOURILLE-FEER, “Craquement dans le modèle japanais”, Le Monde Diplomatique,. March 1998.


overvaluation of material assets and money or the liberality in the management ofpublic funds.

Hence, Europe needs close relations with Asia more than ever before. Butthese relations need to mature, as they may not be founded on false appearancesor political compromises that are either based on what is left unsaid orquestionable from an ethical point of view. A significant obstacle is hindering theway at this stage. It is but a fact that Europe finally ignores what Asia indeed is,and keeps on considering it a reflection of itself, as if Asian peculiar features didnot exist. Apart from the strengthening of their common economic or politicallinks, outside the limited circle of the “oriental scholars”, Asia keeps on beingmostly alien to Europeans. To them, it is but a far-away representation, fleetingimages of exoticism. The “major discoveries” in school books remain theprerogative of the Old Continent, unmindful that – a century before ChristopherColumbus – Chen Ho, a Chinese admiral, had sailed the seas with junks that weretwenty-five times bigger than the Santa Maria, moving as far as Arabia and Africa.

A few European circles are beginning to look for support in Asia with a viewto developing common alternative projects. This applies in particular to NGOs andthe German ecology-minded environments, which view new paths forcooperation in Asia’s social trends and its awareness of environmental problems. Afew European governments, such as Sweden, are working on “Future with Asia”strategies based on surveys of the economic and political contexts.2 Finally,considering the matter thoroughly, it is quite likely that somewhere in Asia are thegerms of the other model – the model of a less technical and a more unitarysociety that would allow Europe to get out of its identity crisis with respect to itselfand America. Therefore, we need to make an effort and discover them, and notonly in the Asia of short-term economic profitability.

A NEW WORLD

2. T. LODEN, Center for Pacific Asia Studies Newsletter, 1999.156


A NEW SILK ROAD?

159

CHINA: ONE COUNTRY,TWO SYSTEMS SEVERALMARKETS (“GO WEST”) by Luca M. BIRINDELLI

CHINA’S ECONOMIC SCENARIO IS OFTEN

described through aggregate data, which hardly reflect the heterogeneous natureof this huge marketplace.

With a total land surface of 9,600,000 sq. km, with arable land of 940,000 sq.km 1 representing 9.89% of the total land, China is divided in 4 Municipalities, 2 5Autonomous Regions and 23 Provinces. China’s GNP in 1999 was of 8,319 billionof CNY, or 1,002 billion USD.

Last year the Chinese economy continued to evidence a positive trend, albeitovershadowed by serious concerns, primarily over the structural aspects of thestate owned enterprises and the banking system. Such continuing trend came at atime of serious regional recession, through which China was able to maintain thestability of its currency. The Asian crisis had however an impact on foreign directinvestments, especially those originating from the countries affected by the crisis,as well as on the ability of such countries to absorb Chinese exports.

The completion of the negotiations for the accession to the WTO (as well asthe granting on September 19 of this year of permanent favourable trading statusby the US Congress) are posing new challenges to the Chinese system, which isnow forced to compete in a world where fundamentals are more important thanpolitics. The establishment of the “rule of law” becomes at this time an absoluteimperative and the objective set for 2010 for its fulfilment may turn out to be, in abroader historical prospective, the essential prerequisite on the path to democracy.In this connection, it should be remembered that the decision heralded by PremierZhu Rongji, which later prevailed, to join the WTO, has been vehemently opposedby the conservative faction of the Chinese leadership.

The fight against corruption and the economic liberalisation policy are nowstarting to bear fruits, while the government continues to apply a Keynesianstimulus by increasing public spending in badly needed infrastructure, lowering

1. It should be noted, however, that according to “China Agriculture: Cultivated Land Area, Grain Projec-tions and Implications”, a study by the US National Intelligence Council published in November 1997,satellite photography indicates that there might be as many as 140 million hectares of arable land.2. Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing, which are, from an administrative viewpoint, under thedirect control of the central government.

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interest rates and by increasing the state employees’ wages and unemploymentsubsidies.

It should be noted, however, that the vastness of the country and thepeculiarities of the districts are such that China can be hardly viewed, from aneconomic perspective, as a homogeneous entity. Prior to examining the existingdifferences I would like to state that the author subscribes to J. Fitzgerald’s theoryaccording to which “the imminent dissolution of China is as old as China’s ownhistory” 3 but unlikely to be experienced in the foreseeable future.

A concept which has been often studied and described by the economists isthe one of “economic district” applied, in a smaller scale, to regions such as theBaden-Württemberg, San Diego-Tijuana, Pusan, the Kansai, Silicon Valley, etc.;such districts, due to their nature, may be enucleated from their overall nationaleconomic context. In a globalizing world however, the national economic contextitself is losing relevance.

By applying this concept to China, the country may be subdivided at least infour vast economic regions, three of which directly interacting with the coastalzone and a forth, the West, raising huge and original issues.

The North, extending from Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang to the ShandongProvince, gravitates on Beijing, the Nation’s capital and its political andadministrative centre, which also plays the role of the North’s economic catalyst.The region is characterised, in broad terms and with the partial exception ofShandong, by an economy based on state run enterprises, heavy industry andcollectivised agriculture. Especially in the Northeastern provinces of Liaoning (withthe exception of Dalian), Heilongjiang and Jilin, the influence of the planned,Soviet-style, economy has been extremely strong until the beginning of the ’90sand, consequently, the current inadequacy of the state run enterprises is felt morepainfully than elsewhere. The somewhat unsophisticated legal environment andthe often-invasive role played by local administrators in the evaluation, approvaland management of the foreign investments, is more heavily felt.

The region is highly influenced by the presence of Japanese and Koreanbusiness. Foreign investors will often find here state owned partners, faced withthe problem of turning around non performing assets and proposing “bargaindeals”, some of which may well be worth looking into. It is left to the wise investorto determine those which should be left alone outright.

Shanghai and its vast hinterland which benefits from the Yangtze basin as aprime communication route, is and has been in the past one of the most dynamicregion, competing with the South in growth figures. This region is characterised bythe coexistence of state owned, collectively owned and, more recently, privatelyrun light industrial sector alongside with a flourishing agriculture, which hasstrongly benefited from the reforms of the ’80s. It hosts some of the major national

CHINA: ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS SEVERAL MARKETS (“GO WEST”)

1603. J. FITZGERALD: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated: the history of the death of Chi-na”, in D.S.G. GOODMAN and G. SEGAL, China Deconstructs, Routledge, London 1994.


textile and garments manufacturers (in Zhejiang) and footwear manufacturingindustry (in Jiangsu); the food processing industry flourishes alongside some ofthe most fertile soils in the country.

Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou play a pivotal role in the region, withShanghai in its own league as the re-emerging financial and service (tertiary)centre of the nation, building on a revitalised strong light industrial basis. Shanghaishould also be noted for the exertion of strong economic and local politicalautonomy through initiatives such as the development of the Pudong area, to beconsidered as the testing ground for overtures in foreign-related trade andfinancial matters.

The South encompasses the richest province in the country, Guangdong, aswell as frontrunners of the economic growth such as Hainan Island and Fujian.These areas have largely benefited from the early “open-door” policy as well asthe creation of special economic zones, 4 which have been the testing ground foreconomic and legal reforms and absorption of foreign investment in the ’80s.

A NEW SILK ROAD?

1614. Xiamen, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Hainan.

HEILONGJIANG

JILIN

NEI MONGOL

LIAONING

BEIJINGTianjin

SHANDONG

HEBEI

SHANXININGXIA

SHAANXI HENAN

ANHUI

JIANGSU

SHANGHAI

ZHEJIANG

JIANGXI

TAIWAN

FUJIAN

GUANGXI

HUNANGUIZHOU

SICHUAN

YUNNAN

XIZANG

QINGHAI

XINJIANGGANSU

GUAN

GDONG

CHINA’S ECONOMIC MACROREGIONS

HUBEI


The region has a strong and wide industrial basis, focusing on both high-techand electronics as well as on labour intensive consumer goods. Over 20 millionemigrants to the neighbouring Southeast Asian nations and North Americaconstitute an important asset, as they translate both in hard currency remittances aswell in foreign direct investment, which exceeds, in Guangdong, 80% of the total.Infrastructures and means of communications are the most developed in thewhole of China.

The South, and Guangdong in particular, is day by day increasing itsintegration level with Hong Kong, which has historically acted as the doorway toChina; a role which is presently challenged by Shanghai. Private initiative is theengine of the South’s economy, which is thus better geared to interact with thecapitalist world. Other than the economic factors which are, unavoidably, theresult of a fair degree of generalisation, the prime criteria adopted to determine thenature of the three coastal areas is the reliance on a common basis oftransportation ways in accessing the sea.

A totally different approach needs to be taken with respect to the Westernprovinces. China’s “Western Big Development” project encompasses 5.2 millionsq. km and 300 million people spread across nine provinces and autonomousregions – Gansu, Guizhou, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Ningxia, Tibet andXinjiang. Together, they occupy well over half of China’s area and account formost of its oil and mineral reserves, borderlands and strategic military installations.The project includes construction of roads, airports, railroads and a §14 billionpipeline linking Xinjiang’s natural gas fields to Shanghai, 4000 km to the Southeast.President Jiang Zemin recently declared the project crucial to China’s stability, theCommunist Party’s hold on power and the “revitalisation” of the Chinese people.

An analogy can be drawn with the American concept of Manifest Destiny andthe taming of its Wild West as well as to Israel’s Jewish settlement in the WestBank. Even the irrigation technology that the Han settlers use in Xinjiang, is oftenIsraeli designed.

The region is desperate for capital, ideas and people, but is also faced withpersistent and sometimes violent ethnic unrest. Islam came to Xinjiang in the 10th

century with an Arab invasion. It is largely such unrest (as well as a growinghunger for oil) dictating the re-approachment policy pursued by the Chineseleadership with the Muslim world.

Since the early ’50s, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, aparamilitary organisation that operates farms and factories has moved 2.4 millionpeople, 90% Han, into Xinjiang and opened up millions of hectares of desert forfarming. In 1948, 75% of Xinjiang population was Uyghur and 15% was Han.Today, 40% of Xinjiang’s 16 million people are Han.

The development policy of the West, one of the gigantic tasks facing China aswell as one of its top priorities, may well represent an unprecedented opportunityfor foreign investors; its prospects for a success must be sustained, to the extentpossible (including financially) by the developed countries, in order to secureChina’s stability.

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163

HEARTLAND Shall we broach the touchy issue of investment in China?DINI One of the greatest risks in China is the inefficiency of the banking system. It isimpossible to monitor the performances of companies and establish which are thegood ones. So as a bank, we can only take the risk in the country and decide totrust China – but not necessarily one of her companies. In the long run this cannotbe enough. On top of this, Italy finds it hard to function as an integrated system:large Italian companies, for example, do not work with Italian banks. Difficultiesalso come from SACE (the Italian national insurer of investments abroad) which hasa cumbersome approval procedure. Even the Spanish, who so far have been asecond rate European power in China, work better than the Italians do.CELLETTI SACE is an old institution, unfit to work in this environment and withoutenough experience to work abroad and in Asia. The procedure to grant soft loans istoo long; sometimes it takes over three years, so there is no time to prepare themarket. Some of us have even had the unpleasant experience of receiving the loanwhen the business opportunity was gone. DINI To give an example, we made an agreement with SACE for $150 million in softloans, asking the Chinese government to draw a list of reliable clients. But therewere two problems: SACE asked for confirmed letters of credit, despite the fact thatif they are confirmed there is almost no need for SACE’s insurance. Also, Chineseofficials did not want to draw the list of reliable clients, because that would meanexcluding some companies and triggering an explosive situation between Chineseenterprises, which would be classified almost officially according to their reliability. CUTRUPIA Non Italian banks are more efficient, providing better financial packagesin less time. Italian banks are unwilling to take risks, while other banks have betternetworks able to evaluate risks. Also, other European governments are readier toshare part of the risk.

Doing Italian Business in ChinaLeonardo DINI (BCI), Stefano CELLETTI (ANTIBIOTICS)Franco CUTRUPIA (Italian entrepreneur)

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CELLETTI While governments should not hand out free money, creating unhealthyexpectations, it still is wrong for companies to take all the risks – these should beshared, especially when investing in a country like China. HEARTLAND Do Italian newcomers go to the embassy for help and direction? CUTRUPIA Not always. The embassy helps but does not solve the problem.HEARTLAND Is there more coordination between other companies from the EuropeanUnion?CELLETTI Some working groups have been established and they are effective whenthere is no real competition between companies. The European Chamber ofCommerce could make up for some of Italy’s shortcomings. In a way through thiscooperation, which could be of growing importance, a piece of Europe could bemade in China. HEARTLAND What could embassies do?CUTRUPIA European embassies do not work together: more coordination betweenEuropean companies is needed to improve efficiency CELLETTI At the same time, Italian business representatives come to China and talk asif they were still in Italy. Here there should be a stronger European lobby. Chinaenvisages a strong relationship between business and politics, so Europeanbusinesses should be ready to face the market here in the same way. CUTRUPIA I am quite sceptical about this approach. I think foreign companies needto settle in the country and provide a Western service at Chinese prices withoutalways referring back to Italy. Nor do I believe the tales that Italians are better thantheir competitors because they are more flexible and can establish better personalrelations. I have seen many foreigners get down to business and establish betterrelations than the Italians. Italy decided to become a long-term partner of China.The Chinese want to learn and we, as a company, are willing to cooperate. Wehave established a services network in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shaoxing, Cantonand Hong Kong. This is not a country where one can just come and go. If you wantto make business you have to adapt your company to China. CELLETTI On this point, the training of junior managers, sponsored by the EuropeanUnion, and of Human Resources back at home is important. Italy needs a Chinadesk at home to convey and understand our difficulties.

DOING ITALIAN BUSINESS IN CHINA

164

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A NEW SILK ROAD?

165

“WE BEHAVE LIKE THE CHURCH” by Camillo DONATI (IVECO FIAT)

“In China one must work following the official guidelines, be able to interpret them andmake sure the business is in line with them. The relevant authorities must be involvedeven in choosing partners and they are responsive”. Camillo Donati, 14 years in Chinaand the only Italian honorary Chinese citizen is a chain smoker, despite all presentprohibitions in the country. Proud of his frank short temper, he boasts it helped in hisdealings with the Chinese: “They appreciate frankness and real respect, and despise fakemannerism disguising a real prejudice”. “We must contribute to the country’s growth anddevelopment, while looking after the company interests, but the government has to tell uswhat to do and where”.The entrepreneur has to make a special effort to involve the government, and thisinvolvement must be “spintaneo”, says Donati, using an Italian pun (spinta, push, andspontaneo, spontaneous). In other words, the push must appear as a spontaneousgovernment decision.For instance, his next pet project is in factories for GPL bus engines. These engines couldbe installed on city buses, lorries, adapted for large barges to be used more along theChinese rivers, as well as work as water pumps in the dry Northwest. These twodevelopments would fit in with the official plan to build more water canals from South toNorth and develop the backward western regions of the country.“In our effort to settle in China we behave like the Church, which gave up the dogma of theLatin mass, but saved the spirit of enterprise. We must transfer our know-how in full toenable the Chinese to do the things they want”, he says. Donati stresses the importanceof not imposing any alien model on the Chinese, but of putting them in the condition toperform certain tasks according to international standards. “It is a longer path, but the bestrecipe for success. If we discuss money with the Chinese, they always agree with us andmake sure that we defend the interests of the company and of the Chinese partner”.Donati maintains it is also important to distinguish the intentions of the central governmentfrom those of the local government, and have a clear picture of the market needs. InChina, he says, officials were used to distribute rather than sell, but now the market isgrowing and one must start to sell.“China will be the battlefield of the next phase of the industrial revolution, and now it isimportant to rally our troops. In other words we must guarantee continuity in the service andthe convenience of assistance even after selling the product. People first look for goodquality and then ask for good post-sales assistance. Now many adults do not have enoughmoney to buy quality goods, but in the big department stores I see small children askingtheir parents for the good and expensive toys. In a few years those kids will want quality”.At the same time, Donati remembers an official visit to the highly sophisticated Fiat factoryin Turin. The Chinese officials stared at the robots and wondered: “what would we do withour million workers?”“We must see the problems of this country in a broader context, put ourselves in theirplace and then understand their deepest motivations. It is a long and complicated processwith no shortcuts. Many people go for a few days to Beijing and Shanghai and think theyunderstood it all. Those trips are useful to get an impression of what is happening, but it isjust an impression. Without a stronger effort, China will be always incomprehensible”.

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166

ROMANO PRODI - President of the European Commission.

ZHU RONGJI - Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China.

WANG XIAODONG - Essayist.

ZHANG XIAODONG - Researcher, Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing.Managing editor of Heartland.

FRANCESCO SISCI - Managing editor of Heartland.

FABIO MINI - General, AFSOUTH Headquarters, Naples (Italy).

ZHANG JIE - Writer. Her books are translated in more than 20 languages.

TOMMY KOH - Professor. Executive Director, Asia-Europe Foundation.

ALISON BROINOWSKI - Visiting Fellow, Asian History Centre, Australian NationalUniversity, Canberra (Australia).

MICHEL KORINMAN - Editor, Heartland and Limes. Professor, University ofMarne-La-Vallée (France).

LUCIO CARACCIOLO - Editor, Heartland and Limes.

MARIE-SYBILLE DE VIENNE - Professor, Inalco, Paris (France).

PAOLO COTTA-RAMUSINO - Director, Science and Technology in InternationalSecurity Program, Landau Network-Centro Volta, Como (Italy)

MAURIZIO MARTELLINI - Secretary General, Landau Network-Centro Volta,Como (Italy).

V.K. NAMBIAR - India’s High Commissioner in Pakistan.

YUMIKO YAMADA - Researcher, University of New Caledonia.

VITALIJ TRET’JAKOV - Editor, Nezavisimaja Gazeta, Moscow (Russia).

FRÉDÉRIC DURAND - Researcher, University of Toulouse II-Le Mirail (France).

LUCA M. BIRINDELLI - Italian lawyer, experienced in PRC and Asia-Pacific matters.

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Heartland 01/2000

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Transcript of Heartland 01/2000