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Globalist Analysis> Global History in My Life — A Personal Journey: The 1950s

By Jean-Pierre Lehmann | Monday, February 11, 2008

While 2008 is the "Year of China," many people only know the country through headlines, political rhetoric and economic data — and cannot consider China from a first-person historical perspective. In this six-part series, Jean-Pierre Lehmann examines China from his personal experiences beginning five decades ago. In this first installment, he explores the perceptions and realities of China in the immediate post-World War II period.

When I was four years old, my parents took my sister, my maternal grandmother and myself by boat to Yokohama, Japan. We went from ’s port city of Le Havre to New York, then crossed the entire United States by land, to take a ship from San Francisco.

The year was 1949 — the year of China’s Liberation. On the way to Japan, we stopped in Hong Kong. Later on, I found myself returning to Hong Kong throughout the 1950s. To this day, I remember the constant stream of refugees and the poverty, the thousands of people living on the barges with which they had escaped from mainland China.

Rumors of cruelty

At my first primary school, run by missionary nuns, in Tokyo — initially still under U.S. occupation — I remember when news circulated that one of the nuns had

managed to escape from China and was being reunited Seen from my with her sisters in Japan. There was great jubilation. childhood years, the prevailing The stories of cruelty by the Chinese communists that image of China circulated at the time were truly atrocious. The one I recall the most was that Christians had chop-sticks at the time was inserted in both their ears — until they met in the still that of a middle of the head. For sure, the anti-Chinese poor, cruel propaganda was fierce — even if somewhat heavy. country – and the enemy. Then, there was the Korean War, with U.S. and allied

soldiers stopping on their way to the battlefield, or on

R&R (that is, rest and recuperation) — or to be hospitalized.

U.S. military presence

My mother worked as a volunteer nurse for wounded Spanish-speaking U.S. soldiers. She helped them write letters home, mainly to Puerto Rico, to tell their families what had happened to them. As a result of the occupation, combined with the follow-on events of the Korean War, the Cold War and the Security Treaty which the United States and Japan signed in 1952, there was a strong U.S. military presence in Japan. Many of my schoolmates and friends were the sons of U.S. military and administrative personnel.

Poor, cruel enemies

Seen from my childhood years, the picture of China that emerged was clear enough: The Chinese were poor, cruel — and the arch-enemy.

That sense of considerable poverty was confirmed both by the repeated visits to Hong Kong — even if by the The stories of late 1950s it was becoming more prosperous — and by cruelty by the the condition of the people living in the quite large Chinese Chinatown that existed at the time in Yokohama. communists that During my childhood, the cruelty and enemy images circulated at the were constantly reinforced by the films and literature, time were truly including comic books, of the period. atrocious.

Next stop — Washington, D.C.

My parents had a number of friends from Taiwan — which at the time we never called anything else than the Republic of China — who, not surprisingly, confirmed the perspective of (mainland) China as enemy.

My next stop, in 1960, actually was Washington, D.C., where I remained until 1966.

Reactionary academics

In those heady years of the Kennedy Administration and the ensuing tragedy of his assassination, I attended the School of Foreign Service

During my at Georgetown University, which at the time was a childhood, the highly conservative, not to say reactionary, institution. cruelty and enemy images of It was the founder of Georgetown University's now- famous School of Foreign Service, Father Edmund China were Walsh, SJ, who initially gave Senator Joe McCarthy, a constantly fellow Catholic, the idea that he might focus on the reinforced by the threat of communism in the United States in his films and campaign — though he did subsequently distance literature, himself from him. including comic books, of the This was a time when the United States — and all its period. allies — followed the “one China” policy, with the one being the Republic of China and its government in

Taipei under the military rule of General Chiang Kaishek.

De Gaulle’s approval

It was while I was in Georgetown, in 1964, that French President Charles de Gaulle bucked and proceeded to declare the government in Beijing as the legitimate government of China.

I do not think the animosity against the French in 1964 was as strong as it was in the United States in 2003 over the Iraq war. There was no proposal to rename French fries, French toast or, indeed, the French kiss — but it was nevertheless quite strong.

Disapproval of De Gaulle

The curiously circular perspective in the United States at the time was that, since all “baddies” were communists, then de Gaulle — and, by logical extension, France — had to be communist as well.

As a French citizen who by accident of family history had been born in Washington, D.C., I spent much of my Trivial as it may time trying to explain, quite fruitlessly, that this sound, I took my perspective was incorrect. It was an early lesson in the dirty clothes to a perils of intercultural dialogue at critical junctures. Chinese laundry. What remained consistent, though, was the leitmotif in This was, so far our political science classes, of casting China as the as I can enemy. The “bamboo curtain” – not just the iron recollect, the curtain (reserved for the Soviets) — was always only actual prominent. contact I had with Chinese.

Insurrection movements

And in those classes at Georgetown, we also learned about how the Chinese were assisting insurrection movements in Southeast Asia generally — and in North Vietnam (and the Viet Cong, with whom the United States was by then in full-throttle war) in particular.

France’s president de Gaulle only further incensed the Americans — by voicing his opposition to the war in Vietnam and, in a major speech delivered in Phnom Penh on September 1, 1966, by urging the United States to withdraw.

The poor Chinese

He may have spoken from painful experience, and in order to warn a nation, which he admired due to the heroics of rescuing France during WWII. But who in Washington

ever considers those outsiders really caring about The leitmotif in Washington’s fate anyway? our political science classes, Although the literary genre of the “poor Chinese” was of casting China launched by Pearl Buck, in her epic 1931 novel "The Good Earth," raising the topic as a constant refrain still as the enemy — had a considerable influence on my generation. the "bamboo curtain" — was Truth be told, even inside the United States, there was always a noticeable pro-Chinese lobby, made up of prominent. missionaries. Even so, the mantra of the “poor Chinese”

remained prevalent.

Chinatown, USA

The fact that this image of poverty inside China also corresponded to a large extent to the reality of the Chinese community inside the United States gave additional firepower to this view.

Trivial as it may sound, throughout my years at Georgetown University, I took my dirty clothes to a Chinese laundry. This was, so far as I can recollect, the only actual contact I had with Chinese.

A change in policy — and perception

Of course, there were also the supposedly Chinese restaurants, run by Chinese. But the fare they served at that time was cruelly bastardized to appeal to American tastes and consisted of bland Chinese-American inventions, such as chow mein and chop suey.

It was only after 1965 — as Peter Kwong and Dusanka Miscevic point out in “Chinese America” — when the I remember the United States changed its immigration policy and began constant stream actively searching for foreign scientific talent that of refugees and Chinese students and professionals began arriving on U.S. shores. the poverty, the thousands of I left the country in 1966 and was hence not exposed to people living on that new wave. Still, I was impressed, when I returned the barges with to the United States in the 1980s that I learned that which they had MIT was now being referred to as “Made in Taiwan.” escaped from Times had changed indeed. mainland China.

A notable name

During my time at Georgetown, there were a few Asian students – including the current president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Some of them were no doubt of ethnic Chinese descent, but there were no “real” Chinese — whether from mainland China, Taiwan or Hong Kong — that I can remember.

Although my own views of China began undergoing radical change in the course of the 1960s, the prevailing image of the country at the time was still that of a poor, cruel country — and the enemy.

The Manchurian Candidate effect

The fare that Chinese restaurants served at that time was cruelly bastardized to appeal to U.S. tastes — and consisted of bland Chinese- American The cruelty/enemy perspective also made for popular inventions, such fare in the movies, notably in the Manchurian Candidate, a great box office hit, starring Frank Sinatra, as chow mein Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury and Janet Leigh. and chop suey.

In 1966/67, I spent a year traveling in East Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Although Japan had by then recovered for the most part — in 1967 its aggregate GDP surpassed that of West — much of the rest of Asia was still poor. South Korea’s GDP, on a per capita basis, was still the same as that of the average African country.

Taiwan and an old saying

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s main source of foreign exchange at the time was servicing U.S. soldiers on their R&R excursions from Vietnam. And, lest we forget, geopolitically Southeast Asia was then seen as the world’s most volatile region.

As the Vietnam war raged, the “domino theory” — whereby, if or when, Vietnam “fell” to communism, so would all the countries in the region — reigned supreme. Needless to say, China was cast as the dominant rival domino-player.

Unraveling "China=poor"

China’s image began to splinter somewhat, though. The overseas Chinese were within a couple of decades of emerging as one of the world’s wealthiest communities, even though the equation of “China = poor” was still going strong in the mid-1960s.

In fact, when I visited Malaysia at the time, I remember a joke circulating among the expatriates. As the joke had it, heaven consisted of an English home, a Japanese wife, a Chinese cook and an American salary, while hell was a Japanese home, an English cook, an American wife — and a Chinese salary.

Globalist Analysis> Global History China in My Life — A Personal Journey: The 1960s

By Jean-Pierre Lehmann | Tuesday, February 12, 2008

With 2008 shaping up to be the "Year of China," it is easy to forget how rapidly the country has progressed. In the second installment in his six-part series, Jean-Pierre Lehmann examines the Chinese revolution and ensuing economic downturn — and analyzes why Japan "succeeded," while China "failed."

In 1967, I went from Southeast Asia to Oxford for my doctorate. Japan was by then, in the full surge of its “economic miracle.” The time I had spent there the previous year had awakened a considerable personal curiosity in Japanese history.

I did my thesis on the transformation of Japan during the late Edo and early Meiji periods (1850-1885). Throughout the 1970s I taught Asian history at Stirling University in Scotland. I continued going regularly — and for extended periods of sabbatical leave — to Asia, especially Japan, for research.

Academic problematique

The academic conundrum of modern Asian history at the time was:

Why had Japan “succeeded,” while China had “failed”? In the first half of the 20th century, What had occurred in Japan with the transformations undertaken during the Meiji China was what period (1868-1912) was truly remarkable. In the space of a very short few in contemporary decades, Japan moved from feudal isolation to world power. parlance would In 1902, it became Britain’s only ally. In 1905, it defeated Russia in war. At the be called a Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Japan was invited to participate as one of the “Big “failed state.” Its Five” — along with France, Britain, and the United States. archaic, incompetent and “Sick man of Asia” thoroughly corrupt ancient China, by contrast, went during the same period from humiliation to humiliation — regime finally and on into rapid decline. China’s share of global GDP declined from 33% in 1820 collapsed in to 5% in 1950. 1911.

It was, as it was termed at the time, “the sick man of Asia” — and hence the target of Western and Japanese imperialism. It resulted in becoming what the Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen called a “poly-colony.”

The original failed state

In the first half of the 20th century, China was what in contemporary parlance would be called a “failed state.” Its archaic, incompetent and

The academic conundrum of modern Asian history at the time was: Why had Japan “succeeded,” thoroughly corrupt ancient regime finally collapsed in 1911. while China had “failed”? That turn of events ushered in a protracted period of warlordism, civil war, hyper- inflation, anarchy, millions and millions of refugees and displaced persons, and great hardship and suffering for the people.

There were multiple answers provided for the question of Chinese “failure” versus Japanese “success.”

Explaining Japanese history

These ranged from the anthropological — had Japan succeeded because it successfully “Westernized” — to arguing that it had retained its identity and hence underwent “Japanist” modernization?

More political was the question of whether the Meiji “success” story had sown the ingredients for the militarist and imperialist fascism that Japan espoused in the 1930s. The alternative view was to argue that the Meiji period really was a liberal revolution that had been aborted in the 1930s by militarist fascists able to exploit the dramas of the great depression — which hit Japan especially hard.

Economic miracle and cultural failure

By the late 1960s, with the rise of what at the time was termed the “new left,” the question was posed as to whether Japan had been a success

at all. Perhaps China was the real success story. In this view, its earlier turmoil had In the course of paved the way for the perception of an emerging Utopian Maoist society. the 1970s, openness As regards to China, the prevalent historiographical perspective was that, in the toward the face of the Western industrial and imperialist challenge, Chinese leadership, institutions and Chinese “culture” had failed to modernize — and hence “Maoist model” decomposed into anarchic obsolescence. grew after the Paris events of The cultural failure of China, it should be stressed, was seen as including May 1968. Confucianism — portrayed at the time as a major obstacle to growth and

development.

The awakening

The beginnings of China’s modern awakening were welcomed in intellectual movements, such as the May 4, 1919 movement that rejected Confucianism and adapted “modern” (aka “Western”) idealist goals — such as science and democracy.

But in the course of the 1970s, openness toward the “Maoist model” grew after the Paris events of May 1968 and the anti-PRC McCarthyist paranoia disappeared in the United States.

A perfect model

With the rise of a new left that was as anti-Stalinist as it was anti-capitalist, Maoist China appeared as the “perfect” model.

Although by the late 1960s and early 1970s, China was in the throes of the cultural revolution — which we now know was a period of ideological barbarity. That era caused great suffering to millions and millions of Chinese. And yet, the idealized view of the cultural revolution came to dominate an increasingly wide circle of Western opinion leaders. For example, the very eminent Cambridge economist Joan Robinson wrote a highly By the late pro-Maoist account, entitled simply The Chinese Cultural Revolution. She took the 1960s, the view not only that the cultural revolution was emphatically a good thing for China, but that it could and should be imported, at least in parts, into the West. question was posed as to And in 1963, Jan Myrdal wrote what in Western Maoist lore could be termed a path- whether Japan breaking book, entitled "Report from a Chinese Village". Highly sympathetic had been a account of the rural collectivization taking place. It was followed by other pro- success at all. Maoist works in the latter part of the sixties and seventies. Perhaps China was the real success story.

Globalist Analysis> Global History China in My Life — A Personal Journey: The 1970s

By Jean-Pierre Lehmann | Wednesday, February 13, 2008

In the 1970s, China became more and more mainstream — as evidenced by the increasing number of center-right politicians that came to call on Chairman Mao in Beijing. In the third installment of his six- part series, Jean-Pierre Lehmann argues that this helped bring about a reversal in the Western perspective on Confucianism.

In the 1970s, China became more and more mainstream as center-right politicians came to call on Mao in Beijing.

It was increasingly de rigueur for a politician to be seen toasting Mao — politicians such as Britain's Prime Minister Edward Heath, French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and many others expressed positive views of Maoist China.

A decade in fashion

The Chinese Maoist model enjoyed about a decade of fashion. In the mid-1960s, Taiwanese During this same period that the Chinese image was being rehabilitated in the industry was West, the Chinese reality was truly awful. busily manufacturing The fact that Western academe, the media, politicians and other opinion leaders chose to ignore these realities stands as an indictment — even though it may well and exporting be only a Maoist variation on a quite well-known theme. what in the 1990s would European support become PRC staple exports. The leading French newspaper, Le Monde, was especially reprehensible in its

unqualified fawning admiration for the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards who drove it.

But many other mainstream newspapers — including The Times, The Sunday Times and The Observer in England — generally portrayed Maoism and the Cultural Revolution in a positive light.

The death of Mao

Almost simultaneously with the evaporation of the Maoist myth model — Mao died in 1976, but the myth survived for another three or four years — there was another phenomenon that began attracting attention.

This was the rise of what was initially called the NICs — newly-industrialized countries of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. It was later altered to In the 1970s, NIEs (newly-industrialized economies) because two of the four “NICs” — Taiwan China became and Hong Kong — were not actually countries. more and more mainstream as Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong have no natural resources and have only small markets — the population of the four respectively was 20 million, center-right 40 million, 2.5 million and 5.5 million. politicians came to call on Mao in NIEs Beijing. The four economies, without tutoring from the World Bank or Western academic advisors or consultants, embarked on an innovative form of development that was subsequently labeled as export-oriented strategies.

Their initial focus was in labor-intensive industries — where their comparative advantages lay. Taiwanese industry in the mid-1960s was busily manufacturing and exporting what in the 1990s would become PRC staple exports — toys, textiles, garments and shoes.

The first surge in textiles

The surge in textiles from the NIEs was so rapid and so unexpected that the "First World" countries hastily resorted to protectionism — by imposing in 1974 the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (aka, the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing).

The rise of the NIEs replaced erstwhile contempt or condescension of Asia — and As China was especially Asian economic potential — with growing appreciation and admiration, in beginning to academic circles and in organizations such as the World Bank. emerge in the 1980s, there In 1993, the World Bank published a major study entitled, "The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy," which recognized the contribution this region were increased had made not only to world economic growth — but also to development calls in the West economics. for the imperative of a A miracle? process of “Confucius- The fact, however, that the word “miracle” was inserted in the title would suggest ization.” that they still could not quite believe it.

It did not escape the notice of Western pundits that three of the four Asian NIEs were Chinese — or, in the case of Singapore, predominantly Chinese — while the fourth, Korea, could be said to be part of the Chinese cultural sphere.

Confucius

This, among other things, brought about a reversal in the Western perspective on Confucianism. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Western writers — including Karl Marx in what he referred to as the “Asiatic mode of production” — generally reviled Confucianism as a primary cause of Chinese backwardness.

When I had been a student in the United States in the 1960s, probably the only The leading reference to Confucianism was in the crass “Confucius says” jokes. In the course of French the 1970s and 1980s, however, Confucianism increasingly gained a very positive newspaper, Le image in serious academe and among pundits generally. It was portrayed as East Asia’s equivalent to Max Weber’s protestant ethic in Europe. Monde, was especially In the course of the 1980s, as the U.S. economy seemed to decline and Europe reprehensible in caught Euro-sclerosis, while the Japanese economy was racing ahead on anabolic its unqualified steroids, the NIEs were going from strength to strength. Notice was increasingly fawning being paid to the overseas Chinese business networks and models. admiration for the Cultural China was beginning to emerge, prompting increased calls in the West for the Revolution and imperative of a process of “Confucius-ization.” the Red Guards who drove it.

Globalist Perspective > Global History China in My Life — A Personal Journey: The 1980s

By Jean-Pierre Lehmann | Thursday, February 14, 2008

It wasn’t until the early 1980s that European business discovered China. As a business professor during this time, Jean-Pierre Lehmann quickly realized that very little was known about the country’s economy. As he explains in part four of his essay, doing business with China was more a matter of theology than science.

In the early 1980s, I moved from the history department in a British university to the French business school, INSEAD. The school felt the need to have someone who understood Asia and could instruct MBA students and executives on the driving forces and dynamics of that part of the world.

Japan was the main focus of attention — and apprehension. Publications on the secrets of Japanese management were being produced en masse.

All eyes on Japan

The Japanese business guru Kenichi Ohmae published a book entitled "Triad Power: the Coming Shape of Global Competition," in which he argued

that for the business strategist in the 1980s, there were three key markets — the I hardly go to United States, Germany and Japan. Everything else was of lesser importance. Japan any more. Not because of At the time Japan took up about 50% of my time, if not more. Throughout the any conscious 1980s and first half of the 1990s, I was commuting to Japan on at least a monthly basis. decision — but because the Gradually, the NIEs and other parts of Asia began taking up greater interest and force of gravity time. It was in the early 1980s that I first began visiting the Chinese mainland. has moved.

Discovering China

At INSEAD, we inaugurated a program for executives on “Doing Business in China.” Though the program was very successful — this was the age of discovery of China by European business — there was not much material to go on.

Doing business with China was more a matter of theology — or alchemy — than science.

A night at the disco

My first real trip to the PRC took place in 1982 and took me to Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Xiamen.

Apart from accompanying a French business delegation as an advisor, I also gave some lectures at Sun Yatsen University in Guangzhou and the Institute of Foreign Trade in Xiamen.

This was the age of discovery of China by European business — there was not It was a remarkable experience in very, very heady times. After giving a lecture much material to one day at Sun Yat-sen University, I was asked by the students if I could join them go on. that evening for a disco.

Though never much of a disco person myself, the temptation to attend a disco in China in 1982 was irresistible. When I arrived at the designated venue, I found the students listening to the music — but otherwise just milling about.

Triumph to tragedy

Rarely (if ever) in my life was my arrival somewhere greeted with more obvious joy. The point was, the students explained, they had the records, but they had no idea how to dance. Could I show them? I was grateful no one who knew me was present to witness this “spectacle”!

When the Tiananmen massacre occurred some years later, it was one of few times in my adult life that I wept. I imagined that many of the students I had known in Guangzhou and Xiamen at the time must have been among the demonstrators — and hence possibly among the victims.

All eyes on China

In the course of the last quarter century, my trips to China have increased quite dramatically. These days, I visit China more often than any other

country — on average about six times a year — and probably about 40% of my China's surge to academic work is focused on China or, increasingly, on China’s global impact. becoming an economic In contrast, I hardly go to Japan any more. Not because of any conscious decision, superpower but because the force of gravity has moved. began in the Japan in the last decade-and-a-half has been a rather dismal place — especially so 1980s, but the far as intellectual output and general global perspectives are concerned. It has full thrust really become more inward-looking, more insular, less global and more nationalist — just took off just over as China has increasingly opened to the outside world. a decade ago.

Awe-inspiring transformations

China’s surge to becoming an economic superpower began in the 1980s, but the full thrust really took off just over a decade ago.

The changes that have taken place in China — whether in respect to global trade and investment or the mind-boggling transformation of its cities — are truly Japan has awesome. become more inward-looking, Many pundits have been fond of quoting Napoleon’s alleged aphorism about China: more insular, “China sleeps — when it wakes it will shake the world.” In fact, almost certainly Napoleon never said any such thing, though with the benefit of hindsight I am sure less global and he would wish he had said it. more nationalist — just as China China has risen from virtually nowhere to be the world’s third-leading trade power. has increasingly It ranks annually in the top three worldwide as a recipient of foreign direct opened to the investment. Its increasingly massive economic global clout extends to all outside world. continents.