February 22, 2004

One of the most remarkable achievements in recent world history, has been the astonishing rise of modern China. With growth rates averaging 8-10 per cent during the past 15 years, China is destined to be the world’s largest economy in the next 40 years. How this would affect China’s place in the world is one of the most intriguing questions of our time, especially its relations with the world’s only superpower — the United States. Chinese-American relations have swung like a pendulum for over 150 years and the book The United States and China examines how the two great cultures interacted and collided.

The author Michael Schaller traces the history of China’s first contacts with the West and chronicles America-China relations from the 1840s to the present day. Heirs to a great empire, the Chinese emperors believed that their ‘Middle Kingdom’ represented the centre of human achievement, while those outside were barbarians. Unlike the Mughal Emperors in India, the Chinese sought to severely limit contacts with the West. In 1793, the Emperor Chien Lung rebuffed the British envoy Lord McCartney and declared that China “possesses all things and has no use for your country’s manufactures”.

However the growth of the international narcotic trade and its rapid use in China, broke down the trade barriers to the immense benefit of the East India Company. In 1839, the Chinese Emperor alarmed by the opium problem, sent a special commissioner to Canton {Guangzhou} to suppress the opium trade. To explain his action, the official sent a letter to Queen Victoria noting that the import of opium was illegal in Britain — how he asked, could the Queen allow “it to be passed on to the harm of other countries? Let us ask, where is your conscience?” The British answer to the seizure of its opium was war —and thus began the colonial period in China — ushering in what the Chinese call the “century of dishonour”. By the late 19th century China had lost a large measure of economic, military and social control over its own destiny.

Until the 1890s, the United States played a limited role in China — it was in fact American missionaries who comprised the most influential group. The missionary movement proved a constant source of tension in Chinese-American relations right until the Communist revolution in 1949. Despite vigorous efforts, only 2-3 per cent of Chinese embraced Christianity and the Chinese were deeply hostile to what they believed was a Western assault on their culture.

The crucial factor in America’s later obsession with China was however the rise of Japan and its open predatory forays on Chinese territory in the 1920s and full scale invasion in 1931. The leader of China by then was the nationalist KMT general Issimo Chiang Kai Shek — a darling of the American missionaries since his conversion to Christianity and the extreme right wing elements in the Republican Party.

Corrupt and inept, Chiang Kai Shek concentrated his attention on brutally suppressing the Communist Party instead of facing the Japanese threat to his country. And yet to many Americans he was promoted as the saviour of China — he enjoyed the special patronage of Henry Luce the publisher of Time magazine who put him on its cover no less than eight times — more than any person in its history.

Japan’s resumption of large scale hostilities in China in 1937 aroused American anger. By 1938 the idea took hold that it was in America’s national interest to preserve an “independent, democratic and pro American China”.

Japan’s attack on the United States in late 1941 brought them fully in China’s corner. Despite the infusion of massive American aid, the KMT’s hold on power and popularity diminished. The author argues that President Roosevelt never quite realized that America had allied itself to a corpse and unintentionally the United States would become a crutch sustaining Chiang Kai Shek.

Seasoned American officials had warned Washington of the corruption, defeatism and despair of Chiang and his clique and General Stilwell, the American commander of the military effort in China even reported that “the cure of China’s trouble is the elimination of Chiang Kai Shek”. Despite their efforts, American support for Chiang remained undiminished and set the stage for a fierce struggle with the now resurgent communist forces under Mao Zhedong. Open civil war broke out at the end of 1945 and Chiang was decisively defeated. When Mao stood triumphantly atop Tiananmen Square to proclaim the creation of the People’s Republic of China, it was by no means a foregone conclusion that the two countries would remain hostile to each other. Indeed, Mao had urged cooperation with the United States in the common fight against Japan. The US administration on its part seemed resigned to Chiang’s defeat and waited for “the dust to settle” before seeking a diplomatic accomodation with the new Chinese government.

North Korea’s invasion of the South in June 1950, pulled American forces into north eastern Asia and General Macarthur openly threatened to take the fight into Chinese territory. This aroused Mao’s suspicions and he sent a “volunteer army” to defend North Korea and in bitter fighting pushed the American Army south of the 38th parallel. The Korean War and later American misadventures in Vietnam embittered American-Chinese relations for 20 years.

By 1969, both sides took tentative steps towards improving relations. For Mao the threat from Soviet “social imperialism” was greater than “capitalist imperialism”. Clashes between Chinese and Soviet troops on their borders threatened a wider conflict and Mao resolved to reach out to the Americans — “using barbarians to fight barbarians”.

For the United States Henry Kissinger thought that the “drama” of reaching out to the PRC would help “erase... the pain that would inevitably accompany our withdrawal from Southeast Asia”. By the time President Nixon visited China in February 1972, both sides wanted a stable Asia and restraint on the USSR. His visit was “recognition of a new situation in the world”.

America-China relations have sometimes been stormy since 1989, mainly on the question of human rights and American support for Taiwan. But these have proved to be only minor irritants. The great transformation has been the enormous trade between the two countries-starting from zero, two way trade now is over 140 billion dollars per year. The Chinese trade surplus with the US is over 100 billion dollars — and this has caused anger in America which has accused China of stealing millions of American jobs. President Bush went so far as to call China a “strategic competitor” — a rival rather than a partner of the United States.

Michael Schallers book The United States and China is an authoritative textbook on China’s history since 1840. The book’s great merit lies in its honest portrayal of Chinese- American relations. Of particular interest is China’s central role in the cold war and interactions between domestic policies in the two countries and their international behaviour. First written in 1979 and revised twice, it remains the definitive book — incorporating a vast new body of materials by both Chinese and American scholars since 1990.

The United States and China into the Twenty-First Century
By Michael Schaller
OUP, New York. Available with Oxford University Press, Plot # 38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi. Tel: 111-693-673 Email: ouppak@theoffice.net
Website: www.oup.com.pk
ISBN 0-19-513759-0
242pp. Rs235

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