{"id":498,"date":"2018-08-08T23:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T06:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=498"},"modified":"2025-07-24T13:46:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T20:46:01","slug":"china-dialogue-1999","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/china-dialogue-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"China Dialogue (1999)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In June 1999, as a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I went on a State of Washington trade mission to Vladivostok, Manchuria and Beijing. My interest was not so much trade as to talk to Chinese about the recent U.S. bombing of China\u2019s embassy in Belgrade, which the U.S. government said was an accident, and which many Chinese believed was not. I was able to interview Chinese students in Harbin, and wrote about our conversations for the P-I and also for Liberty. This is from Liberty, October 1999.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The uniformed customs officer at Suifenhe, Manchuria, squinted at the red stamp in my passport. It proclaimed I was a journalist with permission to enter the People\u2019s Republic of China. He mumbled something later translated as, \u201cHmph. I see we\u2019re letting them in again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He stamped me in, June 19, 1999.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I was part of a State of Washington delegation looking at a proposed container shipping route from Northeast China through Russia to the U.S. West Coast. I had a second interest: to talk politics with Chinese.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our trade delegation had meetings and banquets every day with mayors, provincial vice-governors and department heads of this, that and the other. Only one of them mentioned Kosovo. He said, \u201cLet\u2019s not talk about Kosovo,\u201d and we obliged him.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But I wanted to talk about it. And though I was only in China nine days, and was in buses, hotel rooms or banquets most of the time, I talked to a number of students and also a train passenger, a man at breakfast, a taxi driver, a truck driver, a bus driver, an employee of a Danish company, an employee of Americans, two employees of the China\u2019s government news agency and my privately hired translator.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Every one of them opposed the war in Yugoslavia. Only the handful who worked for foreigners were prepared to consider that the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade might have been an accident. The others said that was impossible.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe American map can\u2019t be wrong,\u201d one student said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAmerica has the best technology in the world,\u201d another said. \u201cHow can it be just a mistake?\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I said, \u201cMost Americans don\u2019t believe the bombing was on purpose. What would you say if it really\u00a0was\u00a0<\/i>a mistake?\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThen track down the criminal who did it,\u201d a woman said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0These were students at Harbin Institute of Technology, where I went with the translator. She took me to the the cafeteria, where I wandered among tables of students busy with rice, noodles and private conversations. I\u2019d pick a table, sit and start talking. Later, when the cafeteria emptied out, I went to a bulletin board outside, addressed a group in English, and started talking some more, backed up by my interpreter.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the cafeteria, I controlled who I talked to, and talked a lot to women; in the group outside, I was the hub of a knot of students, most of them men.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My second question to them was: If you think the bombing was on purpose, what was the purpose?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I heard four theories.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0First, because China opposed the war against Yugoslavia. To force China into line, America attacked the Chinese embassy.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Second, because of Taiwan. America used the cover of war to reminder China not to attack its client.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Third, as a test. Under the cover of war, America attacked the embassy to see if China would stand up for itself. When the test was over, it said, \u201cSorry.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fourth was the I-don\u2019t-know theory: The truth will come out someday. \u201cLike the JFK assassination,\u201d one student said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clearly these Chinese didn\u2019t understand America. We are the country that screwed up Jimmy Carter\u2019s rescue mission in the Iranian desert. We executed the missile-bombing of an innocent pill factory in the Sudan. We act boldly, on bad intelligence. We are the people who coined the aphorisms, \u201cGarbage in, garbage out,\u201d \u201cClose enough for government work,\u201d and that incomparable bumper sticker, \u201cShit happens.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That was essentially what we told the Chinese: \u201cShit happens. We\u2019re real sorry, but we\u2019ve got a war on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I was there six weeks later. The students weren\u2019t throwing rocks, but they were still sore. They didn\u2019t accept Clinton\u2019s apology; they didn\u2019t\u00a0want\u00a0<\/i>to accept it. Even if, secretly, they thought his explanation might be true, it would still irritate them. That Americans would be this sloppy with the their\u00a0<\/i>embassy, not some other embassy, but\u00a0theirs<\/i>, was another sign of disrespect.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0More disrespect was revealed when Americans dismissed their riots as government-sponsored and their opinions as the braying of a government-controlled press. This angered the students, too. It was laughable, they said, for Americans to say they had rioted on government order. Their anger was real.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe American press doesn\u2019t want people to think seriously,\u201d a student said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Chinese media is no paragon of objectivity. Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, had denied there was any \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d in Kosovo before the war started. But the U.S. press had just as clearly pumped up the limited stock of atrocities.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A Chinese student in Harbin, who had followed the U.S. press through the Voice of America and in Chinese translation, told me, \u201cThe American media always supports the government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In fact, it usually does. It may be free, but it can still be the government\u2019s poodle. I recalled all the strained comparisons to Hitler, and the cover of Newsweek<\/i> with a close-up of Slobodan Milosevic with the cover line, \u201cThe Face of Evil.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Usually I\u2019ll stack the U.S. media against the Chinese media any day. When we\u2019re at war and they\u2019re not, I\u2019m not so sure.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I had to admit that the Chinese had reason to feel disrespected by the United States. It was plain that the U.S. government didn\u2019t give a dog\u2019s biscuit whether China opposed the war. China is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: We and our Security Council buddies, Britain and France, had traipsed on over to NATO and started a war without so much as a what-do-you-think from Russia and China. The little countries of the world expect that sort of thing. They\u2019re used to it. Russia and China take it differently.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Chinese are deeply nationalistic. Like Americans they feel themselves a part of a big, important country, a country with nuclear weapons, a country with a future, a country that\u00a0counts<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thoughtful Chinese admit their problems. A Beijing woman told me, \u201cWe have human rights problems. But we are improving. During the Cultural Revolution, we could not say anything against the government. Now we can say what we think, though sometimes we cannot be heard by the leaders.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In Beijing I talked to a retiree with long experience in the United States as bureau chief for Xinhua. \u201cThe United States never treats us on an equal footing,\u201d he said. \u201cOn human rights, you say you have the right to interfere in other countries. But can you permit China to interfere in American human-rights\u00a0<\/span>
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problems? No.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And he said, \u201cOn human rights we can learn from you. But you have no right to\u00a0teach\u00a0<\/i>us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0China\u2019s complaint about the United States runs deeper than the recent war. It\u2019s the whole American attitude toward power.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That attitude was expressed succintly by an American with whom I was discussing the war, as we both strolled down a shopping street in Harbin. He supported the war. He said, \u201cWe have the power. How can we stand by and let this happen?\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Americans have a tin ear for how imperious this sounds.\u00a0We\u00a0<\/i>are the ones who decide whether to \u201clet this happen\u201d in somebody else\u2019s country. What gives us that right?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Because we have the power.<\/span><\/i><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We clothe the naked reality of this two ways: first, by talking a lot about our good intentions. We are the humanitarian with the sword; when others complain about our use of that sword, we remind them how humanitarian we are.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But you\u2019ve got a sword.<\/i><\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Well, yes; we have to, unfortunately. But (here comes our second distraction) we\u2019re not doing this alone. We\u2019ve got allies. We fight all our important wars with allies, and when we can, as NATO or the U.N. That way, we\u2019re on the side of Humanity.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0China finds this idea threatening. It\u2019s like somebody forming a gang and starting to heave rocks through the neighbor\u2019s windows. It doesn\u2019t want to join the gang, because the gang is clearly run by the Americans. It doesn\u2019t want to fight the gang; it fought such a gang in Korea and bloodied its nose. And it doesn\u2019t need a gang to protect itself.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Chinese accuse the Americans of \u201chegemony,\u201d a harsh, Marxist-sounding word that means the domination of other nations. Americans recoil; we\u2019re not trying to\u00a0dominate\u00a0<\/i>people. We\u2019re trying to do good.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou Americans attack Serbia to protect the other side,\u201d a student said. \u201cA heroic dream. Sounds very perfect. You Americans have the habit of being the hero.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We are the heroes. We devise a political settlement for the Kosovar Albanians, dubbing it the \u201cpeace accord\u201d and announcing that if the Serbs do not accept it, we will bomb them into submission.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I was working in Hong Kong in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The Americans on the staff all began talking:\u00a0What are we going to do?<\/i>\u00a0The Aussies and Kiwis didn\u2019t talk like that. Nor did the Indians and Filipinos. Only the Americans. They assumed that their country would have to Do Something. It always had.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps in the next century China will start thinking that way, too, and become a hegemonic power. Lots of Americans, starting with Sen. Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, think hegemony is China\u2019s goal. It is certainly the goal of some Chinese, perhaps those who stole U.S. nuclear secrets. At the moment, however, China is not in a position to challenge the United States in war.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is America\u2019s interest that China become a bourgeois nation, fat and satisfied rather than lean and angry. It is in our interest that China be joined to the world rather than cut off, tied by its investments here, and ours there; by trade and patents and treaties; by its students in our universities\u2014already 47,000 of them in the United States.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In China\u2019s leadership are two factions. Vice Premier Zhu Rongji, leader of the economic progressives, visited the United States in April, and offered a package of concessions for Chinese membership to the World Trade Organization. Clinton rejected the offer but leaked its contents. He almost immediately changed his mind, but Zhu could not come tail-wagging back to Washington. He returned to China empty-handed and came under criticism that he had given away the store. Then came the embassy bombing, which the anti-WTO faction used to full effect.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The WTO is a litmus test. It represents world prices, intellectual property rights and international standards. Zhu\u2019s faction wants it as a battering ram to break down the walls of state industry. His opponents want to save state industry by keeping the WTO out.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I saw the same division among ordinary Chinese. Most supported entry into the WTO: it represented China growing up. The WTO was like the Internet: This is what modern nations have, so they want it.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The pro-WTO Chinese also tended to be the most friendly to the Americans. \u201cMost Chinese think the U.S. should be our friend,\u201d said one student.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There were others, though, who wanted the WTO only on condition that China was treated fairly\u2014not, said a Beijing man, as \u201ca sweet snack\u201d to compensate for bad deeds.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Others opposed the WTO deal. The Xinhua man said, \u201cI read the full text of what the American leaders say they almost agreed to. These conditions are too harsh.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A student said, \u201cI will go to America to study, but I will never serve the Americans. This event confirms that I will return to my own country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A taxi driver who said, \u201cMao would not put up with this. China fought back in the Korean War.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Which faction does the United States want to encourage? That of the taxi driver, or the student who told me, \u201cWe don\u2019t want to have a war with you. We want balance and equality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The more Bill Clinton tries to play Woodrow Wilson, the more he proves the taxi driver right.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0America can influence China through our business and culture, but cannot dictate to China on anything fundamental. China is too big, and already too strong. It will become what it will become.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I left China optimistic about that. Perhaps it was because I was in Beijing then, in a high-rise hotel two blocks from a Starbucks and a Dairy Queen.\u00a0<\/span>My hotel overlooked a freeway that got clogged with traffic twice a day, just like the freeway at home. Below my window was a pedestrian overpass; if I got up early enough in the morning, I could see it lined solid with human figures under blankets.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>They were not living in cardboard hovels, and they were not beggars. By midmorning they were packed up and gone, somewhere in the city seeking their future.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a91999 Bruce Ramsey<\/span><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In June 1999, as a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I went on a State of Washington trade mission to Vladivostok, Manchuria and Beijing. My interest was not so much trade as to talk to Chinese about the recent U.S. bombing of China\u2019s embassy in Belgrade, which the U.S. government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-498","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/498\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}