International Law

"China" in the Minds of Americans

Many Americans, especially those who know little about the subject, feel strongly that the torch for the world's next generation, has passed to China. John Pomfret takes this idea to task here. For Americans, China -- not what is actually China, but what Americans think they see -- has become a kind of collective projection of fantasy upon which all of the America's shortcomings are writ large.

"Every day we wait in this nation, China is going to eat our lunch," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this month. Arguing for nuclear power, as well as renewable energy sources and cleaner ways to use coal, Graham said: "The Chinese don't need 60 votes. I guess they just need one guy's vote over there -- and that guy's voted. . . . And we're stuck in neutral here."

It is certainly untrue that one man decides policy. Coming from a southern republican, it reads like an indirect argument for a strong man in America who might override collective decision making -- a political failing of those in DC, including the man who uttered the comment.

It is thus imperative for those of us who write on China -- journalists and bloggers, corporate consultants and Congressional aides -- to write seeing what really is. This requires an offloading of the burden of one's own buy-in to the collective psyche of the moment. Invisible and incorporeal, it is nonetheless a weight which perverts an accurate reflection of truth.

Full post as published by Asia Business Intelligence on February 28, 2010 (boomark / email).