Too many people fail to understand the confederated and devolved nature of modern government. In Washington we find people in Congress who are ready to attack China, and others who are willing to embrace it. In China there are economic reformers, clustered around the Premier, who want economic reform, want to take the PLA out of business, want to raze the bankrupt state enterprizes. There are economic nationalists, grouped around the President, who wish to centralize administration in Beijing, and crush the regional governments in Shanghai, Xiamen, and Gwangzhou. There are petrified generals in the PLA who want to run their old foreign policy, to strike out, to destroy Taiwan.
No one in his right mind could be altogether anti-Chinese, or pro-Chinese. The Chinese people are dynamic, ambitious, willing to learn and compete. Many of their leaders are ignorant. parochial, brain dead andtotally off the wall. No one can love them. It is inevitable that trade between the free world and China will strengthen all the separate interests in China. The PLA cannot help but get stronger. But support of economic reformers will make them even stronger and make China necessarily closer to the free world.
I want every Chinese kid to have a PC (with an Intel Chip) connected up to the internet (via Cisco routers) with access to EB and ZDNet and all of the learning of the world, so he or she can become educated, trained, and even wise. I want to be grappled together with bonds of quartz and thought. I want us to exchange knowledge and friendship, without generals or diplomats in the loop.
I teach a dozen or more Chinese business students every day in class. They are much smarter and more eager than my American students. Many of them want to become American, to work in American firms, to start their own companies. Many of them want to go back to China and start there own companies. They correspond every day over the network with their friends (every Chinese university I know has a web page). They are not interested in politics or revolution. They want to get rich. They will be rich.
I think the United States government should help them get rich, especially since they will make us rich too. I think we should be very careful in making the Chinese our enemies. Many of them want to be our friends. I think we should encourage them. |
