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yet another display of that selfless humility for which I am well-known,
and with the generous permission of our noble
editor, I
once again direct my readers' attention to a piece far superior
to any of my own meager offerings. This one is by John B. Judis
in the current issue of The New Republic. Its title is "Sullied
Heritage," and it deals with our Secretary of Labor, Elaine
Chao; her husband, the Republican senator from Kentucky Mitch McConnell;
the Heritage Foundation; and the influence of Chinese money on American
politics, most especially conservative politics. It's a long article,
but well worth the effort for anyone who cares about the principled
conduct of public affairs. If you're not sure you want to work through
7,000 words of fairly dense, factual reporting on this topic, just
sample the last section on page 3 of the web edition, headed: "The
Integrity of the Conservative Movement."
I am not equipped
to comment on the validity of Mr. Judis's charges — for example,
that Elaine Chao, during her nomination process, failed to disclose,
as required by law, that she is on the board of directors of Multacom,
a firm 51 percent of which is owned by the government of the People's
Republic. I do think, though, that we need to take a very close
look at the China boosters and their effect on the political life
of the U.S.
The central
concern is, of course, corruption. This is a difficult topic to
discuss with Westerners, because they cannot grasp the sheer stupendous
scale of Oriental corruption. In the events leading up to the Opium
War (1840-42), the Emperor in Beijing sent a high official down
to south China to see what was going on. The Chinese merchants of
the south coast, who were all up to their necks in the opium traffic,
pooled their resources for a bribe, to ensure that this official
would send a good report back to the capital. The bribe was so huge
that it perceptibly raised the world price of silver. That
is Chinese corruption.
It arises from
a long tradition, bound up with the values of a despotic society.
The values
of the empire are essentially political, not economic; a career
is to be made by power over people rather than by producing something
cheaper or better. Wealth is much less a means to power than power
is a means to wealth. Although trade was fairly important in the
early T'ang period [i.e. 7th-century China], there is record of
but a single person of merchant origin who became an official,
and merchants were always insecure unless they enjoyed official
connections.</blockquote>
— Robert Wesson, The Imperial Order
This remains
true today. No large commercial concern in China is simply a commercial
concern. To thrive, or even just to survive, an entrepreneur must
establish and maintain strong political connections. "Doing
business with China" means doing business, though at one remove,
with Chinese politicians — the sleeping partners in the ownership
of every Chinese company.
It follows
that any American doing business on a large scale in China must,
if he is going to prosper, at a minimum take pains not to offend
the Chinese government. If necessary, he must be willing to make
himself a tool of that government. This is a state of affairs quite
different from doing business with other countries. If Boeing enters
into a plane-making joint venture with British Aerospace, the chairman
of Boeing feels no need to button his lip on such matters as Northern
Ireland or the proper way to manage foot-and-mouth outbreaks. The
chairman of a U.S. company doing business in China who says out
loud that he thinks Taiwan ought to be independent can measure the
remainder of his chairmanship in nanoseconds.
They all know
this, of course, and they make the necessary adjustments. In most
cases, a businessman need only keep his mouth shut. You don't have
to offer any opinions about Taiwan, after all. Many business figures
have no opinions about China anyway. They come to that nation as
(to borrow an image from Mao Tse-tung) blank sheets of paper, on
which their hosts can draw beautiful characters. This was probably
the case with Pat Robertson, who on Monday night told CNN's Wolf
Blitzer that in their population-control policies, the Chinese were
"doing what they had to do." Some others come to the China
market already well-disposed to the Chinese point of view, for philosophical
reasons, and need to make few adjustments. I think Henry Kissinger
falls into this category. I disagree with much of what Dr. K says
about China, but he does not strike me as dishonest, and he is certainly
not ignorant.
More serious
than the possibility that businessmen will turn themselves into
China shills to further their own interests is that they might import
Chinese-style "crony capitalism" into the U.S. Corruption
is awfully contagious. There has always been corruption in Western
societies, of course. The United States has never been free of bought
judges, policemen, and politicians. In some localized jurisdictions,
corruption has been chronic. Recall Paul Johnson's remark, on hearing
that Bill Clinton was running for President: "Nobody who has
five times been elected governor of a state like Arkansas can possibly
be an honest man." At the national level, however, this country
has been very clean by the standards of the rest of the world. At
least, that was true until the 1990s, when China decided to come
seeking favors from the federal government. Only then were the bought
judges, bought governors, and the occasional bought Congressman
joined by a bought president.
America's obsession
with race is not helpful here. I repeat: I have no idea whether
Elaine Chao lied on the financial disclosure report that she submitted
to the Office of Government Ethics on January 29th. One thing, however,
I know for sure: Mr. Judis is going to be called a "racist"
for suggesting that she did. This was certainly the case when people
began criticizing John Huang, President Clinton's favorite fundraiser
in the 1996 election. "But he's a naturalized U.S. citizen!"
we were told indignantly. Yes: a naturalized U.S. citizen who maintained
close business and personal links with front companies for the Chinese
military and intelligence communities.
Whether corrupt
or not, though, whether dishonest or not, the China boosters are
all, by definition, self-interested. There is an important difference
between the following two statements.
- The economic
opening-up of China will inevitably bring that nation to constitutional
government under a rule of law.
- The economic
opening-up of China will inevitably bring that nation to constitutional
government under a rule of law, and make me very rich.
Here is the
difference: The first statement is a theorem in political science,
which we can test against evidence and reason. The second is a paid
advertisement.
And what about
that theorem? There is, after all, a political case for China-boosting.
China is a huge country with a vast population, and it's not going
to depart from this planet any time soon. It is true that China
is a dictatorship, but the state ideology is nationalist, racist,
and introverted — in a piece in the current print National
Review I have, fairly I believe, called it "fascist"
— not universalist and world-claiming, like Marxism. It is
very important — it's hard to think of anything more
important — for us to find a way to get along with China, if
there is a way, and to make China more inclined to get along with
us. Free trade seems an obvious way to do this. If, by appealing
to China's economic interests, we can keep relations stable and
open for a few decades, it is possible that our political ideas
will seep in, softening and transforming the dictatorship. Fascist
dictatorships have been transformed in this way: Think of
Spain.
But then again,
think of Wilhelmine Germany, a fully participating member of the
international trading system up to the very outbreak of WWI (and
indeed beyond!) On the historical evidence, it seems clear that
while economic openness may be necessary for constitutional progress,
it is not sufficient. It's not even clear, in fact, that it's necessary.
For the entire duration of the Cold War, the U.S.S.R. was a negligible
participant in world trade, yet the dictatorship collapsed at last.
And the case
of Wilhelmine Germany reminds us that whether or not economic openness
encourages constitutional change, it certainly does not prevent
war. Illustrations from history are legion. Athens and Sparta were
trading very freely up to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.
("Thucydides, well aware of the economic factor in the conduct
of the war, does not consider it a cause." — A.W. Gomme
in The Oxford Classical Dictionary.)
We must always
hope for the best, and China boosterism, once you have subracted
out the self-interest factor (and on the charitable assumption that
the result of this subraction is greater than zero), is a laudable
expression of traditional American optimism about the world. Yet
after watching and writing about China, in an amateur sort of way,
for twenty years, I personally feel more pessimistic than I ever
have. Twelve years ago next month Chinese students were building
a facsimile of the Statue of Liberty, defying their own government
with an assertion of American political values. If any Chinese students
did that nowadays, there would be no need for their government to
act: The sculptors would be torn to pieces by a howling mob of their
own classmates. In 1989, Chinese intellectuals were calling for
a Bill of Rights. Today, after 12 years of that wonderful "economic
openness" that is supposed to be the balm for all international
ills, they are shrieking for war against the Great Hegemon. Perhaps,
indeed, trade will bring China to democracy one day. At present,
however, all the trend lines seem to be heading in the wrong direction.
Follow-ups.
Several readers of my Wednesday piece A
Love Letter wanted to know what happened to Margarete Buber
after the war. I confessed that I didn't know, but one of the enquirers
later came back to me with an outline
biography on the website of Hessischer Rundfunk, a German TV
station. If you can't read German, here is the relevant passage
in translation:
Margarete
Buber-Neumann, 10/21/1901 - 11/6/1989:
... By 1946 she had published her memoir Under Two Dictators,
which was translated into numerous languages and later filmed
by ZDF [another German TV station]. After her bitter experiences
under the great 20th-century dictators, Buber-Neumann involved
herself in the building of democracy. In 1950 she took part in
the founding of the "Liberation Committee for the Victims
of Totalitarian Despotism" which aimed to arouse resistance
against communism in West Germany. The committee existed to the
end of 1952. In the years 1951 and 1952 she also founded and led
an "Institute for Political Education," to make young
Germans thoroughly familiar with the fundamental principles of
democracy.
So in spite
of seven years in the camps, Greta Buber lived to be 88. What a
tough old bird she must have been! Heinz Neumann seems to have been
shot soon after his arrest in 1937. Buber was officially notified
of his death in 1961.
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