The Post-American World - Fareed Zakaria [53]
Many Western analysts thought that the problem with the phrase was the word “peaceful,” which could limit China’s options on Taiwan. In fact, there wasn’t much internal division on that matter. China regards Taiwan as a domestic matter and believes that it has all the authority it needs to use force, though as a last resort. As Zheng explained to me, “Lincoln fought a war to preserve the Union, but you can still say that the United States was rising peacefully.” Some key Chinese leaders are instead worried about the phrase’s second word, “rise.” (A more accurate translation would be “thrust” or “surge.”) Senior diplomats recoiled at the idea of going around the world talking up China’s rise. In particular, they worried about critics in the United States who would see China’s rise as a threat. Lee Kuan Yew suggested to Beijing that it speak of a “renaissance” rather than a rise, and party leaders argued about the phrase during a retreat at Beidaihe in the summer of 2003. Since then, they have talked about “peaceful development.” “The concept is the same,” said Zheng. “It’s just a different phrase.” True, but the shift reflects China’s concern with not ruffling any feathers as it steams ahead.
The regime is working to make sure the Chinese people understand its strategy as well. In 2006 and 2007, Chinese television aired a twelve-part series, The Rise of the Great Nations, clearly designed as an act of public education.9 Given the intensely political nature of the subject matter, one can be certain that it was carefully vetted to present views that the government wished to be broadcast. The series was thoughtful and intelligent, produced in BBC or PBS style, and it covered the rise of nine great powers, from Portugal and Spain to the Soviet Union and the United States, complete with interviews with scholars from around the world. The sections on the individual countries are mostly accurate and balanced. The rise of Japan, an emotional topic in China, is handled fairly, with little effort to whip up nationalist hysteria about Japanese attacks on China; Japan’s postwar economic rise is praised repeatedly. Some points of emphasis are telling. The episodes on the United States, for example, deal extensively with Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt’s programs to regulate and tame capitalism, highlighting the state’s role in capitalism. And there are a few predictable, but shameful, silences, such as the complete omission of the terror, the purges, or the Gulag from an hour-long program on the Soviet Union. But there are also startling admissions, including considerable praise of the U.S. and British systems of representative government for their ability to bring freedom, legitimacy, and political stability to their countries.
The basic message of the series is that a nation’s path to greatness lies in its economic prowess and that militarism, empire, and aggression lead to a dead end. That point is made repeatedly. The final episode—explicitly on the “lessons” of the series—lays out the keys to great power: national cohesiveness, economic and technological success, political stability, military strength, cultural creativity, and magnetism. The last is explained as the attractiveness of a nation’s ideas, corresponding with concept of “soft power” developed by Joseph Nye, one of the scholars interviewed for the series. The episode ends with a declaration that, in the new world, a nation can sustain its competitive edge only if