China and (inter)nationalism

Last weekend, the Olympic torch was run through Pyongyang and Seoul. Naturally, given the totalitarian nature of the North Korean government, the Pyongyang leg of the torch relay went off without a hitch. But the Seoul leg saw protests and disturbances.

What took me by surprise -- though on hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised -- was the main issue that the South Koreans were protesting over. It wasn't Darfur, it wasn't Tibet, but something much closer to Koreans' hearts, even though it had not had as much play in the world's media: the way the Chinese government tended to send North Korean refugees back across the border.

The repatriated refugees are imprisoned, tortured and often executed. The Koreans believe it is inhumane for Chinese government, knowing full well how the Pyongyang government treats repatriated refugees, to be summarily sending already desperate people back.

The real surprise, however, was that the Korean protestors, said to number just 300 or so, were vastly outnumbered by the thousands of Chinese national lining the torch route, and who at one point were scuffling with each other. Rocks and paving stones were thrown, as in this report:

Thousands of Chinese, waving their country's red national flags, tried to thwart rallies by those protesting against China's crackdown on Tibetans and repatriation of North Korean defectors, as the torch passed through downtown Seoul on Sunday.

The demonstrations turned violent when some Chinese hurled stones and water bottles. A few protesters and riot police were injured, according to police.

-- Hankyoreh, quoting Yonghap News Agency, 28 April 2008
Link

More reports from Korea Times can be found here.

It is an inescapable fact that China has a lot of problems with its international image. Partly, it is simply a reflection of its size. A country that is so large is going to have borders with plenty of neighbours and inevitably, borders tend to give rise to problems. The North Korean one is not the only problematic border that China has.

More importantly, China's huge economy and its need for natural resources brings the country into contact with numerous countries around the world.

In many cases, e.g. Darfur and North Korea, the problems are created by the their own governments, not by China, but China gets drawn in because there is a huge gap between how China sees the international system and how many in other countries see it. What China considers as correct international behaviour is considered unacceptable to others.

Complicating the issue, as I have pointed out in earlier essays, is the internal politics of China. There's a tendency in government circles to get very shrill and hardline, rousing Chinese citizens to become hypersensitive and defensive every time China faces criticism.

Jonathan Eyal, in his opinion-editorial in today's Straits Times, gave a good example in the way the issue of the Lhasa disturbances spiralled out of control.

China was probably the first to take a wrong step in this episode. When the first news emerged of riots in Lhasa, the official reaction in Europe was very cautious. Berlin, London and Paris all followed the same script: They asked Beijing for clarification, but invariably reiterated that Tibet is part of China.

More interestingly - given the subsequent Chinese complaints of Western media distortions - the first eyewitness report of the riots published in the European media came from the only journalist who happened to be in Lhasa then - Mr James Miles of The Economist. Far from being critical, Mr Miles confirmed some of the key elements in what subsequently became the official Chinese story.

He reported in moving terms the plight of a Han Chinese family trying to escape certain death by hiding in a basement as all their property went up in flames. And he told the world that far from using force, the Chinese government may have been guilty of abandoning the streets of Lhasa to the mobs.

Recreating this sequence of events is important. It provides evidence that China had a chance of containing the political fallout in the early stages of the crisis. All Beijing needed to say was that Tibet experienced an outburst of racial hatred, which the authorities would stamp out with the minimum necessary force.

But it did nothing of the kind. As the world media buzzed with speculation, the Chinese Foreign Ministry initially remained silent. And when it finally spoke, it laid the blame squarely on the 'Dalai Lama clique'.

Worse followed. In terms borrowed from revolutionary Maoism, the Tibetan government proclaimed a 'people's war'. And the party boss there called the Dalai Lama 'a jackal and wolf clothed in a monk's robes, and a vicious devil who is a beast in human form'.

In PR terms, this proved a disaster. It was not the West, but China, which first raised the question of Tibet's legal status. And it was not Paris, but Beijing, which turned the spotlight on the Dalai Lama.

The violent language against the exiled Tibetan leader lacked credibility. Rightly or wrongly, the Europeans perceive him as a saintly man, incapable of plotting violence from his ramshackle headquarters in India.

--- Straits Times, 28 April 2008, Bumbling
around EU-China ties, by Jonathan Eyal

* * * * *

 
The Chinese government and evidently large numbers of its people are too prone to overreacting to any unfavourable comment from the rest of the world. Given China's experience of internationalism, this may be understandable. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, China found itself encroached upon by many Western powers (and Japan too). For 150 years, its experience of the outside world was invariably accompanied by a deep sense of humiliation.

Consequently today, it lays great store by the principle of non-interference and the inviolability of state boundaries.

Its approach to the Darfur and North Korean refugees problem therefore is a hands-off one. How the governments in Khartoum or Pyongyang treat their own people is their domestic affair, and the Chinese consider it both a matter of principle not to pry, and a matter of historical memory not to repeat the behaviour that they themselves suffered from.

The reverse would be what happens in Tibet and Xinjiang. The Chinese get very prickly when there is any discussion of these issues, seeing "foreign interference" again through the lens of its 19th century experience.

China's idea of a peaceful international order is one where nation-states (including their citizens' private behaviour) fastidiously observe their separateness.

The problem is that much of the world has moved on from this concept that dates from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia – the concept of national sovereignty. The Europeans, in particular, have gone furthest. Today, there is a sense of the interconnectedness of the world, whether on issues such as global warming, fair trade, safety standards or human rights, together with the notion of a shared humanity. Given the way technological progress (and with it, global trade) has created this interconnectedness, there is no reversing this trend.

It is increasingly considered unconscionable not to speak out on shortcomings wherever they may occur. The evolving idea of a peaceful international order is not one that treats state boundaries as sacrosanct, but one where state powers are checked by more universal considerations.

No doubt, there will be plenty of argument as to what those "universal" considerations are, but nevertheless, there is a fundamental gap between the international order as perceived by China and that as perceived by many others outside China.

Adding to the problem is the semi-totalitarian nature of the Communist Party government. Its own sense of insecurity leads senior officials to close ranks quickly the moment an outside threat is seen (or imagined) and its ability to turn up its rhetoric when needed, through its powers over the mass media, tends to paint itself into a corner (e.g. the way its denunciation of the Dalai Lama forecloses dialogue).

What's to be done?

In a nutshell, China needs to catch up with the new internationalism, and this is where I think it is important to make a distinction between the government and the people.

I have an unshakeable belief that the Chinese people are more than capable of being socially engaged and internationalist. You look at the way countless Chinese agitate over farmers rights, treatment of migrant workers, environmental degradation and civic freedoms, with a passion and organisational skill that put many Singaporeans to shame, you cannot but conclude that they as a people are capable of caring and of being involved. And of being idealistic.

But to care, you must first know. And if you have an education system and a media landscape that stifle rather than open minds, then it is no wonder that millions of Chinese are rather out of step with the rest of the world. It suits the Beijing government, but it does not do justice to China's history, or its future.

Great civilisations lead and attract by example -– intellectual, cultural and moral. To live up to its calling, China needs to put its past behind it. Its citizens need to become citizens of the world, open to and engaged with its (global) issues. It has to grow from being a small-minded power to a big-hearted one.

© Yawning Bread 

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