NAVIGATING CRISES IN SINO-AMERICAN RELATIONS:
APOLOGY, NATIONALISM, AND HISTORICAL MEMORY
by
Elizabeth S. Dahl
submitted to the
Faculty of the School of International Service
of American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
International Relatic ~
Dr. PatrickJmaddeus Jackson
Louis W. Goodman, Dean
2006 American University Washington, D.C. 20016
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
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Copyright 2006 by Dahl, Elizabeth S.
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by
Elizabeth S. Dahl
2006
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To my parents, Janet and David
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NAVIGATING CRISES IN SINO-AMERICAN RELATIONS:
APOLOGY, NATIONALISM, AND HISTORICAL MEMORY
By
Elizabeth S. Dahl
ABSTRACT
Why is apology—theoretically a simple action that could mitigate a crisis
situation—not utilized more frequently in international relations? Apologies are a
frequent issue among Asian countries as well as in US bilateral relations and can generate
significant internal and interstate debate. This project considers recent diplomatic crises
in which China has requested an apology from the United States, and the short- and long
term impact on international peace and stability of such discussions. Two contentious
episodes are investigated: the apology debates over the 2001 EP-3E airplane collision
near Hainan Island, and the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
Most foreign policy experts interpret these incidents as indicating the on-going problem
of Taiwan in the resolution of disputes between the US and China. Upon closer
inspection, however, indications are that traumatic historical memories fueled the crises
and prevented early resolution given the virulence of American and Chinese nationalist
reaction to these episodes. In addition, these events provide a way to evaluate apology as
a potential conflict resolution mechanism, indicating that gendered notions of honor and
prestige often serve as stumbling blocks to the constructive resolution of conflict.
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I must begin by mentioning my gratitude toward the fifty-three Chinese citizens
and twenty-nine American and Chinese foreign policy experts whom I interviewed. Also,
I was fortunate enough to receive one of the School of International Service (SIS)
dissertation field research fellowships for 2002-2003. Otherwise, I doubt I would have
been able to get such a sizable and diverse pool of interviewees, and so I must thank the
selection committee for their choice.
My committee of Professors Quansheng Zhao (chair), Christine B.N. Chin, and
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson were unstinting with their time and energy in helping me at
every step of this project. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had such a
supportive, creative, and exacting committee. You have pushed me to a new level, and I
am honored and grateful that you have mentored me over the years.
At the School of International Service, many professors have offered
suggestions along the way. I want to thank, among others, Dean Louis Goodman,
Associate Dean Nanette Levinson, Professors Abdul Aziz Said, Stephen Silvia, Pek Koon
Heng, Paul Wapner, James Mittelman, Gary Weaver, Mustapha Pasha, Mohammed Abu-
Nimer, Michael Salla, and Simona Sharoni. Additional thanks go to American
University’s Diane Singerman of the School of Public Administration (SPA) and Esther
Chow of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS).
The School of International Service also is lucky in terms of its staff. I am
iii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. particularly grateful to Mary Barton for her sage advice and Ali Ghobadi for helping me
out with computer problems. In addition, I want to thank Helen Ives, Janice Flug, and
Ignacio Moreno of the American University library staff; International Student and
Scholar Services, headed by Fanta Aw; Carrie Trybulec of the International Peace and
Conflict Resolution (IPCR) Program; and Aria Bailey, Julie Wickham, Sanji Wijenaike,
Terra Gargano of the Comparative and Regional Studies (CRS) Program and Asian
Studies Center support staff.
Furthermore, I am grateful to many of my fellow doctoral students at SIS,
especially Jin Fan and her family for welcoming me to Beijing. Thanks, too, to the
intelligent students who participated in an international communication research seminar
in the spring of 2002 with Professor Chin. A number of them listened to my research
proposal and critiqued it with as much energy and thoughtfulness as they would any other
scholar. One student, Ani Castonguay, shared with me her own research on the EP-3E
incident.
Thanks also to Ellen Eckman, Catherine Small, Peter Yeo, Zhou Yongming,
Gregory Moore, Guy Alitto, Matthew Ferchen, Gus Cochran III, and other gracious
people who gave me advice along the way in China and the US.
In terms of people I worked with in Beijing, I must thank Professor Youli Sun,
“Florence,” and especially my wonderful friends, the “three Wangs.” Also I learned a lot
from monthly meetings of an informal Beijing dissertation field research support group
whose members included Helen McCabe, Hilde Becker, Sophie Richardson, David
Mozina, Sun Xiaoping, Kang Wenqing, and Emma Buchtel, among others.
iv
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In addition, I want to thank those friends from my year teaching English in
Nanjing for the incredible amount of work they have done to help me. In particular, Fang
Ximin and Kongmei helped me at every stage of this process—I could not have done this
project without their ready assistance. In addition, Colleen Mahar-Piersma, Andrew
Hsieh, Normandy Madden, Fang Hong, Laura Burian, and other friends and colleagues
provided me with some excellent tips. Together, theirguanxi led me to find many new
friends in Beijing.
Last, but not least, I must turn to thank those people whom I consider family.
First, I wish to give Joy C. Miller, my “second Mom,” very grateful thanks for her
generous assistance during my field research and writing phases. Also, I want to let my
first Mandarin tutor, Lilin, and the rest of the Miller/Lovell clan, know how marvelous it
has been that our families have become so close that we are, for all matters and purposes,
relatives. You always have believed in my work and have supported me so resolutely
over the years that I believe I must be doing something right. Above all, I want to thank
my immediate family for their unwavering love, support, wisdom, and humor over the
years. I have learned the most from you. Thanks also to my nephew, William, for
entertaining me so well and keeping me focused on what is truly important in life.
While many people have assisted me along the way, any mistakes in this
dissertation are my responsibility alone.
v
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...... ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iii
Chapter
INTRODUCTION...... 1
1. APOLOGIES IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS...... 14
2. CONDUCTING GROUNDED RESEARCH IN THE PRC: CONTEXT MATTERS...... 61
3. AN INVENTORY OF RHETORICAL COMMONPLACES IN PUBLIC APOLOGY AND US-CHINA RELATIONS...... 109
4. THE 1999 NATO BOMBING OF THE CHINESE EMBASSY IN BELGRADE...... 146
5. THE 2001 EP-3E SURVEILLANCE PLANE INCIDENT...... 192
6. CONCLUSION: APOLOGY, IDENTITY, AND HISTORICAL MEMORY: NAVIGATING CRISES IN SINO-AMERICAN RELATIONS...... 258
APPENDICES...... 314
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 319
vi
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION
My interest in public apologies was sparked in March of 1998 when I observed a
strange exchange during a televised political roundtable. President William Clinton just
had apologized on behalf of the United States (US) for its lack of response to the
Rwandan genocide in 1994. Following a video clip of Clinton’s apology, commentator
Charles Krauthammer spoke at length to criticize President Clinton for apologizing “too
much.” Soon I noticed that other conservative political commentators such as William
Safire and George Will also seemed to view such apologies as unnecessary or even
damaging to American interests.1 While less vocal, American pundits on the left also
were unwilling to stake much in the way of political capital on supporting such
movements.
I began to think about the peculiar quality of such assertions. Is it truly possible
to apologize too much on behalf of a country and if so, what precisely is the harm? How
does one know when a public apology is too much or too little? What are the
benchmarks of appropriateness? Surely, Charles Krauthammer was not just talking about
manners but something connected to the US’ honor and reputation—rather fluid concepts.
Despite his words to the contrary, why would a neoconservative like Charles
'in one article, George Will imagines President Clinton even apologizing to Antarctica. See George F. Will, “Sorry, So Sorry,” The Washington Post, 29 March 1998, C07.
1
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Krauthammer focus so much attention on American state apologies?2
After all, at the interpersonal level, such figures as Miss Manners assert instead
that “A social apology is not an admission of legal guilt, but a way of defusing tension.”3
This sort of face-saving behavior obviously can smooth over relations. It is logical to
assume that apologies, once lifted to the interstate level, would be similarly helpful, but
instead states and their representatives seem to resist giving them. What, then, exactly is
at stake in the giving and receiving of interstate apologies?
With the US, the status and frequency of state apologies seem to have gone
through ebbs and flows. In terms of presidents, President Lincoln is known to have made
an interpersonal apology that is practically ideal-typical insofar as he apologized for his
previous behavior, provided no excuses or justification for what he had said and done,
and demonstrated sincerity and remorse to the other person.4
However, in terms of the giving o f state-level apologies, American officials
Similarly, Krauthammer insists in his article on the EP-3E crisis that “these Two Very Sorries were meaningless.” See Charles Krauthammer, “Two Very Sorries...” The Washington Post, 12 April 2001, A31.
3Judith Martin, “Miss Manners,”The Washington Post, 30 March 2002, C12.
4Ken Blanchard and Margret McBride use Carl Sandburg’s description of Lincoln’s apology to illuminate the points they wish to make. The account is that, during the Civil War, a Colonel Scott learned of his wife’s untimely death and requested to go home to attend the funeral and support his children. Given that a key battle was imminent, the Union military repeatedly turned down his request. Finally, Colonel Scott asked President Lincoln, who burst out in response that he did not want to be burdened by such requests during a time when duty was of paramount importance. The next day, President Lincoln came to Colonel Scott and apologized for his rudeness to a man who had devoted his life to the Union cause. He insisted on taking Colonel Scott in his own carriage to the boat so that he could begin his trip home for the funeral. Ken Blanchard and Margret McBride, The One Minute Apology: A Powerful Way to Make Things Better (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 38-43 and 114. Arguably, the only item missing in this ideal apology was a promise not to do that wrong again in the present or future.
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generally have been less forthcoming.5 During the Nixon-Kennedy debates, John F.
Kennedy criticized Eisenhower, arguing that he should have apologized for the U-2 spy
plane incident, indicating apology’s usefulness in public debate.6 Meanwhile, President
Carter refused to give an apology that had demanded by Iran during the 1980 hostage
crisis because to do so would be to undermine the US’ “honor and integrity.”7
If one looks at the realm of American popular discourse, meanwhile, public
apologies almost have become daily news fare.8 The parties involved have ranged from
corporations or universities that benefited from slavery, for example, to ill-behaving stars,
reporters, sports heroes, and politicians.9
5One exception is with the case of Japanese-American internees during World War II. See Sandra Taylor, “The Internment of Americans of Japanese Ancestry,” in When Sorry Isn’t Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice, ed. Roy L. Brooks (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 168. In terms of individual presidents, President Clinton seemed to be particularly “apology friendly,” apologizing not only to Rwandans but also native Hawaiians, for example, for their historical mistreatment at the hands of the US. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, has not been as forthcoming with state apologies, which leads one to focus more closely on the few exceptions available, such as his recent apology for the 1945 Yalta Agreement, since, in hindsight, it probably led to the USSR’s domination of Eastern Europe. Notably, commentator Anne Applebaum questioned why conservative voices have not criticized Bush for his apology since former President Clinton received such criticism whenever he apologized on behalf of the US. See Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, 11 May 2005, A17.
6I want to thank Gus Cochran III for pointing out this example in American presidential politics.
7Cited in Barry O’Neill, Honor, Symbols, and War (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 177 from a New York Times article published 19 September 1980.
8Some, such as sports commentator Dan Daly, see this explosion of apologies as ridiculous. See Dan Daly, “Apology Seems to Be in Order,” The Washington Times, 2 June 2005.
9Carol M. Swain, “Do Blacks Deserve a National Apology?” USA Today (Magazine) 132, 2704 (January 2004), 30-31. Institutions also have been called upon for such apologies when they have been complicit at some point in their corporate history with slavery. For instance, Wachovia Bank has made an apology to black Americans for its history of owning slaves. See Tim Whitmire, “Wachovia: Predecessor Banks Owned Slaves,” The Associated Press, 1 June 2005,4:50 PM. For more comment on individual cases of public apology, see James L. Dickerson, I'm So Sorry: The Stories Behind 101 Very Public Apologies (New York: Lebhar-Friedman Books, 2000).
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Public apologies also have been frequently requested and sometimes issued in
Asian contexts.10 In terms of East Asia in particular, when debate over interstate apology
is observed closely, intense formal and informal negotiations are seen to occur,
sometimes over decades. For example, Japan still is struggling both domestically and
regionally to deal with such serious issues as the “rape of Nanjing” and the treatment of
“comfort women” during the Asia-Pacific War.11 Similarly, the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) occasionally has made carefully worded apologies, as happened after
2003’s SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak and when toxic chemicals
spilled into a river that flows into Russia.1 ? Moreover, as a significant actor within East
10Consider these headlines: Philip P. Pan, “Taiwan Leader Offers Apology to Key Rival,” The Washington Post, 6 November 2000, A24; Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Indonesian Leader Apologizes,” The Washington Post, 8 August 2000, A17; regarding American military involvement in Asia: Clay Chandler, “U.S. Voices Regret Over Japan Incident: No Word on Handover of Rape Suspect,”The Washington Post, 4 July 2001, A14; and that o f the biggest apology issue in Asia, regarding Japan apologizing to numerous states for its actions during the Asia-Pacific War: Peter Landers and Susan V. Lawrence, “Sorry, No Apology: Summit May Have Pushed China and Japan Further Apart,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 December 1998, 21.
uThe term “Asia-Pacific War” is used instead of “World War II” because Japan’s wartime actions go beyond the time period, 1939-45, that most historians consider World War II to be. As for more specific treatment of the issues between Japan and its neighbors, see Joshua A. Fogel, ed., The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); George L. Hicks, The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime o f Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997); Gavan McCormack, “Holocaust Denial a la Japonaise,” Japan Policy Research Institute Working Paper No. 38 (October 1997).
12John Pomffet, “Official Says China Erred on Outbreak: Rare Apology Cites ‘Poor Coordination,’” The Washington Post, 5 April 2003, 14; Peter Finn, “Toxic Slick from China Reaches City in Russia,” The Washington Post, 24 December 2005, A 12. Specific Chinese political figures actually have made apologies, too, while it is uncertain how widely the public knew about these incidents. For example, Edward Friedman mentions briefly that Mao Zedong apologized to the Japanese Communist Party “for backing Stalin’s postwar imposition of a destructive Soviet way on the Japanese comrades” (Germaine Hoston,The State, Identity and the National Question in China and Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 425, cited in Edward Friedman, “A Democratic Chinese Nationalism?” in Chinese Nationalism, ed. Jonathan Unger (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 171, n4.). Also, Zhou Enlai made a personal apology in 1973 to Israel Epstein, a journalist, editor, and author who had become a Chinese citizen due to his belief in Mao and the Chinese Communist Party, and never lost his faith in Communism. Epstein was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution due to false
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Asia, the United States also has had to deal with calls for apologies as may be seen with
rape cases on Okinawa that implicated US servicemen, or, with China, the Yinhe incident
in 1993.13
This dissertation considers recent incidents in which the PRC requested an
apology from the US, and the short- and long-term impact on international peace and
stability of such discussions. Two events will be investigated: the apology debates over
the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) bombing of the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade of 1999 and the EP-3E plane collision incident of 2001. These crises are
relatively well known for the roles they played in roiling the US-China bilateral
relationship as well as their initial resistance to conflict de-escalation.
Both of these disputes need to be placed in geopolitical and historical context in
order to understand what was at stake for both countries. In terms of geopolitics, both
incidents took place during the post-Cold War era when the United States had become the
world’s only superpower and hegemon. The PRC, meanwhile, had been rising in terms
of economic, political, and military strength, causing other states to take notice.
More specifically, the 1999 embassy bombing occurred during NATO’s military
campaign in the Balkans. This war already had been viewed uneasily by the Chinese
charges that he plotted against Zhou. After Zhou’s apology, Epstein also was restored to his former status (Douglas Martin, “Israel Epstein, Prominent Chinese Communist, Dies at 90,” New York Times, 2 June 2005).
13The PRC demanded that the US apologize for its unauthorized boarding and search of a Chinese ship, the Yinhe. The US was suspicious that the Yinhe was transporting to Iran ingredients necessary to the development of chemical weapons, but none was found. See Susan V. Lawrence, “Brave New World: Nato’s Role in Yugoslavia Prompts Chinese Soul-searching,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 17 June 1999, 13.
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government given the perceived similarity to its conflict with Taiwan.14 Furthermore,
NATO’s high-tech bombing campaign also caused concern to the PRC since it
demonstrated yet again the US’ unmatched military power.
Sino-US relations had been tenuous since the Tiananmen Square incident of
1989. From the perspective of most Americans and many others, this massacre of
peaceful demonstrators proved that the PRC’s leadership was not to be trusted. Periodic
flare-ups continued between the two states, but tension had escalated during the late
1990s. By 1998-99, the Clinton administration was under fire for “Donor-gate,” or the
alleged activities of the PRC to donate money to the Clinton re-election effort via third
parties such as Johnny Chung. Furthermore, the US Congressional Cox report was
purported to provide evidence of extensive Chinese spy activities in the US.15 While
many of these charges were later discredited or dismissed due to lack of evidence, much
damage had been done to the bilateral relationship.
From the perspective of many Chinese, meanwhile, the US’ attempts to criticize
the PRC’s human rights record on a yearly basis, block the PRC’s bid in 1993 to hold the
Olympics, and extract concessions prior to China’s ascension to the World Trade
Organization, all created a buildup of resentment.16 Unfortunately, the embassy bombing
occurred days prior to a politically significant date in Chinese politics, the ten-year
l4Robert L. Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics ofU.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), 364.
,5Ibid.
16James Miles, “China-US: A Turbulent Year,” BBC News, 27 December 1999, 9:07GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http: /news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/world/asia-pacific/572629.stm.
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anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident.17 This charged atmosphere provided all
the more impetus for Chinese citizens to rise up and take to the streets in protest against
the US and other NATO members.
Meanwhile, the 2001 Hainan incident was the first major foreign policy crisis
encountered by the new George W. Bush administration. During the 2000 election
campaign, Bush had criticized the Clinton-Gore administration’s embrace of China as a
“strategic partner,” preferring the term, “strategic competitor,” and was in favor of theater
missile defense (TMD)—a program that conceivably could protect Taiwan in the future
from Chinese attack—so there was some nervousness among the Chinese leadership as to
Bush’s true intentions.18
While variation existed in opinion within each country’s narrative, a national
account seemed to emerge in both events. For example, the predominant American
perspective—derived from various American media accounts, Internet chat rooms, as
well as interviews with American experts in foreign relations—is fairly uniform in its
insistence that both incidents were accidental.19 While notable exceptions exist,
17Thus, many Western commentators speculated that the 1999 protests against the NATO bombing provided a useful nationalist diversion for Chinese citizens and leaders alike. For example, see John Pomffet, “A Protest Beijing Can Endorse,”The Washington Post, 10 May 1999, A18.
^Nevertheless, some American critics charged that this change was merely a semantic one. See Robert Kagan, “Vive What Difference?”The Washington Post, 24 September 2000, B07.
l9With the NATO bombing, see Steven Pearlstein, “NATO: Bombs Aimed in Error,”The Washington Post, 9 May 1999, A l. As for the Hainan incident, consider Norman Friedman, “World Naval Developments: Confronting the Chinese,” United States Naval Institute,Proceedings, 127, 5 (May 2001), 100. Of course, there are a few conspiracy theorists who have speculated that the actions were deliberate and the US wished to “teach China a lesson,” but these voices are in a distinct minority. For such a perspective, see James Petras, “A Note on the U.S. Bombing of the Chinese Embassy and The New York Times Cover-Up,”Journal of Contemporary Asia 31,2 (2001): 262-266.
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American citizens and policy elites generally stand by these accounts. However, there
also is a fair amount of agreement on the Chinese side between experts and citizens that
both incidents were seen as deliberately instigated on the part of the United States.20 In
the situation of the embassy bombing, most Chinese viewed American claims that what
took place was an “accident” to be unconvincing, 71 especially when considering the
display of American technological sophistication and might in the 1991 Gulf War and the
Balkans.22 With the situation of the 2001 collision, the American and Chinese pilots and
crew reported different sequences of events in terms of which airplane caused the
accident.23 Furthermore, both sides disputed whether the US was in international waters
at the time of the incident and whether it had received permission to land at Hainan
Island.
With both situations, the amount of uniformity demonstrated by the American
side only began to fray when it came to the question of whether the US should apologize
20However, over time most Chinese come to focus their blame on an alleged anti-PRC cabal located in certain US state agencies, such as the Pentagon, and CIA, in particular. See Lance Morrow, “It’s the Stupidity, Stupid,” Time, 7 June 1999, 92 and “Jiang Rejects US Bombing Apology,” BBC News, 1 September 2000, 2:55 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http: /news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/world/asia- pacific/905495.stm.
2ISee Cindy Sui, “China Rejects U.S. Bombing Conclusions,” The Washington Post, 10 April 2000; Don Oberdorfer, “In China, They Still Don’t Believe Us,”The Washington Post, 7 May 2000, B07.
22Ezra F. Vogel, “Courting the People of China,” The Washington Post, 14 May 2001. This refusal to believe that the US could make a mistake could serve as a textbook example of the tendency to overestimate the unity o f the other side (Robert Jervis,Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 424). Alternately, enemy images also may have caused accidental or neutral actions to be misinterpreted as menacing (Janice Gross Stein, “Image, Identity, and Conflict Resolution,” in Managing Global Chaos (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996), 93).
23Ni Chen and Hugh M. Culbertson, “Two Planes Down: The Chinese Embassy in Washington Goes On Line,” Public Relations Quarterly (fall 2001), 23.
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to the PRC. Editorial pages were full of commentary as to whether the US should
apologize, if it had truly apologized, if it had accommodated the PRC too much, and what
was expected from the Chinese government in response.
Clearly, both incidents involved significant international and domestic
contention over the form, content, and definition of apologies. Given the dynamics
involved with these and other episodes, interstate apologies appear to be examples of
“contentious politics” or “collective political struggle.”24 Moreover, since states have
had difficulty in constructing shared meanings of apologies, close investigation might
provide suggestions as to how such situations could be navigated more constructively in
the future and thus will add to discussions of preventive diplomacy and crisis
management.
Chapter 1 will begin to survey the wide amount of literature that addresses
public apologies and their potential role in conflict resolution efforts. Some scholars
have stated that an “age of apology” began in the 1990s, indicating a more universal
appreciation for human rights and dignity.25 While public apologies began to be
discussed more frequently in the 1990s,26 perhaps some caution is merited about what his
change means. After all, despite the increase in discussion, official apologies remain rare.
24Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 5.
25Elazar Barkan, Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), xviii.
26Aaron Lazare’s study from 1990-2002 of the number of articles that mention “apology” (or similar words) indicates that public discussion peaked in the year 1997-1998. See Aaron Lazare, On Apology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 6-7.
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Before proceeding further, it will be necessary first to examine common
understandings of public and official apologies and what they are thought to involve.
Thus, this chapter will provide a working definition of a public apology as a social and
political act and address what various bodies of social science literature have to say about
such apologies and their relative significance. Furthermore, issues of differing “cultural
logics,” historical memories, and understandings of honor and “face” may prevent the US
and China from communicating effectively on issues charged with political significance.
One fruitful way to investigate conflict is to utilize relational or constructionist
theory. This theoretical framework shifts the locus of inquiry from individual actors (in
this case, states) to their shared interactions—such as the mutual discussion, debate, and
giving (or not) of apologies. Such a framework bridges the troublesome gap between
localized, even individualized harm and broader negative impact on society as a whole by
focusing on “intersubjective” understandings. After all, beliefs commonly held among
the members of a given state can work to constrain the state’s range of “possible” policy
options at an interstate and regional level. Thus, the complicated issue of divergent
cultural logics, shaped by different historical experiences, also can be addressed by such
a theoretical framework. In this study, the unit of inquiry is the mutual discussion and
debate over these two events.
Chapter 2 will discuss how my efforts were focused upon understanding the
Chinese social and political dynamics involved with these two incidents and with US-
China relations in general. In order to investigate these issues, I went to Beijing, China to
undergo field research for a total of ten months in 2002-2003.
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Participant-observer field work was designed to achieve several goals. First and
foremost, this strategy provided a means to come into contact with and obtain guanxi
(social connections) with as many different people as possible, thereby allowing me to
tap into various networks for interviews. Also, total language and cultural immersion is
highly advantageous, especially for the non-native researcher. At a secondary level,
participant-observation research gave me the opportunity to view conflict behavior—
apologies, street fights, disputes, the use of belligerent language, and so forth—in action
in everyday Beijing. The data from these interviews (as well as available accounts of the
events in question) have been used as a way of developing an inventory of sense-making
practices. In addition, methodologically relevant Chinese cultural concepts, such as
guanxi and zhenhua (truth telling) are defined and situated contextually.
Apologies primarily were researched in a contemporary sense, via semi
structured interviews with a range of ordinary Chinese citizens as well as government
officials, journalists, and scholars. Since knowledge is not owned by any one segment of
society, these respondents provide a richer sense of China’s political pressures and
concerns, especially relevant in terms of understanding Chinese nationalism, for example.
Chapter 3 will provide an inventory of the “rhetorical commonplaces” or
culturally familiar resources often deployed in apologies and in US-China relations in
general. To foreshadow, public apologies often are questioned as to whether they are
truly sincere or not. Also, when it comes to public and official apologies, many times
commentators argue that apologies can never make up for the misdeeds involved—what
might be called the rhetorical commonplace of “incommensurability.”
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Meanwhile, themes of “face” and sovereignty often arise in discussions
regarding Sino-American relations. Also, various historical analogies are deployed
frequently in public debate over what to do regarding “China’s rise,” such as the
politically charged comparison to when Hitler was appeased in Munich in 1939. By
providing a topography of apologies and Sino-American relations, this chapter starts to
tease out what tropes might be deployed in the two events in question.
Chapters 4 and 5 will turn to analysis of the 1999 bombing of the PRC’s
embassy in Belgrade and the 2001 EP-3E incident, respectively. Each chapter will
provide a narrative factual account of the events of the event in question, followed by
commentary by Chinese citizens and foreign policy experts. 27 Then, investigation • will •
turn to see how particular “rhetorical commonplaces” were in these events. Such
interpretations will be used to question the role official state apologies were expected to
play, how the crises might have been handled better, and the relative impact on US-China
relations. Chapter 4 also will go into more depth with the comments of Chinese civilians,
including their views on apology in general. Meanwhile, Chapter 5 will provide more
information on experts’ interpretations.
Last, Chapter 6 summarizes the analytically derived findings of this dissertation.
Both the EP-3E and embassy bombing crises provoked the development of predominant
Chinese and American narratives in with significant—sometimes even diametrically
opposed—gaps in interpretation of “the facts” of each event, and therefore also the steps
27“Foreign policy experts” are interpreted to include professors, journalists, officials, and members o f think tanks who work primarily in international relations or US-China relations.
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necessary to repair the relationships. Unfortunately, there seems to be little mutual
understanding of these national differences in interpretation—a legacy that continues to
trouble the bilateral relationship to this day.
Finally, recommendations for future interactions will be given as well as a
broader consideration of the roles apologies, prestige, honor, and status play in
international relations (IR) and conflict resolution research. Unless debates over
apologies are investigated and differences in interpretations considered, chances are that
additional crises will harm Sino-American relations further. Given the deterioration in
mutual trust from these two incidents and US-China relations more broadly, the impulse
toward constructive conflict management may be diminished.
28The term “predominant national narratives” is used to avoid the mistake o f assuming that these accounts are uniform. Many political analysts talk about “the US,” “China,” “the American perspective,” or “the Chinese,” for example, as if these were single, unified entities not subject to contestation. When those short-hand terms are used, they are meant to work as if they have quotation marks around them.
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APOLOGIES IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
As mentioned previously, some commentators have indicated that we live in an
“Age of Apology”—that apologies now are considered standard and beneficial practice in
such arenas as business, domestic politics, and international affairs. Some praise this
trend, seeing it as a sign that a new space has opened up in the post-Cold War world for
moral concerns and “national self-reflexivity.”30 However, while such apologies often
are demanded, they are rarely given.31 Evidence shows that, even when tendered, public
apologies often are met with resistance, are rejected, or are challenged as inadequate—
engendering a surprising amount of controversy. This divisiveness only increases when
the apologies are at the interstate level, and/or are related to “collective historical
wrongs.”32 Why are public and, more specifically, interstate apologies so contested? If
29Roy L. Brooks, ed., “The Age of Apology,” in When Sorry Isn 7 Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice (New Y ork: New Y ork University Press, 1999), 3.
30This anthropomorphism of the nation as being capable of “self-reflexivity” creates problems as well as opportunities. On the one hand, it is a powerful rhetorical maneuver that promotes a sense of shared moral strength. On the other, it over-represents a nation as unified in its moral concern. Barkan, xvii.
31Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “Abortive Rituals: Historical Apologies in the Global Era,” Interventions 2, 2 (2000), 177.
32Consider Courtland Milloy, “Apologies Futile When Wrongs Are Not Righted,” The Washington Post, 26 June 2005, C01.
14
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apology is one way to promote reconciliation between groups after a conflict, or, more
modestly, improve relations after a crisis, why is it so rarely used? Why is apology not
utilized more frequently in interstate relations?
In answering these questions, it is intriguing to note that, in terms of the main
schools of thought, apology is considered a minor phenomenon in international relations.
The gap between its alleged lack of significance and the amount of debate it seems to
provoke becomes more apparent if interstate apology is interpreted as a “most likely”
case to occur. If public apology is as insignificant as most international relations experts
think, why does it seem so difficult for a state to give one?
The purpose of this dissertation is to consider the role of interstate apologies in
crises and conflict resolution more broadly.34 This focus can help evaluate whether and
how apologies might be utilized as a conflict reduction mechanism in situations of crisis
management and conflict resolution. First, however, we will explore the meaning of
apology.
Apology Defined
Scholars also have discussed various facets of an apology. First, an apology
usually is assumed to be part of a larger interaction and relationship. Also, it generally is
33This approach is based upon Harry Eckstein’s idea of using “crucial cases” (“most likely” or “least likely”) for theory building. See Harry Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in Handbook of Political Science: Strategies of Inquiry, Vol. 7, eds. Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1975), 79-137.
34For the purposes of this dissertation, “conflict resolution” will be used as a broad term encompassing all types o f dispute and conflict management, resolution, and transformation approaches.
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accepted that an apology is discursive; that is, it must be conveyed in speech or writing.35
After this point, however, there is little consensus on what apologies entail.
For example, scholars assert that apology can serve one or more of the following
roles: 1) as an indication of remorse and a “remedial act,” 2), as “a face-saving act,”36
IT and 3) as an explanation, defense, or justification {apologia). However, some
commentators do not include the third category, arguing that any explanation or excuse
serves to undermine the sincerity of the apology.
Apologetic Language
In both Chinese and American cultural contexts, there is a range of words and
expressions used to convey apologetic messages. For example, in Chinese, the word
most associated with full apology is the verb, daoqian which means “to
apologize.” The character dao (iS) has several meanings, but here means “to say.”39
35Nicholas Tavuchis, Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 22-23. In contrast, Lazare points out that apologetic intent also might be signaled via nonverbal gestures. See Lazare, 23.
36Anna Trosborg, Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995), 374.
37Lazare, 24.
38It is no mistake that the term “apologist” has come to have highly negative connotations. Nevertheless, apologists were considered to be engaging in honorable and important activity in early Christianity, for example, as they were attempting to explain Christianity to outsiders, thereby convincing them to join the religion.
39Dao is a particularly important concept, as can be seen by the importance of other related words in the Chinese language. For example, daode means “morality,” daoli ( H 3 ) translates as principle, truth, reason, sense, or argument, daoxie (iEill) means to “express gratitude,” and daoyi (1S3C) denotes “morality and justice.”
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Meanwhile, qian (fjft) can be used as a noun or a verb and means “to make an apology”
or “crop failure.”
Meanwhile, a lower level of personal responsibility is conveyed by the verb
baoqian (J&lft), which means “to be sorry” or “regret.” It most often is used in the sense
of “I’m sorry that I’m late,” functioning as a quick explanation and minor apology. The
noun version of the same is expressed by such words as qianyi (f^M ) which means
“apology” or “regret.”
Meanwhile, there are related words such as yihan (ia't?i) which means “regret”
or “pity.” Last, baohan is an apologetic verb that means “to excuse” and is used
in the minor and semi-automatic sense of “Excuse my poor English.”
Similarly, English apologetic discourse has several different levels of expression
of seriousness and personal responsibility. Expressions such as “I apologize,” “we’re
sorry,” “it’s my fault,” “I regret,” “I’d like to make amends,” “I beg your forgiveness,” “I
feel bad that I did...” or “please accept our humble apologies” signal a high level of
responsibility-taking and remorse for one’s actions.40
A second set of expressions connotes a less significant level of responsibility
and contrition. For example, consider the relative importance of such phrases as “excuse
me,” “I beg your pardon,” and the British variant of “sorry” upon bumping into someone.
40“Mea culpa,” which translates to “my fault” or “my blame,” is a Latin term that frequently is linked to apology.
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The Chinese language has similar expressions for such occasions, such as duibuqi (^f ^
l|S) for “excuse me” and buhaoyisi ('('$?i S ) for “[I’m] embarrassed.”41
However, a complicating factor is that of tone (as sarcasm can be used in the
English language to contradict the usual meaning of words), facial expression, delivery,
and word choice. For example, “I’m sorry that you feel that way” is not an apology,
strictly speaking, but a way of indicating that the offended person is the one with the
problem, thereby dodging responsibility for someone else’s feelings. Therefore, the
words and behavior that follow an expression of “I am sorry” or “I apologize” can
undermine or reinforce apologetic intent.42 Furthermore, sometimes a symbol, gesture, or
stance, can convey some level of apologetic intent, such as in American contexts when
someone raises his or her hands up with palms facing the other person.
The Typical Apology Process
Thus, while apologetic discourse is present in both Chinese and English
languages, much of the meaning of such expressions comes forth through interaction.
That is, apology interactions tend to follow a certain script of: 1) initial offense,43 2)
4lKevin Avruch and Zheng Wang, “Culture, Apology, and International Negotiation: The Case of the Sino-U.S. ‘Spy Plane’ Crisis,” International Negotiation 10, 2 (2005), 341.
42An additional issue is whether coerced apologies are more or less significant than those given in a more voluntary sense. For example, consider what happens when small children are asked by a parent to apologize to another. Ethicists might argue that coerced apologies are not as significant of because they lack true repentance and acknowledgment of personal responsibility.
430 ’Neill adds another step to this process, indicating that the injured party demonstrates “resentment” against the offense and demands an apology. In contrast, I do not view this step as necessary, since the initial offense might be followed almost immediately by an apology if the offender recognizes that s/he went too far. O’Neill, 182.
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expression of apology, 3) some level of acceptance or rejection of the apology,44 4) the
subsequent reaction on the part of the apologizer, and so forth.
Most scholars tend to focus primarily on the second step or “apology phase” of
the process, focusing on what is implicitly an ideal-type of apology. Of course, while
significant overlap exists, academics do not agree on what is necessary to create that ideal.
For example, Aaron Lazare indicates that an apology should include: “1)
acknowledgment of the offense; 2) the explanation; 3) various attitudes and behaviors
including remorse, shame, humility, and sincerity; and 4) reparations.”45 In contrast to
Lazare, Nicholas Tavuchis, one of the first academics to focus on apology at length,
would debate his inclusion of an explanation, for to apologize “is to declare voluntarily
that one has no excuse, defense, justification, or explanation for an action (or inaction)”
that has harmed another.”46 Meanwhile, O’Neill argues that during the apology phase,
the offender “feels remorse for the action,” apologizes, and “promises to mitigate the
damage.”47
A checklist approach to apology may miss some important variation, however.
Lazare agrees, stating that the “importance of each part [of the apology process]—even
44Again, some scholars focus on forgiveness as being this phase of the apology process, such as Tavuchis, 17 and O’Neill, 182. Since forgiveness may or may not be a cultural universal, the more commonplace terms of “acceptance or rejection” are used instead.
45Lazare, 35.
46Tavuchis, 17.
470 ’Neill adds another step to this process, indicating that the injured party demonstrates “resentment” against the offense and demands an apology. In contrast, I do not view this step as necessary, since the initial offense might be followed almost immediately by an apology if the offender recognizes that s/he went too far. O’Neill, 182.
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the necessity of each part—varies from apology to apology depending on the situation.”48
Instead, Lazare focuses more broadly on the needs that both parties probably have:
.. .the parties who have been offended have one or more of the following needs that they hope will be addressed: the restoration of respect and dignity, assurances that they and the offender have shared values, assurances that they were not at fault, assurances that they are safe from further harm by the offender, knowledge that the offender has suffered as a result of their offense, a promise of adequate reparations, and the opportunity to communicate their suffering and other feelings about the offense. On the other hand, people are motivated to apologize for two general reasons. The first reason is their response to shame, guilt, and empathic regard for those they have offended. The second reason is their attempt to restore the relationship and to avoid further damage to the relationship, abandonment, retaliation, or other punishments. Since the offender and offended are often unaware of each other’s needs, it is understandable that many apologies end up not satisfying either party.49
Normative Treatments of Apology
Note that one commonality shared by Tavuchis, O’Neill, and Lazare is their
focus on inner feelings and motivations. These three scholars see a great deal of potential
in apology to change relationships for the better. However, not all view apologies with
this much approval. Indeed, whether the treatment is scholarly or popular, apologies
seem to generate as much cynicism as they do hope.
At one extreme, some commentators have discussed upon apology’s miraculous
potential for social transformation, noting the Judeo-Christian overtones involved with
apology, “political forgiveness,” restorative justice, and reconciliation.50 The idea that
48Lazare, 35.
49Ibid.
50While such commentators usually admit that apologies have shortcomings or can encounter “pitfalls,” these caveats are not given much attention. See Tavuchis, 122-123; Mark R. Amstutz,The
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apology and forgiveness allow people to operate under the “same moral framework” is
tempting, but one cannot assume cross-cultural portability of these concepts without
further research.51
Apologies also have been discussed in the American realm of popular self-help
and business-related books. There are books that promote apology as part of a larger
process of ethical and practical business practice, or as a therapeutic means of enhancing
or repairing relationships. For example,The One Minute Apology, a slim book marketed
to those interested in business, provides a “simple parable” of why one should make use
of apologies in everyday life as well as business practice. After all, many business
people understand that a positive focus on enhancing relationship also will have a
beneficial effect on their “bottom line.” Meanwhile, psychotherapists tout apology for its
role in transforming interpersonal relationships.
Similarly, when it comes to American popular culture, where would sitcoms and
dramas be without apologies? Apologies often are used to bring a story arc to its
Healing of Nations: The Promise and Limits of Political Forgiveness (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 77. This observation leads to a broader problem: that of the questions of whether, when, and how to blend therapeutic concepts with empirical research. As mentioned earlier, Weberian analysis does not rule out the influence o f values in research; rather, he argues that, for the sake of the research, one should be careful about at which point values are allowed to enter.
51At times, such scholars as Tavuchis and Govier risk engaging in the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” by confusing the artifice of their ideal-type analysis with reality. See Trudy Govier, Dilemmas of Trust (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998), 184. If such interactions were as simple and clear and “consensus on truth” (see Amstutz, 78) as easy to reach as these essentialist accounts indicate, there would be no demand for a Miss Manners to answer questions about proper behavior.
52Consider Beverly Engel’s work on how apology can heal relationships. Beverly Engel, The Power o f Apology: Healing Steps to Transform All Your Relationships (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001).
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conclusion—arguably in a trite fashion at times, but their frequent use has social
significance.
Apologies also may be considered one aspect of manners or politesse for both
Asian and Western cultures.53 While not expressly devoted to apologies, one cannot
ignore the frequent mention of apologies in American works by “Miss Manners” and
other experts on proper manners and deportment.54 In addition, popular and scholarly
works interested in promoting more public civility mention apology as one way to
enhance this quality.55
In contrast to self-help books and scholarly analyses of apology’s transformative
potential, a different tone is conveyed when the analysis focuses on the viewpoint of the
outside observer. For example, the book, I ’m So Sorry, is typical of daily news fare on
apology. Its author, James L. Dickerson, claims that “Americans have an insatiable
appetite for public apologies,” and the more rich, famous, and powerful the figure is
53A provocative study has found that cultures that demonstrate high levels of concern with politeness also are prone to violence. One speculation is that conflict is suppressed in the culture to such a large extent that when it finally is expressed, it does so in explosive ways. See Dov Cohen and Joe Vandello, “The Paradox of Politeness,” in Cultural Shaping o f Violence: Victimization, Escalation, Response, ed. Myrdene Anderson (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2004), 119-132.
54Miss Manners columns periodically address people’s confusion over apologies, relating such stories as when they attended a friend’s funeral and told a family member, “I’m sorry for your loss” only to have that individual respond, “Why are you sorry? You aren’t responsible!” See Judith Martin, “Miss Manners.” Also see Judith Martin, Miss Manners ’ Basic Training: The Right Thing to Say (New York: Crown Publishing, 1998); and Judith Martin, Miss Manners ’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior (New York: Atheneum, 1982).
55P.M. Fomi, Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002).
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before they fall, the better.56 Similarly, another book, My Bad: The Apology Anthology is
due to be released in 2006 and one of its authors, Paul Slansky, claims that “The apology
has become a public cleansing ritual that must be gone through, if only to be allowed
back into the polite company of pop culture. .. .it mostly seeks forgiveness without the
discomfort of disgrace.”
Such commentary ranges from a humorous to a spiteful tone, speculating as to
public figures’ “true motivations” for apologizing and demonstrating a certain amount of
fO Schadenfreude at their misfortunes. Given the implicit judgment involved in the
recounting of these episodes, however, a normative element still remains in this analysis.
Descriptive Analysis of Apologies’ Effects
In contrast, some authors providing business and career advice have a different
take on apologies altogether. For example, consider the following passage, excerpted
from a chapter on interview tips entitled, “Address Clear Weaknesses (Without
Apologizing!).”
.. .don’t apologize for the clear weakness. Normally, an apology will be seen as reflecting low self-confidence. Ideally, your response should be somewhere
56James L. Dickerson, I ’m So Sorry: The Stories Behind 101 Very Public Apologies (New York: Lebhar-Friedman Books, 2000), 1.
57Joseph P. Kahn, “A Sorry State of Affairs,” The Boston Globe, 6 February 2006, B8; also Paul Slansky and Arleen Sorkin, My Bad: The Apology Anthology (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006).
58In contrast, there are numerous other news stories that describe powerful public figures as “unapologetic” or as “making no apologies” for a stance that they take. For example, see Andrea Useem, “Blunt and Unapologetic: Mosque Leader Critical of Bush’s Politics, Extremist Muslims,” The Examiner, 6 July 2005, 10:23 PM EDT; “Defiant Justice Dept. Makes No Apologies,”Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8 June 2003.
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between these two extremes of becoming defensive and apologizing. With an even tone, you should simply acknowledge the weakness and then move the conversation toward your successes.59
Clearly, the author believes that apologies are a bad idea in this context as they would
indicate lack of confidence rather than politeness. The best approach is to acknowledge
one’s weaknesses directly and then redirect attention to one’s strengths.
Meanwhile, pragmatic linguistic analyses of apology in action employ another
tone altogether. Instead of focusing on the intrinsic qualities of a “moral apology,” these
scholars discuss apology’s social effects in a dry, matter-of-fact manner, steering clear of
matters of ethics.60 For example, William Benoit studies apology’s use in the field of
“image restoration.” He is not directly concerned about finding out the “truth” of a given
situation, which can be seen to lend his work almost an amoral quality. Instead, his
research focus is instrumentalist insofar as he investigates apologies as a type of
rhetorical maneuver meant to restore or enhance an entity’s public image.61
International Apologies
While apologies are complex even at an interpersonal level, complications
multiply when raised to the communal or even international level. For example, financial
59Shelly Leanne, How to Interview Like a Top MBA: Job-Winning Strategies from Headhunters, Fortune 100 Recruiters, and Career Counselors (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 81; emphasis added.
60“Moral apology” is the term selected by Trudy Govier and Wilhelm Verwoerd in their article, “The Promise and Pitfalls of Apology,” Journal of Social Philosophy 33, 1 (spring 2002): 67-82.
61 William L. Benoit, Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: A Theory o f Image Restoration Strategies (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995).
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reparations frequently have been tied to discussions of public apologies.62 In addition, an
apology may be connected to expectations that particular offensive behavior(s) will
change or stop altogether, as can be seen with the Chinese demand after the EP-3E
incident that the US also cease its reconnaissance flights over China. In short, there are
indications that, in general, apologies, reparations, and appeasement are viewed as linked
at the public level—thus forging a connection among what are taken to be symbolic,
dialogical, behavioral, and material issues.64
As Nicholas Tavuchis notes in his comprehensive treatment of apologies,
situations in which one collectivity apologizes to another (“Apology from the Many to
the Many”) also have some peculiar complications. For one, “authoritative deputies” are
necessary on both sides to discuss—via “mutually ventriloquial speech”—apologies as
“collectivities cannot act (except in a metaphorical sense).”65 Moreover, while Tavuchis
and other commentators have noted the important level-of-analysis difference between
interpersonal and public apologies, it seems that this distinction is not always so
“ Brooks, 8-9.
“ William Satire, “The Politics of Apology,”New York Times, 5 April 2001.
“ interestingly, there are situations in which these aspects are de-linked, such as with Korean former “comfort women” and their official representatives, who resisted financial payoffs from Japan since the money was offered without an official apology. Some feared that acceptance of such payments would render them little more than prostitutes. Others were angrier with the Korean government and those Koreans who allowed such abuse to take place during the Asia-Pacific War. See Kim Tokchin, “I Have Much to Say to the Korean Government,” in True Stories o f the Korean Comfort Women, ed. Keith Howard (New York: Cassell, 1995), 49.
“ Tavuchis, 98.
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clear.66 Indeed, when these events are considered more closely, there often appears to be
some curious slipperiness between levels of analysis. Thus, it often is claimed by
scholars that while it is more difficult to say you are sorry at a public rather than an cn individual level, it does not cease the common practice of blurring the distinctions
between the two.
Indeed, one factor that seems to come into play quite frequently is the
“individualization” of interstate situations. As per Benedict Anderson’s interpretation of
nationalism as “imagined community,”68 one often gets the sense that “national wounds”
affect many individuals practically as keenly as if they had been personally attacked.
This dynamic becomes most intriguing with those who were not directly part of the
original offensive encounter—as with some of those who seek redress for “comfort
women,” for example. Moreover, this imagined connection to the “body politic” may
have a modular quality insofar as this tendency may persist across cultural settings.69
66Ibid., 98-104. Tavuchis makes a strong attempt to provide cross-cultural evidence for his findings. Also see J. David Singer, “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations.”World Politics, 14, 1 (October 1961): 77-92.
67In terms o f a particular discussion in relation to the EP-3E case, see Tony Lang, “Point of View: Should States Apologize?” (Roundtable discussion), Carnegie Council on Ethics & International Affairs, April 2001, accessed 26 February 2002, http://www.camegiecouncil.org/lib_pov_apology.html.
68Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, (rev. ed.), (New York: Verso, 1991).
69However, it seems easier to observe this individualization o f relations when it is occurring elsewhere than in one’s own country. Thus, it is not surprising that, for example, American editorial pages questioned whether Jiang Zemin viewed American actions during the EP-3E incident as “getting personal.” See Jim Hoagland, “Regarding China, Is It Getting Personal?” The Washington Post, 4 April 2001, A23. Nevertheless, a few Americans questioned whether the troubled relationship partially was due to a surge of American nationalism and historical memory. See Dexter Roberts and Pete Engardio with Paul Magnusson, “Commentary: Lessons of a Crisis,” Business Week, 23 April 2001.
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After all, sovereignty is a norm that has been embraced by many cultures, including—or
perhapsparticularly —those with a historical legacy of being subject to imperialism and
colonialism.
Cultural Variations
Even so, any universal tendencies are modified significantly within local
contexts, which can explain why there may be a range of expression regarding apology,
its proper use, and appropriate responses. Mutual understanding cannot be assumed
across cultures, space, place, and time. This issue explains why apology is considered of
interest particularly to the fields and sub-fields of anthropology, cross-communication,
intercultural communication, and conflict resolution.
Is apology a phenomenon that exists across cultures? While the answer to such
a question must be tentative in nature, indications are that it is. However, there probably
are cultures where people are more prone to apologize than others. For example, native
Hawaiian cultures have reconciliation rituals in which apologies play a significant role.70
Also, apology has typically been associated with Asian cultures. 71
At the level of cross-cultural interpersonal communication, meanwhile,
Bamlund and Yoshioka posit that the act of apology “embodies underlying cultural
70Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo and Geoffrey M. White, eds., Disentangling: Conflict Discourse in Pacific Societies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).
7lFor example, see Mari J. Matsuda and Charles R. Lawrence III, “The Telltale Heart: Apology, Reparation, and Redress,’” in The Conflict & Culture Reader, ed. Pat K. Chew (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 249-251.
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assumptions and values.”72 Anthropologists tend to agree, noting that expectations
surrounding an apology may differ according to a state’s cultural context.
Thus, while there appears to be some agreement across cultural settings that an
apology is an acknowledgement of culpability, the practical and moral consequences
thereof remain contested. For example, there seems to be an assumption in the US that
an apology means that one can be held financially and perhaps criminally liable for
damages. Thus, there are incentives not to be forthcoming, let alone to admit fault.
Nevertheless, more is at stake than economic self-interest, as, for example, there is a
sense in American society that the giving of an apology places one in a weak and
diminished position74—a gendered construct. This tendency seems replicated at the
communal and national level.
Gender and Apology
More to the point, some theorists have noted that apologies themselves are
gendered interactions. For example, Deborah Tannen’s work indicates the presence of a
gendered dichotomy in the interpretation of apologies at the interpersonal level of
analysis.75 In many American contexts, women are socialized to be more self-
72Dean C. Bamlund and Miho Yoshioka, “Apologies: Japanese and American Styles,” International Journal of Inter cultural Relations 14 (1990), 203.
73Naomi Sugimoto, “Norms of Apology Depicted in U.S.American and Japanese Literature on Manners and Etiquette,” International Journal of Inter cultural Relations 22, 3 (1998), 271-272.
74Matsuda and Lawrence, 249-251.
75Deborah Tannen, “Apologies: What It Means to Say ‘Sorry,’” The Washington Post, 23 August 1998, C01.
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deprecating than men.76
Tannen and others indicate that, for many men, apologies equal “admitting
fault” and taking responsibility for having done something wrong. Also, apologies can
leave one vulnerable—arguably leaving one open to exploitation.77 Part of this tendency
probably is rooted in a larger Western tradition of conceptualizing the world in terms of
“polarized dualisms.”78 More particularly, Tannen believes that this binarism is reflected
in and reinforced by the adversarial American legal system and its focus on winning.79
Critiques of Public Apologies
As mentioned previously, some commentators are quite cynical about apology’s
potential. Are public apologies just are a reflection of what Jean Elshtain terms
“contrition chic,” allowing people to avoid taking responsibility for their actions?80 Even
76Some feminists and assertiveness proponents advise women not to apologize so frequently, interpreting it as unhealthy self-abasement and blame taking.
77Tannen, “Apologies.” While suggestive, this evidence needs to be explored further to see whether this interpretation is more or less shared among men and women and whether the findings hold true across cultures.
78Deborah Tannen, The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War o f Words (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), 219. Nira Yuval-Davis adds some important insight into Western cultural tendencies when she asserts that “[t]wo such binary divides have been the public/private and the natural/civilized domains” (Nira Yuval-Davis,Gender & Nation (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997), 5). These dualisms have often promoted an association of women with the private as well as the “natural” world while men have been interpreted as interacting in the public realm and as providing the “civilizing” influence in the West.
79Ibid., 131.
80James L. Dickerson, I ’m So Sorry: The Stories Behind 101 Very Public Apologies (New York: Lebhar-Friedman Books, 2000), 3.
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if apology had the ability to wash away past ill behavior, the misdeeds in question greatly
outweigh simple statements of regret.
One scholar, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, argues that the increasing trend of
“collective, historical apologies” is destined to failure. Such apologies are “abortive
rituals” that navigate “ambiguously between moral, historical and legal grounds,”
Q | assuming historical continuity and focusing on “ahistorical, liberal subjects.” At their
most ridiculous, the “crusaders of forgiveness” are engaging in “repentance run amok,
historicity gone childish.” Of course, it should be noted that Trouillot offers no
alternative beyond his dismissal of public apologies and similarly repentant behavior for
past wrongs.
One of the most important critiques of public apology is that it can be used as a
tool of domination. According to James Scott, subordinates can be motivated to avoid
severe punishment for the transgression of a rule enforced by the dominant order by
apologizing publicly.83 After all, “dominant elites would prefer a willing affirmation of
their norms; but if this is not available they will extract, whenever they can, at least the
81Trouillot, 171. One point that Trouillot does not clarify is what he means by “abortive rituals.” Are public apologies “abortive rituals” because they are “misbegotten” and “do not work”? Or does it mean that they are destined never to come to pass? Either way, these arguments indicate that Trouillot’s interpretation is essentialistic and dualistic, with an ideal sort of repentance ritual that properly situated in history.
82Ibid., 172.
83James C. Scott, Domination and Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 57. Unfortunately, Scott manages to leave the impression that Erving Goffman’s discussion of apologies addresses this power imbalance between a “subordinate” and a “superior”—words that Goffman does not use. See Erving Goffman, Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1971), 113.
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simulacrum of a sincere obedience.”84
Such critiques are serious ones,85 but there still is room for interpretation based
on context and degree of severity. For one, all societies, including relatively pacific ones,
have their ways of forcing compliance. Furthermore, some argue that, at times, apologies
can serve “in process of social change,” serving “recognition of redefined social norms
and as an act of submission to a shifting hierarchical order.”86 On the other hand, Scott is
correct that apologies extracted from slaves to their superiors are morally suspect.87 For
now, however, these concerns will be bracketed.
All of these different understandings operate in the background of international
relations. At this point, let us turn to focus the discussion on how various bodies of
literature interpret apology and its potential significance in political life.
84Ibid., 57.
85This charge is nothing new, nor does it apply just to apology but to conflict resolution processes as a whole. For example, some peace scholars criticize alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and mediation as providing short-term micro-level problem solving rather than broader societal justice. Laura Nader has criticized indigenous “harmony models” on similar grounds—that justice is denied to individuals whose issues are “mediated away” by indigenous processes that enforce collective harmony rather than allow such issues to be addressed and rectified directly. Laura Nader, “Harmony Models and the Construction of Law,” in Conflict Resolution: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, eds. Kevin Avruch, Peter W. Black, and Joseph A. Scimecca (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), 42.
86John O. Haley, “Comment: The Implications of Apology,” Law & Society Review 20, 4 (1986), 503. While Haley is arguing in the context of apology in Japan, this argument probably also holds true with calls for an apology from the US government for slavery, for example.
87While people can focus on power asymmetry in a given conflict and advocate supporting the materially weaker party, such interpretations run the risk of ignoring the fears of the “stronger party” altogether— something that conflict resolution scholarship would not advocate. From this point of view, even in morally reprehensible situations as between a master and slave, it may well be that the master fears being taken advantage of by the slave, thereby also risking loss face. Unless concerns o f the materially stronger and the weaker parties both are addressed, the conflict will be prone to escalation.
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Political Science and International Relations Theory
Realism
In terms of political science and international relations scholarship as a whole,
apology is an issue that gamers little interest. It is true that traditional realist scholars
demonstrate some concern about interstate apology’s possible negative effects on a
state’s reputation and prestige. Given the prevalence of state-centrism in realism,
anything that might erode the credible deterrent power of a given state would be
problematic. Conceivably, a situation could arise in which a lesser power could attempt
to exert leverage over another by means of an apology.88 In general, realists would
shudder at any plan for a state to apologize for actions taken in the name of the “national
interest,” as it thereby would create precedent, opening itself up to criticism and calls for
it to foreswear certain activities in the future.
In general, realism promotes risk minimization as opposed to unilateral gestures
of goodwill. Given the problem of unforeseen consequences of such actions, such
thinkers would agree that the best stance is to be resolute and “never apologize.”
Crisis Management
While crisis management is a sub-field that overlaps with several other
disciplines, the focus here is on those elements of crisis management literature that are
closely aligned with realism. In general, crisis management literature provides analyses
88Power transition theory often is noted during discussions o f the US-China relationship. Rather than go into much discussion of its arguments here, this theory will be explored further in Chapter 3.
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of “interstate military-security crises” or the short-term accidents, misperceptions, or
deliberate actions that can lead to the outbreak of war if not handled well by the parties
on involved. Some scholars point out that
Crises are culturally and politically defined events that contain levels of conflict and arouse strong historical responses (‘t Hart, 1993; cf. Olson, 2000). They are, at least partially, the outcome of organizational or societal “sensemaking” (Weick, 1995). ... Crises are thus part of a dynamic process that leads a system from one temporary state to another. This process is one of interaction, or exchange of information, ideas, models, and materials.90
Typically, an international crisis demonstrates
(1) a change in type and/or an increase in intensity of disruptive, that is, hostile verbal or physical, interactions between two or more states, with a heightened probability of military hostilities', that, in turn, (2) destabilizes their relationship and challenges the structure of an international system—global, dominant, or subsystem.91
Whether due to human error, an unforeseen event, or deliberate provocation,
crisis is “usually a process in which actors cumulatively challenge one another.” Given
the focus on sovereignty in international relations and the primacy of the state, one such
challenge could lead to apology demands from one state to another—thereby heightening
rather than de-escalating hostilities.
89Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld, A Study of Crisis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 1.
90Uriel Rosenthal, R. Arjen Boin, and Louise K. Comfort, eds., Managing Crises: Threats, Dilemmas, Opportunities (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 2001), 8.
91Brecher and Wilkenfeld, 4-5; emphasis in original.
92Ibid., 10.
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Furthermore, there are detectable phases to a crisis, which Michael Brecher and
Jonathan Wilkenfeld describe as onset (pre-crisis), escalation (crisis), de-escalation (end- n-a > crisis), and impact (post-crisis). An international crisis is precipitated by “a disruptive
act or event, a breakpoint (trigger) that creates a foreign policy crisis for one or more
states” and ends with some action “that denotes a qualitative reduction in conflictual
activity.”94 If given as part of the final stage of the crisis, an interstate apology could
assist in conflict de-escalation instead. Given these mixed readings of apology’s use
during a crisis, more will be discussed about crisis management at a later point.
Liberal Interpretations
In terms of liberal frameworks, meanwhile, there is more of a range of
interpretation toward apologies. From an economic neo-liberal perspective, trade among
countries helps toward promoting peaceful co-existence.95 If, for some reason, interstate
apologies are needed to further the goal of expanding trade and interconnectedness, then
economic neo-liberals would not stand in their way. Otherwise, they have little reason to
pay much attention.
However, neo-liberal institutionalists are another matter. While they would
consider interstate apologies primarily in terms of instrumental understandings of the role
93Ibid„ 11.
94Ibid., 4-5; emphasis in original.
95Jack S. Levy, “Theories of Interstate and Intrastate War: A Levels-of-Analysis Approach,” in Turbulent Peace: The Challenges o f Managing International Conflict, eds. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osier Hampson, and Pamela Aall (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2001), 13.
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of international laws, institutions, and norms, they are interested in public apologies and
their potential in creating a more “civilized” global order based on the rule of law. Many
legal and human rights scholars are closely aligned to this project, also, and share the
neo-Enlightenment philosophical basis for these beliefs. In contrast with realists, these
scholars often blend moral considerations into their analysis, particularly those who want
to rectify historical wrongs.
In general, the liberal conventional wisdom is that the expansion of the “rule of
law” and free and fair legal processes will promote peaceful conflict resolution. As per
the democratic peace argument, states will be more likely to give similarly constituted
states the “benefit of the doubt” than not.96 Moreover, this perspective is extended to the
belief that democratic political systems and legal mechanisms will be the most
efficacious in creating and regulating a shared order. However, there are indications that
the Western legal tradition may obstruct the use of apology as a conflict resolution
mechanism given the issue of liability.• • • 97
One shortcoming of legal and human rights frameworks is that they can
downplay the importance of cultural differences in favor of an enlightened
universalism.98 While well-intentioned, such interpretations leave themselves open to
96Unfortunately, these same states will be less likely to extend such understanding to states with different political systems. See Bruce M. Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post- Cold War World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
97Steven Keeva, “Does Law Mean Never Having to Say You’re Sorry? Going to Trial Over a Case Is Costly, Frustrating— and Can Perhaps Be Avoided with a Simple Apology,” ABA Journal 85 (December 1999), 64-95.
98Barkan, 162-163. Interestingly, Barkan notes that indigenous groups lobbying for greater group rights still use “revolutionary Marxist” political rhetoric even though they use “traditional, humanist
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charges of cultural imperialism and paternalism. After all, human rights, democratization,
and “civil society” all are concepts that originated in the West.
In sum, both of these broad frameworks, realism and liberalism, have some
merit in their interpretations, based in part of their specific areas of focus. Yet they leave
out some of the most interesting elements of such events—social practices and
interpretations. Similarly, most realist and liberal theories discount the importance of
cultural differences. Indeed, when two societies are as different as the United States and
the PRC, significant misunderstandings may irritate an already difficult relationship.
Moreover, liberalism and realism tend to focus on instrumental and present-
focused understandings of international politics, and therefore risk overlooking some of
the longer-term developments that eventually can lead to serious challenges or even
changes to the status quo. As Mark Salter notes, “By not emphasizing the ideational or
representational aspects of power, IR cannot understand many relations of dominance or
sites of resistance.”99
Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies
Depending on the school of thought, there can be a noticeable gap between
mainstream IR and most peace studies and conflict resolution perspectives insofar as the
Western principles” to achieve their political ends. While it is true that even the weakest political actors (such as small states and transnational social movements) tend to invoke the language of international laws and norms, this situation does not mean that an ideal Habermasian consensus has been reached as to their validity. Perhaps the actors’ interpretations of their relative power may have made them decide to use the dominant language to achieve their own ends.
"Mark B. Salter, Barbarians & Civilization in International Relations (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2002), 162.
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former tend to view conflict as inherently destructive while the latter interpret it as also
providing opportunities for creative problem-solving and the enhancement of mutual
understanding.100 For example, “conflict transformation” is a school of thought in
conflict resolution that takes this broader perspective on conflict.101
John Burton was one of the first to note that there is an important difference
between “conflict resolution” and “dispute resolution.” Much as Robert Cox
distinguishes between “problem-solving theory” and “critical theory” as the former
theoretical framework does not challenge the “rules of the game” and therefore affects
the insights one derives from analysis,102 John Burton discusses the difference between
dispute resolution and “conflict pro-vention”; that is, dispute resolution promotes a more
compartmentalized view of conflict as not being tied to larger issues of power imbalance,
and therefore works in the short-term within the predominant framework of society,
while “conflict pro-vention” has a longer-term, deeper sense of what it takes to resolve
conflict preventively.103
100However, there is a wide range of possible epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies. In terms of methodology, rational choice and game theoretic approaches, social-psychological experimentation, quantitative, and case study approaches all are frequently used in conflict resolution and peace studies.
101I should note that much of my academic training has been in the “conflict transformation” school of conflict resolution. However, I have chosen to table for now therapeutic and normative concerns in order to focus on empirical results.
102Robert W. Cox, “Globalization, Multilateralism, and Democracy,” in Approaches to World Order, Robert W. Cox with Timothy J. Sinclair (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 525.
103John W. Burton, “Conflict Resolution as a Political Philosophy,” in Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice: Integration and Application, eds. Dennis J.D. Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe (New York: Manchester University Press, 1993), 55. Furthermore, the term “dispute settlement” also signals that the issue is being decided within existing legal frameworks. Meanwhile, “crisis management” also presents a limited view o f what is possible in terms o f change.
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Therefore, when it comes to conflict resolution and peace studies literature as a
whole, apology is viewed as being of interest. While modest, apology is a potential tool
to be used with restorative justice and reconciliation processes. Furthermore, apology
also can be deployed in the name of preventive diplomacy. If its use is well timed and
sensitive to the current political context, an apology can help prevent a dispute from
spiraling into a full-blown conflict.
In regard to crisis management, John Paul Lederach provides an important
reminder that “quick fixes in protracted conflict rarely lead to sustainable processes or
solution.” Lederach goes on to suggest that conflict resolution efforts “must be
embedded within the painstaking tasks of relationship and confidence building”104 as part
of a “nested,” holistic effort.105 While his comments are directed toward well-known
conflicts, they also provide important advice for those situations that have not yet
descended into war.
Many conflict resolution scholars, however, are not able to address adequately
the question of why such a small, symbolic gesture is so difficult to give in international
relations. If indeed apologies aid with the reduction of tensions in interstate relations,
rationally, apologies should be more forthcoming.
Let us now consider other topics relevant to apology and Sino-American
relations. After all, those scholars who downplay the impact of cultural differences,
104John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997), 78.
l05Maire Dugan, “A Nested Theory of Conflict,” Women in Leadership 1, 1 (summer 1996), cited in John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute o f Peace Press, 1997), 55-56.
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nationalism, and identity processes can miss significant constraints on conflict
management and resolution. Issues of identity, culture, and nationalism bridge many
bodies of literature, from comparative politics and international relations, to post-colonial
studies, conflict resolution and peace studies, and cross-cultural and intercultural
communication.
Related Issues: Culture and Identity
Identity
First, identity, or “the concept of who we are,”106 sometimes is criticized as
being so broadly defined as to be useless as a concept. Rather than rejecting this critique,
it is an important reminder to be clear about what theoretical framework makes use of the
concept and in what way. Here, identities are considered to be plural and fluid in
response to changes in context and interaction.
The concept of identity is important to this discussion given its prominent role in
conflict. Much as with the previous distinction between dispute settlement and conflict
resolution, one could say that if fundamental aspects of one’s identity are not threatened
by a disagreement, then standard dispute mechanisms (including basic negotiation)
should be able to address the matter.
106Judith N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama, Intercultural Communication in Contexts (3rd ed.), (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), G-5.
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However, identity conflicts impinge upon a person or group’s “core sense of
self.” It is no mistake that “[difference is constituted in relation to identity.”107
Furthermore, as John Gillis notes, “Identities ... are not things we think about, but things
we think with. As such they have no existence beyond our politics, our social relations,
and our histories.”• 108
If something viewed as “essential” to one or more of the relevant disputants is
threatened, then the situation will be prone to escalation. Let us consider some of those
“essentials” now, such as the cluster of important issues having to do with reputation,
status, honor, and face.109
“Face,” Honor, and Prestige
In China, the many sayings associated with “face” (“to love,” “give,” “have,”
“lose,” or “save face”) signal its centrality to the culture and the importance of enhancing
the reputations of oneself and others.110 Face maintenance is about promoting harmony
and reciprocity in all of one’s relationships. Thus, this aspect of Chinese culture needs to
107David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 8.
l08John R. Gillis, ed.,Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 5; emphasis in original.
l09Scholars who focus upon these issues are careful to note that these terms are not interchangeable. For the purposes of this discussion however, these finer distinctions will not be addressed here. See O’Neill, 145-146; also David Yau-fai Ho, “On the Concept of Face,” The American Journal of Sociology 81,4 (January 1976), 877-880.
U0Song Mei Lee-Wong, Politeness and Face in Chinese Culture (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 24.
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be studied because of its effect on the PRC’s negotiation style and therefore its relations
with other countries. Chinese culture is difficult to comprehend without sufficient
grounding in its everyday effects.
More specifically, “face” is a traditional Chinese concept that is linked to two
words: lian (&) “face” and mianzi ) “image,” an older term more associated with
reputation and prestige. Mianzi refers to the kind of “reputation achieved through getting
on in life, through success and ostentation,” whereas lian signals collective respect for a
good human being, someone “who will fulfill his [or her] obligations regardless of the
hardships involved.” Furthermore, lian “is both a social sanction for enforcing moral
standards and an internalized sanction.”111 Therefore, the people are subject to both
internal and external—or individual and collective—pressures.
While “face” is a concept often associated with Chinese and other Asian cultures,
it is assumed to have both culturally specific and universal aspects. 1 10 Therefore, both
Chinese and Americans are concerned with face maintenance or what Erving Goffman
terms “facework.”113 Members of both cultures must deal with maintaining a positive
image and not disrupting the social order. In general, face is lost when a person’s “action
or that of people closely related to him, fails to meet essential requirements placed upon
luHsien Chin Hu, “The Chinese Concepts of ‘Face,’”American Anthropologist 46, 1 (January- March 1944), 45.
U2Of course, there will be cultural variations in the manner in and degree to which face is expressed, but the salient point here is that face and honor play a role in American contexts, too. Stella Ting-Toomey, ed., The Challenges of Facework: Cross-Cultural and Interpersonal Issues (Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, 1994), 3.
U3Erving Goffman,Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-Face Behavior (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1967), 12.
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him by virtue of the social position he occupies.” Losing face is quite dangerous to an
individual, risking “one’s ability to function effectively in society.”114 While these issues
are cultural universals, it is important to keep in mind that there is a wide range in
cultural expression in terms ofwhat actions lead to the gain or loss of face.
When it comes to apology, meanwhile, one of its potential uses is as a “face-
saving gesture,” as mentioned earlier. Sometimes an apology can be used to
acknowledge that one has transgressed social boundaries and now one is taking steps to
rectify that mistake and bring harmony back to the interaction.
Paradoxically, however, there are situations in which it may be difficult to give
an apology due to heightened emotions and one’s sense of honor and face. This dynamic
becomes all the more pronounced at the collective level. A state’s honor may be socially
constructed, but people have proven themselves willing to die when the “national honor”
has been lost in some way.115
Similarly, it is no mistake that “face” is of the rare ideational issues raised by
such realists as Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas Schelling.116 If one state has caused
another to “lose face,” it may be necessary for the humiliated state to try to regain some
prestige by taking some counter action(s), whether military, rhetorical, or some
ll4Ho, 867.
115Such possibilities challenge the presence of even a “thin” notion o f rationality, since one of the exceptions to operating according to a rationally order list of interests is when one’s personal or national honor is affronted.
ll6For example, see Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 116-125. Schelling begins to discuss face in regard to the game of “chicken,” using the analogy of two teenaged motorists performing in front of an audience that includes “their gangs and girlfriends,” thereby indicating a masculinist interpretation of conflict.
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combination of the above.
Furthermore, a state’s leaders may view the mere risk of losing face to be so
serious as to engage in preemptive military action. Consider a few lines of text from the
Beijing opera, Guazhong lanyin , created by Wang Xiaonong in 1904, written in the
context of whether China should resist Russia’s move into Manchuria and Korea.117 The
plot is about the plight of Poland as it enters into and then loses a war with Turkey. This
scene involves the Polish emperor receiving advice from his advisors as whether to
engage Turkey militarily:
SUOSUNNI: “Your majesty! Do not listen to him! Turkey is a great country; they are disciples of Mohammed. The people are brave and fierce. We are certainly no match for them. In my opinion, let us quickly prepare an official letter of state and send a noble minister as ambassador to apologize in the hope of avoiding a big mistake and an even bigger disaster!” KESEXIUSIKE: “How shameful it would be to write a letter of apology!” SUOSUNNI: “That is not my fault. It is the only option open for a weak country [ruoguo] such as ours. There is nothing shameful about it.” WURUNIJT. “He is really hopeless!” POLISH EMPEROR: “Actually, I am not an incapable or humble person; I must fight to the death with Turkey. Pass the word! . . 18
Clearly, there is a sense shared by most of the characters in this play that apology,
dishonor, and weakness are linked. Furthermore, one of the Chinese characters in the
name of Suosunni indicates that he has an “inferiority complex (suo ),” thereby signaling
the author’s dislike of the advisor’s readiness to apologize.119 Realists would point out
117Rebecca E. Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn o f the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 278, nl3.
ll8Ibid., 206.
119Ibid., 278, nl2.
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that this debate took place regardless of the sense that Chinese culture generally views
apology with approval.
Cultural Dynamics
While most realists are not much concerned with cultural differences, cross-
cultural and intercultural communication scholars have provided numerous insights into
how people from various cultures can risk misunderstanding one another. One such
reason is that of differing “cultural logics”—a term used here as shorthand for cultures’
socializing processes that shape —but do not determine—how information is
interpreted.120 Intercultural communication scholars use the term in part to signal that so-
called “universal logic” actually is rooted in Western cultural patterns. Therefore,
different logics reflect cultural variations in what is considered “rational” behavior.
Another way to think about such issues is to focus upon how different political
cultures help shape related processes and outcomes. This broad literature finds culture to
be relevant, and goes against a strictly realist or liberal interpretation of international
relations. As Lucian Pye argues, “Politics is so deeply rooted in the native genius of each
,20There are many different understandings o f “cultural logic.” The term “cultural logic” first was coined by Fredric Jameson, who notes how “culture” has become a product or commodity at this point in human history and that one must investigate “the cultural dominant of the logic of late capitalism” (Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 46). Instead, some area studies academics claim that different logics may be universally available, but are more likely to be utilized in one culture than another. For example, see Takie Sugiyama Lebra’s discussion o f how Americans and Japanese people are more or less likely to employ “opposition” or “contingency logics.” Interestingly, Lebra uses the example of apology to demonstrate the different logics in use between the two cultures, with Americans being more likely to use opposition logic and Japanese contingency logic (Takie Sugiyama Lebra, The Japanese Self in Cultural Logic (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004), 36, 1-2, and 11-13).
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nation that the continuity of separate political traditions constantly resists the leveling
forces at work in the social and economic spheres of modem life.”10 I
Such interpretations have some limitations, however. For example, early
political cultural interpretations were used in a paternalistic way to justify certain
development programs. More broadly, cultural approaches can risk reifying specific
cultures, presenting them as more uniform than is the case. Furthermore, I believe that
identity and culture should not be used as causal variables that shape outcomes in a linear
fashion.122
For the purposes of this dissertation, therefore, culture is viewed according to
Clifford Geertz’s more open-ended interpretation as “webs of significance” spun by
humans themselves.123 Cultural processes are viewed as both complex and significant.
After all, one of the ongoing problems in US-Asian relations is that of
translation and mutual comprehensibility, whether the interaction involves North Korea,
Okinawa, or China.124 While there are issues, for example, as to whether Western
12,Lucian W. Pye, “Introduction: Political Culture and Political Development,” in Political Culture and Political Development, eds. Lucian W. Pye & Sidney Verba (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 3-4.
122Heikki PatomSki and Colin Wight, “After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism,”International Studies Quarterly 44 (2) (June 2000), 228. The authors point out several problems with nomothetic social science. For one, with this “covering law” model, co-joined events do not provide an explanation at all. For example, the “democratic peace” argument is not a law so much as it is merely an observation. Thus, nomothetic, variable-oriented social science often conflates correlation with causality. Given that the world constitutes an open system, however, “it is hardly surprising that no laws have yet been discovered.”
l23Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 5.
124Lydia H. Liu, ed., Tokens o f Exchange: The Problem o f Translation in Global Circulations (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 1.
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languages such as German or French can be translated into equivalents in the English
language and the reverse, these problems pale in comparison to non-Westem languages.
Anyone who attempts to translate Chinese into English or vice versa finds that it
is easy to do violence in a translation. Unfamiliar rhetorical flourishes, sentence
patterns and emphases strike one as “foreign,” leading to the danger of talking past one
another. This dynamic explains why simultaneous translation and translation software
only takes us so far, providing only the crudest of tools to understand another language
without unpacking the cultural assumptions that accompany the words. Generally
speaking, languages are living and complex, and they are fed by and help reinforce
predominant cultural world views.
China/Asian Studies
This problem of differing worldviews or “cultural logics” helps explain the
sizable gap between most China experts and IR scholars. Almost all China studies
scholars have studied Mandarin and have spent time in Asia learning first-hand about the
different cultures involved. Their tendencies toward ethnocentrism have been subject to
significant challenge—which is not to say that they can rid themselves of it altogether.
Political science and IR, meanwhile, suffer from a certain amount of
ethnocentrism. It is not a mistake that most political science and international relations
programs originated in American and British contexts, and continue to be responsible for
125In terms o f academia, one of the issues of international scholarship is that of cross-pollination. An American academic could be set for life just translating commentary from an Asian language and presenting it for scholarly consumption in the US. Some pertinent issues, however, do not get translated accurately, or are not deemed important enough to have them brought to the other country’s attention.
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schooling most of those who run similar programs in other countries. Americans students
of political science are likely to start and finish their studies as “liberals,” albeit not in the
common American understanding of the term. Rather, even realists are prone to believe
that the “rule of law” and universal human rights are positive and should be promoted.
Hence, it is unsurprising that many China specialists are dismissed as being
“apologists” for the regime. After all, the PRC is an easy target whether the international
issue is human rights, pollution, or arms proliferation. Even those who know China well
tend to criticize it for its failings on these same counts. Still, such experts also tend to
have more of an understanding and sympathy for the Chinese struggle for betterment.
Nationalism
This split between IR generalists and China specialists also extends to the topic
of nationalism.127 In contrast to Chinese nationalism, the issue of American nationalism
has not been given much scholarly attention in the US. To many Americans, the wording
probably sounds strange. After all, Americans are not “nationalistic” so much as
patriotic!128 Of course, most Chinese citizens would say the same thing about themselves,
'^Furthermore, IR often takes a system-level approach to the study of world politics, focusing on universal trends. At times, realists assume that one “unit” or state is like any other in terms of its behavior. Any state— and especially a rising state like the PRC— will want to protect and enhance its power vis-it-vis the current hegemon, the US. Power transition theory will be discussed in more detail below.
l27Most scholars o f nationalism are more understanding of cultural differences, although there is debate about whether Chinese nationalism is unique from other Asian varieties. On Asian nationalism, see Anderson, Imagined Communities', Hans Antlov and Tak-Wing Ngo, eds., The Cultural Construction of Politics in Asia (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000).
128Some academics have attempted to distinguish between the two by viewing negative behaviors (those that show jingoism, chauvinism, xenophobia) as “nationalistic” and positive behaviors that
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using the term patriotism ( S B aiguo —literally, to love [one’s] country) rather than
nationalism minzu zhuyi) to describe their own feelings and behavior.
In contrast, scholars such as David Campbell build upon Benedict Anderson to
argue that the United States is the ultimate “imagined community” because the project of
imagining a political community is never finished—it must be refreshed and reproduced.
Thus, despite those who see “nationalism” as a phase rooted solely among groups of
common ethnic origin, the US actually is profoundly nationalistic to this day.129
When it comes to Chinese nationalism, meanwhile, Suisheng Zhao has created a
simple and persuasive way of characterizing different strands that have coexisted for
many decades, differentiating among nativist, anti-traditional, and pragmatic
nationalisms.130 Other scholars have made their mark by referring to Chinese nationalism
iqi I as “face nationalism,” “racial nationalism,” or “muscular nationalism.”
reflect good citizenship as “patriotism.” Qiong Li and Marilynn B. Brewer, “What Does It Mean to Be an American? Patriotism, Nationalism and American Identity after 9/11,” Political Psychology 25, 5 (2004): 727-739.
129See Campbell, 11.
130Suisheng Zhao, “Chinese Nationalism and its International Orientations,” Political Science Quarterly 115 (spring 2000), 1-33. Interestingly, the use of the term “pragmatic nationalism” seems to modify the negative connotations o f nationalism by bringing in an element of rationality and cool- headedness. It also projects a sense that the Chinese leaders have control over how nationalism unfolds, a finding that this study views as only half-right.
l3lPeter Hays Gries, “A ‘China Threat’? Power and Passion in Chinese ‘Face Nationalism,”’ World Affairs, 162, 2 (fall 1999): 63-75.
l32Barry Sautman, “Racial Nationalism and China’s External Behavior,” World Affairs, 160, 2 (fall 1997), 78.
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One of the questions relevant to this dissertation is whether Chinese nationalism
is driven by the Communist state “from above” or the Chinese people “from below.”
While much has been written about Chinese nationalism in the past fifteen years, much of
it takes a “top-down” perspective insofar as political elites are viewed as the primary
drivers of Chinese nationalism.134 In contrast, this dissertation aims to investigate
nationalism from both perspectives, suspecting that there is a more complex relationship
between the Chinese government, media, and citizenry than most would suspect.
Another issue regarding the available scholarship on Chinese nationalism is that
many studies focus on the period under Mao. This study, however, is going to look
primarily at nationalism on the mainland in recent years. All the same, an important side
debate regarding Chinese nationalism is whether it still has a significant connection to
Mao Zedong thought and, for that matter, Marxism-Leninism. Given the prevalent
disdain for Communism and socialism in American culture, scholarly study of these
133Note the gendered tone of this formulation. See John W. Garver, “The [former] Coming War with America,” Journal of Contemporary China 12, 36 (August 2003): 575-585. Garver also provides intriguing evidence of regional differentiation in terms of media availability across the PRC.
134However, most recent studies include a range of interpretations. See William A. Callahan, “National Insecurities: Humiliation, Salvation, and Chinese Nationalism,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 29, 2 (March-May 2004): 199-218; Suisheng Zhao, A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004); Peter Hays Gries, China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004); Suzanne Ogden, “Chinese Nationalism: The Precedence of Community and Identity over Individual Rights,”Asian Perspective 25, 4 (2001): 157-185; Maria Hsia Chang, Return of the Dragon: China’s Wounded Nationalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001); Baogang He and Yingjie Guo, Nationalism, National Identity and Democratization in China (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 2000); John Fitzgerald, “China and the Quest for Dignity,” The National Interest, 55 (spring 1999): 47-59; Yongnian Zheng, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China: Modernization, Identity, and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Jonathan Unger, ed., Chinese Nationalism (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996).
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topics often becomes politicized by the mere mention of the topic.135
Again, this debate matters because, to a certain extent, the PRC is interpreted by
many Americans as being “tainted by association” with Communism. Thus, it is no
surprise that American commentaries on Chinese nationalism that appear in policy
relevant magazines, journals, and daily newspapers can descend into what could be
termed “China bashing.”
For example, one of the slogans frequently mentioned in reference to Chinese
nationalism today is some version of the saying, “Enrich the nation, strengthen the army”
( la 0 'jMft fuguoqiangbing). Japanese first coined this maxim during their imperialist
period, and Chinese nationalistic intellectuals seized upon it as the best path for China.136
Of course, it is instructive to note that, many years later these same goals generally are
expected of the United States by its own citizens! Most major powers would list the
same objectives as being part of their national interest.
Therefore, it is no surprise that the topic of Chinese nationalism is highly
debated within scholarly and policy-oriented circles. Thomas Metzger and Ramon Myers
have a diplomatic way of characterizing this divide toward China as being a debate
l35In a course on “China, Japan, and the US,” I found that students performed poorly in a test in terms of defining Marxism-Leninism. Instead of studying their notes and the brief section of the textbook on the topic, instead they spouted standard lines of Marxism, such as “Workers of the world, unite!” They assumed that they understood this term fully. Therefore, the Leninist element largely was ignored— which is unfortunate given the important legacy o f Leninist state structures in Asia.
13SThis saying gamers a great deal of attention from those scholars in the past twenty-five years who wish to argue that China (or Japan) is inherently militaristic. For example, it helps form a chapter title, ‘“A Rich Country and a Strong Army’: Military Modernization and Buildup,” in Constantine C. Menges, China: The Gathering Threat (Nashville, TN: Nelson Current, 2005), 311-335.
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between optimists and pessimists.137
Perhaps a more accurate way to frame this gulf would be as between Americans
who are acting as ethical absolutists and pragmatists, or between those who are
describing Chinese nationalism versus prescribing what is wrong with the PRC. After all,
most research on Chinese nationalism is primarily descriptive in nature, but such
commentary can begin to sound too pragmatic and relativistic if one is viewing the PRC
from a moralistic mindset. It is not difficult to imagine such interpretations “talking past
each other.”138
Given these vastly different interpretations of China—and international
apologies too, for that matter—the debates over these topics are worthy of analysis.
Certain assumptions underpin predominant readings of such incidents, whether from a
legal, diplomatic, realist, or political economic framework—and most importantly, many
of these interpretations do not take the importance of cultural processes into adequate
l37Thomas A. Metzger and Ramon H. Myers, “Chinese Nationalism and American Policy,” Orbis (winter 1998), 21-36.
138Another primary difference is regarding what analysts believe is the biggest danger with the PRC. Some observers fear its continuing repression of its people (“totalitarianism” and human rights), whereas others focus upon its rising status in the international system (according to power-transition theory), or are concerned about its risk of internal division due to luan (chaos). Those who argue that the PRC is a totalitarian state point out that totalitarianism, like democracy, is an ideal-type concept that is impossible to find in real life, leading instead to designations based on how close particular regimes come to fulfilling a list of criteria. I maintain, however, that totalitarianism is of necessity becoming rarer worldwide due to increased access to outside media, especially the Internet. The regime that comes closest to totalitarianism today is North Korea (DPRK) because it remains such tight control over its citizens. China arguably falls short due to the increasing distinction between state and society (Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 4) as well as the state’s lack o f control over illegal pirating, “black market” trading, Internet access, and other activities. Furthermore, while some might argue that Communism remains the key to maintaining the PRC’s legitimacy (see Linz, 77), most China watchers agree that Communist ideology is only paid “lip service” now. Indeed, it is difficult not to see the degree of change from the central role ideology played during China’s Cultural Revolution and to the current pragmatic focus on economic development.
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account. Nor do they focus on joint action and flux, preferring instead to focus on
individual and “fixed” entities such as states. Thus, a relational analytical framework
will be set forth instead to interpret the socio-cultural politics involved with these two
events and conceptualize what dynamics are at work in producing or constraining an
interstate apology.
A Relational Framework
These issues will investigated by employing a “dialogical constructionist” or
relational epistemology and ontology, following the work of John Shotter.139 As Shotter
shifts the focus of study from individual biological agents to shared interactions, this
dissertation changes the locus of inquiry from individual states to their combined
dialogue and negotiations regarding apology. While this move may seem unusual,
interstate apologies already involve some strange role-playing, with “states” as the key
“actors” in giving and sometimes in receiving apologies. Indeed, it is frequently assumed
that a given state is responsible for people who have acted in its name—for example,
soldiers who wage war. Moreover, it is assumed that a “state” can have “a view.” All of
these anthropomorphisms come into play when apologies are debated at an international
level, effectively calling the sites and boundaries of “politics” and “the state” into
question. While a relational framework allows a researcher to be aware of these issues,
emphasis is placed here on studying the dynamics of negotiating, at national levels, the
l39John Shotter, Conversational Realities: Constructing Life Through Language (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1993).
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intersubjective constructions of interstate apologies.140
Given my research question, relationalism has a certain fluidity to it that is
readily adaptable to taking an analytical slice into the Sino-American relationship. What
will follow is intended to function as an explanatory account rather than a definitive
answer—one that allows examination of certain elements that are endowed with
significance at an intersubjective level. In particular, I focus on joint transactions or
shared social processes that neither state can be said to “own.”141 Part of this dialogical
process has to do with trying to contest and alter norms as part of an ongoing set of
transactions—an issue of significance when it comes to Sino-American relations given
the sense that the US is the current global hegemon and the PRC is the rising challenger
to the status quo.
This relational framework will allow me to consider which issues constrain
opportunities to give and receive apologies. Also, a relational epistemology and ontology
may be better equipped to take cultural factors into account, an issue of special
importance when discussing identity processes in non-Westem societies. Other power
dynamics, such as whether such interactions have gendered or racialized dimensions to
them, may also be brought into consideration. Furthermore, relational work is similar to
certain elements of conflict resolution research—an affinity that will be explored further.
140“Intersubjective” means that meanings are shared commonly among a group and therefore beyond the contents of individual minds.
141 While this dissertation is interested with the behavior o f states and their official representatives, I do not assume that state-centricity is the only way to study international phenomena. Instead, I am pointing out strange phenomena in order to call that assumption into question.
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A Social Scientific Framework
It is important to stress that relational work is committed to empirical and
scientific research. Rather than using “naturalistic monism, that is, the idea that the
natural sciences embody the only valid model of science to which the social sciences
should, therefore, aspire,”142 relationalism promotes a broader view of social science
research that is based on the systematic study of empirics while striving for clarity and
logical consistency.143
For example, relationalism is closely aligned to Max Weber’s social scientific
research of social action. Instead of the natural sciences’ focus on universals and
generalizability, Weber was concerned with figuring out the socio-cultural significance of
specific human behavior. Or, as John Ruggie states, “the task of interpreting the meaning
and significance that social actors ascribe to social action” by means of Weber’s analytic
method of Verstehen ,144 This inductive stance is designed to help understand the import
given to social actions undertaken at a specific place and time, thereby avoiding
reductionism.
142John G. Ruggie,Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization (New York: Routledge, 1998), 30.
143Actually, most neo-positivist social science does not ascribe to Popperian hypothesis testing, preferring instead the search for general laws across cases— the nomothetic-deductive approach. Strong hypotheses are those hypotheses that have not yet been disproved and have excellent explanatory power even after having been frequently put to the test. While there are similarities, the two approaches sometimes have been confused and conflated.
l44Ruggie, 30.
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Configurational Causality
For the purposes of this dissertation, a “configurational” notion of causality is
used versus what is viewed as causality within “conventional variable-oriented social
science.”145 Issues become less “quantifiable” when differences in language and cultural
context become of salience. As noted by Ragin, conventional quantitative analysis relies
upon certain isolating and “homogenizing assumptions” as to “populations, cases, and
causes.”146 In contrast, this study is focused upon the unique combination of mechanisms
that produced the different historical outcomes in these events.147 Given a relational
focus on actions rather than entities, intersubjective cultural processes and transactions
are being investigated in order to find the culturally and historically specific mechanisms
of apology. After all, not all images and discourses take hold.
Indeed, certain aspects of social life are “essentially contested.” According to
W.B. Gallie, such “essentially contested concepts” are prone to debates that,
“although not resolvable by argument of any kind, are nevertheless sustained by perfectly respectable arguments and evidence. This is what I mean by saying that there are concepts which are essentially contested, concepts the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their
145Charles C. Ragin, Fuzzy-Set Social Science (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 5 and 64. There are different forms of causality used in social science research, despite the implicit view of Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba that any use of causal language necessitates following their research program. For example, see their extended analysis of Peter Katzenstein’s reluctance to use causal language in Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, “The Importance of Research Design,” inRethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, eds. Henry E. Brady and David Collier (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 189.
146Ibid„ 5.
147Ibid., 42. In Ragin’s words, “if causation is complex and each outcome may result from various conjunctures of conditions, then it is impossible to estimate each cause’s ‘independent’ effect.”
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users. (Gallie, 1955-56: 172)”148
One example of an “essentially contested concept” is democracy. Not only is it
necessarily vague, the concept also is “internally complex and admits of a variety of
descriptions in which its different aspects can be graded in order of importance.”149
Furthermore, people who try to elucidate the concept try to refer to an “exemplar” such as
the French Revolution, but all of the discussion does not seem to refine democracy in a
definitive way. Instead, rival argumentations go back and forth, formulated in response
to other positions on the topic, with“no general method for deciding among the
possibilities available.”150
Similarly, apology seems to fall into this category of the “essentially contested
concept.”151 Many people voice strong arguments of what a proper apology is (more-or-
less its ideal type) and whether and how apologies should be used in public—all without
being able to bring the debate to a close. The various linguistic games and rhetorical
devices employed in everyday discussion of these topics can indicate the shaping power
of broader “world views.” 1 ^7
Seen slightly differently, these debates also may be viewed as “contentious
conversations.” Following the work of social scientist Charles Tilly, “conversations” are
148Cited John Shotter, Conversational Realities, 169-170.
149Ibid„ 171.
150Ibid., 170.
151Ibid., 171.
152Ruggie, 19.
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emphasized given his relational focus on interactions rather than individual opinions or
group processes. Conversation regarding interstate apologies is “contentious to the extent
that it embodies mutual and contradictory claims, claims that, if realized, would
1 S '! significantly alter the longer-term behavior of at least one participant.” As shown even
in the brief discussion of public apologies above, there are indications of shared concern
that interstate apologies risk changing the “rules of the game” of world politics.
Conflict Resolution
This relational framework also is infused with what may be termed a conflict
resolution orientation. Like relationalism, most conflict resolution scholars rely, to a
certain extent, on the belief that reality is something constructed intersubjectively, and
therefore, the “reality” of a situation can be changed—even improved.154 While not
without flaws, a conflict resolution stance promotes a focus upon these open-ended
questions: What would have made the situation better? What can be done to avoid or at
least minimize the negative impact of such incidents in the future?
In addition, conflict resolution and relationalism both have process as the
ontological focus of study155 as opposed to variable-oriented methodologies that focus
153Charles Tilly, Stories, Identities, and Political Change (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 114.
154Having said that, I am not assuming that resolving disputes— let alone broader conflicts— is easy. Quite the opposite. This dissertation is designed to explore why conflict resolution is difficult in spite o the f social construction o f reality.
155In general, the field of conflict resolution tends to emphasize process rather than outcome. For example, see Roger Fisher with Elizabeth Kopelman and Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Beyond Machiavelli: Tools for Coping with Conflict (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 4. One key element of
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upon the attributes of entities. Similarly, since international apologies generally take
place in the context of a larger relationship, I believe it is most helpful to think of apology
as a process rather than a one-time event. Apologies thus can be seen as part of an on
going relationship that will sustain change as interactions continue over time.156
One potential pitfall of conflict resolution analysis will be sidestepped:
discussions of apologies (as well as conflict transformation, reconciliation, restorative
justice, and so forth) often turn from the descriptive into the prescriptive—what “is”
versus what “ought” to be. For the purposes of this dissertation, I plan to focus on
empirical analysis rather than normative evaluation, following Max Weber’s model of
separating the two to promote more systematic analysis.157
Actually, relationalism and conflict resolution in practice are less concerned
1 CO with “uncovering the truth,” per se. Given the complexity of group processes of
this focus on process is the assumption that, to the degree that the conflicted parties are allowed to devise their own joint solution, the resulting outcome will be more favorable and appropriate, with an enhanced level of post-negotiationcompliance.
1560 f course, having a process orientation leads one to reevaluate some of the terms used to describe what takes place in conflict. For example, such terms as “restitution,” “conflict resolution,” and “reconciliation” connote a sense of completion and wholeness that may not be accurate or helpful. Instead, the word “processes” should be added after each of the above terms to indicate the contingent, dynamic element of what is taking place, or perhaps “verbs” could be used instead o f “nouns.” Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, “Hegel’s House, or ‘People Are States Too,’”Review of International Studies 30 (2004), 286.
157While it can be problematic to make fact/value distinctions, I also believe that it is useful at times to do so, especially concerning analysis of such a contested and murky subject as international apologies. Weber’s point is not that fact/value distinctions should always be made; rather, these artificial separations should be made during certain steps in the investigative process. Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. and trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 152-155; Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, “Fragment on ‘Ideal- Typification,”’ 25 February 2005, unpublished ms.
158Intersubjective data is focused upon because I am less interested what views reflect “what really happened” and “accurately represent the facts” of a case than what is considered most important in constructing the overall shared meaning o f the event and subsequent transactions between states. I assume
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identity, different sides to a conflict will interpret history differently, highlighting certain
incidents and ignoring others.
Having said that, the power dynamics among the groups involved are considered
of importance. The concerns raised by post-colonialists, for example, about structures of
power, intellectual hegemony, and the political and economic relationship between Self
and Other, are weighed seriously.159 However, given that relationalism is monist in its
belief that “the world is all that is the case,” what post-colonial scholars view as separate
structures of power is recast relationally as dynamics of power instead.160
Moreover, some scholars of conflict resolution are attuned to the issue of
highlighting those voices which have been marginalized in some sense. Given that this
dissertation will be read primarily in the US, it is assumed that the general American
account of the events in question is fairly well known (in American contexts) whereas the
predominant Chinese interpretation is not. Thus, more explanation of Chinese
perspectives is necessary. In analyzing these incidents, an interdisciplinary approach will
that these understandings come into play in interstate negotiations. For the purposes of this dissertation, therefore, I am not “searching for the truth” of what took place in each case as what “really happened” is 1) of less relevance to my research question than dominant intersubjective interpretations of the events, 2) difficult if not impossible to ascertain, and 3) politically contested. I must credit Patrick Thaddeus Jackson for distilling these points.
159While I consider myself influenced greatly by post-colonialism, I am a monist instead of a dualist. It also probably makes a difference that I am not from a state that recently transitioned from colonialism. See L.H.M. Ling, Postcolonial International Relations: Conquest and Desire between Asia and the West, (New York: Palgrave, 2002).
'“ Another plus o f a monist interpretation is that of the “agent-structure problem.” Given the shift in emphasis from “structures” to group processes that serve to constrain the sense of “what is possible” in a given context, human agency is preserved. Of course, this is not to say that agency is absolute, but that humans play a role in weaving the very processes that delimit their interpreted range of viable choices.
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be utilized as issues of history, culture, language, are intertwined and therefore are of
importance in conflict resolution.
In general, this relational framework will draw attention to the issues that
ordinarily would not be noticed in these situations. For one, all of these events seem to
reflect issues of communal identity processes and understandings of historical memory—
for example, how communities are defined as sovereign territorial entities, and how those
boundaries are sustained.
Therefore, my focus will be upon studying the discourse and joint actions that
have taken place regarding these events. This analysis is necessary to consider
underlying intersubjective constructions that may come into play at public, official, and
academic levels.161 In this dissertation, primary focus will be upon rhetorical discourse
analysis, obtained both through interviews narratives as well as through secondary news
sources. According to this methodology, even secondary accounts will be mined as
primary sources to demonstrate the “rhetorical commonplaces” that emerge in debates
i fsy over apology. First, however, we must turn to the ways in which these data were
generated under this Shotterian relational methodology via interview and participant-
observer field research techniques.
161It may seem problematic for a monist to separate private from public or collective apologies. However, I merely am following the lead of most discussions, both academic and otherwise, regarding apologies. More to the point, artificial distinctions can be useful as heuristic devices.
162“Public opinion” polls or surveys, per se, are not focused upon in this study because they are designed to provide superficial information only—they cannot answer broader “why” questions. However, relational approach can begin the process of teasing out answers to these larger issues by focusing upon conventions and public resources and how arguments regarding interstate apology are framed and legitimated. Beyond that issue, public opinion data are highly problematic in authoritarian states such as the PRC.
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CONDUCTING GROUNDED RESEARCH IN THE PRC:
CONTEXT MATTERS
A lot of my motivation for pursuing this project came from an encounter during
the EP-3E crisis in 2001 with a fellow doctoral student at American University’s School
of International Service. As he is someone who loves to debate and probably has read a
couple of books on China, he began to grill me about the Hainan situation, stating at one
point that the Chinese outcry must have been directed by the Communist dictatorial
leadership of the PRC. I replied that the Chinese people to whom I had spoken also were
upset and they had ready access to various Western media. So, even while I granted that
the PRC is an authoritarian state with state-run media, I disagreed that it is not as all-
powerful as some—especially non-China experts—believe. In reply, he challenged my
knowledge of the Chinese people, questioning sarcastically, “But have you spoken with
ordinary Chinese people?” I had to admit that I had not.
My colleague’s question irritated me enough that it lingered in my mind for days.
What is an “average,” “ordinary,” or “everyday” Chinese person anyway? The question
itself is problematic. Is there even such a thing? Even while I viewed his question with
skepticism, I began to realize that there was the germ of an idea that I wanted to pursue.
Up to that point, I had what might be considered standard access to various
Chinese people. Most of my contacts had been with highly educated, intelligent,
61
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motivated, and cosmopolitan Chinese people, most of who would protest that they cannot
speak for all Chinese. Most of these friends and acquaintances had received university
education and had attained a decent standard of living. They had taken advantage of
opportunities to travel in China and abroad. Most Chinese citizens will not be able to
experience such privileges as these during their lifetimes. In contrast, my friends could
be considered part of the Chinese “intelligentsia,” often interpreted as the primary force 16^ of change in Chinese society throughout history, but also sometimes protected from the
day-to-day issues most Chinese face.
My motivation to seek out “ordinary” Chinese people only was enhanced after a
meeting with an American expert on China. Prior to my departure from the United States,
she told me that I should try to talk with people—predominantly high-school or
university-level students—whom I would meet through teaching English in Beijing. She
claimed that such interviewees would be more “reflective” and able to give me insights
into apology in China and Chinese international relations. I considered but ultimately
rejected this option as I had already spent one year teaching English and knew that such
students would be quite easy to find. Much more difficult to meet would be people in
other walks of life, particularly in non-academic settings.
Moreover, I was troubled by the implicit elitism of such advice. How did she
know that ordinary people would not be reflective?164 While it is true that many China
163James C.F. Wang, Contemporary Chinese Politics: An Introduction (7th ed.), (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001), 11.
l64Even if a Chinese citizen had nothing much to say to my questions, I still would view that response as socially significant, perhaps indicating that some citizens were relatively untouched or
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specialists focus on interviews of political elites as the central actors in negotiating day-
to-day foreign policy behavior, unless one is content to assume that Chinese nationalism
is purely instrumentalist and manipulated by elites, this phenomenon also deserves to be
inspected at the grassroots level. Analysis that focuses solely on political elites does not
confirm the extent to which such views are shared in the general population—a question
of salience when it comes to nationalistic behavior. Last, but not least, there is the issue
of legitimation to consider. Despite the PRC’s status as an authoritarian state, its leaders
do not have so much power that they can ignore popular will altogether. Quite the
opposite.
Thus, “everyday” people and their behavior are important. Whether the issue is
social change, nationalism, government decision making, or social movements, these
actions need to generate some level of popular support or the situation will not be feasible,
even for authoritarian governments.
On a more personal level, I viewed my lack of knowledge of “ordinary” Chinese
people as problematic to my future as a China scholar. This deficiency was something I
believed I must rectify so that, in the future, I could analyze Chinese social, cultural, and
political trends with more confidence in the reliability of my findings.
After all, as Michael Harris Bond cautions, one should not assume that “the
Chinese” are all alike across space and time. Contextual differences exist among various
Chinese located in such places as Singapore, the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Even
unmoved by Chinese nationalism. An alternate reading would be that the respondents did not want to share their thoughts with me, an issue to be discussed further below.
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within the PRC, there are significant regional, rural/urban, and class differences that must
be taken into account.165 Similarly, “Chinese culture” is not a static concept. As Richard
Madsen notes,
.. .a culture is not a system of fixed ideas. It is an ongoing conversation about the meaning and value of things members of a society share. It is not a complete consensus about ideas and values, merely the capacity and the necessity to argue over issues faced in common. Such a capacity entails a common language and at least some common assumptions about what are the important issues for debate. These assumptions include what Charles Taylor calls common reference points or common meanings. “We could ... say that common meanings are quite other than consensus, for they can subsist with a high degree of cleavage; this is what happens when a common meaning comes to be lived and understood differently by different groups in a society.”166
Given my desire to get beyond a “Chinese masses” view of the citizenry, I
realized that I still would have to tap into the various parties involved in this ongoing
cultural conversation so that differences and similarities between ordinary Chinese
citizens and their official representatives and other elites could be detected. Thus, I
modified part of my research design to incorporate interviews of foreign policy experts in
China and the US and their interpretations of the two incidents in question.
For one, elite opinions play an important shaping role in how the rest of the
country interprets the events in question. More to the point, state officials and other
experts still are members of cultures! Their interpretation of the events almost inevitably
is going to be shaped by the national culture in which they were raised. In addition, there
165Michael Harris Bond, Beyond the Chinese Face: Insights from Psychology (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1991), 4. There also are multiple regional and sub-regional identities and dialects, although these often are reified into simple contrasts, such as Northerners versus Southerners, for example.
166Richard Madsen, China and the American Dream: A Moral Inquiry (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 210-211.
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are different organizational “cultures” to be considered, such as the differences in
perspective between bureaucrats working at the US Department of State versus the
Department of Defense, for example, due to different institutionalized social practices,
norms, and expectations.
Participant-Observation Fieldwork
Nevertheless, since I knew from prior experience that access to foreign policy
experts would be readily available to a doctoral student, I was more concerned about
beginning my research in search of ordinary Chinese citizens to interview as well as
enhancing my broader knowledge of China. Therefore, I decided to use participant-
observation field methods as one key component of my research design. This choice is
not entirely unusual, as a significant amount of field research conducted in Asian contexts
by foreigners has had to rely upon “talking to ordinary people.. .about their lives and
experiences; participating in everyday events; .. .and piecing together analyses and 1 ffl interpretations of contemporary ... life through the direct experiences of fieldwork.”
Given my intent to understand the meanings of these events as shared beyond just one
layer of society, I needed to immerse myself in China.
Even so, the choice to engage in field research meant engaging in a
“complicated dynamic,”
... poised between standardized disciplinary research methodologies and the challenges of doing research within a particular culture. [Therefore].. .area studies
167Theodore C. Bestor, Patricia G. Steinhoff, and Victoria Lyon Bestor, eds., Doing Fieldwork in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003), 1.
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researchers develop a mediated research technique or methodology that draws upon the cultural specificity of the research setting and uses that local insight as a means to modify general, standardized disciplinary research methods. The results of good fieldwork, in turn, inform both area studies and the general academic disciplines. In addition, their interdisciplinary training encourages area studies researchers to borrow methods from adjacent disciplines that may be more fruitful in the ... [particular] context than the mainstream methodologies of their own disciplines, 1 which were devised in other cultural contexts.
One such challenge addressed directly by Bestor, Steinhoff, and Bestor is that of
the central importance of the researcher to the project, especially in studies that employ
cultural methodology. While some investigators, especially those conducting large-n
statistical studies, do not demonstrate significant concern about the role of the researcher
in their findings, the more that one “stands out” in a social situation the more it affects
one’s research as well as its replicability.
According to Bestor, Steinhoff, and Bestor, “clearly the methodological
implications of immersion in a foreign cultural setting make the conduct of fieldwork
very different for natives and non-natives.”169 Therefore, fieldwork necessarily reflects
the author’s own human qualities. Bestor, Steinhoff, and Bestor argue in favor of a
plurality of perspectives, noting that
.. .natives and foreigners.. .with different visions and blind spots, stimulate and complement one another in producing new knowledge as well as in testing or confirming or invalidating accepted knowledge. Natives and foreigners have different advantages and disadvantages in establishing rapport with native informants: while the native researcher may be better equipped to engage in subtler forms of communication with fellow natives, the assumed ignorance of foreigners often motivates natives to be willing informants. This is particularly true in the case of
168Ibid., 7-8.
I69lbid., 4.
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marginals and cultural outsiders who are far more willing to open their hearts to outsiders. We can take advantage of one another’s strengths.1 0 Self-Reflexivity
Clearly, as a white female “foreigner” in China as well as someone from one of
the two cultures in this pair of crises, my data-gathering changed the social dynamics of
the situation. One cannot control for such effects, forcing one instead to be open about
them and the limitations or advantages they may cause.
Given my status as an outsider, I believed that it would be crucial for me to find
a way to access “on-going conversations.” By living among Chinese citizens and
engaging in participant-observer research, I knew that I would be better able to establish
trust and meet people who could provide nonofficial interpretations of events via
interviews. Also, I expected that my social networks would expand over time, eventually
granting me the ability to meet even construction workers, baomu (nannies), and
fuwuyuan (“service personnel”—waiters, desk clerks, cleaning staff, for example) who
are less accessible due to language barriers as well as the far more significant issue of
class distance. An introduction would be necessary as well as a translator in certain
circumstances given different dialects and some rare instances of the interviewees being
unused to a foreigner speaking Mandarin, although I had taken pains to make myself
familiar with the “linguistic environment” of apologies, Sino-American relations, and
world politics.171
170Takie Sugiyama Lebra, The Japanese Self in Cultural Logic (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004), 278-279.
171Ibid„ 9.
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By means of a combination of interviews and ethnographic field notes,
supplemented by media accounts of these two incidents, I began to investigate what level
of mutual comprehension had taken place regarding apologies and crisis and what could
be done in the future to avoid further misunderstanding.172 Together, these interviews
provide plenty of empirical data for grounded research, or “the discovery of theory from
data.”173
First, however, more discussion is needed of the ways in which my
“foreignness” had an inevitable impact on my research and how I negotiated
methodologically relevant cultural differences.
Race
For one, much as Dorinne Kondo found with her participant-observation
research in Japan, I faced an additional obstacle: my race.174 I am a WASP American
172In order to assure interviewees of confidentiality, I asked all interviewees, both Chinese and Americans, whether or not they preferred to remain anonymous. If anonymity was requested, I have avoided providing too many identifiers that could reveal someone’s identity. Furthermore, I only interviewed people who provided their consent to participate after learning the circumstances under which the information would be used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in which the respondents were provided questions in both Mandarin and English. Depending on their particular preference, the interviewees’ responses could be verbal or written in either Mandarin or English. Interviews of foreign policy experts, meanwhile, also were given the opportunity to review their comments and identifiers prior to this dissertation being made public. As with my previous research, I believe that it was essential to protect the identity o f the respondents, especially those living under an authoritarian regime such as the PRC.
173Bamey G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1967), 1.
174Frank Dikotter is correct when he notes that ‘race’ “is a cultural construct with no relationship to objective reality” and races “do not exist, they are imagined.” Still, since many cultures continue to racialize interactions to such an extent that it is difficult to avoid addressing this issue. Interestingly, Dikdtter asserts that Chinese racial assumptions were not imported by Western imperialism so much as those Western prejudices were ‘superimposed’ on pre-existing attitudes that date
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researcher with blue eyes and light brown hair (described as “yellow” by most Chinese).
Why are these details even relevant? My clothes, build, walk, habits, gestures, talk—all
set me apart as a foreigner. I “stick out” as a foreigner—even in the PRC’s most
cosmopolitan settings.
While Kondo, a Japanese American, found that she was forced to be an active
participant instead of an observer in Japanese culture, my “foreignness” led to much the
same problem. 1 75 I am Caucasian, and therefore am considered a “laowai” (term for
“foreigner”; literally, “old outsider”). Laowai is a term with several connotations. For
example, lao or “old” is an honorific term in this hierarchical, Confucian society. On the
other hand, ‘W or “outsider” is in contrast to China, ( ^ H) Zhongguo, or “central
country,” illuminating a rather ethnocentric understanding of “us versus them.” So the 11(\ term is arguably double-edged, at once respectful and patronizing.
Moreover, one encounters the assumption that “real” foreigners and Americans
are white—it was notable when I overheard a well-traveled man in his 30s translate
“Americans” as “bairen” (E=l A “white people”)—a notion I challenged (but in a joking
back to Chinese antiquity. Frank Dikotter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), viii, 1.
175Dorinne K. Kondo, Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1990), 16.
176There is some debate whether laowai is more or less insulting than the more formal term for “foreigner,”waiguo ren (literally, “outside country people”). In 1990-91, a close friend tried to convince me that laowai was more respectful and should be translated as “rich foreigner.” I liked this connotation even less since I never have had a lot of money by US standards, but had to agree that my annual salary of US$2000 was many times what the average Chinese family had for living expenses.
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fashion so as not to cause much loss of face).177 I cannot be invisible—even “overseas
Chinese” cannot be invisible in a setting that is relatively homogeneous. Unlike Dorinne
Kondo in Japan, I am always the outsider, but a privileged one at that. I could not walk
on a main thoroughfare in Beijing without hearing the honks of taxis, their drivers
assuming that the “rich foreigner” would want to be chauffeured.
The juxtaposition of admiration and disapproval felt double-edged much of the
time—leaving me convinced that, at times, I had been defined as a cultural symbol rather
1 < io than a fellow human being. In some sense, such treatment was flattering, but even
“positive” stereotypes manage to restrain human potential. Furthermore, it becomes clear
that the “exotic” are always “those who are not us.”179 The “Other” often is sexualized,
even in situations where the “Other” comes from the global hegemon.180 Last,
177Curiously, beauty creams provide evidence that both the US and PRC are racialized. For example, suntanned skin is viewed as beautiful in the US— so much so that sunless tanning creams and spraying booths have become rather popular in the wake of concern about skin cancer from sun tanning. In contrast, Nivea and other companies sell skin whitening creams in the PRC because of the desire to have whiter skin.
178However, white skin generally is highly admired in China. Blacks, meanwhile, have received some highly negative treatment—especially some African university students. Cultural differences and the fact that most of the African students were male led to some clashes with racial and gendered overtones. For example, it is not well known that, prior to the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, riots took place in Nanjing between numerous African students and Chinese students upset with the alleged treatment of a Chinese woman. While initially overtly racial in tone, the riots became increasingly focused on Chinese students’ lack of freedoms vis-^-vis foreign students.
179For example, consider Geremie R. Barme’s piece, “To Screw Foreigners Is Patriotic: China’s Avant-Garde Nationalists,” in Jonathan Unger, ed., Chinese Nationalism (Armonk, NY : M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 183. Barm6 writes that “a recent emigre Chinese interviewee tells ... that Chinese students and other Chinese mainlanders she had encountered in Australia ‘think that to screw foreign cunt is a kind of patriotism’ (cao waiguo bi ye suan aiguo ma ).” Note that the image is feminized instead of gender-neutral, indicating a desire to invert the predominant power and sexual dynamics o f the East-West relationship.
180Ling, 131.
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outsiders—especially “rich foreigners”—are advised to keep in mind that they might be
swindled or otherwise used by locals.
At times, the air almost seemed heavy around me given the imprint of my
insertion into a world where I am seen as being out of place. There is no way to blend in
and hide my “otherness.” Once I left the privacy of my apartment, I felt forced to interact
one way or another, as I could not, in that social setting, feel invisible. For the
foreseeable future, there will be people in China who are not accustomed to seeing faces
like mine.
This project also is more overtly political than Dorinne Kondo’s research in
Japan. In gendered terms, I was interacting in a more “masculine” arena, international
i n i relations, than Kondo.
Citizen Interviewees
Respondents were selected according to access via personal networks. Due to
the importance of networks and personal connection in Asian cultures, it is difficult to
generate a random sample.1 89 Instead, introductions or personal acquaintance were
necessary in this cultural context to encourage the interviewees to be forthcoming. As
181Sometimes I have suspected that American and Asian male professors have not “taken me seriously” because o f my gender and (perceived) youth. Meanwhile, I found that Asian non-academics generally treated me with increased respect once they would learn that I am a “scholar.”
182During previous research for my Master’s thesis, for example, I experienced a response failure rate of 100% with those Chinese persons who did not know me personally. Furthermore, given my knowledge of Chinese urban settings, I knew that attempts to hand out surveys on a street comer would be viewed as more o f a spectacle (thereby risking unwanted attention from Chinese police) than a serious way to gain interviewees.
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Bestor, Steinhoff, and Bestor note in their discussion of field work in Japan,
[Many area researchers] emphasize the need for introductions from a third party in order to obtain research access. Whether the introductions are for permission to conduct participant observation or to interview individuals, they ensure that the human subjects of the research understand its purpose and range and have given their informed consent to participate, even if the researcher does not return home.. .with a folder of legalistic signed documents of consent. In a society where the careful cultivation of interpersonal trust is given far greater weight than formal contracts and where written contracts often are viewed with distrust, there are many research situations in which American-style legalistic consent requirements would not only be culturally unfamiliar, but would call into question the researcher’s cultural understanding and trustworthiness. And no one who has done any interviewing in Japan doubts for a minute that a respondent who does not want to answer a question knows how to avoid a substantive response, even if he or she is too polite to throw the researcher out the door...183
Interviewees included such people as workers (gongren), peasants (nongmin )
from the countryside who have come to the city for work (termed the “floating
population”), retirees, office workers, businesspeople shangren( ) as well as the more
easily accessed teachers and students to create a stratified sample, broadly representative
1 S d of Beijing’s different social groups, vocations, and generations.
Beijing has become a more dynamic mix of people in the past fifteen years,
reflecting broader trends spurred by China’s modernization. The PRC’s modernization
has exploded in recent years, leading to changes in migration patterns as well as in
183Bestor et al., 14.
184Beijing is like Washington, DC and other capital cities o f the world in that it is more focused on politics than other cities in a given country. In addition, I selected Beijing because it would provide a centrally located pool o f potential interviewees, and its dialect is close to the official language of the PRC, Mandarin Chinese. Given that most foreigners, including myself, are taught Mandarin, this location made it easier for me to interact with and interview Chinese citizens.
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cultural mores. After all, language, culture, and customs are dynamic processes
subject to perpetual reinterpretation instead of static possessions of a society.
Like other prosperous Chinese cities, Beijing now attracts significant numbers
of migrant laborers from the countryside. Thus, despite the fact that this research is
focused on one northern city, the interviewees come from a diverse number of provinces
and autonomous regions, thus broadening the applicability of this study beyond Beijing
itself.
Thus, I located a Beijing neighborhood where I could begin to make myself as
much “part of the scenery” as possible for a Caucasian woman in China via participant-
observation research.186 I wanted to convey a sense of the conditions of “everyday” lives
in the present-day, increasingly cosmopolitan and dynamic PRC. 1 R7
The Setting
After initial weeks living in a foreign students’ dormitory at Beijing University,
I found housing in a neighborhood on Beijing’s west side. Living near Zizhuyuan
185These changes have been reported widely in recent books on Chinese popular culture such as: Michael Dutton, Streetlife China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Geremie R. Barme, In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Timothy B. Weston and Lionel M. Jensen, eds., China beyond the Headlines (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); and Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, and Paul G. Pickowicz, eds., Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002).
186Kondo discusses at length how her identity as a Japanese American impacted significantly upon her research in Japan, not allowing her to play the role of mere observer. Similarly, my identity as a foreigner could not help but shape my project. Kondo, 11-14 and 16.
187American images o f China remain decades out of date. See Jianwei Wang, Limited Adversaries: Post-Cold War Sino-American Mutual Images (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 5.
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Gongyuan, or “Purple Bamboo Park,” was just right for my purposes. I chose it as the
ideal setting for my research because it was roughly halfway between Beijing University
and the vast downtown area. My focus initially was upon strengthening my ability to
speak and understand Mandarin, and since my tutor lived in university housing, it was
convenient not to be too far away from Qinghua and Beijing universities. Bus lines, the
subway toward Beijing’s vast downtown area, a huge Carrefour supermarket, banks, and
restaurants all were within walking distance.
In contrast, most foreigners are concentrated in the northeast comer of Beijing—
where the large Friendship Store, the bulk of the best hotels, the embassies, Starbucks, 1 (8 Hard Rock Cafe, and so forth are located. I wanted to avoid the typical expatriate
lifestyle as it would distance myself from Chinese people and undermine language
immersion. Moreover, I also thought it best to leave foreign student housing at Beijing
University as it would be another familiar way to guarantee a certain amount of insulation
from Chinese people. So instead I opted to move into grey cement factory housing, a
comfortable if decrepit area filled with mostly lower-middle-class Chinese.
On my daily walks, I would encounter a mixture of humanity on the sidewalks
and pedestrian tunnels underneath the main intersection at Zhongguancun, ranging from
pairs of girls walking with their arms tightly around each other as if for support, young
punks who have dyed their hair a light auburn brown, garbage collectors, grandparents
watching their grandchildren, waitresses from my neighborhood’s main restaurant,
188I have decided to use the term “foreigners” here instead of “internationals”— a term I actually prefer—because “foreigner”(^FES A waiguoren or laowai ) is the term most used by Chinese. These terms are discussed further below.
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scurrying to do an errand on their break, or elderly neighbors walking their Pekinese or
pug dogs.
While more and more Chinese are purchasing cars, bicycles still are widely used,
and remain one of the several reasons why people must pay attention to where they walk
in China. These tunnels rarely were empty, often sheltering homeless people and bicycle
repairmen as well as bedraggled peasants hawking yams or other produce away from the
eyes of the police. Otherwise, a fairly steady stream of bicycle and pedestrian traffic
flowed through the tunnels.
In contrast, my immediate neighborhood continued to have a certain intimacy.
Since my building was several blocks away from the main street, my apartment was
fairly quiet. Also, while restaurants and fast-food chains were within walking distance,
only one family-owned restaurant was immediately accessible. I ate there often in the
hope of becoming familiar to the staff and regular eaters, thereby finding more people to
interview.
As so often happens in China, social connections(guamci ) led to my finding
housing. A Chinese friend of a friend of my parents’ next-door neighbor in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin—a couple who were twice removed from ever having met me—graciously
took me out to dinner to welcome me to Beijing and offer any help to me that they could.
Within days, they informed me that they had a friend who had an extra apartment for
rent—a one-bedroom apartment that they themselves had lived in as a family decades
earlier. The location was, by chance, exactly where I was hoping to find a place to live,
the price was fair, and I gratefully accepted the apartment.
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My landlady and her family lived in two adjacent apartments downstairs and
were extremely kind toward me. The grandmother often protested that I was “too polite”
in my interactions with her—much as in American contexts, familiarity, connection, and
affection are supposed to breed a certain amount of informality in China.
Meanwhile, there also was the son, the person with whom I interacted the most
on a daily basis, a somewhat nerdy young man trying to get into a graduate computer
program. Smart and diligent, he meant to be helpful but sometimes irritated me. As
often happens in China, he liked to try out his English speaking and listening skills with
me. I had a great deal of practice performing this role, having taught English to high
school students before, but found this young man’s long silences between words
particularly trying at times. I knew that it all was done to help me as well as make the
most of the opportunities to speak English with me, but I can do without a lot of the 1 80 “help”—much like Dorinne Kondo experienced in Japan. Still, I came to have some
affection for him, too.
After all, he was there to ensure that I was properly looked after. Given the
emphasis in Chinese culture on relationship, and the assumption that foreigners cannot
take proper care of themselves, I was never to be outside the circle of care and protection.
There is some practical justification for this belief, although internationals often chafe at
the constraints this situation poses.190
l89Kondo, 21-22.
190For years, this cultural tendency was reinforced by Communist belief in supervision, leaving most visitors to the PRC only able to participate in tightly scripted tours, including visits to various factories displaying wares for sale. While tours still tend to be scripted, there is far more ability than in previous decades to go off on one’s own in the PRC.
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Guanxi
Everything in China, some say, has to do with relationship. To a great extent, it
is true that the principle ofguanxi usually translated as “connection,” “relations,”
or “networks,” is key to one’s existence in China.191 Even when simply walking down a
street, one is defined as either an “insider” or “outsider” in relation to the people and
buildings one passes. For example, most passersby would be considered strangers, and
one would not expend much energy on communicating with them.192 Similarly, most
Chinese buildings—whether business or residential—possess guard booths and gates
designed to separate the insiders from the outsiders. Within these complexes, individual
apartments also often have heavy, iron-gated doors to prevent outside entry. Thus, it is
not a mistake that one of the most significant Chinese cultural symbols is the Great Wall,
designed to keep barbarians from the north from invading.
191Kwang-Kuo Hwang describes guanxi as “the hierarchically structured network of social relations ... in which [Chinese] people are embedded...” See Kwang-Kuo Hwang, “Face and Favor: The Chinese Power Game,” American Journal of Sociology 92,4 (1987), 944. More recent studies of guanxi include Andrew B. Kipnis, Producing Guanxi: Sentiment, Self, and Subculture in a North China Village (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997) and Thomas Gold, Doug Guthrie, and David Wank, eds., Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
192Much o f this type of interaction is similar, of course, to what takes place in American settings, too. The differences probably more are a matter of degree, although it should be noted that many Americans tend to greet occasional passersby with a brief comment and/or smile, something that rarely takes place in Chinese contexts. Such differences in treatment o f strangers can lead to confusion. See Gao Ge and Stella Ting-Toomey, Communicating Effectively with the Chinese (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998), 48-49. Consider also what Bond discusses, as he believes that this concept applies to some Chinese context: “The anthropologist George Foster discussed the concept of ‘the limited good’, a basic belief system o f peasant communities that the goods and resources of this world are fixed in supply. Consequently, everyone is in competition with everyone else for the most they can get. This view of the world promotes a suspicious attitude towards others, discouraging association with anyone whose fate is not linked to one’s own.” See Bond, 36. Thus, there usually is a double-edged quality to interactions with strangers in China, given the risk on both sides of exploitation.
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Looked at more positively, guanxi is part of Chinese social systems that allow
people to look out for one another. One’s primary circle is that of the family, and
concentric circles extend outward from there to include one’s classmates, friends, and
perhaps key business associates.193 One knows that guanxi is beginning to develop when
someone says, “Meiyou guanxi ” ('$:Wa polite phrase that means literally “there’s
no significance.” It is used to indicate something along the lines of “no problem” or
“don’t mention it.” However, I think the literal translation has great significance,
reinforcing exactly the opposite message. Every time a Chinese person does something
to help another and then says “meiyou guanxi ,” the statement serves to underscore the
human connection and sense of obligation between them. Thus, there were times that I
agreed, for example, to help a classmate of my landlady’s son because my landlady’s
mother asked me to do so.194
193Particularly close social ties also can involve the higher concept of renqing (which can mean, depending on the context, “human feelings” and “empathy” or rendering a gift or favor of some sort) more than guanxi, which can have a bit more of an instrumental connotation. However, both renqing and guanxi involve a sense that repayment is expected. Kwang-kuo Hwang makes a useful distinction among these circles of interaction, from expressive (family), to mixed, to instrumental ties. See Kwang-kuo Hwang, “Face and Favor: The Chinese Power Game,”American Journal of Sociology 92,4 (January 1987), 949- 958.
I94I finally began to comprehend what guanxi entails in the middle of a year in Nanjing from 1990-91. A close friend who was a university language instructor was asked by his American students to teach them the ancient Chinese game called “Go” the following evening. Instead of informing them that he did not even know how to play the game, he taught himself the game until the early hours of the morning. That evening, he taught the students how to play Go, never mentioning the lengths to which he had to go to do so. Sometimes I forgot guanxi does not extend to strangers. For example, a friend came to my apartment complex to look for me. Two elderly women offered to try to help him locate me, which would be easy since I was one o f only two foreigners in the entire complex, the other being a European. Now, the only problem that remained for them was distinguishing between the two o f us. “Is she that strange foreigner that always says, “Ni hao!” (# # ? ! or “How are you?”). “That’s her,” my friend replied. I was embarrassed to hear that I was considered to be strange even in comparison to other foreigners and even by my friend, but it was not a complete surprise. When walking by myself, I would tolerate many looks and stares. If the stare lasted too long for my comfort, I would smile, look at
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In practical terms of conducting research, I knew from past experience that, in
order to locate potential interviewees, introductions would be essential because of guanxi.
Similarly with Japan, Bestor, Steinhoff, and Bestor note that the researcher must have
.. .the understanding that such introductions involve the standard ... cultural practice of borrowing trust from other people in order to gain access to a new situation, which carries complex obligations to act responsibly and not misuse or damage the trust. The researcher must understand that his or her behavior in the research situation not only affects the relationship between researcher and research subjects, but also reflects directly on the person who made the introduction. The person providing an introduction is—in a very real cultural sense—accepting a role as social guarantor. The social networks many contributors to this volume describe in detail cannot be changed or disregarded at the researcher’s whim; they are very real, constraining social facts that bind the researcher to his or her introducer and to the group of people among whom she or he is doing research. If difficulties arise, the research subject will most likely complain directly to the go-between who introduced the researcher, with long-lasting negative consequences for both the researcher and his or her erstwhile sponsor.195
Thus, it was unsurprising that I was turned down for interviews any number of times.
Nevertheless, even from a rationalist, instrumentalist perspective, networks of
connection would be the most efficient way to obtain interviews. Prior to my arrival, I
had prepared some groundwork. In particular, several close friends from my year in
Nanjing had referred me to their closest friends in Beijing and academic contacts had
been made at Beijing University. Thus, while I came to Beijing not knowing one person,
that soon changed.
them directly, and say, “Ni hao.r' the standard greeting. The other person then would lose their blank stare and smile and say “Ni hao!” in reply. In doing so, I was making myself personally known to them, but this action was not expected since I was a complete stranger instead of a trusted friend. Hence, my actions seemed strange and out of place.
195Bestor et al., 14.
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When I first moved into my apartment, the friends who helped me make the
connection indicated that I probably should not interview people within the apartment
complex because it was directly associated with a factory. I understood that too many
political questions could make trouble for my landlady and her family. The PRC still
remains authoritarian, after all.
Fortunately, it was relatively easy to find people to interview—some individuals
even would come up on the street to meet me while I was walking home because they
find foreigners interesting. Thus, I interviewed an assortment of blue- and white-collar
workers, entrepreneurs, artists, university and high-school students, retirees, and so forth.
What proved more difficult was finding people who did not like the US or foreigners in
general.
The Coffee Bar
One of the places I soon discovered, quite by accident, was a coffee house and
bar near both Beijing and Qinghua universities. I enjoyed the relaxed setting and the
friendly attitude of the wait staff, and after realizing that it attracted an interesting
assortment of people, decided that I should make this place part of my overall project.
Over the course of my time in Beijing, I became especially fascinated by the lives of the
workers and got to know them quite well.
At first, I made the mistake of assuming that the workers were just past college
age. However, I forgot that few Chinese high school students are able to go to college.
Thus, most of the coffee house workers are from eighteen to twenty-three years old. Also,
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these workers tend to look older than their years from the combination of hard work
(some hold down two jobs while a few attend universities), lack of sleep, uncertain living
conditions, and smoking, no doubt.196
Both male and female, the workers generally are relatively attractive, tall, and
well-fed—many of the men smoke, although the female boss has told them that they will
be fired if they are caught smoking at work. Many also can speak some limited English
and like to try to speak with me. They receive simple Chinese meals at the workplace—
despite the fact that the coffee house predominantly provides Western snacks and dishes.
Most of them are migrants from other provinces: Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Hebei,
and they seem accustomed to being treated like second-class citizens. The fact that I
showed interest in them and their lives pleased them more than I would have expected.
Some of the customers, especially middle-aged businessmen who liked to bark orders,
treated them quite poorly.
Thanks to the wait staff, I became known by the female manager and her owner
boyfriend, an intriguing figure who was jailed briefly after the Tiananmen Square
incident in 1989 for siding with the students publicly. While admiring his political stance
and business acumen, I could not help noticing how the workers were not treated as
equals. The workers—and later a mutual acquaintance, a businesswoman—were
particularly pointed in their dislike of the manager. She did have a tendency to show a
simpering face to customers such as myself, while remaining strict with the workers.
196With some o f the dirtiest, most degrading jobs, the aging process can be extreme. I was shocked, for example, to learn that a Beijing cabbie I got to know and a coffee house worker (who was in charge of cleaning the toilets) both were a couple of years younger than I. The fact that one had broken teeth and the other was stooped as much as an elderly person with osteoporosis factored into my guess.
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Many of the workers were intelligent and creative people who deserved a chance
to have higher education. Unfortunately, students who are talented in English but poor in
mathematics, for example, probably would not be eligible to become college students in
China.
Some of the workers’ personal troubles also became apparent as time went on,
from not having enough money to keep their cell phone charged and other financial
issues from living hand-to-mouth, to larger disappointments.107
Such workers typically had “left the countryside” to come to work in the big
city.198 Indeed, Chinese migrant labor is responsible for much of China’s exploding
development. Much as with immigrant labor in the US, these workers take the dirty,
dangerous, and humble jobs that urban residents view beneath them. Many work hard in
order to send money home to family.
l97One of the workers was a decent, hard-working young man from a particularly mountainous rural province. He was in love with a young Christian woman, but her parents disapproved o f his humble background, nearly bringing the relationship to a permanent halt. While I never saw his tears, his co workers mentioned their concern about him to me, sounding resigned about the parents’ disapproval. The SARS crisis also showed how transient the lives of the coffee shop workers are. Before the evacuation, one o f the bartenders gave me the address o f his workplace to use to write him letters, but in the interim, he switched jobs— the second time in six months. These workers have free email addresses and use cell phones (often borrowed from friends), but those are not the same as having a home address. As members of the “floating population,” they live payday-to-payday, and are the working poor. They are young and healthy, but have no safety net other than their family relations.
198“Leaving the countryside” is a frequent theme recounted in people’s lives, whether elite or working class. For example, some well-educated, cosmopolitan elites told me that one or both parents had “left the countryside” and never looked back, indicating that they had left behind a life of great hardship. One of the workers went home for the Spring Festival, however, and felt so glad to be home that he decided to stay. This particular young man was one of the few people I met who was not primarily driven by money. He desired to become a writer despite his only having finished junior high school. One of the deciding factors of his return was that, at the age o f twenty-three, he was being pressured by his parents to marry. Upon his return to the countryside, he indicated that he had become engaged to a friendly young woman in the village. Subsequently, he was no longer able to contact the rest of us via e-mail or cell phone, so little is known about him since that last communication.
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Termed “the floating population” (il/jtAjAPliudong renkou), rural migrants are
«
considered outside the urban hukou (A P or “household registration system”), and
therefore, their situation is legally tenuous.199 While they can apply for and receive
temporary residence and work permits, risks remain. For one, their different
dialects/accents, tanned skin, and rural manners served to set them apart at a glance.
Thus, it is not surprising that “class” and social status kept emerging as themes
during this research. On the one hand, Chinese people generally can tell one another’s
social class and relative status by paying attention to the other’s dialect, skin tone (the
lighter, the “better”), cleanliness and general appearance of clothes, hair (some of the
poorer migrants have cases of “bed head” from lack of regular access to showers, for
example), and shoes. Peasants often wear dirty, drab clothing, and can be quite tan and
weathered from working long hours outside.
Moreover, many migrants are short from questionable nutrition over the course
of their lives.200 Short male migrants often are relegated to working construction projects
or as day laborers. A tall male migrant, meanwhile, could find work as a gate guard.
’"Hein Mallee, “Migration, Hukou and Resistance in Reform China,” in Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, eds. Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden (New York: Routledge, 2000), 86 .
200Dikotter discusses the strong “white-black polarity” present from ancient times among Chinese elites, who viewed themselves as having refined “white” skin—as opposed to darker-skinned Chinese laborers, for example. These class distinctions began to be projected onto outsiders. Dikotter, 10- 12. Even now, comments about skin color tend to be racialized in the Chinese language. The character hei may be translated as either “black” or “dark” depending on context. Unfortunately, much as with English, hei has come to be associated with negative, even sinister terms relating to corruption, manipulation, and bandits. A working-class friend of mine once sighed that his skin was “/a; hef' (“too dark”) whereas I would have tried to describe his skin more neutrally as “tanned.”
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Physically attractive male and female migrants have more flexibility in terms of working
in restaurants as servers or in other “meet and greet” functions. Of course, such options
still require an ability to speak Mandarin well.201
Another behavior that shows a gulf in experience is the treatment of beggars. A
fair number of Chinese, regardless of class status, yell at beggars who follow foreigners.
Much as in the US, there always are rumors that such beggars play on people’s
sympathies and can be swindlers. In the PRC, however, some even are said to be quite
“rich” despite their humble appearance.
These episodes provide a reminder that China remains quite hierarchical.
During the Mao and Deng eras in particular, obvious inequalities were explained in
Marxist terms—China was a feudal state when Marxism came, and some of those
inequalities remained despite the changes instigated by Mao. However, with the PRC’s
opening up to international markets, the income gap between the “haves” and “have nots”
has widened significantly.202
Among those individuals whom I encountered and interviewed during my time
in Beijing were some of the wealthiest people in the city, living in gated communities.
2 0 1 A 1 s o , Zhang Li notes that migrants tend to create enclaves according to region and monopolize a certain informal job sector. Thus, “Zhejiang migrants dominate garment, leather, and eyeglass businesses; Xinjiang migrants run restaurants that serve regional specialties; Henan migrants sell vegetables and recycle trash; Anhui migrant women work as maids; and Shandong migrants work as tricycle-peddlers. Migrants from different regions thus see each other not only as economic competitors but also as social and cultural outsiders.” Zhang Li, Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks within China’s Floating Population (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 31.
202China’s increasing wage disparities have gotten severe enough that Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for the PRC to focus on enhancing distributive justice throughout society. See Cheng Li, “Hu’s Policy Shift and the Tuanpai’s Coming-of-Age.” China Leadership Monitor 15 (summer 2005): 1- 16.
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Their spacious, specially designed condominiums had wooden floors and marble accents,
hot tubs, maids, nannies, and all other amenities. Such people also could afford US$100
haircuts, SUVs, and private schools for their children. Then again, one only had to
walk a block away from their apartment complex to encounter beggars and peasants from
the countryside selling their produce.204
Overall, mainland Chinese culture is increasingly focused on commerce, leading
some people to fear that anything could be for sale given the right price. For instance,
one person at the coffee house said of a mutual acquaintance, “He wants a rich girlfriend.
All that he’s interested in is money.”
More common, particularly in past years, some Chinese individuals tried to use
their connection to me to their advantage in some way—perhaps I would help them as
they attempted to get their child into a better school or even help him/her come to the US.
Or perhaps I could “support” them as they opened a new business. These dilemmas are
quite familiar to foreigners as well as “overseas Chinese” and have led to much cynicism,
disappointment, and fear of being used.
Sometimes the opposite problem occurred. Some of the workers whom I met
got punished by their bosses for trying to treat me in the traditional Chinese manner as an
honored foreign guest (insisting that I not pay for a drink or a meal, for example). If they
treated me themselves to a treat or a meal, it soon became clear that they could not afford
203These features o f the “good life” have been reinforced as global standards by imported movies and television as well as the recounted experiences of business travelers, for example.
204In contrast, one of the newer developments is that o f fancy gated communities on Beijing’s outskirts of Beijing—places where beggars and peasants are not allowed to be. Many embassies, including the US, have opted to house their employees in these segregated communities.
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to do so over the long term. Out of shame, more than one individual started to try to get
me not to come to their place of work—I always offered to pay for myself, but it was as if
it underscored their low status that they could not afford to treat me themselves. So,
honor and prestige entered into these interactions also, dooming some of these cross-class
interactions to being difficult to sustain over time.
Whether the persons involved are rich or poor, friendship tends to be intense in
Chinese cultural settings. Given the danger of having too many close relationships, I
decided to operate on the principle that I would try my best to work out some exchange
with my interview subjects.205 From experience, I knew that my ability to teach
English—although I considered myself more of a coach since most Chinese know basic
English—would be considered a valuable commodity. While part of me actively
disliked making use of this work experience, I knew that it would be useful to them in
various ways. I could not afford to become a weekly tutor to each interviewee.
This situation is a common one for researchers in Asia. As Bestor, Steinhoff,
and Bestor note,
Many researchers.. .describe their strong sense of gratitude and obligation to the informants and organizations that have made their research possible and discuss how they try to reciprocate in small ways without compromising their position as
205An unexpected complication is that the interviewees seemed to want to be friends afterwards. Some of the people were quite special and I truly enjoyed their company, but knew that I would be unable to sustain fifty-plus close friendships (especially given guanxi in Chinese culture and the concomitant expectations that I might be able to provide significant favors to them in the future).
206In my first few months in Beijing, I found odd jobs, usually related to English language skills, to help expand my social network. For example, for a brief period I found myself helping create several English instructional DVDs and tapes.
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objective researchers. There is no single correct approach to these difficult issues of access, obligation, and reciprocity...207 By the time I left Beijing in November of 2003,1 was surrounded by a rich
network of friends and acquaintances. In many respects, I hated to leave, but I also
recognized that I needed to return to my awaiting family, finish my research in the US,
and reduce my social obligations. A network of that intensity is abnormal in China and
almost impossible to sustain, especially for an introvert such as myself.
All in all, it was a challenge to be an outsider trying to emulate proper modes of
behavior in both global and Chinese contexts. Given the complex nature of developing
societies, this terrain was shifting and frequently difficult to gauge. Cosmopolitan
Chinese also complain about having to deal with the quick pace of international business
alongside more traditional Chinese modes of time, thought, and expression.
Politeness and Truth Telling: The Zhenhua/Jiahua Dichotomy
More methodologically relevant is the issue of whether the traditional sense of
Chinese politeness affects the findings of this study. While politeness remains an
important feature of Chinese culture, some particular practices are being modified due to
increased interaction with the rest of the world. For example, the Chinese “tendency
toward self-effacement” is changing, especially in urban centers due to increased travel
opportunities for business people, for example, and contact with foreigners doing work in
207Bestor et al., 16.
208Taken to extremes, foreigners can be frustrated by the lack of privacy that they receive from Chinese hosts. While much has improved in terms of understanding foreign cultures, it still is difficult for most Chinese to understand why some foreigners seem to need privacy— a word that has no direct translation into Chinese.
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China. One point of continuity, however, is that the difference in treatment between
insiders and outsiders remains. When one meets a stranger, there is little need to be
polite to such a person.209 Still I learned that, upon an introduction by a trusted third
party, some people were reluctant to say or write anything that might offend me—
particularly about the US’ foreign policy and current president.
Thus, one of the thorniest areas one confronts in studying citizens of the PRC—
and therefore also US-China relations in general—is the issue of “truth telling.” Astute
nineteenth-century commentators such as Arthur H. Smith mention that, as a group, the
Chinese have a “talent for indirection,” and, more damningly, have an “absence of
sincerity.”210 Ian Buruma, meanwhile, when writing about Chinese political exiles and
dissidents, notes how little regard they often have for one another. “Mention a name, and
I would be told that person was a liar, a government agent, a spy, an opportunist, a
gangster, an extremist, or corrupted by sex or power—or both.” Buruma continues,
If cynicism is pervasive in a country where telling lies is a matter of daily survival, then slander is the main tool of oppression. Lying trickles down from the top to the rest of society. Survivors develop a facility for it. They know what subjects to avoid, how to affect ignorance, and how to say one thing in public and something quite different in private. Chinese themselves are the first to state how “double- faced” they are as a people. They often say this with an air of distress and embarrassment, but sometimes also with pride, as though a habit of duplicity were a sign of superior sophistication. “We are a complicated people,” one is told over and over. “Our culture is so complicated, you foreigners can never understand us,” as if “you foreigners” are a bit simpleminded in your earnest attempts to blurt out the truth.211
209Gao and Ting-Toomey, 48-49.
210Arthur H. Smith, Chinese Characteristics (Safety Harbor, FL: Simon Publications, 2001), 71, 266.
2nThis insight is complicated by Buruma’s recognition that Japanese people have similar tensions to face in terms of politeness and face saving, and that Communism and Confucianism both are
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More importantly, this issue of whether Chinese people lie is reflected in other
areas, leading to questions of whether Chinese negotiators are inherently manipulative, or
whether the PRC is a threat to American• interests. 212 Clearly, the answer a commentator
gives to such dichotomous questions has significant ramifications for US-PRC relations.
One man who declined to be interviewed talked about “ zhenhua ” (H iS) and
“jiahucC’ (fltiS). He claimed that, because he is a manager, his employees would not feel
comfortable telling me their true feelings when responding to my questions—a statement
that, upon reflection, I came to believe was an excuse not to participate in the study rather
than an explanation. Another individual criticized the questions that I had used to ask
various citizens in Beijing, citing the poor form of the questions. I had been hoping that
perhaps she could answer these questions herself, but recognized her resistance. As I
discussed this situation with close friends later, one said that it was probably just an
avoidance tactic.
Similarly, a female friend of mine claimed that Chinese people are too polite to
tell their true emotions about US foreign policy to an American. She related the story of
the response she received in the countryside when one of her students was conducting
not fully responsible for this “culture of duplicity.” See Ian Buruma, Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing (New York: Random House, 2001), 12-13; Smith, Chinese Characteristics , 16.
212Actually, Buruma’s discussion of how the Chinese dissidents disliked and attempted to discredit each other may not be so different from how dissidents view each other in other areas of the world. I recall some activists in Northern Ireland bad-mouthing each other (“so-and-so is a ‘sell-out’”), and the tension among activists engaged in the East Timor and Burma conflicts, for example. In particular, there frequently is disagreement regarding whether to utilize reformist or revolutionary tactics.
213I had a number o f trusted friends who were interested in helping me as I conducted this research. I consulted them frequently if I was uncertain about how to read a given reaction or encounter.
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some research on Chinese responses to the events of 11 September 2001. One young
man first claimed that they felt “very sorry” to learn of “9/11,” but she suspected that he
was not expressing his true feelings. So, she told these interviewees a lie, stating that
these students were not Americans. Immediately, one young man burst out, “They [the
Americans] deserved it!”214
In one sense, this “zhenhua/jiahua ” conundrum/dichotomy is to be expected in a
country that experienced such collective trauma as experienced during the Cultural
Revolution. At times, I found that the current political situation hampered my ability to
get interviewees who would be forthcoming, whether due to anti-American sentiment
over the impending war against Iraq, the importance of 2002-2003 for Chinese domestic
politics (most notably, the Communist Party Congress), or the SARS outbreak.
For example, one older woman who wanted to help me locate interviewees had
trouble finding such people. As her contemporaries were all in their early 60s, many of
them were scared (and rightly so) to talk about politics. This generation experienced
significant political upheaval during the Cultural Revolution and has seen too many
people punished for speaking forthrightly about politics.215
James Scott also has analyzed the issue of conflicting accounts and truth telling.
In his research, Scott discovered that oppressed people’s public and private statements
214Allowances were made for these discrepancies— but this problem would be true of any type of research, including simple statistical surveys. Americans sometimes do the same thing—tailoring responses on surveys because of a desire to tell people what they want to hear. Similarly, as I was a relatively young white American female, there would be certain expectations in China as to what I would be “expecting,” so no response, whether “private” or “public,” should be viewed as absolute truth.
215Interestingly, however, a number of these older individuals still offered to show me around Beijing, demonstrating their ingrained politeness toward a “foreign guest.”
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regarding controversial matters were contradictory. This phenomenon did not occur if
the poor people involved were relatively autonomous, but did emerge in those people
who were dependent on the politically powerful for their survival. Actually, members of
the dominant group are aware of their subjects’ contradictions, but tend to believe that
their subordinates “lie” because of their innate negative tendencies rather than the
situational imbalance of power. I agree with Scott that asymmetrical power
relationships encourage the fragmentation of narratives.
Furthermore, while Arthur Smith has a point that, at times, there is some
“theatricality” to Chinese social relations, his and Buruma’s comments need to be placed
in context.217 One simple way to open up the discussion is to ask Chinese people
themselves how they view such behavior. Interestingly, some of the first interviewees
gave cliche-ridden responses—almost as if Jiang Zemin himself was whispering in their
ear, telling them what to say.218
Bargaining
In a less overtly political context, Chinese people also are legendary for their
bargaining skills. Hedging and bluffing behaviors during a bargaining encounter may be
216Scott, 35-36; also Timur Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), ix.
217Importantly, Arthur H. Smith is concerned with bringing Christianity to China, a subject to which he devotes an entire chapter in Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899), 341-352.
218My mistake had been to approach two people in the coffee shop after a waiter had introduced me— a kind gesture on his part but not the same as a “proper introduction” from a trusted intermediary.
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read as standard Chinese negotiating techniques. For example, I observed a Chinese
friend once when he was negotiating the price of some products. He complained about
the prices, commenting that the products wereiitinggui...bupianyi ,” (“a bit
expensive.. .not cheap”) while the seller responded that they were Bu“ tai gui” ([They’re]
“not too expensive”). Once the vendor left, my friend confessed that the prices were not
that expensive. I took him to mean that it was part of the role he had to play in his job—
to get as good a deal as possible for his work place.
At one point, a Chinese friend told a group of foreigners that we must be careful
not to be “too nice” to Chinese people. After all, in bargaining and other matters, if we
are “too nice,” they will think we are “just stupid.”219 Or more specifically, according to
the Chinese saying, “An overly kind person can get bullied by others” (A # M ASfc
renshan bei ren qi). Furthermore, he added, that we must not be taken in by beggars.
After all, “A pitiful person must have some detestable characteristics” (RTf^ Ail&W"ST'IS
A A kelian ren bi you kehen zhi chu).
In addition, local contexts vary, and so do the practices regarding apologies.
This same friend mentioned that, upon his first visit to Beijing, he was shocked when,
after bumping into someone and apologizing for it, the person said that his apology was
not enough to rectify the matter. In response, this friend angrily told him the saying,
“Even if you kill me, only my head touches the ground” sharen buguo
219Kang Wenqing, Ph.D. candidate, interview by author, 22 March 2003, Beijing, China, tapes and notes. Interestingly, there is an identical saying in English.
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tou dian di ).220 In other words, “What else do you want from me? Doesn’t an apology
take care of the matter?”221 Clearly, even in Chinese cultural settings, apology is a
contested subject.
Therefore, since segments of both the Chinese and American public seem to
believe that kindness equals weakness, it is not a long leap to see that apologizing, and
probably politeness in general, might be seen the same way. Apologizing may put one in
a “one down” position—a ritual humiliation of sorts. Therefore, for many, the giving of
an apology may be unacceptable due to issues of honor. 999
All in all, a researcher only can do one’s best to surmount the difficulties
involved with getting honest interview responses, but admittedly there is no guarantee
that one could get anything beyond what the respondents think the investigator wants to
220During my time in the PRC, I also investigated regional differences in violence and conflict behavior, asking interviewees, friends and acquaintances in China about regional variations in terms of conflict and its resolution/management, such as with street fights or domestic disputes. For one, do people actually come to blows over their differences? Do they just quarrel and then go their separate ways? Do they work it out peaceably? If so, what do they say? Are there apologies, and if so, how are they received? In response, I received information about a number of regional stereotypes. When it comes to disputes, for example, people (read “men”) in the north are considered more likely to fight. Meanwhile, men in Suzhou, for example, are said to argue about ten feet apart and then find a way to resolve their differences short o f violence. However, men from Suzhou also are thought to be “more feminine” and “soft.” I also observed what would happen on the bus in Beijing when people bumped into each other. I noted a lack of consistency because some people apologized and others did not. Meanwhile, if I was one of the parties involved, I would apologize automatically. In response, some people would say nothing while others would say “mei sh r Y&M which could be translated roughly as “it’s nothing” or “no matter.” Meanwhile, given the issue of “road rage” in the US, I was amazed to watch what happened when one car cut off another’s path or when a car accident occurred. Indications are that Chinese people do lose their tempers in traffic, but that punches fly instead of bullets.
221Kang interview. Again, it is relevant that Kang Wenqing is from an area northwest of Beijing where people allegedly are more prone to fight.
2220 ’Neill, 87 and 106.
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hear. Of course, this problem exists for any type of research, statistical or otherwise, that
involves human interaction.
Given this drawback, one way to deal with this situation is to view such speech
as significant regardless of the form it takes. After all, the interviewees still are
interacting with a WASP female foreigner from the other country involved in these
disputes. Of course, there still is reason to assume that Chinese people—both experts and
citizens—would be circumspect in their discussions with me. Even in the most
totalitarian of societies, however, there are observable behaviors that carry a lot of
meaning.223 Furthermore, the interview narratives still contained a significant amount of
negative commentary regarding Chinese leaders.224
Given the problems related to public versus private speech, Chinese friends
would offer to make introductions (according to Chinese traditions of politeness) or act as
intermediaries, exhorting their contacts to speak from their heart and also serving to
prevent any possible misunderstandings based on cultural and linguistic differences
(particularly an issue with migrants who only speak local or regional dialects). Over time,
I revised the questions to elicit more frankness, and I also asked my language tutor to
help me learn what to say to encourage people to be more forthcoming. In addition,
223For example, when Deng Xiaoping was thought of a reformer who deserved not to be persecuted, people showed their support for him by symbolic displays o f little bottles— after all, “Xiaoping” sounds much the same as the characters for “little bottles.” However, when Deng Xiaoping and others ordered the crackdown on the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, rumors have it that little bottles were smashed to indicate the people’s anger at him. Even when people are severely suppressed by a totalitarian government, popular sentiment has a way of seeping out.
224Many citizens and most of the journalists interviewed were highly critical of their leaders’ actions. However, officials, think tank members, and academics were far more muted in their comments regarding the Chinese leadership.
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Chinese friends who facilitated finding and setting up certain interviews at times
accompanied me to help encourage the respondents “to tell the truth.”
Troublemaker
Still, while many Chinese citizens were enthusiastic about my research project,
there occasionally were men who were dismissive of my research or questioned whether I
was merely being a “troublemaker” naoshizhe ).225 A couple of MBA students
(who were not interviewed) also thought I was “making trouble” by researching these
particular incidents. They thought that my research question was no longer relevant after
the events of September 11, 2001 as well as the impending war against Iraq. The US had
shifted its foreign policy focus away from its relations with China. The 1999 embassy
bombing and 2001 plane collision were old problems that no longer merited further
study.226
A businessman acquaintance of mine who tried to help me find both citizen and
foreign-policy-expert interviewees explained that Chinese like to “look forward” toward
a brighter future rather than focus on negative incidents in the past. Sino-American
relations had improved since the low point of the EP-3E crisis. Why revisit painful
memories?
225It is not a mistake that a prominent activist against Chinese prisons, Harry Wu, wrote a book with George Vecsey entitled Troublemaker: One Man’s Crusade against China’s Cruelty (New York: Times Books, 1996).
226Similarly, consider the American men who were angered by the thought of studying the EP- 3E event.
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The Interview Questions
The interviews included questions as to the subject’s interpretation of apologies
at interpersonal, national, and international levels. Also, the interviewees were asked
their interpretation of the particular events and of the overall nature of the bilateral
relationship in question. This information provides insight as to the dynamics of public
apology as well as historical memory and the way in which incidents are remembered and
interpreted at an inter subjective level.227 Moreover, I solicited suggestions as to how
such situations could be dealt with more constructively in the future—questions designed
to elicit conflict-resolving behavior.
The questionnaire underwent some revisions over time, especially during the
early stages of field research. During that stage, I consulted widely with my committee,
outside experts, and Chinese friends to see whether questions needed to be added or
refined.228 In addition, sometimes new interview questions arose from the interviewees
themselves.
On occasion, some interviewees protested that my deliberately open-ended
questions were too difficult. However, I did not want to provide an obvious or a
“preferred” answer that would promote the respondents guessing as to the type of
227Shotter, Conversational Realities. For further discussion of intersubjectivity, see Ruggie, 38, 43, and 85.
228I considered briefly at one point whether to hand out numerical surveys, but in conversation with these advisors was reminded that any question that required individuals to “rate your response from 1 - 10” would not work in China. For one, most Chinese prefer to respond “yes,” “no,” or some more ambiguous mid-level response such as “so-so” mama-huhu), “rather good,” (#£#?ting hao) “a little” (—&A1?,yidiandiari), or “pretty good” (jTnJiifhai keyi) to a numerical rating system. More to the point, designing a survey that way would sidestep all consideration of interviewees’ justification of their beliefs— the subject matter that concerned me the most.
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response they might anticipate I want.229 Furthermore, I had designed the questionnaire
to be ambiguous as to whether a specific question refers to the 1999 embassy bombing,
the 2001 plane collision, or both. I wanted the respondents to follow their own line of
thinking as much as possible so as to indicate which incident was more important or
damaging in their view.
A few times, potential respondents told me that my questions also seemed very
“American,” even though I had checked the questions repeatedly with four close Chinese
friends, three of whom are professional instructors of Mandarin. One friend commented
that since Beijing is changing so quickly, the two of my friends who had settled in the US
would have lost some of their ability to converse in the most current popular form of
Mandarin.230
The questions for foreign policy experts, meanwhile, evolved more over time.
First, the experts were asked the same questions as other citizens. However, more and
more I focused on obtaining details and opinions that would not be well known in the
general public. Also, I used the technique of using one provocative comment or point
made in a previous interview to see how the expert would respond.
229One example o f a question that provoked the interviewees to ask me for more information is: “If you must give an apology to another person (at home, at work, in a public setting, or to a friend), what do you do and say?” As one individual asked me, was the question meant in an internal sense—that one is motivated personally to apologize? Or did I mean external pressure in which someone forced them to apologize?
230In this case, the friend was explaining the behavior of a co-worker who she was attempting to recruit for me as an interviewee. This co-worker criticized the form of the questions instead of preparing herself to answer them. When I mentioned this incident to my advisors, one o f the lifelong Beijing residents said that the co-worker just was arguing about their form so that she could get out o f having to respond to the questionnaire.
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Interviews with Foreign Policy Experts
At first, interviews with policy experts were difficult to obtain as American and
Chinese officials seemed uneager to participate in such research, especially in regard to
the 2001 EP-3 event. In particular, several Chinese officials whom I contacted refused to
answer any questions or even have a general conversation on Sino-US relations.
After all, no Chinese official would want to deviate from the PRC’s press
releases. Another issue mentioned was that of these incidents being seen as “too early for
history.” In other words, crucial American and Chinese official documents related to the
crises have not yet been declassified and available for analysis. While some information
is available publicly, much remains secret. After all, these events still were recent
enough to be labeled as “sensitive.”
In contrast, a number of fairly high-ranking American Studies scholars wanted
to meet me and share information. These individuals seem to recognize that it is essential
to “keep the lines of communication open” and want to get to know members of the “next
generation” of China Studies scholars. Sometimes, I was not treated to an interview
immediately, but was given a lecture (albeit a conversational one) instead. Follow-up
meetings or e-mail submissions in response to my interview questions would be
forthcoming so that I could complete my research. A couple of these scholars were open
to being quoted directly, and that some of them seemed to be, if not directly in the official
structure of the PRC, at least closely aligned to those at a high level. Of course, if they
did agree to be interviewed, most Chinese experts did not want their identity to be
revealed. Meanwhile, I found that Chinese journalists and professors of journalism or
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media studies were quite eager to discuss these issues and seemed free to express their
opinions.
Curiously, American embassy personnel seemed to be made nervous by my
requests for an interview and were not forthcoming beyond giving well-known public
information on the two incidents. One individual claimed to get a phone call from
Washington, DC just after I had asked a politically charged question. O'X 1 Another
indicated that, since the items—particularly with the EP-3E event were still considered
classified information, nothing beyond a general conversation about Sino-US relations
could take place.
Since the American Embassy in Beijing was nearly as circumspect as the
Chinese side about discussing these events, I began to suspect that there was more
tension in the relationship than either side wished to acknowledge. In any case, it was
clear from such interactions as well as interviews and more informal interactions with
American journalists that the George W. Bush administration was intent upon keeping
information as tightly controlled as possible. Even so, American officials in the US were
far more open about the EP-3E event, although there still were certain areas that
remained opaque even to well-placed members of the Bush administration.
In general, many foreign policy experts viewed this research as being
worthwhile and of interest. Probably more intriguing were those (usually male
academics) who quickly came to the conclusion—often without asking additional
23'The question was whether the family of the Chinese fighter pilot, Wang Wei, had been compensated in any way for his loss.
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questions of me—that this project was naive, pointless, and off-the-mark. I would avoid
defending my project, asking the scholar instead whether he would tell me what he
thought were the “right questions” to ask and study regarding US-China relations or
international relations more broadly.
Flattery
A different kind of problem was that of being too flattered by my treatment by
Chinese experts. I caught myself feeling charmed when meeting with a director of an
important think tank in Beijing. While none of my questions (which were quite specific)
were addressed then, he stressed overarching Chinese principles of foreign policy in a
way that disarmed in terms of its practicality and pragmatism. Moreover, he led me to an
impressive meeting room with generous leather arm chairs where we were quietly served
tea. As a young female researcher who can feel the need to indicate my years and
experience, I was flattered to be treated so matter-of-factly and respectfully. However, I
also associate feeling flattered with the sense that I must be watchful.
Similarly, one can also sense that many Americans who interact with Chinese at
a policy level are on their guard, assuming the worst of the other presumably based on
negative outcomes in the past. Since I met some incredibly charming Chinese policy
makers, it was easy to see that Americans could fear being so flattered as to lose sight of
232This line of questioning reflects conflict resolution techniques. If one keeps asking creative questions, one may get people to relate what they view as important. The researcher’s ego should not be the issue— instead one is trying to get at social significance. “If I am off-the-mark, then tell me what you think would be ‘on the mark.’” At times, I also raise ideas as “trial balloons” rather than as expressions of my “true feelings.”
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their policy objectives. On the other hand, one can also meet hawkish, blunt Chinese
foreign policy experts who brook no opposition.
All in all, the participant-observation and interviewing steps of my research
process were fascinating for me as an investigator and provided plenty of empirical data
for analysis. Now it is time to turn to consideration of the process by which the data are
to be interpreted.
The Events
The 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy and 2001 plane collision incidents
may be analyzed any number of ways—as examples of crisis management, as cross-
cultural negotiations, and so forth. After all, these particular crises were both interstate
disputes over military-related “accidents” that took place in the larger context of a
bilateral relationship with the United States—whether as an ally or a rival. Also, official
apologies were granted in the NATO bombing incident, but with the EP-3E incident, the
US maintains that it did not apologize to the Chinese government. These incidents also
involved two American administrations with different stances toward apologies: William
J. Clinton’s with the NATO bombing event, and George W. Bush’s with the EP-3E
incident. Of most interest here, however, is the sense that both events involved
significant interstate and domestic contestation over the form, content, and definition of
apologies, leading to the question of why this is the case.
233If this dissertation were following classic case-study methodology, other possible incidents to investigate would be other crises in Northeast Asia, many o f which are sea-based, or other situations in which apology demands are made, as with the collision of the American submarine with the Japanese fishing boat, the Ehime Maru. However, given the limited public awareness of and military-state
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These crises also have been chosen because the smaller scope of “incidents”
should, in theory, make it “easier” to apologize than for situations of war and genocide.234
These episodes may lay the groundwork to begin to investigate whether apologies can act
as an effective conflict resolution mechanism across cultures. Or, conversely, what
“stumbling blocks” work to prevent conflict resolution.
Besides the fact that both events were crises that involved apology, these two
episodes are considered together for a reason. Namely, their media prominence in both
countries made them both relatively common knowledge and arguably more than “mere
blips” in the Sino-American relationship. Also, both the Chinese and American
governments went to great lengths to argue their side of the story.
Together, these two events combined to form a sea change in national
perceptions in Sino-American relations, with groundwork laid by the Tiananmen Square
massacre in 1989. On the one hand, the 1999 embassy bombing incident was a
watershed for many Chinese, causing a great deal of disillusionment with the United
States. According to Robert Suettinger, the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy was
the “most damaging blow since Tiananmen” to the US-PRC relationship. Meanwhile,
Willy Wo-Lap Lam states that the plane collision in 2001 was “the most serious military
restrictions on information regarding most sea-based crises, and the language restrictions of studying a conflict with the Japanese, these options were not pursued.
234A number of scholars have indicated that those conflicts that have taken place over a longer space and time may be more difficult to resolve. While such an argument makes sense at first glance, these issues may be of less importance than, for example, the way in which communal apologies are requested or demanded.
235Suettinger, 369.
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confrontation between both sides since diplomatic relations were established in 1979.”236
The incident seemed to spur American disgust and reactive nationalism—a trend that
could have escalated if the events of 11 September 2001 had not occurred.
Most China watchers would assert that the 2001 plane collision is not as
significant as the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis, for example, when the PRC’s missiles
were pointed at Taiwan prior to its presidential elections. Nevertheless, my purpose here
is to call attention to the public nature of the calls for apologies in the 1999 embassy
bombing and 2001 Hainan crises. While these two situations were resolved by
diplomatic means and therefore considered “successes,” the nationalistic response in both
countries took more time and effort to dispel. Indeed, one could assert that the citizens’
concerns were not addressed adequately by their respective governments.
Upon the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, most American
pundits were reluctant for the US to grant official apologies to the PRC. Moreover, a
significant portion of American public also indicated reservations about giving such
apologies to the PRC, and, once the immediate crisis was over, remained disenchanted by
Chinese behavior.
For example, I happened to meet a retired American foreign service officer after
a lecture on US-China relations given during the autumn of 1999. He was the picture of
the calm diplomat during the bulk of our conversation on the NATO bombing of the
Chinese embassy in Belgrade, but grew red-faced with anger when he described the
236Willy Wo-Lap Lam, “Beijing Looks to Get Tough,” CNN, 2 April 2001, 1:05 AM EDT, accessed 7 April 2001, http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/apcf/east/04/01/china.us.willy/index.html.
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subsequent riots and rock-throwing incidents around the American embassy and
consulates in China, claiming, “You just don’t do that!” By implication, there were
norms of international diplomatic behavior that China had transgressed.
I noticed similarly forceful reactions from American citizens—especially men—
after the EP-3E incident, both in terms of Internet chat room postings and “jokes” about
the incident. During a brief visit to Hong Kong in 2002, a couple of expatriate American
men grew belligerent when learning the focus of my upcoming research. I was merely
responding briefly to informal questions as to what I was going to be doing in the PRC,
and did not indicate one way or the other what stance I was taking toward these incidents.
Despite the fact that these conversations took place at different times and locations, each
man’s response was almost identical, raising their voices and saying angrily, “Damn
straight, I won’t apologize!” They viewed the incident as quite simple: the Chinese
fighter jet hit the slower American plane. Thus, there was no need for the US to
apologize because the accident was not “our” fault. Again, the vehemence of
responses like these is what intrigued me.
At times, I have wondered whether these incidents were the diplomatic
equivalent of “s/he started it!”—a statement often made during a dispute between
children, indicating to an adult that the other child is to blame. Unfortunately,
international politics has little in the way of a supra-national authority. The United
Nations (UN) was designed to be limited in its budget and powers. While attempts have
2370 f course, most Chinese commentators viewed the chain o f events quite differently: the American surveillance plane was infringing on Chinese airspace and hit the Chinese fighter jet, causing the pilot’s presumed death.
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been made to create such offices, there is no mutually agreed upon entity designated to
arbitrate such a dispute or determine the “objective facts” of these crises.
Project Design
Clearly, this project is not designed as a classic case study, complete with
counter cases. As mentioned earlier, my interest in these incidents arose out of their
being “crucial cases,” “most likely” to be resolved easily and quickly via an interstate
apology, despite the fact that they proved to take some time and political capital to
manage.239 Of course, Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba are not convinced
by Eckstein’s strategy, viewing “crucial cases” as coming close to being outliers or
random errors.240 However, it is clear that international apology debates are not outliers.
Whether viewed as examples of diplomatic interactions, crisis negotiations, or issues
related to post-conflict reconciliation, for instance, international apology debates are a
frequent feature in world politics. Therefore, they should not be dismissed out of hand.
238For example, one central question is whether the US (as part of NATO) intentionally bombed the Chinese embassy. Chinese people tend not to find the American explanation believable— that an old map was used that did not show the Chinese embassy new location.
239Harry Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in Handbook of Political Science: Strategies of Inquiry, Vol. 7, eds. Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1975), 79-137.
240Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 210. Instead King, Keohane, and Verba make the mistake of assuming cases are essentially more-or- less the same in terms o f importance. See Timothy J. McKeown, “Case Studies and the Limits o f the Quantitative Worldview,” inRethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, eds. Henry E. Brady and David Collier (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 145-146.
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One should be clear, however, that, given Eckstein’s research strategy, this
study is indeed based on deliberate selection. As an area researcher, sometimes topic
matter cannot help but be defined by one’s expertise. King, Keohane, and Verba express
some sympathy toward those researchers who face travel and access limitations and
therefore almost cannot help “selecting on the dependent variable.”241 Even so, it is
apparent that they view this issue as undermining the validity of the subsequent
findings.242
Nevertheless, there is great scientific benefit derived from in-depth
understanding of contexts and areas. According to Theodore C. Bestor, Patricia G.
Steinhoff, and Victoria Lyon Bestor, while field researchers often are
.. .less constrained by a statistical or hypothesis-testing model of social science research, but their accounts reveal how they attend to the underlying principles of reliability and validity. They tell us how they have expanded their research to different sites or settings, explored the research problem at different levels, or utilized multiple methods to gain a fiiller understanding and to cross-check their findings. Many emphasize the value of returning to the same research site or maintaining long-term contact with the same research subjects as ways of correcting early misconceptions, deepening their understanding, and observing stability and change over time.243
The choice of setting, careful attendance to getting a stratified sample, use of interviews
of both citizens and experts, and consideration of secondary sources on the episodes in
question represent the ways that validity and reliability are enhanced in this study. In
241King et al„ 133.
242 Ibid., 129-149. However, they do not answer satisfactorily whether the findings of studies that “selected upon the dependent variable” are to be rejected entirely.
243Bestor et al., 15-16.
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addition, I previously had performed research of other examples of international apology
(or non-apology) so I had other knowledge to draw upon to strengthen my analysis.
Cases and Episodes244
Another way to analyze these events is to view them as examples of what
Charles Tilly refers to as “contentious conversations”245 or, more specifically, as what
Doug Me Adam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly call “ episodes o f contention ,”246
Me Adam, Tarrow, and Tilly argue that the study of contentious politics has gotten too
narrow in its focus, and perhaps it is more useful to get beyond the distinction between
“normal politics” and “social movements,” for example.” They state that
The contentious politics that concerns us is episodic rather than continuous, occurs in public, involves interaction between makers of claims and others, is recognized by those others as bearing on their interests, and brings in government as mediator, target, or claimant. 247
Interstate apology debates qualify as episodes of “contentious politics” because they meet
these criteria.248 Clearly, there was an enormous amount of public pressure mounted on
244McAdam et al., 6.
245Charles Tilly, Stories, Identities, and Political Change (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 113-114.
246McAdam et al., 6; emphasis in original.
247Ibid., 5; emphasis in original.
248Ibid., 7-8. It is more difficult to distinguish whether the 1999 Chinese embassy bombing and 2001 EP-3E plane collision episodes are instances of what McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly distinguish as “contained” versus “transgressive contention.” They define “transgressive contention” as
episodic, public, collective interaction among makers o f claims and their objects when (a) at least one government is a claimant, object of claims, or a party to the claims, (b) the claims would, if
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both sides in response to these crises, and the respective governments were forced to
navigate the situations carefully lest they trod upon the will of their people.
Next, I will begin the process of detecting prominent themes or “rhetorical
commonplaces” that emerge during general discussions of US-China relations or public
apologies. In subsequent chapters, foreign policy experts and Chinese citizens’
commentary on the 1999 Chinese embassy bombing and 2001 plane collision episodes
will be mined to see whether the same rhetorical commonplaces have resonance and why.
Given my relational emphasis on interaction, the public resources called upon in these
apology debates will be the focus of study.
realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants, (c) at least some parties to the conflict are newly self-identified political actors, and/or (d) at least some parties employ innovative collective action. (Action qualifies as innovative if it incorporates claims, selects objects of claims, includes selective self-representations, and/or adopts means that are either unprecedented or forbidden within the regime in question.
With both episodes, most of the transgressive activity occurred on the Chinese side of the interaction. Public demonstrations were key in the 1999 embassy bombing episode, whereas Internet chat rooms (used also by American citizens) and cell phones were widely used in the wake of the 2001 plane collision to criticize both governments.
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AN INVENTORY OF RHETORICAL COMMONPLACES IN PUBLIC APOLOGY
AND US-CHINA RELATIONS
According to Andrew Scobell, the “scholarship on China’s propensity to use force
seems to be shaped to a considerable extent by one’s research strategy and the data one
taps.”249 Unfortunately, the same is all too true of analysis of US-China relations in
general. Similarly, public apologies often engender polarized responses from those who
find them helpful to those who believe that such apologies are worse than useless. What
is to be done in the face of these seemingly intractable divides?
One option, as mentioned previously, is to survey common themes across the
landscape of public discourse on these two topics. What shared assumptions and
rhetorical resources are called upon in these debates? How do they impact those
discussions?
This chapter is designed to begin to place the issues of apology and US-China
relations in broader context. Clearly, the larger dynamics of US-China relations should
be considered before embarking on closer investigation of the two incidents in question.
After all, one of the most problematic dimensions of Sino-American relations is its
polarized tone and its tendency to fall into ritualized crisis cycles.
249Andrew Scobell, China’s Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 8.
109
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Given those issues, perhaps it will be useful to consider the “rhetorical
commonplaces” frequently deployed and what role they play in public discussions of
apology and Sino-American relations. Rhetorical commonplaces are relatively coherent,
recognizable units of rhetoric that often are called upon in a given public debate to justify
a particular course of action.250 They are familiar enough to the audience that they are
“in the ether.” On occasion they even function like trump cards in a game, used to
provide evidence for one’s stance in a way that truncates further discussion.
More often, however, they act much like a grammar for public debate, showing
cultural patterns in action—what ideas are recognizable, and, more to the point, useful in
such contests. They provide a sense of the range what “options” are possible in a given
political context—thereby retaining room for significant human agency despite the
simultaneous bounding action of social processes.
In this chapter, several rhetorical commonplaces will be analyzed, some
regarding public apology and others more specific to US-China relations. While some of
the rhetorical commonplaces will be applicable to both Chinese and American contexts,
others may be culturally specific. In particular, the rhetorical commonplaces of Sino-
American relations will be focused more upon what emerges in American debates
regarding China.
250Jackson, book manuscript, 63-64.
251This decision reflects the overall direction of the dissertation insofar as I view my primary audience as being US-based.
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When one looks at debates over public apologies, several themes usually arise:
first, that apologies demonstrate weakness, second, that they only have merit if they are
“sincere,” and third, that apologies can never make up for the events suffered by a
particular group.252 Note that these commonplaces indicate contrasting interpretations
about public apology’s potential. Since rhetorical commonplaces are only weakly shared
among a given public—if they were strongly shared, there would be little debate over
them—these contradictory• positions » • are not surprising. • •
In terms of US-China relations, the topography has taken on a particularly
virulent and polarized form. One key commonplace mentioned previously is that of
“face,” and it plays a bridging function between apologies and US-China relations, since
both are affected by the desire to maintain the nation’s “face.” Another commonplace is
that of sovereignty, a concept that ties together notions of relative power, international
law, and the “body politic.” In Sino-American relations, representatives on both sides
frequently invoke international law to justify their policy positions, for example.
During times of heightened conflict, both Chinese and American official
representatives and public commentators contrast their nation’s “civilized” behaviors
with the other’s (usually implied) barbarism. Each side accuses the other of acting only
out of realpolitik —coldly rational assessments of how to enhance power. Therefore,
neither side can afford to take the risk of sending a conciliatory signal to the other side, as
252For instance, Laura Wexler argues that an apology from the US Senate for not making lynching illegal is insufficient. See Laura Wexler, “A Sorry History: Why an Apology From the Senate Can’t Make Amends,” The Washington Post, 19 June 2005, B 1.
253Jackson, book manuscript, 82.
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that will only invite the other to take advantage.
From a more historical perspective, meanwhile, many Chinese and American
observers note that the PRC is a “rising state” that may well disrupt the current Pax
Americana in the future. After all, it is argued, “history has shown us” that few such
rising states—perhaps with the exception of Britain appeasing American rising power
and ambitions—have avoided significant violence in contesting the hegemonic state
leading the international order of the day. When considered together, these rhetorical
commonplaces create relatively familiar terrain for citizens of both the US and China.
These rhetorical commonplaces have emerged upon a broad reading of US-
China relations and public apologies, covering both popular and academic discourse. In
future chapters, these commonplaces will be compared to the NATO bombing of the
Chinese embassy and EP-3E episodes to see which ones were deployed and why. Now
we will consider what common expectations surround an apology ritual and what can
happen when an anticipated apology is not forthcoming.
Apology Narratives
After all, perhaps the simplest way to begin to consider how apologies can be
deployed and evaluate their potential effectiveness is by means of stories. Such
narratives allow apologies to be viewed in action rather than in philosophical stasis—
after all, apologies are highly dependent on context. Also, as Ann Anagnost notes,
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narratives show a certain performativity,254 taking place within a nexus of human
interaction.
The Story of the Scorched Shorts
I was surprised one day to find that a pair o f dressy walking shorts I ’d retrieved
from the dry cleaners had a big scorch imprint o f an iron on the back. When I brought
this problem to the attention o f the store manager, he calmly stated that “Yes, I noticed
that [mark when I was treating your item], ” Then he quietly but insistently claimed that
his machines were presses that could not have made that mark.
My first reaction was one o f incredulity that he would not have contacted me
upon finding such a disfiguring mark on an item o f clothing. Then, I was incensed that
he would not take responsibility—thereby insinuating that it was my incompetence not
only to have damaged the shorts, but also to have worn them at work an entire day
without realizing the problem. The dry cleaner also refused to reimburse me my money
(a mere three dollars or so), so I swore to myself that I would never use his establishment
again and told my friends the story, too.
After all, I remembered that there had been times when I had been treated to a
meal or some other item by a manager concerned that poor service or some other factor
would leave me with a bad impression o f their establishment—thus provoking me to
avoid or even “bad mouth ” their business in the future. Sometimes, I had not been
254Ann Anagnost, National Past-Times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in Modern China (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 2.
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feeling insulted or inconvenienced, but I was impressed by the generosity o f the gesture
and left with a positive attitude toward the business in question. Similarly, I had made it
a point myself in my work to apologize if a person was dissatisfied or was becoming
agitated because my response was not what he or she wanted. I had found that apologies
almost always mollified the customer and allowed us to work together more
constructively. All o f these issues made me view the business owner all the more
negatively.
In time, my more rational self realized that the dry cleaner probably was being
honest, but at the time I was so offended by his certainty, lack o f remorse, and
unwillingness to take any responsibility (symbolic or otherwise) that I reacted poorly. I
also question the dry cleaner’s rationality during this encounter. I f he had made a simple
apology and/or reimbursed my money, he could have kept my business in the future as
well as my goodwill. Why didn ’t he apologize?
This brief narrative shows some of the dynamics involved with apologies and,
for that matter, non-apologies. Let us analyze briefly the interaction of the different
parties in this dispute. If we observe the behavior of the customer, a number of issues are
raised. For one, it probably takes some assertiveness to inform a business that one has
not been pleased with one’s treatment—an issue that likely bothers some individuals
more than others depending on such factors as socialization and gender. From all
indications, this return trip to the dry cleaner was designed just to address the problem of
the scorched shorts.
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However, the shorts themselves seemingly were not at the “heart of the matter,”
instead acting as a symbol of a larger issue. The customer’s concern seemed more
focused on her overall treatment from the dry-cleaning business. When her implied
request for an apology and restitution was rebuffed, she was offended to such an extent
that the dry cleaner’s misdeeds became magnified. Her concerns of being seen as “out of
line” for raising such an issue, her sense of vulnerability about her own behavior—were
not received in a way that gave her satisfaction. Instead, the messages she seemed to
receive—rightly or wrongly—were that she probably was unreasonable for bringing up
such a matter and idiotic not only for scorching her own shorts but then also bothering to
dry-clean them afterward. She felt slighted during the encounter. If others were
watching this interaction, it could have increased the likelihood that she felt publicly
shamed and embarrassed.
The store proprietor, meanwhile, also seemed to think that his behavior was
reasonable and justified. He calmly addressed the customer’s concerns but did not claim
responsibility for matters that were not his fault. While he had wondered why someone
would want to dry-clean a blemished article of clothing, perhaps the customer was
preparing to give them away to Goodwill or some other charitable organization. It was
not his responsibility to question someone’s personal choice in such matters.
This simple story demonstrates how apologies and non-apologies have a lot to
do with emotions, whether pride, anger, irritation, shame, or so forth, and norms of
reciprocity. More to the point, this brief interaction indicates the damage that can be
done to a relationship if such concerns are not addressed adequately. The customer was
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angry about her treatment, refused to take her dry-cleaning there again, and told others
not to frequent this particular business. An apology probably would have resolved the
matter, but when the apology was not forthcoming, tensions escalated and the overall
relationship was severed. Now let us consider some alternate apology scripts and what
can happen, good or bad, when the expectations of the parties are not equivalent.
The Apology That Was Not Good Enough
One column of Miss Manners was devoted to the problem of a woman who
apologized profusely to another despite not believing that she had “done anything
wrong.” As Miss Manners replied, these are the social apologies meant to defuse
tension. Unfortunately, these apologies do not always guarantee a constructive result.
Here, the story’s focus is upon the apologizer, who has begun to experience
resentment because her apology was not received graciously. After all, there sometimes
is an assumption that a well-behaved apology usually merits a positive response in turn.
Again, apology usually involves placing oneself in a vulnerable position. If the other
does not have the social grace to accept it well and perhaps even apologize, too, in
response, then the apologizer may experience some humiliation. Significant rifts can
occur in relationships if that conciliatory gesture is not received in kind.
Note that one element of this story is that the apologizer knows that she is not
being entirely sincere. She is engaging in a familiar ritual in the expectation that it will
deescalate tension and repair any damage (“real or imagined”) done to the relationship.
255Judith Martin, “Miss Manners.”
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Once again, however, there is an indication that the two parties are not reading from the
same script.
If a person cannot accept or respond positively to an apology, it can mean any
number of things. For one, it may mean that the recipient is too angry, perhaps indicating
a belief that the apology is “too little, too late.” As mentioned earlier, perhaps the person
questions the other’s level of sincerity, another common obstacle to the acceptance of an
apology. Thus, attitudes and behaviors both seem to have an impact on the dynamics of
apology. Last, this situation shows the lingering damage on relationships that occurs
when the apology is not received and reciprocated politely.
Together, these two narratives indicate that apologies are far from risk-free. The
business proprietor got in trouble because he did not offer an apology, whereas the
woman found her friendship damaged even though she had given apologies. Of course,
the interactions took place at different levels of relationship—clearly, a business owner
and customer will be interacting on a more formal and superficial level than one between
friends.
Still, indications are that if a given situation is viewed as unjust by one or more
of the parties involved, then damage to the relationship is more likely to ensue. Not only
is there anger when one does not receive an apology, there can be anger from the other
side when one’s apology is not deemed good enough. The parties’ sense of fairness and
proportion are engaged in this process.
Would these situations have played out differently if some elements were
changed? After all, these two narratives feature people of roughly the same socio-
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'ycf economic and racial background, and misunderstandings still happened. Again, much
depends on the context and players at hand. Even among individuals, an apology can feel
quite different when between two men, two women, a married couple, a child and parent,
a teacher and student, boss and subordinate, or people from two countries.
Consider the ideal-type of an apology again. In general, apologies are designed
to address a past problem (temporal aspect)—be it on the interpersonal or the
international level.257 In addition, it often is argued that an ideal apology should
acknowledge the wrong and provide a promise not to repeat such an action in the future.
If the offense only has happened once and the apology is interpreted to be sincere, then it
can be helpful to the relationship.
However, the context that surrounds an apology remains of utmost importance.
An apology probably should not be interpreted as beneficial if the offense is habitual and
denigrating, and previous apologies and promises to reform have come to nothing, as
256For example, consider how the scorched shorts situation would grow in complexity if the store owner and customer came from more different racial and cultural backgrounds. If the context were not a small, largely homogeneous college town in Iowa but a diverse city such as L.A. or a conflict zone like Israel, Northern Ireland, or the Balkans, more explosive results could have followed.
257It is exactly this orientation toward the past that leads Lazare to argue that one cannot “apologize in advance.” While it is useful to consider what would be a Weberian “ideal type” of an apology, I believe that it is best not to dwell on the question of the essence of apology. Given the dynamics of social interaction, an apology gains its importance from its communicative effects. Therefore, I am more interested that businesses, for example, have used such language and what such usage does in social relations. Lazare, 171-172.
258Unlike most other commentators, Lazare partially agrees with me that, while it “would seem to be a truism that apologies must be sincere in order to be effective, ... I believe that reality is not quite so clear” (Ibid., 117). Sometimes an “insincere” apology can be received positively, and, conversely, a “sincere” apology rejected. O f course, because apology is context-dependent, the long-term success o f a given relationship probably remains contingent upon the interpretation that the apology giver’s words and deeds are relatively consistent and sincere.
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would be the case with many situations of spousal abuse, for example.
Furthermore, “shared norms”— regarding politeness, sincerity, honor, and
honesty, for example—seem to be subject to a great deal of variety in interpretation.
These stories indicate the intricacy surrounding apology even at the interpersonal level.
It is difficult not to assume that this complexity will increase greatly when taken to the
public level.259
Public Apologies
As with interpersonal apologies, there are many possible configurations of
apology transactions. Indeed, the situations in which public apologies are requested vary
from long-term historical grievances to recent international crises. They also can be used
to forestall more costly concessions during a public relations crisis.
Historically, Michel-Rolph Trouillot makes the case that “collective apologies”
did not become part of the political landscape until the nineteenth century “when the
consolidation of the ideal of the nation-state placed specific names, and putatively solid
identities, throughout the North Atlantic.”260 One of the ongoing issues related to most
public apologies is the question of who (or what entity) is responsible for acts,
particularly if the offensive behavior happened decades or even centuries in the past.
Beyond that issue, what themes emerge frequently when apologies are discussed? Let us
now consider several available rhetorical commonplaces.
259David J. Singer, “The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations,”World Politics 14, 1 (October 1961): 77-92.
260Trouillot, 177, n7.
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Rhetorical Commonplaces of Apology
The Importance of Sincerity in Apology
As noted above, one frequently cited concern regarding public apology is that of
sincerity. Consider the following paragraph for a standard conflict resolution
interpretation of apologies and their possible use in reconciliation processes:
Sincere and complete acknowledgement and apologies by offenders will lead a victimised group to trust the good faith of the aggressors in future relations. Such a process is a very important in the interactive part of reconciliation.262
In an ideal-type construction of apology, sincerity is conveyed by the acceptance of
responsibility for a wrong that has taken place and acknowledgment of the harm and hurt
this mistake has caused.
At a public level, however, some prominent social commentators both in China
and the US are quite skeptical of the worth of a public apology, sometimes going so far as
to say that “Ritual apologies are, by definition, insincere and embarrassingly
predictable.. .”263 In other words, the only way to ensure that an apology will be
productive is if it is meant sincerely, but that is impossible when the apology is public
and political in nature.
261Anita Bruzzese, “Apologies Work If They’re Delivered with Sincerity,” Gannett News Service, 15 September 2005.
262Ho-Won Jeong, Peace and Conflict Studies: An Introduction (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2000), 192-193.
263Such were the words of Ellis Cose regarding the 2003 Trent Lott apology. See Ellis Cose, “Lessons of the Trent Lott Mess,”Newsweek, 23 December 2002, 37; also see Ann Fisher, “Most Political ‘Apologies’ Are Self-Serving Spin,”The Columbus Dispatch, 6 January 2006.
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One difficulty is that, in practice, it is practically impossible to discern intent—
especially at a public level. As Wesley Pruden says about an apology about slavery from
Wachovia Bank and a US Senate resolution apologizing for not outlawing lynching,
“Only the Lord knows the depth of a man’s sincerity in these matters, so we’re left to
measure as best we can.”264 As the last phrase shows, however, this problem does not
inhibit people from speculating as to intentionality. Indeed, Pruden goes on to call the
Senate apology “a demonstration of manufactured remorse,” adding that
.. .cheap apologies only dilute authentic shame and genuine remorse. What makes these particular apologies cheap is that none of the apologizers really suggests doing anything more than trying to rewrite history and bask in applause. 5
Thus, not only does Pruden assume that he knows the apologizers’ intentions, he also
implies that political theater undermines true remorse. The senators involved merely
took advantage of contemporary horror against lynching. Despite a probable landslide
vote, the gesture itself would be next to meaningless.
An Apology Demonstrates (Gendered) Weakness
From the level of contention regarding apologies—even though construed at
first glance as “a mild form of reputation reparation”—the sense of risk associated with
such behavior seems to amplify once beyond the level of interpersonal• relations. * 266 That
264Wesley Pruden, “On the Scout with the Apology Patrol,” The Washington Times, 14 June 2005.
265Ibid.
266William Satire, “Retraction,” New York Times, 12 June 2005.
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is, apology is seen almost as risking something essential to the entity in question, whether
a public figure, corporation, or country. Unfortunately, apology often has been yoked to
appeasement, “kowtowing,” and other behaviors associated with debasement and
'yen humiliation.
Therefore, many people seem to believe that apology—interpersonally or
beyond—equals or even causes weakness. In this view, an apology signals that a
person accepts some level of responsibility for an action, thereby encouraging further
actions to take advantage of this ceded ground. Anything close to an apology is to be
avoided if one is to survive.
Thus, it is no surprise that such commentary takes on some gendered
understandings of strength and weakness. Consider the gendered attack on the
businesspeople mentioned in this statement:
Having failed in the court of public opinion, the slavery-reparations movement sees gold in corporate boardrooms. As it happens, CEOs,who nearly always prefer to switch than fight, are more pliant than Congress.269
The implication is that CEOs are not “manly” enough to fight on principle. Rather, they
have calculated that it is to their corporation’s long-term benefit to make a “wimpy”
gesture to appease those people who are demanding reparations for slavery.
2670 ’Neill, 177. It is fascinating that some scholars who have studied the connection between honor and violence have not done much to explore the linkage between these dynamics and gender. For example, Barry O’Neill just addresses the gender dimension in passing (p. 106), also mentioning that a “the male version o f societal honor is closer to the one nations seem to follow” (p. 87).
268In contrast, some of those who promote apology believe that it takes strength to give an apology, warning that: “The longer you wait to apologize, the sooner your weakness is perceived as wickedness.” Blanchard and McBride, 26.
269“Shaking Down Wachovia,”The Washington Times, 15 June 2005; emphasis added.
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Problem of Incommensurability
Probably the thorniest issue in relation to apologies as well as reconciliation or
restitution efforts in general, is that of the charge of incommensurability —namely, the
widely shared interpretation that no deeds or words can ever make up for the loss of life,
limb, and dignity.
Loss of life has particular importance in the conflict process because of its irreversibility. That is, while suitable compensations and compromised solutions can be found for various disagreements, nothing can compensate for death. Therefore, the conflict escalates in tandem with the human costs incurred.270
This conundrum is not unlike the situation depicted in the nursery rhyme
“Humpty Dumpty”: the clock cannot be turned back to the point at which Humpty
Dumpty was whole. That is to say, life after the trauma is seen as never being the same;
the world has been changed forever. It is difficult to debate this issue on a material level.
In situations of widespread harm, it is only understandable this problem is interpreted to
expand exponentially. Given this interpretation, it is not surprising that some advocates 971 of historically subjugated people argue that apologies are insufficient.
Closure and the “Full Apology”
In contrast, some of those who advocate the use of public apologies indicate that
they may help achieve “closure,” an off-cited but rarely analyzed term. Indeed, the
270Daniel Bar-Tal, “Collective Memory of Physical Violence: Its Contribution to the Culture of Violence,” in The Role o f Memory in Ethnic Conflict, eds. Ed Cairns and Micheal D. Roe (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 81-82.
271This meaning is explicit in the title of one prominent volume on apologies, Roy L. Brooks, ed., When Sorry Isn’t Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice (New York: New York University Press, 1999).
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rhetorical commonplace of closure occurs frequently in the area of post-conflict
reconciliation. 0'7'y
Some of the scholars who use the term are aware that, like a scar, a wound may
be “closed,” but the body will never be the same as it was before. Others, however, do
not seem to address this problem, focusing instead on the more positive idea that the
wound should be opened up and grievances aired.
Note that both the rhetorical commonplaces of incommensurability and closure
imply a certain sense of embodiment and wholeness. Whether Humpty Dumpty or a
wounded patient, reconciliation and advocacy work often focus on what can be done to
“heal” historical injustices.
Taken together, the fascination with sincerity, “wholeness,” and “closure” in
regard to apology demonstrates preoccupation with ideal types and absolutes. After all,
one of the most frequent complaints connected with apologies across levels of analysis is
when the perpetrator is seen not to have made a “full apology.” As Weber emphasized
that ideal types are artificial and only to be used to assist with analysis, this indicates a
problem of reification. More to the point, the reference to moral absolutes signals the
presence of (gendered) issues of control and power, the other rhetorical commonplace
272One example is Brandon Hamber and Richard A. Wilson, “Symbolic Closure through Memory, Reparation and Revenge in Post-Conflict Societies,” in The Role o f Memory in Ethnic Conflict, eds. Ed Cairns and Mlchedl D. Roe (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 144-168. Some recent titles also belie this association, such as Nigel Biggar, ed. Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice After Civil Conflict (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001); and Jon Elster,Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
273Again, there are books that indicate these interpretations at work, such as Mark R. Amstutz, The Healing ofNations: The Promise and Limits of Political Forgiveness (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); also John Torpey, ed., Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
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mentioned above. Now, let us focus upon what themes emerge frequently in discussions
of Sino-American relations.
Rhetorical Commonplaces in US-China Relations
Harold Isaacs is one of the first scholars to notice the presence of ambivalent
images—alternately malignant and benign—that Americans hold toward China.274 This
section is designed to build upon his important work in this area by also including
Chinese interpretations of the US as well as ways in which members of these cultures
interpret themselves. For example, sometimes a cultural theme, such as the Chinese
focus upon “face,” is mentioned so many times that it risks becoming a cliche.
It should come as no surprise, then, there are so many rhetorical commonplaces
deployed in Sino-American relations that only certain ones will be analyzed here.275
Furthermore, it should be noted that a number of the rhetorical commonplaces overlap or
are yoked together when deployed in debates.
Gender, Sovereignty, and the “Body Politic”
One of the central preoccupations found in Chinese discourse is that of its
“historical borders,” past weakness, and desire to protect its sovereignty. After all, the
PRC shares borders with fourteen countries, including Russia, Mongolia, India, Vietnam,
274Harold R. Isaacs, Scratches on Our Minds: American Views o f China and India. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1958).
275Other possible candidates include the Chinese charge that the US engages in “hegemonism,” and the central importance o f the concept of democracy, for example.
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North Korea, and Burma—it is understandable that its leaders and citizenry would be
more attuned to any sense of infringement.
More to the point, however, the historical past provides reasons why many
Chinese are highly sensitive to issues of their sovereignty and Chinese leaders refer to it
often as a matter of international law. As one scholar of Chinese history and culture
explains,
The Chinese interpret the history of their interaction with the outside world during the nineteenth century as a long series of painful episodes of national humiliation in which foreign powers constantly trampled on China’s sovereignty. “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up” were the words Mao chose to mark the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Over a half century, the Chinese government has been especially sensitive to incursions on its sovereignty, and it regards foreign comment on its handling of the civil and political rights of its citizens as a serious infringement.276
Chinese Nationalism and China’s Historical Victimization
Therefore, given the past “hundred-year humiliation” of China and the
“mythical unity” of Han Chinese, one would expect great outcry against any sense that
the PRC’s sovereignty had been violated.277 No wonder that a number of US-based
scholars have analyzed the Chinese historical sense of “wounded nationalism” and
victimhood.278
276John Bryan Starr, Understanding China: A Guide to China's Economy, History, and Political Culture (rev. and updated version) (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 217.
277Yuval-Davis, 22. One of the most-cited statistics about the PRC is that it is 91.9% (the numbers vary according to the source) Han Chinese. However, this designation may be challenged on several accounts, such as the issue that many Han Chinese in the north o f China probably have ancestors who intermarried with Mongol and Manchu “barbarians,” for example. See “The CIA World Factbook: China,” accessed 10 January 2006, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html.
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Moreover, these issues implicitly have to do with gender whenever they refer to
infringement of national sovereignty—i.e., invasion of “the body politic.” According to
Philip Darby, “Gender is a means of shaping and signifying relationships of power
internationally as well as in the domestic sphere.”279
More particularly, women often symbolize a nation’s honor.280 Thus, the
transgression of sovereign boundaries—whether of a person’s body due to murder and/or
rape, or of the “body politic” by some act of infringement and/or violence—is an issue of
great harm and even humiliation to the larger community. According to Nira Yuval-
Davis,
Women are often constructed as the cultural symbols of the collectivity, of its boundaries, as carriers of the collectivity’s ‘honour’ and as its intergenerational reproducers of culture. Specific codes and regulations are usually developed, defining who/what is a ‘proper man’ and a ‘proper woman’, which are central to the identities of collectivity members. Feelings of disempowerment which result from processes of colonization and subjugation have often been interpreted by the colonized men as processes of emasculation and/or feminization.”281
As Yuval-Davis notes above, men also are affected by such constructions.
278For example, see Chang, Return o f the Dragon and Charles Hill, “Fighting Stories: The Political Culture o f Memory in Northeast Asian Relations,” in Remembering and Forgetting: The Legacy o f War and Peace in East Asia, ed. Gerrit W. Gong (Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1996), 1-18.
279Quoted in Salter, 54.
280There are indications that this concern with the nation as the “body politic” is gendered as “the nation” often is depicted as the feminized “motherland” while militarized masculine images are representative of “the state.” Thus, it is not surprising that many times China (or another Asian nation) is depicted as a woman in peril from the stronger, bullying, militaristic male representing the US (or the West). Another variation o f this trope is represented in the story line of the opera, “Madame Butterfly.”
281Yuval-Davis, 67.
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Now we move to discussions of differences in Chinese and American political
contexts that can lead to misunderstanding and conflict. For example, John Bryan Starr
raises several key elements of Chinese political culture when trying to convey these
differences: “Four characteristics of the political process in China are especially to be
noted: consensus, bargaining, networking, and saving face.”
The Issue of Face
As stated earlier, the issue of face has salience for members of any culture
because of the difficulty it cam create for conflict resolution.
Among the most troublesome kinds of problems that arise in negotiation are the intangible issues related to loss of face. In some instances, protecting against loss of face becomes so central an issue that it “swamps” the importance of the tangible issues at stake and generates intense conflicts that can impede progress toward agreement and increase substantially the costs of conflict resolution.283
Whether the parties in question are involved in labor disputes, business deals, or
international negotiations, they will want to demonstrate to a broader audience that they
protected and promoted their interests accordingly.
Of course, when it comes to Sino-American negotiations, the issue of face
becomes particularly problematic. It is no mistake that China experts caution American
officials to pay attention to Chinese leaders’ need to maintain face. After all,
.. .China’s foreign policy decisions are driven by a desire to enhance the respect that other nations show for China—to gain face—and by an equally strong desire to
282Networking (guanxi) already has been addressed above. However, the other three characteristics mentioned are worthy of further discussion. Starr, 69.
283Bert R. Brown, “Face-Saving and Face-Restoration in Negotiation,” in Negotiations: Social- Psychological Perspectives, ed. Daniel Druckman (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1977), 275.
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avoid situations in which the strength and competence of China and its political leaders are publicly called into question.• 984
Unfortunately, American politics are designed to take place squarely in the eye
of the public because its policy matters are meant to be subject to democratic debate.
American officials are under enormous pressure themselves from the US Congress and
public to publicize any negotiating coups over their savvy Chinese interlocutors—a
countervailing pressure that inhibits the desire• to help Chinese negotiators • save face. 98S
To give a recent example of this dynamic, many China watchers alleged that the
initial World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations in 1999 led to Zhu Rongji’s “loss
of face” because he had to return to the PRC “empty-handed” despite having offered
significant concessions to the US. According to Robert Suettinger, for example, “His
failure to win an agreement on the WTO cost Zhu considerable ‘face’ within the
leadership, tarnished his reputation for skill with foreigners, and gave his numerous
critics an issue on which to focus their wrath.”98 (\
Consensus and Harmony
Some of this issue of face needs in Sino-American relations may come from the
sense that many Chinese are “conflict-averse,” preferring to work to achieve harmony
284Starr, 313.
285Ibid., 217.
286Suettinger, 369.
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7R7 and consensus instead of rule by the majority.
Students of the Chinese psyche conclude that Chinese people have a greater aversion to conflict and disorder than do Americans. And it is unquestionably true that finding oneself shamed in public—losing face—is for a Chinese person an experience to be avoided if at all possible. Because open conflict is likely to result in loss of face for one of the parties, passive resistance accompanied by a perfectly opaque demeanor is the weapon of choice for the conflict-averse Chinese. 88
In light of the above commentary, consider the issue of face in what Arthur H.
Smith reports about the public quarrels in China.
Chinese quarrels are objectionable by reason of their suddenness, their violence, and their publicity. The last named feature is the one most repugnant to Western civilization which has not yet learned how to avoid domestic disputes itself. [Therefore, in China]... the element of “face” at once enters in, demanding an adjustment which shall put the injured party right in the presence of the rest of creation always conceived as looking critically on.289
Again, there are indications that cultures that demonstrate high levels of concern
with politeness also are more likely to engage in explosive outbursts of anger when
attempts to avoid overt conflict do not achieve the desired result.290 As Smith notes, the
open display of rage attracts attention. Perhaps the publicity regarding street quarrels has
resonance to US-China relations as a whole.
This clash between the face needs of the different parties almost leads to sense
that US-China negotiations have a zero-sum game mentality. It is no mistake that when
American commentators get disgusted with “the Chinese,” they mention that “Beijing”
287Starr, 70.
288Ibid., 70-71.
289Smith, Village Life in China, 335-336.
290Cohen and Vandello, 119-132.
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wants the US to “kowtow” before them, thereby referring to the well-known incident in
-}Q 1 the history of China’s opening to the West. According to James C.F. Wang,
British envoys were subjected to the Chinese custom of bowing to the emperor whenever an imperial audience was granted. It was a humiliation and an insult to the British, who subscribed to the recognized principle of equality of status between nations.292
Of course, the phrase, “recognized principle of equality of status between nations,”
signals the clash of interpretations that arose when Western states engaged in imperialism
and colonialism. East Asian countries were not part of the negotiations that led to the
peace of Westphalia!
This issue leads us to the next nexus of issues related to the Sino-American
debate over which side is “civilized” and which is “barbaric.” After all, it is no mistake
that face “entails the presentation of a civilized front to another individual within the
jQ 'y webs of interconnected relationships in a particular culture.”
Who is Civilized and Who is Barbaric?
Mark Salter has written a provocative study examining the “politics of
representation” involved with the civilized/barbarian dualism, gendered rhetoric that
“remains a staple in political discourse.”294 Curiously, this discourse goes both ways, for
291For example, see Franklin L. Lavin, “Negotiating with the Chinese: Or How Not to Kowtow,” Foreign Affairs 73, 4 (July/August 1994): 16-22.
292James C.F. Wang, 6.
293Ting-Toomey, 1; emphasis added.
294Salter, 159 and 156.
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the “Western imaginary,” initially represented China as a feminine entity, quaint and
restrained but in need of protection by civilized male protectors. The “paternalistic
^ g < r rhetoric of the civilizing mission” not only promoted many Christian missions to China
in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, it still is used frequently in American
political discourse—such as the need to “socialize” China into the WTO, for example.
On the other hand, Chinese have viewed outsiders as male “barbarians,” rapacious and
eager to take all that they can from the ancient civilization of China, represented again as
female. In either case, “The trope of the barbarian is familiar: lacking in manners,
language and morals, but not organization, barbarians represent a violent threat to the
‘civilized’ inside.”297
Given the current prevalence of the “China threat” argument in American
contexts, it is important to note Salter’s discussion of the rhetorical uses of demography.
According to Salter,
Demography has a long association with the rhetoric of imperialism, race and class, and civilized/barbarian distinctions. The science of demography is the study of populations—a science that Foucault links to the development of the modem state. The stereotype of barbarians who are more fertile and populous than ‘civilized’ individuals is one of the underlying assumptions of demographic arguments. This is not to say that these demographic figures are inaccurate, only that demographic arguments are mobilized in periods when the West feels threatened—even though the demographic data have remained largely the same since the turn of the twentieth century. Yet ever since the nineteenth century, an essential part of the barbarian stereotype had been overpopulation.
295Ibid., 3.
296Ibid„ 160.
297Ibid„ 4.
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... [Also,] demography has represented a new mechanism of surveillance of the non-West and the West. By tracking the populations of both Western and non- Westem populations, Western demographers can ‘know’ the comparative size and make-up of the two groups. When these data are analysed within the context of zero-sum gains, as Malthus, Huntington and Kennedy advocate, demography becomes a crucial predictor of stability and threat.298
After all, one of the other most-frequently mentioned statistics on the PRC is that it
contains over 1.3 billion people.299 Mao Zedong’s frequent remarks about the “masses”
have not helped dispel this image of strong, yet faceless, Chinese hordes.
The US Is a Bully
On the other hand, it probably is no mistake that, in recent years, many Chinese
voices have charged that the US has been acting like an uncivilized, hegemonic “bully”
in international relations. Given the unparalleled strength of the US, it feels free to pick
those nations that are smaller and weaker.
According to some of the first American “China hands,” the theme of the bully
has some significance in Chinese contexts, especially in local terms. For example, the
astute observer, Arthur H. Smith, noted the importance of “the bully” to Chinese village
life, even going so far as to say that “it might almost be said that a just apprehension of
the character and functions of the Chinese bully is equivalent to a comprehension of
Chinese society.”300 He mentions that Chinese bullies should be distinguished from
298Ibid„ 137.
299See “The CIA World Factbook: China.” Furthermore, it generally is understood that this statistic must underestimate the actual numbers of the Chinese population due to the “floating population” that comes from rural to urban areas seeking employment.
300Smith, Village Life in China, 211.
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bullies in other lands insofar as one of the “peculiar characteristics” of Chinese people is
that generally they desire peace and want to avoid quarrels. In contrast,
The tactics which such a man adopts to establish his claim to the rank of “village king,” are the same with which we are only too familiar in other lands, and which an advancing civilization has not yet succeeded in rendering wholly obsolete. If there is no overt act which he sees his way to commit, he can always pick a quarrel by reviling, which is regarded as throwing down a glove of defiance. Not to notice such a challenge is from a Chinese standpoint almost impossible. “To be reviled and to feel no pain,” this is the Chinese ideal of shamelessness. Nothing is rarer than to find a Chinese who has been reviled, and who, when he was strong enough ™ i to demand an apology, has allowed the matter to drop.
The above paragraph touches upon any number of the themes investigated in
this study. For one, it indicates that there are situations in China in which the “Chinese
civilization” seems, from an outside perspective, to hold little sway against brute power.
Moreover, it shows that the seeking of apology is associated with regaining face as well
as demonstrating strength.
However, it is clear that such bullies are resented intensely. Again, Smith
indicates that
The Chinese are firm believers in the doctrine of rewards and punishments. A man who has been conspicuous for his evil deeds will meet no shadow of sympathy when trouble of any sort overtakes him. ... His neighbours would revile him as they passed with the comment: “It is heaven’s vengeance!”302
Perhaps this theme was at play with those Chinese citizens who were accused of
demonstrating a lack of sympathy for the US’ plight on 11 September 2001.
301Ibid., 214. Interestingly, Smith notes on pp. 219-220 that females also can play the role of bully.
302Ibid„ 336.
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“The Wily Chinese”
Some of the most problematic issues in US-China relations can be sorted under
the heading of the rhetorical commonplace of the “wily Chinese.” This theme takes up
what Harold Isaacs called the negative “Fu Manchu” image Americans have had at times
about the Chinese.303 Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, most Americans
have believed that the Chinese leadership is brutal and untrustworthy.304 Even prior to
1989, there were a number of American conservatives unhappy with Richard Nixon’s
decision to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. One of their primary
objections was that the PRC is a Communist dictatorship. Nevertheless, there always
have been Americans excited by the prospect of “opening up” China—whether due to
politics, trade, or both.
Chinese “Reality” and Realpolitik
From the viewpoint of some China watchers, this eagerness is unwarranted and
unwise. For example, consider the title of a book by Steven Mosher, China Misperceived:
American Illusions and Chinese Reality. Clearly, Mosher views such Americans—
including most China scholars—as naive and misguided. He argues that
An informed account of American perceptions and misperceptions of postrevolutionary China is essential to an understanding not only of China, but also of those cultural brokers who would interpret that country to us, particularly those
303Isaacs, 116-117.
304According to Richard Madsen, Tiananmen Square in 1989 continues to dominate the American political imaginary regarding the PRC. Madsen, China and the American Dream.
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whose notions of truth are utilitarian, relativistic, or romanticized.305
In contrast, Mosher assumes that Chinese people share one reality—presumably based on
“realpolitik.”306
The journalist and amateur historian James Mann has a similarly jaundiced and
skeptical reading of “the Chinese,” as indicated by his books and articles with titles like
“Our China Illusion.” His book, About Face, meanwhile, indicates that Chinese leaders
have out-negotiated their American counterparts at every turn since the early 1970s.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that these and other China critics conclude that
anything other than a harsh, “realistic” reading of Chinese behavior and motivations is
» TOR flirting with disaster.
This finding leads one to wonder: What exactly is it that brings out the “power
politics” or “zero-sum game” interpretation so much in Sino-US relations? Is it due in
part to the fear of Chinese being superior negotiators?
305Steven W. Mosher,China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality (BasicBooks, 1990), 22. For similar arguments of how best to “read” China, see Elizabeth Economy, “Getting China Right,”Current History 98, 629 (September 1999): 254-259; also James Mann, “Our China Illusion,” The American Prospect 11, 14 (5 June 2000), 22-27.
306Similarly, a lot o f ink has been used trying to demonstrate that Chinese leaders have practiced “realpolitik” since the times o f Sun Tzu. For example, see Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
307Mann, “Our China Illusion”; also James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, From Nixon to Clinton (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998).
308Again, there is much debate within social science as to how to approach the question of motivation—whether and how it can be measured and understood. This concern may be less salient for policy makers and journalists. See Steven W. Mosher, China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality (BasicBooks, 1990), 22. For similar arguments o f how best to “read” China, see Elizabeth Economy, “Getting China Right,” Current History 98, 629 (September 1999): 254-259.
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After all, there is a persistent assumption among China critics that “the Chinese”
are out to take advantage of everyone else. This belief is not unique to Americans alone.
Indeed, there are indications that many in the Chinese diaspora face prejudice similar to
that against Jews as powerful but vulnerable minorities.309 Even among China experts, a
key divide is whether they tend to highlight Richard Solomon’s observations on Chinese
skillful negotiating behavior or, for example, Richard Madsen’s claim that Americans’
beliefs about China say more about Americans than the Chinese.310
Regardless, there are some cultural tendencies that must be explained. As
mentioned above, bargaining behavior involves some issues of zhenhua versus jiahua.
Not all the truth is told in the average bargaining encounter—a tendency that seems to
have some cross-cultural validity. However, Arthur Smith describes how many Chinese
demonstrate pragmatic behavior beyond typical trading situations. For example, Smith
describes Chinese servants as possessing “flexible inflexibility,” adding that they are able
to “bend like bamboo” at times.311
309Other scholars have noted the connections between the experiences o f the Chinese and Jews as cultural groups and their tendency to interpret their histories in a minor key. For example, see Daniel Chirot and Anthony Reid, eds., Essential Outsiders: The Chinese and Jews in the Modern Transformation of Southeast Asia and Central Europe (Seattle, WA: University o f Washington Press, 1997); Vera Schwarcz, Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).
310RichardH. Solomon, Chinese Negotiating Behavior: Pursuing Interests through 'Old Friends' (new ed.) (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999); Madsen, China and the American Dream.
3 "Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 74 and 80. Of course, it is not a mistake that Smith frames the discussion o f Chinese truth-telling in terms of explaining servant behavior.
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There are both benefits and problems associated with “Chinese pragmatism”—
for lack of a better term. For example, foreigners often are boggled by such common
practices as the lack of attention to red lights in traffic, intellectual piracy issues, not
lining up uniformly in a “queue,” two cars sharing a lane of traffic—all of these issues
point to a pragmatism that can be useful •in some contexts and problematic in others.T10
On the one hand, this nearly “absolute pragmatism” can be associated with lack of
conscience and morality. On the other hand, Chinese “rule flexibility” can lead to quick
and resourceful actions (in foreign policy, for example) according to circumstances.
According to Starr,
Political bargainers in China pay careful attention to their relative rank and status, which affect both the process and the outcome. ... Case-by-case bargaining is almost always preferable in China to applying a uniform rule to every case. 13
China Plays Games
A connected issue cuts across discussions of apology, face, and US-China
relations is that of China’s “game playing.” For example, cross-cultural scholars note
that face interactions have an affinity to Wittgenstein’s notion of language games. After
all, says Robyn Penman, facework implies that a set of “rules appear to be guiding the
312This pragmatism also explains why Communism nominally is still in place. It is not what Mao, Stalin, Lenin, or Marx would have wanted or envisioned, but by paying “lip service” to prominent Communist theorists and historical figures, the current regime still can lay claim to be part of the intellectual “blood line” o f Communism.
313Starr, 70.
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sequence of action.”314 Unfortunately, it rarely is clarified whether the theme of “game-
playing” refers to game theory, Wittgenstein’s language games, Robert Putnam’s
l i e influential article on two-level games, or a more general notion of games played to
obtain advantage.
For example, one well-known scholarly article on face is Kwang-Kuo Hwang’s
“Face and Favor: The Chinese Power Game.” In a subsequent piece, Hwang explains
that long-term fights may show the use of different “tricks.” After all, he adds, Chinese
people also “have a cultural traditional of using stratagems in daily life” as the “thirty-six
stratagems” are familiar to many Chinese. Interpersonal relationships that are defined as
mostly instrumental (as opposed to affective/expressive) in nature are more likely to
show elements of this kind of “strategic behavior.”316
In contrast to these culturally specific discussions of Chinese “game” behavior,
game theory seems to assume a black-and-white world in which gray, generic men (stick
figures, really) of roughly the same (yet oddly indeterminate) age do things and react to
314Robyn Penman, “Facework in Communication: Conceptual and Moral Challenges,” in The Challenges of Facework: Cross-Cultural and Interpersonal Issues (Albany, N Y : State University of New York Press, 1994), 35; emphasis in original.
315Robert Putnam’s article on two-level games is cited frequently in scholarly analyses of East Asian politics. However, the fact that Putnam’s rather obvious thesis (that domestic and international audiences might be played against each other) took so long to be articulated and continues to be cited widely highlights one o f international relations’ key assumptions— that there is a sharp distinction between the “domestic” and the “international.” Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,”International Organizational, 3 (summer 1988): 427-460.
316Kwang-Kuo Hwang, “Guanxi and Mientze: Conflict Resolution in Chinese Society,” Intercultural Communication Studies 7, 1 (1997-98), 35.
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one another. Game theoretic discussions of China are mentioned increasingly because of
the assumption that China is a “rising state” in the international system.
The Rise of China and the “China Threat”
This commonplace is particularly relevant to the endeavors of international
relations, political science, and history. Since the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989,
T17 “China’s rise” has been viewed with great concern in the US and elsewhere. The
highly contingent nature of such an argument, however, as common and apparently
persuasive as it is, may be seen by minority predictions of China’s future.
For example, Gordon Chang asserts that, to the contrary, China is far more at
• TIO risk of disintegrating from all of its internal pressures. Alternately, neo-liberal
internationalists are more likely to point out that previous economic “threats” from a
rising Japan and Germany amounted to nothing.319
Nevertheless, the prime reason for the compelling quality of the “rising”
argument is the purported historical record ofmilitarily rising states. Power transition
317Consider the recent spate of American articles which debate whether “China’s rise” will be benign or problematic. The June 2005 edition of the Atlantic Monthly even has a photograph of a stem Chinese sailor glowering on its cover. See Benjamin Schwarz, “Managing China’s Rise,”Atlantic Monthly 295, 5 (June 2005): 27-35; Robert Kagan, “The Illusion o f ‘Managing’ China,” The Washington Post, 15 May 2005, B07; Henry A. Kissinger, “China: Containment Won’t Work,” The Washington Post, 13 June 2005, A 19; For a more scholarly assessment, see David M. Edelstein, “American Images of a Rising China: Lessons from History and Theory,” in China in the American Political Imagination, ed. Carola McGiffert (Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003), 6-15. Meanwhile, China’s Asian neighbors view its rise with a more complicated blend of emotions.
3l8Gordon G. Chang, The Coming Collapse o f China. (New York: Random House, 2001). The late Gerald Segal made a similar argument a number of years ago in a provocative article entitled, “Does China Matter?” Foreign Affairs 78, 5 (September/October 1999): 24-36.
319Jonathan Weisman, “Readings: China Inc.'' The Washington Post, 26 June 2005, F3.
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theory is a structurally based theory of change in world politics,320 one that seeks to
explain the prevalence of war among powerful states.321 Generally, it posits that the
strongest state in the international system, the hegemon, will be able to dictate “the rules
of the game” because it also has enforcement capability. However, it is argued that
history has demonstrated that the international system becomes unstable when a
challenger state, rising in strength, appears on the scene. Almost always, it is said, the
challenger state and hegemon engage in militarized conflict to determine which will lead
the international system. Therefore, power transition theory can be deployed in debate as
yet another rhetorical commonplace—used to indicate that the conflict between China
and the US is inevitable. Power transition theory gets used as if it were “historical
fact”—as if such facts are not mediated by human interpretation.
George Santayana once said that “those who do not learn from history are
condemned to repeat it.” However, perhapsselective knowledge of history is even more
dangerous, as the misapplication of historical analogies (for example, if an analogy is
used without taking differences in time and space into account) can lead to what
320David Rapkin and William R. Thompson, “Power Transition, Challenge and the (Re)Emergence of China,” International Interactions 29 (2003): 315-342.
321Steve Chan, “Exploring Puzzles in Power-Transition Theory: Implications for Sino-American Relations,” Security Studies 13, 3 (spring 2004), 103.
322Actually, a number of authors who have investigated China’s rise via power transition theory have concluded that the PRC is not necessarily going to be a threat to the US. See Rapkin and Thompson, 315-342 and Chan, 106. See also the ISP Policy Forum: Hard and Soft Power in East-West Relations in the February 2006 issue o f International Studies Perspectives, including David A. Lake, “American Hegemony and the Future o f East-West Relations,” International Studies Perspectives 7, 1 (February 2006), 23-30; Richard Rosecrance, “Power and International Relations: The Rise of China and Its Effects,” International Studies Perspectives 7, 1 (February 2006), 31-35; and Jacek Kugler, “The Asian Ascent: Opportunity for Peace or Precondition for War?” International Studies Perspectives 7, 1 (February 2006), 36-42.
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cognitive psychologists would refer to as “premature cognitive closure” and a disastrous
choice of path. Alternately, lack of awareness of another nation’s historical memories
can lead to similar miscalculations.
The “Lesson of History” of Munich: Never Appease
Another “historical fact” that gets abused in American debate over China is the
frequent association between appeasement of a rising state and war, thanks to the
historical analogy of Hitler at Munich. Indeed, many politicians claim that one of the
most important “lessons of history” comes from this episode. It is true that Britain’s
1938 attempt to appease Hitler in Munich was a significant failure. However, historian
Stephen Rock has argued that appeasement actually has worked in many cases, but the
word has become so tainted by association as to be unusable.324 This dynamic is
particularly true for the United States.
Even if one uses other ways to describe an appeasing negotiating stance,
concern quickly arises that this approach will signal vulnerability to the other. According
to Rock, this fear goes to appeasement’s alleged “psychological effect.”
Specifically, it is argued that appeasement gravely weakens the credibility of deterrent threats. Once it has received inducements, the adversary refuses to accept the responsibility that the government of the conciliatory state will later stand firm. It thus advances new and more far-reaching demands. When the government of the
323An excellent book that provides detailed analysis o f the use o f historical analogies is Yuen Foong Khong’s Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions o f 1965 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
324Rock prefaces his book with a quotation from realist Robert Gilpin who agrees that appeasement has worked many times and can be a useful policy. Stephen R. Rock, Appeasement in International Politics (Louisville, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 1.
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appeasing state responds to these demands by issuing a deterrent threat, it is not believed. Ultimately, deterrence fails, and the appeasing state must go to war if it wishes to defend its interests.325
In other words, the case of Munich is interpreted to show that the concessions
encouraged Hitler to invade Poland the following year. However, probably the historical
lesson to be learned is that “sometimes appeasement does not work”—not “appeasement
never works”! Regardless of the strength of the interpretation, it is not surprising that the
leader of any state viewed as a military risk to the US is put to the “Hitler measurement
test.” How far do this leader’s ambitions extend? Is the leader “worse than Hitler”?
More to the point, the notion of “appeasement” threatens to stretch beyond its
original frame of reference. The stain associated with appeasement has come to touch
any conciliatory or confidence-building measure toward China (or any other state viewed
as a threat)—any such gesture can be criticized as leaving the US vulnerable to
exploitation. After all, the “wily Chinese” may take advantage!
Given this context, is it any wonder that American debate regarding China is
stagnant and polarized? Extreme viewpoints are more likely to receive a hearing than
more moderate voices. The mere act of trying to explain another culture’s behavior can
lead to charges of “loving the enemy” and identifying more strongly with the other side,
or even colluding with the Chinese for personal financial gain. For example, William
Triplett, one of the authors of Year o f the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S.
Security for Chinese Cash, also is an aide to Senator Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) and a
member of “the midnight patriots’ society” whose goal is to end Communist rule of
325Ibid., 4.
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China. He distrusts those who advocate milder treatment of China, noting that former
secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig also have earned lots of money
consulting for China. As Triplett states, “Those of us on one side tend to think of those
on the other side are [sic] either in the pay of Beijing or want to be.”326 Again, the Sino-
American relationship is cast in terms of a zero-sum game where the US’ loss is the
PRC’s gain.327
Of course, the attention given by Americans to the “historical lesson” of Munich
has been used on occasion rhetorically by some Chinese to point out American hypocrisy.
For example, consider the following excerpt explaining China’s historical ambivalence
toward the US.
Even more intolerable, in 1941 the United States cut a compromising deal with Japan behind China’s back, creating the Far East version o f Munich at the expense o f China. It is estimated that in 1937-38 military supplies imported from the United States accounted for 55 percent of Japan’s total military imports. ... As late as October 1940, the Japanese were still flying new U.S. fighter planes to bomb and kill Chinese. It is not surprising that Chinese people at that time became bitter about so-called American justice, humanism, and sympathy.328
It should be noted that these commonplaces are by no means the only ones
applicable to the topics at hand. The commonplaces described here are merely the ones
326Quoted in Steven Mufson, “Aide’s Crusade Is Keeping U.S. Heat on Beijing,”The Washington Post, 9 April 1999, A26.
327For example, consider the phenomenon during the Clinton era of the “blue” versus the “red team.” American foreign policy elites often are portrayed as falling into two camps regarding views of the PRC, called the “blue” versus the “red” team. This simplistic either/or attitude is so pervasive that it has been rumored that the two camps work to exclude perceived “others,” whether at conferences or with listservs. Such commentary encourages a focus on “outliers”; that is to say, “hard-liners.”
328Ding Xinghao, “A Matter of Business Principles,” inChinese Images of the United States, ed. Carola McGiffert (Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005), 119; emphasis added.
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that emerged the most salient to the issues of public apology and US-China relations. Let
us now turn to specific issues raised in the events of the NATO bombing of the Chinese
embassy and the EP-3E plane collision to see whether these rhetorical commonplaces
were deployed in subsequent apology debates.
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THE 1999 NATO BOMBING OF THE CHINESE EMBASSY
Timeline of the Crisis
At approximately midnight on Friday, May 7, 1999, NATO air forces dropped
five laser-guided bombs on the Chinese embassy located in Belgrade, killing three and
injuring twenty. The incident occurred during a particularly heavy night of NATO
bombing raids. According to American reports, the designated target was supposed to be
the Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement, a Yugoslav arms procurement
agency, but the CIA officials who chose the target had identified the wrong building,
hitting the Chinese embassy instead. In the wake of incident, NATO indicated that
perhaps an out-of-date map was used during the target selection process. After all, the
Chinese embassy only had moved to this new location several years before. According to
Robert Suettinger, however, “the fact that the directorate was the only target nominated
by the CIA in seventy-eight days of bombing raised questions about whether it was a
mistake.”330
The news first reached China early on Saturday, May 8, and an apology to
Chinese officials in the PRC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) came soon thereafter.
3290nly three o f the five bombs detonated successfully. Suettinger, 369.
330Ibid„ 374.
146
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US Ambassador to China, James R. Sasser, told them that the embassy bombing was a
“terrible mistake.” Unfortunately, the lack of communication directly from Washington
(where it was still nighttime) angered Chinese officials.
Officially, the PRC condemned the strike made by “US-led NATO,” calling it “a
gross violation of Chinese sovereignty and a random violation of the Vienna Conventions
•5 ■2'} on Diplomatic Relations and the norms of international relations.” Chinese leaders
also called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to condemn the
bombing and start an investigation of what had taken place.333
By Saturday afternoon, news of the bombing had reached enough people that
crowds began to form around the US embassy in Beijing. Chinese authorities had waived
the usual requirement for demonstration permits, so entire busloads of university students
were allowed to come and demonstrate outside the embassy. While initial
demonstrations were peaceful, over time the protesters became more violent, some
burning the US flag as well as damaging cars.334 While Chinese police were present in
large numbers, they did not go to great lengths to contain the crowds. Rocks, paint
33‘ibid., 370.
332“China Condemns Strike,” text of PRC’s statement given to Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English, 8 May 1999 posted on BBC News, 7:36 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http: //news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/world/monitoring/33 8543 .stm.
333“Protesters Attack U.S. Embassy in Beijing,” CNN, 8 May 1999, 10:12 EDT/14:12 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9905/08/china.bombing.protests.02.
334Ibid.
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bombs, and even Molotov cocktails were hurled at the US embassy compound, causing a
few fires that were quickly contained by remaining embassy personnel.
Ambassador James Sasser and a small circle of key staff members were forced
to remain inside the American embassy in Beijing for five days. American and British
consulates also were attacked, with the most damage done to the US Consul’s residence
in Chengdu.336 Smaller protests occurred in Hong Kong outside the British and
American consulates.337 Among the tears and shouts were demands that a “full apology”
be given for the incident.
In terms of international diplomacy, the situation complicated an already
delicate situation. The PRC had opposed NATO action against Yugoslavia and its
president, Slobodan Milosevic. Its leaders likely read the Yugoslav situation to be all too
similar to its own relations with Taiwan and Tibet, perhaps providing a rationale for
future NATO intervention in the PRC’s “internal affairs.” Furthermore, China’s
compliance in the UN Security Council was deemed essential for a negotiated end to the
war.339 Instead, the PRC was calling again for cessation of NATO military action.
335Suettinger, 371.
336Matt Fomey, “Anger at U.S. Reaches into Chinese Provinces— Attack on Embassy Capped Tensions,” Wall Street Journal, 14 May 1999, 1.
337“protesters Attack U.S. Embassy in Beijing,” 8 May 1999.
338“The Chinese Embassy Strike in Quotes,” BBC News, 8 May 1999, 21:48 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http: //news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/world/europe/338923.stm.
339James Miles, “Bombing Fuels Chinese Hostility,” BBC News, 8 May 1999, 11:20 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http: //news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/world/europe/338599.stm.
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The day after the bombing, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tried to
contact Foreign Minister Tang Jianxuan in China to express her condolences. When told
that he was not available, she and three other high American officials made a midnight
visit to the Chinese ambassador, Li Zhaoxing, someone she had known since the time
when they both worked at the United Nations. According to Albright,
I told him [Ambassador Li] the bombing had been a terrible accident and that we were extremely sorry. I said I knew what it was like to have colleagues killed and hoped he would convey my condolences to the families of those who had died or been injured. I also said I was worried about the safety of American diplomats in Beijing; it was vital the demonstrations not grow more violent. Although Li and I had developed a good relationship, he was now very stem; he demanded I make a formal apology on Chinese television. Suddenly cameras materialized. I made a brief statement. When our delegation tried to leave, we ran into a group of Chinese “journalists” who blocked the hallway, asking us pointedly why we had killed their colleagues. My security detail hadn't been allowed inside, so we were alone and worried we would be trapped.340
Other members of the American delegation were able to keep the journalists at bay long
enough for them to make their exit.
Meanwhile, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea also was quick to call the bombing
“a terrible accident”341 and NATO’s Secretary General, Javier Solana also issued a
statement of “deep regret” for the bombing.342 A subsequent joint statement by US
340Madeleine Albright with Bill Woodward, Madame Secretary: A Memoir (New York: Hyperion, 2003), 417-418. The quotation marks around “journalists” signals Albright’s suspicion that they are more likely Chinese operatives.
341“Chinese, Russians Condemn Embassy Attack, Call for Bombing Halt,” CNN, 8 May 1999, accessed 1 March 2004, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/08/kosovo.01/.
342“The Chinese Embassy Strike in Quotes.” There were some conflicting statements from NATO at first about whether one o f their pilots had been mistaken in targeting the embassy before subsequent information was provided that the use of outdated maps was to blame.
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Secretary of Defense William Cohen and CIA Director George Tenet reinforced the
message that the bombing was a mistake and that they regretted the loss of life.
By the afternoon of May 8th in the US, President William Clinton was filmed in
passing by news crews during a visit to inspect storm damage in Oklahoma. He gave
China his “regrets and condolences” but also responded to criticism that the bombing was
barbaric by arguing that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was the one who truly
was barbaric—the implication being that the mistaken bombing never would have
occurred if Milosevic had not thumbed his nose at the international community.343
Moreover, when the apology finally was aired, some Chinese were offended by Clinton’s
informal appearance and his “half-hearted apology.”344
By the morning of Sunday, May 9, the Chinese crowds appeared so threatening
to US embassy personnel that they began to shred official documents, afraid that some
demonstrators would be able to enter the compound. Ambassador Sasser tried
unsuccessfully to reach MFA officials, who were out of the office for the weekend, so he
even asked Li Zhaoxing, the PRC’s ambassador in Washington, DC, for assistance.
Outside the embassy,
.. .demonstrators unfurled vulgar banners, burned American flags, and defaced effigies of Clinton, Secretary of State Albright, and the Statue of Liberty. But there also was a growing undertone of anger at the Chinese government’s weakness in responding to the American attacks.. ,345
343Suettinger, 371.
344“Unintended Consequences,”Asia Times, 19 May 1999.
345Suettinger, 371.
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That same day, President Clinton sent an official letter to President Jiang Zemin
that conveyed his “apologies and sincere condolences for the pain and casualties brought
about by the bombing of the Chinese embassy.”346 However, while American officials
had apologized repeatedly, they also continued to justify the on-going NATO bombing
campaign, a move that infuriated many Chinese.347 Similarly, NATO’s initial statements
of regret were not deemed satisfactory by either the Chinese government or its citizens.
A series of international condemnations also followed NATO’s statements—each one
- w o noted in the Chinese press.
Nevertheless, by Sunday afternoon, the Chinese government began to signal to
its citizens that the protests could not continue unabated. Vice-President Hu Jintao gave
a televised speech that condemned the bombing but also indicated that “over-reaction”
must be prevented and social order maintained. He also commented that “The Chinese
Government unswervingly upholds the independent foreign policy of peace, firmly
safeguards state sovereignty and national dignity and resolutely opposes hegemony and
power politics.”349
Some speculated that Hu was selected to give the speech because other Politburo
members would be less appropriate for various reasons. For example, Premier Zhu
346Cited in Ibid., 372.
347Ibid.
348“Nations Condemn Bombing of Embassy,” China Daily (North American ed.), 10 May 1999, 1.
349“Vice-President Hu Jintao’s TV Speech on US-led NATO Attack,”Beijing Review 42, 21 (24 May 1999), 7.
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Rongji had just returned to China after failing to seal a deal on the WTO and might have
been “considered soft” in negotiating with the US while National People’s Congress
Chairman Li Peng would be associated with the Tiananmen Square crackdown in
1989.350 More to the point, some analysts thought that figures associated with economic
and political reforms and openness to the US could be in trouble. After all, several of the
other top leaders of the PRC were not shown on state media for several days during the
crisis, such as Jiang, Zhu, and Vice-Premier Qian Qichen, leading to conjecture about
division within the CCP.351
On Monday, May 10, Chinese authorities had reinstated the requirement to
obtain official permission to demonstrate, thereby placing obstacles in the path of
protestors.352 Still, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also took steps to suspend
military-to-military exchanges with the US as well as postpone or cancel other bilateral
visits and consultations.
President Jiang Zemin echoed Vice-President Hu’s sentiments in a May 11
statement, stating that “economy necessity” meant that the demonstrations should come
to an end.354 At this point, Chinese media finally broadcast the apologies by NATO
350Craig S. Smith, “China’s Vice President Hu Raises Profile— Official Serves to Soothe and Embolden Students after Embassy Bombing,” Wall Street Journal, 17 May 1999, A21.
351“Unintended Consequences.”
352Suettinger, 372.
353Ibid., 373.
354Robin Paul Ajello with David Hsieh, Rose Tang, Anne Meydam, Fons Tuinstra, and Alejandro Reyes, “A Relationship in Flames,” Asiaweek, 21 May 1999,21.
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officials and US President Clinton. Subsequently, the demonstrations in front of the US
embassy in Beijing began to end.
President Clinton also conveyed his apologies via a telephone call to President
Jiang. In addition, he made the conciliatory gestures of meeting with Chinese
ambassador Li Zhaoxing and signing a condolence book for the victims of the
bombing.355 Besides Clinton’s repeated apologies, the staff of the American embassy in
Beijing signaled American regret by hanging their flags at half-staff out of respect for the
three people killed.356
Meanwhile, the three journalists killed by the bombing, Shao Yunhuan, Xu
Xinghu, and Zhu Ying, were given the title of “revolutionary martyrs” by President Jiang
Zemin on behalf of the Chinese government, who stated that “all three died for peace,
• ”^7 • justice and the motherland and they will stay in our memory forever.” According to
journalist John Pomfret, this status is “China’s highest honor” and means that their
survivors could expect money and special housing treatment.
Back in Washington, speculation swirled as to how the bombing mistake could
have occurred. Some suspected that both bureaucratic reorganization and cuts in
355“Clinton Phones Chinese President,” BBC News, 14 May 1999, 17:40 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http://news.bbc.co.Uk/l/hi/world/americas/344046.stm.
356Erik Eckholm, “China Pauses as Remains of Victims Return Home, New York Times, 13 May 1999.
357“Great Force of Nation Praised,” China Daily, 14 May 1999, 1.
358John Pomfret, “China Says Anti-U.S. Protests Were ‘Natural,’ Not Orchestrated,” The Washington Post, 14 May 1999, A26.
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intelligence funding were to blame. After all, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency
was created in 1996 from the merger of numerous intelligence agencies, causing some
experienced staff to leave in the wake of the change. Given the loss of staff, the
remaining few intelligence officials were burdened with trying to keep “no-strike” and
target information up to date for a number of different operations. According to David
Fulghum and Robert Wall, the errors came because the intelligence officers planning the
NATO strike “were mainly looking at whether the target was appropriate and what the
risks of collateral damage were, not whether it was in fact the correct target.”359
The Clinton administration mounted an investigation of what mistakes led to the
bombing, and US Defense Secretary Cohen announced a series of corrective measures to
ensure that this mistake would not happen again when selecting bombing targets. In
addition, President Clinton asked Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas
Pickering to head a delegation to the PRC to report any findings. This delegation was
delayed initially by Chinese officials who claimed that their public still was too angry for
such a visit.361 When Pickering finally was able to present his report, Chinese officials
were not persuaded that the bombing had been a mistake.
This brief sketch of the events of the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy
indicates the complexity of the crisis. As Robert Suettinger points out,
359David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall, “Intel Mistakes Trigger Chinese Embassy Bombing,” Aviation Week & Space Technology Vol. 150, Issue 20 (17 May 1999), 34.
360Ibid.
361Suettinger, 374. Suettinger also notes that the US Department of Defense appeared reluctant to participate in the delegation.
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China and the United States have never come to an agreement on what happened and whether the United States explained its actions appropriately. Although not an active dispute, the issue has been a major irritant in the relationship ever since.. .362
Citizens’ Interpretations
Even several years after the fact, almost all of the Chinese citizens who were
interviewed believe that the embassy bombing deliberately was caused by the US
government.363 In contrast, most of the American public believes that it was an
unfortunate accident caused by incompetence.364
This national gap in interpretation leads again to the pivotal issue ofmotivation.
Understandably, it seems to make a significant difference to citizens and foreign policy
experts who strikes them and why. However, it is impossible to grasp intentionality for
certain, even by some of the parties directly involved. Instead, intersubjective guesses
and rumors usually swirl in the wake of an event, especially one as destructive and
symbolic as the bombing of a state’s embassy.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that many Chinese—both citizens and experts
alike—speculated a great deal about what “really” caused NATO to bomb the embassy
362Ibid„ 376.
363Only a couple of interviewees expressed doubt about what “really” had taken place with the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy. However, in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, one sixty-year old man was so pro-US as to believe that the NATO bombing was indeed accidental and asked when Iraq would be bombed, saying “When will the war take place? Punish Iraq soon.” Later, he added that the coalition forces should “Strike them [Iraqis] as soon as possible.” Given the fact that many Chinese o f that generation were afraid to discuss politics with me at that time and he was the only respondent to list President George W. Bush as his most-liked American (Bush was listed overwhelmingly as the most-disliked American), his viewpoints were quite unusual.
364Morrow, “It’s the Stupidity, Stupid.”
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and what lessons should be learned from this incident. For example, most Chinese
i / e believed that the US wanted to “keep China down” or test it. The US had become an
arrogant “bully,” bombing Yugoslavia into submission. Since the PRC had chosen to
support the Serbs, the US must have decided to have a few bombs “go astray” in order to
“teach China a lesson.” After all, one reason for the PRC’s sympathy toward the Serbs
was that its leaders had seen a similarity between Balkan separatism and Taiwan’s
“separatist tendency.”
In the wake of this event, many interviewees conveyed their desire for China to
strengthen itself. While most respondents focused explicitly on China’s need to be
powerful economically, a few highlighted its need for military strength instead.
While many respondents described their anger toward the US openly, several
citizens probably chose to be more polite toward an American interviewer, instead using
the principle of discussing their deep admiration of more positive American actions from
the past to draw an implicit contrast. For example, a number of well-educated people
discussed how the US was viewed favorably because, unlike the other seven Western
states that also extracted indemnities from China after the Boxer Rebellion, Americans
used the money to found Beijing, Qinghua, and other famous universities as well as
several hospitals.366 Also, American support of the Chinese against the Japanese in the
365Interestingly, some American students studying in Beijing during 2002-2003 also were unconvinced by the claims of the US government. As part of a study-abroad program, they were given the assignment o f asking Chinese people about the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. These students, in part due to their young age in 1999, had not paid much attention to the bombing at the time when it happened, and were persuaded by their Chinese roommates’ arguments that the bombing was deliberate.
366John Pomfret, “Anti-American, Down to the Jeans,”The Washington Post, 14 May 1999, Cl.
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Asia-Pacific War has not been forgotten. These actions left a strong and positive
impression on many Chinese people.
Moreover, these individuals expressed the hope that the US would return to its
more benevolent approach toward China, acting as its “friend,” or “big brother,” by
protecting its “little brothers and sisters.” They indicated that developing nations still
look toward the US for inspiration.
Historical Analogies
In terms of similar incidents, citizens mentioned the attack on Pearl Harbor the
most, pointing out how it too was a “sneak attack.” Also, a number of respondents
mentioned that they thought that the US was trying to treat China the way it did the
USSR during the Cold War. Other historical incidents that were cited include: the Sino-
Japanese War (particularly Japanese bombing raids), the Korean War, the burning of
China’s Summer Palace,368 Russia’s conflict with Chechnya, the Vietnam War, Gulf War,
and the “Shen Chong incident,” in which a female university student in Nanjing was
raped by American soldiers in the late 1940s. 369
367According to a twenty-one year old female university student who mentioned the Korean War, she made the comparison because both cases demonstrated the US violating “the integrity of a nation” and “not respect[ing] a country.”
368One eighteen-year old male coffee house server added after mentioning the burning o f the Summer Palace, “Because this event is hard for Chinese to forget.”
369In general, I expected to hear more about similar incidents in Chinese history—but there tended to be more incidents mentioned from American or even world history. I also was surprised to see that the question of historical incidents garnered a lot of “I don’t know” responses given how well most of my Chinese friends and acquaintances know their history.
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While some people did not raise historical issues in response to this specific
question, as the interview continued, they mentioned their sensitivity to China’s having
experienced numerous “foreign invasions” during its history. For example, a fifteen-
year-old junior high school student stated simply, “China has been bullied by imperialism
everywhere since the Opium War.” A thirty-six-year-old teacher also indicated the need
for interstate apologies to be official “because some seemingly random incidents are
(actually) very sensitive issues for both sides especially the victimized] side.”
Apologies
By a significant margin (over seventy-five percent), Chinese citizens indicated
their belief in the importance and benefit of apology. Only three respondents—all highly
educated and under the age of forty—had little positive to say about apology. For
example, one twenty-seven-year-old female teacher with a Ph.D. in Chinese stated that an
interstate apology is “a farce. Usually there is no sincerity in an interstate apology. It’s
just a political behavior.”
Even more forthright was a thirty-six-year-old person who stated that an official
apology is made up of “insignificant pointless words” and the lesson of these incidents is
that “[t]here is no diplomacy for a weak nation.” However, even this respondent
mentions elsewhere that an interstate apology should be official in order to help the
people victimized.
The largest percentage of interviewees—more than a third—claimed that there
could be “no loss” in apologizing. Some added that there even would be some benefit to
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•>* 7A a state giving an apology as it only would enhance their “prestige.” However, less than
a third of the respondents thought that “face” could be lost (or gained) by the giving of an
apology. In comparison, only about a sixth of the interviewees mentioned that financial
compensation would be the central loss. This focus on relational and emotional elements
over materiality is striking, especially a culture currently considered to be quite
materialistic.
Furthermore, it was stressed that an apology must be sincere and conveyed to
the Chinese people—not just the Chinese government. In general, most respondents
emphasized that, in the incidents of the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy and the
Hainan plane collision, an apology must be official; that is, it must come from a formally
designated representative of the government in question.
Sometimes, interviewees mentioned that gender differences have an impact on
whether apologies are received well or not. For instance, a twenty-five-year-old male
data processor mentioned that, when it comes to Chinese people,
.. .if it’s a woman [who]... apologize[s], the counterparts would be more willing to agree and to accept [it]; but if it’s a man [who]... apologize[s], the counterparts probably would not accept it as ... [well as with] a woman’s apology. It might be due to people hold[ing] a natural sympathy toward women, or in other words, females may have the gift of affecting their counterparts and making them agreeable.
370Interestingly, a couple of respondents began by saying that there would not any loss involved in apologizing, only to think twice about that claim upon further reflection (or after asking the interviewer why such a question would even be asked, since they apparently found the answer to be self evident).
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Other Themes
Other common topics that emerged from these interviews included: sovereignty
and invasion; the anger and “hurt feelings” of the Chinese people; the need for the US to
treat other states as equals; and the need for peace. When it came to peace, some well-
educated women expressed more concern about cultural misunderstandings and the
overall Sino-American relationship.371 Before one draws the conclusion that women are
natural peacemakers, it should be emphasized that several of the most bellicose
interviewees also were highly educated female officials and journalists. It also was
intriguing to find that some of the most patriotic voices were college-educated Chinese
minorities who discussed their “love of the motherland.” American observers might have
expected more resentment expressed toward the PRC given the well-documented
repression of minorities in China.
A few interviewees thought that most Americans also must have been upset with
the US for its actions. Others believed that Americans were manipulated by various US
media into believing the story that the bombing was an accident. Meanwhile, one young
woman argued that both Americans and Chinese were misled by their respective media.
One maid, who may have been illiterate, did not know much about either the 1999
embassy bombing or 2001 plane collision. For example, she was unaware that both of
these incidents met with Chinese protests. Interestingly, she and another less-educated
individual apologized for their apparent lack of knowledge, showing a disarming sense of
371Actually, a number of women volunteered to assist with this project. Two women in their twenties said that the process of the interview itself enhanced their understanding of the predominant American interpretation o f what took place.
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humility as well as providing an explanation of why they had not paid attention to the
news at the time.
Should a State Apologize If It Did Nothing Wrong?
Last, there was a fascinating contrast between Chinese citizens and foreign policy
experts in regard to these questions added after early interviews: “What should a state do
if it believes that it did nothing wrong? Should its officials apologize just to help
improve state relations?”373 A typical response was given by a forty-year-old female
professor, “If [a state] believes firmly that it didn’t do anything wrong, then it shouldn’t
apologize. Even if an apology is beneficial for the relations between the country and the
other country, it should not apologize.” This stance indicates a preference for justice over
peace, or the importance of “truth” and “being right” over pragmatism.
One fourteen-year old student reacted strongly, detecting the implicit reference to
the 2001 Hainan incident.
Believing it did nothing wrong? That’s seeking for a slap on its face. (The earth doesn’t belong to it!) Every nation should consider other nations’ standpoints. They should apologize, even if it’s formalistic, it’s necessary.
372While these individuals’ life experiences probably are more representative of most Chinese in the PRC, it was interesting that some of the people who were more likely to refer to themselves as “average” or “common” Chinese were university-educated, white-collar workers in Beijing.
373The interviewer raised these questions spontaneously at the end of an interview with an American foreign policy expert and was struck by the intensity of the response. For the most part, American and Chinese foreign policy experts remained professional and showed little emotion during the interviews, but these two questions brought forth increased reactions on both sides. Americans indicated that they wanted to see if the PRC would have apologized fully if the Hainan situation had been reversed and Chinese foreign policy experts viewed the questions as insulting, catching the context in which they had been generated. In contrast, most citizens did not seem to recognize the specific context of the question and usually answered in marked contrast to their pro-apology stance elsewhere in the interviews.
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Meanwhile, a couple of people raised the possibility of having different readings
of the same event. For example, as a twenty-three year old bartender stated,
If one is convinced that he didn’t do anything wrong, then it is not necessary to apologize. The problem is whether if he is wrong but he is not aware of that, and this is another issue... If there is no wrong doing, then there doesn’t have to be an apology.
Last, a few respondents, such as this male university student of twenty-two, made pragmatic suggestions.
If it [a state] thinks it has done nothing wrong, it should give a detailed explanation to the opposite side to eliminate misunderstandings. However, sometimes the other side might not listen to your explanation as both sides have rather tense attitudes. Therefore, one side can apologize first to soothe the atmosphere, then [later] make it clear to the other side that in fact it did not do anything wrong.
Findings of Interviews with American and Chinese Foreign Policy Experts374
When it came to discussions with foreign policy experts based in the US and PRC,
a similar national gap in interpretation of this event emerged. For example, US-based
foreign policy experts tended to focus on the subsequent demonstrations as a prime
• J ' J f example of Chinese state-directed nationalism. In contrast, most PRC-based experts
argued that the anger demonstrated by Chinese citizens against the US and other
374Foreign policy experts were asked a different list of questions in part because of their clear lack of interest in apology as a topic of discussion compared to Chinese citizens. Rather than go into detail to explain my reasoning, I decided to follow their point of view. Most were interested more in discussing how and why events unfolded the way that they did in each crisis and the implications for future US-China relations.
375Upon presentation o f a paper based on this research, however, one American political scientist who researches trade issues with China mentioned to me that he now was more understanding of the predominant Chinese interpretations of the 1999 embassy bombing event.
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prominent NATO states was real.376 The PRC and Chinese citizens reacted the way they
did because an “embassy is a country’s territory and a symbol of sovereignty.” 377 This
kind of symbolism has a great deal of resonance for a country’s people.
Meanwhile, several Chinese foreign policy experts were skeptical of the claim
that outdated maps were used in deciding upon targets. After all, global positioning
systems (GPS) are used by American military intelligence and planes and three laser-
guided missiles hit the Chinese embassy with great accuracy. 378 Another academic
reflected that it was difficult to tell why the US acted the way it did in bombing the
Chinese embassy. After all,
... [the] Chinese flag is [sic] flying at the top of the embassy building. American military attache had been invited to the embassy several times. Before bombing any target, the normal practice has three levels of reviewing and approval. Before the bombing, some people should have been sent to check the target on site. China say [sic] it is intentional but the US side say it is accidental. Let history say ... in the future ... [what truly happened].379
Whatever the case, the embassy bombing was seen as crossing a “red line” of acceptable
international behavior. 380 It must never happen again.
376However, one Chinese academic noted that the demonstrations against NATO in the wake of the embassy bombing had a negative impact. Chinese professor C-10, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 21 October 2003.
377Chinese professor C-l 1, e-mail correspondence, Beijing, China, 11 November 2003.
378Chinese professor C-12, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 23 November 2003.
379Interview with professor C-l 1.
380Interview with professor C-10.
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American Views
As a group, US-based foreign policy experts as a group disagreed vehemently
with the idea that the bombing was deliberate, several arguing that the American
government has too much transparency and many safeguards in place for such a plot to
take place.381 Unfortunately, this one incident just was one in which all of the safeguards
"ICO did not work —creating almost a “perfect storm” kind of scenario. One expert,
however, granted that “intelligence work is murky” and he could not rule out entirely that
a few individuals holding a grudge might have been able to cause the bombing.
Some American professors and officials were skeptical about what Chinese
foreign policy experts would say about these incidents, indicating that they would
probably “stick to the party line.” It was true that Chinese academics had a tendency to
sidestep any questions of a delicate or pointed nature. Since they usually had a copy of
the questions in both Chinese and English, most would ignore such questions, skipping
instead to the next question they opted to answer. Most of the responses that follow are
views of PRC-based foreign policy experts.
38‘Suettinger, 376.
382Kenneth Lieberthal, interview by author via telephone, notes, St. Louis Park, MN, 9 March 2004.
383Robert Sutter, interview by author, notes, Washington, DC, 8 August 2003.
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Historical Analogies
As a group, Chinese academics were far more cautious in drawing connections to
possible historical referents, some indicating that the so-called “lessons of history” can be
easily misread. For example, one scholar made clear that “These two incidents did not
remind me of the situations in history. Any event has its own background and historical
scope.”384 Yet another just indicated his view that the NATO bombing and EP-3E
incidents were different.
One Chinese journalist commented that both the incidents reminded her of “war
between two countries.”386 While I was not clear at first as to her meaning, I believe that
she meant to say that these incidents should have been interpreted by the Chinese
government as open declarations of war, and they should have responded in kind. Some
news coverage of Chinese protestors also indicated this view.
One Chinese professor thought immediately of China’s historically troubled
relationship with Japan, if only to note that “these cases are very different from [the]
Japanese situation,” but still “we should avoid this kind of thing.”
384Interview with professor C-l 1.
385Chinese professor C -l, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 11 November 2003.
386Chinese journalist C-5, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 21 November 2003.
387Xiao Lian, professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, interview by author, tapes, Beijing, China, 13 November 2003. He commented further that he hoped that the US would give apologies in the manner that Germany did after World War II. In contrast, he indicated his belief that Japan still has not given an apology for its actions during the Asia-Pacific War, a stance that he called “very foolish.”
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Lessons Learned
Most Chinese foreign policy experts indicated that the embassy bombing forced
China to realize that the US would attempt to “keep it down” one way or another. As a
result, China has been working to enhance its military capability.388 More specifically,
one professor indicated that the two states have learned hard lessons about the importance
•5 O Q of communicating directly during such crises.
Meanwhile, Chinese journalists and journalism professors proved to be the most
nationalistic members of the group.390 In terms of any “lessons learned” from the
embassy crisis, one commented that the PRC figured out that it “should be tougher”
toward the US. As for whether the US learned any lessons, she stated that she had not
seen evidence that any lessons had been learned; that Americans think that they do not
need China as much as they did in the 1970s.391
In terms of lessons of the 1999 embassy bombing, one Chinese academic
emphasized the danger of having an “enemy mentality.” After the collapse of the Soviet
388Interview with professor C-10.
389Xiao interview. While much has been made about Robert Axelrod’s theory o f cooperation, it is worth considering the extent to which minimal communication still can lead to cooperation if the cultures in conflict are not both Western European. Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, (New York: Basic Books, 1984). Cultural differences, however, also affect direct communication due to such issues as translation problems.
390This finding contrasts somewhat with the results of a study conducted by Chinese researchers in which Chinese journalists were slightly more likely to have favorable opinions o f the US than some other groups, such as students. Nevertheless, the central finding o f the study is that Chinese people across backgrounds have a mixed opinion of the United States. See Zhao Mei, “Chinese Views of America: A Survey,” inChinese Images of the United States, ed. Carola McGiffert (Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005), 62-63.
39lInterview with Chinese journalist C-5.
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Union, he argued, there was a tendency for Americans to view China as the most likely
candidate for their new enemy. Therefore, the US must recognize that “China is not the
same as the Soviet Union.”TO1}
One political scientist said that the PRC learned the “positive” lesson that it must
avoid conflicts, such as the war in the Balkans, that have nothing to do with its national
interests. A negative lesson learned was that younger Chinese began to develop
resentment toward the US. Indeed, he stated that the embassy bombing was a deep shock
to the psyche of the Chinese people, and that its impact “can be felt even today.”393
Another academic noted that, in terms of the Chinese people, most have a positive regard
for Americans, but these two incidents have caused some loss of respect. Also, the
interactions have raised the tensions over the Taiwan issue.394
Most Chinese foreign policy experts indicated that they now believe that
President Clinton did not intend for the bombing to happen. One academic mentioned
that he even had discussed the 1999 bombing incident with President Clinton and was
“ninety-nine percent sure that it was not the White House’s decision to send the
missiles.” Instead, he suspected elements within the CIA, Pentagon, and military
intelligence.395 Other Chinese foreign policy experts also blamed “sub-governmental
392Xiao interview.
393Interview with professor C-10.
394Xiao interview.
395Interview with professor C-12.
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■jq / j '707 behavior” —such as rogue elements in the Pentagon, for example —for plotting the
bombing.
Some citizens—particularly those who were particularly upset—indicated that
“every Chinese” would feel the same way about these incidents. In contrast, Chinese
foreign policy experts were more likely to believe that the reaction would be segmented
according to the North-South, coastal-inner regions, and rural-urban divides, for example.
In general, the sense was that city-dwellers and Northerners (especially those in Beijing)
would be more focused on political matters, whereas Southerners pay more attention to
the economy.398 Regional differences also were seen as affecting analysis of international
relations, as some Chinese professors remarked that there is a general difference between
Shanghai and Beijing’s foreign policy experts’ mindsets.399
Apologies
One professor stated simply that it would have helped if the American
government and people had attempted to view the situation from the Chinese
perspective.400 More specifically, a number of experts—both Chinese and American—
396Interview with professor C-10. This same individual added that he believes that John F. Kennedy, Jr. was assassinated by a group within the US government.
397Xiao interview.
398Interview with professor C-10.
399Interview with professor C-l 1.
400Interview with professor C -l2.
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commented that the embassy bombing crisis would have been resolved more quickly if
President Clinton’s initial apology had been given in a more formal manner. In addition,
it would have helped if he had not moved so quickly from discussion of the US’
responsibility for the bombing to pin primary blame for the conflict on Milosevic.401 The
swift change in subjects made his acceptance of responsibility seem glib.
In general, Chinese foreign policy experts indicated that an official apology
should convey the attitude that the state was wrong to do what it did, give an additional
explanation for what motivated the action in question, and state the expectation and hope
that this incident will not affect cooperation in other areas.402
Generally, however, Chinese foreign policy experts did not view apology as
significant as Chinese citizens. At an interpersonal level, one professor had some
insightful words, noting that “apologies are difficult for Chinese to do” and there is no
typical way that Chinese people apologize. Furthermore, an apology can be beneficial if
the tension in the relationship is limited. If, however, the relationship has become too
tense, then an apology will be “useless.”403
Some Chinese journalists were particularly dismissive of apology, seeing it as “bu
zhongyao” (“not important”).404 A professor of journalism just stated, “I really don’t
401Of course, Americans would point out that, in a democratic society, news reporters pursue the president no matter the setting. His informal appearance related to his other duties and was not intended to insult China. Suettinger, 371 and interview with professor C-10.
402Interview with professor C-10.
403Ibid.
404Chinese journalist C-4, interview by author, tapes and notes, Beijing, China, 20 November 2003.
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care about apology,” and indicated that these crises were not centered upon apologies.405
These sentiments were echoed by one foreign policy journalist, who said that apology
“doesn’t matter to me,” later adding that an official apology just involves “declaring
one’s position, [and engaging in] hypocrisy, lies, [and] insincere speech.”406
Meanwhile, one Chinese academic indicated that apology would not lead to any
loss on the Chinese side, and for Americans, an apology would help avoid riling the
Chinese people.407 Another Chinese professor declined to answer whether anything can
be lost in apologizing. However, later he granted that it would be “difficult for [an]
American president to bow down his head [and apologize] to [a] Communist.”408
Most experts, however, believed that if a state gave an apology, it “definitely”
would lose something in the process. “In China, [what would be caused is the] loss of
authority. [If] between states, [then, according to realism, the apologizing state would
have a] weaker bargaining position next time.” If, however, apology is “used
appropriately, [it] could strengthen the relationship.” Of course, such dynamics would
depend on the context in question.409
One Chinese foreign policy expert explained that Chinese and Americans have
different perspectives on interstate apologies. The Chinese perspective is more emotional,
405Interview with professor C-12.
406Chinese writer C-14, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 14 November 2003.
407Xiao interview.
408Interview with professor C-12.
409Interview with professor C-10.
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viewing apology as a way to overcome the loss of face (“You hit me, so I lost face.
Apologize to give face back to me.”). In contrast, the American perspective is tied up
with legal considerations of liability and compensation. This contrast in viewpoints
explains why most Chinese did not understand the American reluctance to apologize.410
One professor of comparative politics was dismissive about apology as well as
issues of political memory in general, exclaiming that some Americans “are still upset
about the Civil War!” His point was that it is difficult to make the argument that political
memory is ever directly causative.411
With a slightly condescending air, he went on to analyze apology in four different
ways: first, one could take a simple approach and apologize if one was wrong. Second,
one could analyze apology according to power imbalance. If one side is relatively
powerless and was wronged, then at least an apology could make one feel somewhat
respected. Third, one could make the case that gender differences account for attitudes
toward apology; i.e., men simply are ruder or more powerful. Last, different civilizations
may not express an apology, but may take certain actions in compensation to make up for
410 Ibid.
“"‘Chinese professor C-9, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 13 March 2003. This argument indicates a variable-oriented view of causality quite similar to the one taken by Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Given that the professor was trained within the US, such an interpretation is not surprising. Of course, the question of when historical memory becomes causal probably is too reductionistic and linear. Again, the issue is the type of causality one uses. With configurational causality, one investigates how and which historical issues are called upon to interpret an incident. Therefore, this issue also relates to the question o f whether “Occam’s razor”— the idea that the simpler the explanation, the better—may not be the best standard to use when attempting to understand social phenomena.
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the mistakes. Chinese people do not say sorry so much as they do things non-verbally to
compensate for the wrong.
At this point, the professor indicated that he views international relations as
mostly being about power. Diplomacy and “delicate courtesies” are merely instruments
to be used. Even if polite behavior comprises ninety-nine percent of international
relations, the remaining one percent of “cheating, spying” and other “ugly activities”
undermines these more positive gestures.412
A female colleague who made the introduction possible overheard the entire
discussion and disagreed with this professor. After he left, she said that he probably had
misunderstood the value of my project. An apology can restore balance to a relationship
by demonstrating that the other person is seen as worth an apology. She made an analogy
to early capitalism when sellers counted on only one-time deals, so they had little
incentive not to cheat others. Later, when on-going relationships developed, there were
reasons to promote longer-term positive interaction.
Analysis of the Rhetorical Commonplaces at Work
As predicted, nearly all of the rhetorical commonplaces derived from general
debate over public apologies and US-China relations did appear in responses to the
NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy. Of the rhetorical commonplaces derived from
debate over public apologies, by far the most salient issue was the importance o f sincerity.
Most importantly, President Clinton’s initial apology was found wanting in this respect.
412Interview with professor C-9.
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Given his casual attire and the quick deflection of responsibility to Milosevic, his words
of regret were undermined.
While China-based foreign policy experts were not as impressed with apologies
as citizens, they still stressed the need for sincerity from the offending country to calm
the crisis. Some claimed that what was needed most in the case of the embassy bombing
was “a promise, not an apology, [that] I will not do this again.”413
Some of the other rhetorical commonplaces of apology were more implicit. With
the problem o f incommensurability, for example, the early statements of regret from
NATO and US representatives for this “horrible accident” demonstrate an awareness of
this issue. In contrast, some of the Chinese demonstrators’ posters used the logic of
retribution: “An Eye for an Eye” or “Blood for Blood,” as if they wished for some sort of
physical equivalency in modem international relations.
In addition, once the dust settled from the incident, repayment also was expected
by both sides. After all, financial compensation often is linked to apologies. In the case
of the Chinese, money was expected in recompense for the destruction of their embassy
and the lives lost and Americans for the damage to the American embassy in Beijing and
consular buildings elsewhere in China.414 The US refused to call it “compensation”
because of the legal implications of that word. At the same time, the US wanted to be
reimbursed for the extensive damage sustained by its embassies and consulates, given the
413Interview with professor C-12.
414“U.S. Pays $4.5 Million to Chinese Victims,”The The Washington Post, 1 September 1999, A18.
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perceived lack of adequate Chinese protection of those facilities. According to US
Department of State official Paul Blackburn, at first Chinese negotiators told them that
the US could just deduct the money from the amount it had agreed to pay for the
destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. However, the American representatives
insisted that payments must exchange hands.415 Given that the dollar amount would have
been the same, this gesture clearly has symbolic significance in terms of each side’s
acknowledgment of its responsibilities.
Evidence of Weakness
Much of the American commentary on the fallout from the bombing of the
Chinese embassy also reinforced the idea that public apologies are actions taken out of
weakness rather than strength. The embassy bombing event was one more reason why
President Clinton became known as a “serial apologizer.” According to one editorial,
The Clinton administration has fallen all over itself apologizing to the Chinese government for the embassy attack. . . .[Tjthese lavish (and, to us, excessively repeated) apologies . . . [are inappropriate.]416
Several questions emerge from this critique. For one, who (or what) was Clinton’s
intended audience? While presidents always must pay attention to how issues “play”
with their domestic audience, chances are that in this case Clinton was more focused
upon Chinese reactions because he wanted to limit the damage done to US-China ties,
particularly American business interests.
415PauI Blackburn, interview by author, notes, Washington, DC, 2 May 2002.
416“Embassy Row,” The New Republic, 31 May 1999, 11-12.
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Furthermore, since the US was responsible for NATO’s targeting and bombing of
the Chinese embassy, it seems appropriate that it apologize officially for its role in the
unfortunate episode, especially if it was indeed a mistake. What is notable, however, is
how few American commentators spoke out in favor of the US apologizing to the Chinese.
For comparison purposes, consider some of the international commentary regarding
Washington and Beijing’s respective responsibility for the bombing and the Chinese
demonstrations in its wake. For example, an editorial in Asiaweek stated that “The first
thing Washington must do is to apologize formally and without qualification.”417
Bombing an embassy, mistake or not, is not an event that can be buried with an institutional “oops.” It is the kind of act that brings down governments and sparks wars. Not only to placate China but to prevent future “institutional errors,” appropriate heads should roll.418
One could argue that Americans’ lack of expressed concern about apologizing
officially to China was due to the fact that Clinton expressing regret and then apologies
so promptly. Even so, this lack of expressed American popular support for official
apologies happens frequently. Moreover, the US usually tries to respond to apology
claims by expressing its “regrets” before being pushed into giving apologies.419
417“Embassy Fiasco,” Asiaweek, 21 May 1999, 16.
4I8Ibid., 17. Meanwhile, these same commentators also noted that the PRC could have publicized NATO and American apologies immediately and been more balanced in state media representations o f the situation in the Balkans, including showing the plight o f the Kosovars.
419Steven Mufson with Charles Lane, “Apology or Regret: Not Just Wordplay: For U.S., Choice of Term Has Broad Implications,” The Washington Post, 6 April 2001, A28. Even President Clinton, whom Mufson and Lane call a “master of apology,” was subject to these domestic pressures. For example, despite the fact that Clinton had apologized elsewhere, the Pentagon objected to the idea of him apologizing for the No Gun Ri massacre during the Korean War. Therefore, Clinton only gave a statement of regret which was “condemned by South Korea as unsatisfactory.”
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Indeed, one could argue that, for most Americans, our weakness was
demonstrated by President Clinton’s attempts to apologize adequately; for many Chinese,
their weakness was revealed first by NATO being able to bomb the embassy because it
underscored China’s powerlessness to prevent this violation of the PRC’s sovereignty.
Second, their impotence and “loss o f face ” were shown in the Chinese leaders’ lack of
ability to do much beyond responding with condemnatory rhetoric. Along with the
eventual compensation from the US, the apologies were the most immediate form of
rectificatory justice that China could extract in this situation. However, in such an
extreme case of diplomatic insult, only a “full apology ” would be satisfactory.
Chinese foreign policy experts and student demonstrators sometimes expressed
longing for the days of strong leaders such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, as well as
geo-strategic thinkers such as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.420 Consider the issues
and emotions indicated in the following journalistic accounts of the embassy bombing
protests:
Many [demonstrators] were venting their anger against the U.S., but others were also furious at what they felt was Beijing’s weak response. “It is hegemony and the U.S. has dared to attack China, so China should respond,” said Xiao Lu, a post graduate student at Beijing University 421
“The Americans crap down our necks, and our leaders wet their pants because they are so scared, ” ... [one protester] said. “They are doing nothing about it. China needs to be strongC In online chat rooms, writers hark back to other occasions when the leadership supposedly squandered China’s international prestige. “When the Indonesians killed the Chinese, our government ignored it,” wrote one
““ interview with professor C-12.
421“Analysis: Beijing Signals It Shouldn’t Be Ignored,” Inter Press Service, posted onAsia Times, 13 May 1999; emphasis added, accessed March 2004; http://www.atimes.com/china/AE 13 AdO 1 .html.
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Web pundit. “I have been angry for a very long time. These officials are cowards!'”422
Of course, part of the reason why the current Chinese leaders would not be able to
respond so forcefully to the bombing is because the PRC’s economy had become
interdependent with the rest of the world. Too strong a reaction would harm China’s
economic development. During the Communist era, however, Mao Zedong was willing
to pay the price for pursuing China’s political and economic isolation. Such policies
certainly harmed Chinese interests in the short- and long-term, but the romantic image
persists of Mao as the first leader to “stand up” against imperialist countries after a
century of humiliation.
This historical memory sometimes was touched upon in media coverage of the
protests: “Mainland consumers want what the U.S. has on offer—Nike shoes, Big Macs
and so on—but they don’t want their government to kowtow to foreign barbarians.”423
Despite the PRC’s extensive economic interdependence with NATO countries, some
Chinese citizens attempted to organize a boycott of such American conglomerates as
Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and McDonalds, but such efforts did not go far.424
In terms of US-China relations, rhetorical commonplaces associated with
invasions o f the body politic were of particular importance in discussions of the embassy
422Ajello et al., 22-23; emphasis added.
423Ibid.
424James Kynge, “Chinese Protesters Urge US Boycott,”Financial Times, 14 May 1999, 1.
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bombing. In particular, both sides viewed the other as responsible for “crossing a red
line” of proper international diplomatic and state behavior.
“Red Lines” of International Behavior
On the one hand, even most Americans would agree that embassies should not be
bombed.425 Meanwhile, as indicated previously by the foreign service officer who turned
red in the face with anger about the stones and bricks thrown at the US embassy, the anti-
American/NATO protests offended many Americans. The image of Ambassador Sasser
peering out from behind a door with shattered panes of glass and paint stains was highly
publicized in the US.
In both cases, the norm violated was that of state sovereignty. Despite their
differing histories, both the US and China insisted upon the same principle. Indeed,
sometimes countries that suffered under Western imperialism and colonialism are all the
more insistent about their right to sovereignty and respect. Both countries were unable to
prevent their sovereign territory from being invaded and partially destroyed. These
actions were viewed as great insults to their national honor.
Show Some Respect
Thus, it also is no surprise that, as with US-China relations in general, there was
significant debate during the crisis over which country and culture was “civilized” or
425The Swedish, Norwegian, and Spanish ambassadors’ residences also were damaged during NATO’s bombing raids, although most diplomatic personnel had been evacuated prior to these incidents. See Steven Pearlstein, “NATO Bomb Said to Hit Belgrade Hospital,”The Washington Post, 21 May 1999, 1.
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“barbaric.”426 For example, Chinese leaders and various media decried NATO’s
bombing of the Chinese embassy as being the result o f “barbaric missile attacks.''’427 As
mentioned earlier, President Clinton had something to say about this choice of words.
[President Clinton] ... spoke briefly to reporters, calling the bombing a “tragic mistake” and expressing his “regrets and condolences” to China. But he also lashed out at those who called the bombing “barbaric," insisting that it was A'JQ Milosevic’s “ethnic cleansing” policies that were “barbaric."
From the perspective of many Chinese, Clinton’s response signaled the US’ lack
of concern for the Chinese people killed as well as for the damage to the embassy, one of
the primary symbols of a state’s sovereignty. As David Lampton notes, the United States
has never fully appreciated the psychological impact of the embassy bombing on the
PRC’s leaders and people: “[W]hat was the response from Washington and NATO?
That unfortunate things happen in war. ‘Grow up! ’ seemed to be the message to the
Chinese.”429
Such a message is highly insulting to China, a culture that is proud of its long
history and civilization. In the words of one Chinese demonstrator, “‘We are a very old
426From the Chinese side, see Susan V. Lawrence with Shawn W. Crispin, “Double-Edged Fury,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 May 1999, 13. For more theorized discussions, see Jianwei Wang, 57, 61, and 76.
427Wang Hui, “NATO Strikes Violate Recognized Treaties,” China Daily, 24 May 1999,4; emphasis added.
428Suettinger, 371; emphasis added.
429David M. Lampton, “Beware of a New Cold War,” National Committee on United-States China Relations, 25 May 1999, accessed 14 December 1999, http://www.ncuscr.org/dlamptonoped.htm.
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and traditional nation,’ said Wang Yizheng, a 44-year-old government employee. ‘If you
do not show us respect, we will hate you.’”430
Furthermore, Clinton’s message could be read as not paying much attention to
Chinese feelings. Some Chinese viewed his lack of extended comments about China’s
loss as a deliberate omission—one that underscored the American sense of “reality” as
being based on power politics alone. The US would see no reason to treat the PRC as its
equal because the US is the sole world superpower and hegemon. Nor would it have to
pay respect to China by acknowledging its injuries. Even years later, a Chinese academic
stressed that the US should “regard China as a partner—[it’s] important to respect each
other.”431
This issue also explains why some Chinese voices decried the US as a “bully.”
After the hundred-year humiliation, the embassy bombing incident could be read as one
more example of imperialists taking advantage of and victimizing China. It is no mistake
that President Jiang Zemin addressed this issue directly.
In a speech yesterday, Communist Party Chief Jiang Zemin lauded anti-American demonstrations, which he said “fully demonstrate the great patriotism and cohesive force of the Chinese nation. ... The great People’s Republic o f China can never be bullied! ^ 32
At a more popular level, meanwhile, there also are indications of this theme.
Two quickie books on the embassy bombing, which killed three Chinese, are already out and have become instant hot sellers. Their titles, “ Chinese People
430Quoted in Seth Faison, “Rage at U.S. Is Sign of Deeper Issues, New York Times, 13 May 1999.
43'interview with professor C-12.
432Fomey, “Anger at U.S. Reaches into Chinese Provinces”; emphasis added.
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Cannot Be Pushed Around" and "China Cannot Be Bullied ,” give a sense of the popular mood.433
“Wily” Chinese Leaders
For their own part, many Americans viewed China as manipulating the accidental
bombing for instrumental purposes. Chinese officials were seen as being so crafty that
they somehow were able to orchestrate the movements and sentiments of a nation of 1.3
billion people. For instance, consider the following American commentator’s
interpretation of what took place:
. . . China’s rulers are past masters at the art o f playing the victim. As suggested by their unwillingness to accept official American apologies, or even to take a phone call from a plaintive President Clinton, they can now be expected to use the accidental attack on their embassy to try to keep the United States off balance and attempt to gain the initiative on a number o f fronts. Unfortunately, given their experience of the past six years, Chinese officials have good reason to think that, if they keep up the pressure, their American counterparts may fo ld 434
As superb negotiators, Chinese leaders will be able to outsmart hand-wringing Americans
at every turn.
Similarly, American politicians had much to say about China’s cynical
motivations, including US Representative Christopher Cox, lead author of the 1999 “Cox
Report” on allegations of Chinese spying.
“Barely disguised stage management o f the riots and demonstrations displays the manipulative nature o f the Chinese government ,” Rep. Chris Cox (R-Califi), said in an interview.
433Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Public Anger Against U.S. Still Simmers In Beijing,” New York Times, 17 May 1999; emphasis added.
434Aaron L. Friedberg, “China’s Aging Anxious Autocrats,” The Weekly Standard, 24 May 1999, 11-12, emphasis added.
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The leaders of the People’s Republic, he argues, are using the embassy attack “to gain some leverage back from the public relations black eyes the PRC has suffered in the last few months. ... However the riots play in internal Chinese politics—it’s hard to know absent a free press—they have already strengthened the hand of China’s critics in the United States. It was impossible not to notice the contrast between the regime’s ability to turn on anti-American demonstrations and its willingness to shoot down pro-democracy demonstrators a decade ago. “What they’ve shown, ironically, are their true colors,” says Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.). “They have blocked any semblance of free expression, but they have propagandized their own people’s rage ... through a censored press.” “The one thing the Communist Party has never been good at,” Cox notes drily, “is public relations.”435
Of course, while American pundits focused upon the central role of the PRC’s
state-run media, they probably were not aware of the fact that many Chinese were able to
obtain Internet-based news from France’s Agence France-Presse and other international
sources.436 Furthermore, many Chinese residing abroad with complete access to
international coverage also were unconvinced by the US government’s insistence that the
bombing was accidental.
Some observers interpreted China’s actions as revealing the true nature of its
scheming leaders. For example, it was noted that, even during the crisis, various Chinese
media stated that internationals still were safe and welcome to do business there.437 In
the words of James Kynge, such efforts “suggest that Beijing’s reaction to the embassy
435E.J. Dionne, Jr., “Blunder and Bluster,”The Washington Post, 14 May 1999, A23.
436Stan Sesser, “Internet Emerges as News Source for the Chinese,” Wall Street Journal, 17 May 1999, 1.
437Rosenthal, “Public Anger against U.S.”
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bombing is hardly one of indiscriminate rage, but rather a delicately calibrated mix of
responses.”438
Both Sides Play Games
Actually, citizens, foreign policy experts, and media accounts from various
countries all made numerous references to the “game” the two sides were playing. For
example, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s Senior Minister and frequently quoted “wise man”
of Asia, stated that, given “NATO’s terrible mistake,” the US would be “on the defensive
for the time being.”439 Similarly, other Asians mentioned that “[n]ow, Beijing thinks it
has a trump to play—not unlike the ‘Tiananmen card’ the West regularly uses against
it.”440 Even some Chinese citizens interpreted the PRC’s actions this way.
“China is playing a good game,” remarked Zhang Fu, a post-graduate student from People’s University. On the one hand, he said, the government has gathered some support from the public on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of June 4, 1989. On the other, it has rallied much support from developing countries in the wake of the NATO attack. “By showing this reaction, China has shown a trump card to advocate against those countries that have been pressing China in the field of human rights,” Zhang added. Indeed, many are saying the bungled NATO raid could well be a tool for China to further its interests in areas where officials feel they have gotten short shrift. ...
438James Kynge, “Calculating Beijing Seeks to Harness Popular Outrage: James Kynge Explains the Cool Realpolitik Behind China’s Reaction to the Bombing by Nato Forces of Its Belgrade Embassy,” Financial Times, 17 May 1999, 3.
439Ann Morrison, Roger Mitton, and Andrea Hamilton, “Looking to the Future with His Unique Perspectives on the Past: A Wide-Ranging Interview with Lee Kuan Yew,” 21 May 1999, 30.
440Alejandro Reyes, “The Fallout Is Global,” Asiaweek, 21 May 1999, 25; emphasis added.
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Beyond the NATO attack, some say China might be hoping for an easier time in its efforts finally to get into the World Trade Organization.441
Was the Chinese leadership in shock and disarray in the wake of the embassy
bombing or was it using the entire situation to its advantage? Or is there some other way
to interpret the PRC’s actions?
In addition to the rhetorical commonplaces that were predicted, some other issues
should be addressed. One factor that was not anticipated was the prevalence ofrumors as
this crisis unfolded.
Rumors
Many Chinese citizens as well as foreign policy experts knew of rumors about
what “really” caused the US to bomb the embassy—such as the idea that Milosevic used
the embassy to transmit radio signals, for example. Others mentioned their belief that the
three journalists had said things that the US did not like. Still others pointed out the
precision of the bombing and how the three bombs managed to hit the area with the most
electronics.442
Even among Americans, occasionally a rumor emerges that the bombing of the
Chinese embassy in Belgrade was done on purpose. After all, laser-guided missiles
targeted the high-tech portion of the embassy. The bombing occurred because the US
“wanted to send a message” to China. While no one wanted to go on-the-record with
^ '“Analysis: Beijing Signals It Shouldn’t Be Ignored,” Inter Press Service, posted onAsia Times, 13 May 1999; emphasis added.
442This point is corroborated by Gries who mentions that three of the missiles hit “near the embassy’s intelligence operations center.” See Gries, China’s New Nationalism, 13.
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such statements, these second-hand and third-hand comments indicate remaining
uncertainty and speculation.
More specifically, one American journalist speculated that the Chinese embassy
in Belgrade was being used to help Milosevic in some way. Perhaps the embassy had a
radio relay transmitter that Milosevic’s forces were using that the NATO forces had
detected and decided to destroy it. Furthermore, she pointed out that the “journalists”
killed in the embassy bombing probably were Chinese intelligence.443
While not the mainstream interpretation, occasional articles appeared in American
newspapers and journals that indicated some skepticism of official accounts of the
bombing incident.444 Indeed, a small number of Americans have continued to insist that
the bombing was deliberate, based in part on an article published in the British newspaper,
The Observer.445
In October 1999, the London newspaper theObserver claimed the bombing was a deliberate act, undertaken because NATO had detected Chinese intelligence facilities providing “rebroadcasf ’ support to the Yugoslav military after their own transmitters had been destroyed in the bombing. Secretary Albright dismissed the Observer story as “balderdash,” but the story fed Chinese suspicions, as did the CIA’s customary unwillingness to comment on newspaper stories. Even when the agency took the unusual step in April 2000 of announcing the disciplinary firing of
443Lisa Rose Weaver, producer and correspondent for CNN, interview by author, Beijing, China, 21 November 2003. Subsequent discussions with some Chinese living abroad revealed that others have made the same conjecture, as well as Robert Kagan and William Kristol, “From Belgrade to Beijing,” The Weekly Standard, 5/12 July 1999, 9.
444For example, see Scott Park, “China Embassy Bombing Explanation Raises Questions,” Human Events 55, 19 (21 May 1999), 4.
445James Petras, “A Note on the U.S. Bombing of the Chinese Embassy and The New York Times Cover-Up,”Journal of Contemporary Asia 31,2 (2001): 262-266.
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one (unnamed) employee and administrative disciplining of six others over the targeting mistakes, the Chinese still remained unconvinced.446
Meanwhile, a British academic recounted a rumor that China showed Belgrade
the unexploded bomb in exchange for a glance at a downed American stealth bomber that
Belgrade had retrieved. It is true that one of the undetonated bombs was recovered
successfully by the PRC, but whether there is any more foundation to this rumor is
unknown.447
More broadly, one of the most prevalent rumors in the world of American foreign
policy toward China is that of the existence of a “blue team” that is pro-Taiwan and
against extensive engagement with the PRC. It was started to oppose the pro-engagement
stance of most China experts, the so-called “red team.” Actually, some Washington
insiders believe that the blue team no longer exists. For example, John Tkakic of the
Heritage Foundation found that his name has been mentioned in articles as being part of
the blue team, but he claims not to be. He does believe that the blue team probably was
in existence during the Clinton administration and has since disbanded.448 Nevertheless,
446Suettinger, 376.
447Reports are that China refused American efforts to pay in order to get the bomb returned to the US. A Xinhua News publication quoted Chinese military experts as saying that the recovery of the bomb allowed the PRC to leap ahead ten years in the precision of its missiles. See “China Displays Embassy Raid Bomb,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 February 2001,10.
448John Tkakic, interview by author, notes, Washington, DC, 24 August 2004. It is rumored that the members of the blue team met at a Tex-Mex place at 13th & H Streets in Washington, DC once every week.
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some conservative publications indicate that the blue team still is functioning in some
capacity.449
According to Jean-Noel Kapferer, rumors are not necessarily negative, although it
is clear why governments find them difficult to manage. After all, sometimes
troublesome rumors prove to be true, and other times rumors can create events instead of
explain them.450 From a governmental perspective, rumors may indicate that perhaps the
public does not have “total confidence in the official media (press, radio, and television)”
or its leaders 451 Rumors, by definition, come from unofficial sources.452
More to the point, rumors indicate how knowledge is a socially constructed and
interactive process. According to T. Shibutani, significant and ambiguous events make
rumors more likely.453 The question of whether such rumors are accurate or not only can
be determined later when more information is available.454 Clearly, there was enough
ambiguity as to causes and motivations on both sides as to make the embassy bombing
subject to rumors.
449J. Michael Waller, “Blue Team Takes on Red China,” Insight on the News 17, 21 (4 June 2001), 23-25.
450Jean-Noel Kapferer, Rumors: Uses, Interpretations, and Images (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990), 9.
451 R. Knapp as paraphrased in Ibid., 6; emphasis in original.
452 Ibid., 13.
453 T. Shibutani as paraphrased in Ibid., 8; emphasis added.
454Ibid„ 12-13.
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Opposite Accounts
Another result of the ambiguity and significance of the bombing incident was that
a great distance emerged between predominant American and Chinese readings of what
had taken place. Diametrically opposed accounts occur frequently when reciprocal trust
is low and tensions are high from past interactions.
From an American perspective, the US’ interests were not well served by
bombing the embassy. It created a diplomatic snafu with a major power and UN Security
Council Permanent Member that already had been watching NATO’s actions in the
Balkans with disapproval. Why undermine the US’ strategic interests in this way? How
could anyone see that it was anything other than an accident? From a Chinese
perspective, however, the bombing was too stupidnot to be deliberate. In both cases,
each side tended to view the other’s actions as rational and calculating.
This finding indicates that there were misunderstandings of the emotions
displayed on each side during the crisis. As mentioned previously, one of the most
problematic areas in US-PRC relations is that Chinese and American rhetoric is not,
strictly speaking, equivalent. Consider the following Chinese editorial, which most
Americans would consider full of self-righteousness and hyperbole:
Why NATO bombed the Chinese diplomatic institution in Yugoslavia, which is the symbol o f Chinese sovereignty and dignity ? Few people believe that this is a “mistake” or an “accident,” as some Western politicians declared. The reason is very simple: NATO, armed with high-tech weapons, always knows which targets it is going to hit. ... Now that the bombing is not an accidental event, it can only be interpreted as a premeditated scheme. The message the raid sent is very clear—hostility, intimidation and provocation. Then, naturally, people would ask, where does this hostility come from? Why does the US-led NATO hate the peace-loving Chinese people so much?
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As is well known, NATO (which should be interpreted as “notorious armed-and-terrifying organization) is a product of Cold War hostility. It is now the most sophisticated and horrible war dinosaur on this planet, which cannot exist without hostility and killing, its food and drink. One principle Washington and this killing organization carry out is that those who submit will prosper, those who resist shall perish. ... China, as a nation which always upholds justice and safeguards peace in the global arena, has opposed NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia from the very beginning. Chinese people consider NATO’s air strikes unjust and inhuman war crimes. The Chinese media have objectively reported the true stories in Yugoslavia, including Kosovo Province. ... Beijing wants dialogue, cooperation and partnership, but Washington seems reluctant to be fair and friendly toward China. The United States has continuously made troubles on such issues as Taiwan, Tibet, trade, human rights, non-proliferation of weapons, and cooked up one “scandal” after another of so- called “Chinagate”. As a matter of fact, Washington prefers confrontation to cooperation. It is widely believed in China that the United States is containing and encircling this country from the east, by strengthening its military ties with Japan, and from the west, by enlarging NATO. The raid on the embassy is just a signal that US-led NATO is speeding up the pace o f its strategy o f containing China. The bombing is deliberately designed. For Washington’s politicians and NATO generals, Belgrade is an ideal place to send that signal to China. You can’t drop bombs on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, because you have no excuse. But it sounds like a good idea to launch missiles on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade under the cloak of an accidental strike.455
Most American readers would interpret these passages as overly “emotional” and
“irrational.” Or, if they are of an instrumentalist bent, they may view this excerpt as
demonstrating how able the Chinese are at “playing the victim.”
In comparison, however, consider how many rhetorical commonplaces are
deployed in the following American opinion piece:
After a week of whipping up hatred of Americans by accusing us of deliberately murdering Chinese journalists in Belgrade, President Jiang Zemin deigned to accept a call from The Great Apologizer. For the fifth time, President Clinton apologized, expressed regrets, sent condolences, kowtowed and groveled, begging to be believed that we did not bomb China’s embassy on purpose.
455“Behind the Bombing of the Chinese Embassy,” Beijing Review 42, 21 (24 May 1999), 5.
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But it is America that is owed an apology. After an accident of war, we have been falsely accused of killing Chinese with malice aforethought. That is a great insult, compounded by the calculated trashing o f our embassy by a bused-in mob encouraged by police. The truth is that Beijing’s leaders, worried about demonstrations on the 10th anniversary next month of their Tiananmen massacre, are milking this mistake for all it is worth. By lying about our intent and suppressing coverage of our prompt admission of error, the nervous rulers are diverting their people’s anger toward us and away from themselves. By demanding we investigate the accident, they seek to water down the current Congressional investigations of their nuclear spying—a series o f penetrations of our laboratories and political campaigns that was no accident. By making Clinton beg forgiveness, they are able to cancel human rights talks while extracting new trade concessions. The deal: they will accept Clinton’s apologies when he caves in on their application to the World Trade Organization. .. .Clinton is softer than ever on China.. .456
What becomes evident upon inspecting commentary in both the US and PRC is
the fact that both sides displayed emotional moments—albeit expressed in different
instances and in ways that would seem foreign to the other side. The key emotional
association for many Americans happened years before in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.
Thus, the 1999 Chinese protests and other displays of anger were read through the filter
of Tiananmen: How could Chinese people be this upset with the US unless directed by
the evil Communist leadership?457
456William Satire, “Cut the Apologies,” New York Times, 17 May 1999. What William Satire did not know is that, according to the interviews conducted for this dissertation with foreign policy experts, general consensus is that President Clinton is not considered directly responsible for the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. So, arguably, his apologies and expressions o f remorse were, in the end, effective. Similarly, Chinese citizens named President Clinton one of their most admired Americans whereas President George W. Bush was by far the most disliked, although this result probably has most to do with disapproval of Bush’s tough foreign policy and the impending war on Iraq in 2003.
457Of course, as a number of Chinese and American commentators noted: How would most American citizens feel if their embassy was bombed? Interview with professor C-12; E.J. Dionne, “Blunder and Bluster,” The Washington Post, 14 May 1999, A23.
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In contrast, most Chinese viewed American claims with skepticism. The US had
tried to obstruct the PRC’s attempts to get the 2000 Olympics and had held annual
emotional debates in Congress over China getting Most-Favored Nation (MFN) status.
Given the US military’s high-tech firepower and its unfriendly attitude toward China in
previous years, it was hard to believe that this bombing could be anything other than
premeditated.
In short, the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy continues to provoke
speculation. The polarized national interpretations of what took place indicate the
event’s ongoing ambiguity. It is notable that, despite the passage of time, mutual
suspicion lingers as a result of this crisis. Moreover, the shock the bombing gave to the
Chinese populace means that the predominantly negative effects of the NATO bombing
will be felt for years to come.458
458Don Oberdorfer, “In China, They Still Don’t Believe Us,”The Washington Post, 7 May 2000, B07. Additional evidence o f this point is that, when the World Trade Center was attacked on 11 September 2001, Chinese students tended to state that it was “bombed” rather than “struck” or “attacked.” See Chen Shengluo, “Chinese College Students’ Views of America after September 11, 2001,” inChinese Images o f the United States, ed. Carola McGiffert (Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005), 109.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 5
THE 2001 EP-3E SURVEILLANCE PLANE COLLISION
Timeline of the Crisis
Less than two years after the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade, another crisis rocked the US-China relationship. On the morning of Sunday,
April 1, 2001, during a “routine surveillance mission,” an American EP-3E Aries II
airplane experienced a collision with a Chinese F-8 fighter jet, leading the Chinese pilot,
Wang Wei, to eject from his plane before it crashed.459 Immediately after the collision,
the American pilot and crew allegedly attempted to mayday the PRC repeatedly on
different channels to request permission to conduct an emergency landing on an airstrip
on Hainan Island.460 In contrast, Chinese officials denied ever receiving such a mayday,
thereby deeming the EP-3E’s landing a violation of the PRC’s sovereignty. Upon
landing at the Lingshui Airport on Hainan Island’s southeastern coast, the twenty-four-
member crew of the American EP-3E plane was taken into Chinese custody and held for
459According to non-classified sources, the EP-3E Aries II turboprop aircraft is a “long-range maritime surveillance plane used to monitor the activities o f ships, submarines and aircraft and also capable of intercepting and interpreting electronic signals from military units on land” (James Dao, “China’s Shadowing Had Annoyed U.S.,” New York Times, 2 April 2001, A l). Generally, it flies unarmed, and is worth roughly $36 million (Nic Hopkins, “China, U.S. No Strangers in the Sky,” CNN, 2 April 2001, 6:28 AM EDT, accessed 1 March 2004, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/east/04/02/us.china.airmeetings).
460Bates Gill, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis: Implications and Next Steps for US-China Relations,” Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 12 April 2001, 2PM EDT, accessed 18 June 2001, http://www.brook.edu/comm/transcripts/20010412B.html.
192
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eleven days.461 Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the Chinese pilot were unknown.
On the same day as the collision, Admiral Dennis Blair, the Commander in Chief
of the US Pacific Command, issued a statement. He declared that the accident and
emergency landing had occurred eighteen hours earlier, and while the Chinese
government had assured American officials that the crew was safe, the US was awaiting
word as to cooperation on the return of the crew and plane. Blair stressed that the EP-3E
airplane had “sovereign immunity,” and that if a Chinese plane had similar trouble near
Hawaii’s coast, the US would have allowed it to land and otherwise would adhere to its
“international obligations” to respect the sovereignty of the plane and its crew. During a
question and answer period, Blair also stated that he had already seen Chinese reports
that claimed that the American plane bumped the Chinese fighter jet, and that the EP-3E
was too slow compared to the Chinese jets for that to be a likely scenario. Admiral Blair
also indicated that Chinese jets had been more aggressive toward US surveillance flights
in recent months.462
Soon thereafter, the PRC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) issued its own
statement, indicating that at 9: 07am, Beijing time, the EP-3E abruptly swerved into one
461The American crew consisted of one Marine, one Air Force member, and twenty-two Navy personnel (including three women). See Dao, “China’s Shadowing Had Annoyed U.S.”, A l; Elisabeth Rosenthal with David E. Sanger, “U.S. Plane in China after It Collides with Chinese Jet,”New York Times, 2 April 2001, A l.
462Admiral Dennis C. Blair, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, Transcript: “U.S. and Chinese Aircraft Incident,” 1 April, 2001, United States Pacific Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, accessed 28 February 2002, http://www.pacom.mil/SPEECHES/SST2001/010401BLAIRPLANE.HTM.
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of its Chinese Air Force fighter jets, causing it to crash.463 MFA spokesman Zhu
Bangzao indicated that the “direct cause of the damage and crash of the Chinese jet was
that the U.S. plane suddenly veered into the Chinese jet, which was against flight rules...
Therefore, the U.S. side should bear all the responsibility.”464 An official apology was
demanded along with several other concessions. Also, it was announced that a search
was underway for the missing Chinese pilot465
While the wellbeing of the crew obviously was a concern for Americans, one of
the issues that immediately came to the forefront was that of the “sovereignty” of the
American plane. As Commander John Singley, spokesman for the US Pacific Command
made clear, “According to our lawyers, the aircraft enjoys sovereign immune status...
This precludes foreign officials from searching, inspecting or detaining the aircraft
without U.S. consent.”466
As for the crash itself, the American and Chinese pilots and crew reported
different sequences of events in terms of which airplane caused the accident.467 While
463“US Spy Plane Veers into Chinese Fighter, Causing It to Crash,” China Daily, 1 April 2001, accessed 6 April 2001, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/highlights/militaryjet/storydb/crash.html.
464Quoted in John Pomfret, “U.S., Chinese Warplanes Collide Over S. China Sea,”The Washington Post, 2 April 2001, A l. The text of Zhu’s statement is nearly identical to the public testimony given by the pivotal figure of the second Chinese fighter jet’s pilot, Zhao Yu. See “Eyewitness Recalls the Midair Collision,” Beijing Review 44, 16, 19 April 2001, 11.
465“US Spy Plane Veers into Chinese Fighter,” China Daily.
466Dao, “China’s Shadowing Had Annoyed U.S.”
467Chen and Culbertson, 23.
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Americans focused on the situation as being a military “accident,” Chinese officials
viewed the collision as deliberately caused by the American EP-3E plane.468
Representatives of both the US and PRC scrambled to find legal and diplomatic
precedents to back their state’s official position and make their cases to the public 469 For
example, Chinese and American officials disputed whether the US was in international
waters at the time of the incident. On the one hand, the US and many other maritime
powers assert that, under customary international law, they are free to navigate even in
other states’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs). After all,
“international conventions state that territorial waters and airspace extend only 12 miles
from land.”470 However, numerous coastal states, such as the PRC, challenge this right,
especially when foreign vessels are engaging in activities that might not be considered
entirely “peaceful” in intent.471
The crisis occurred during a time of heightened tension in Sino-American
relations. Most notably, a “high-level” Chinese Army colonel, Yu Junping, had recently
468John Gittings, Martin Kettle, and Richard Norton-Taylor, “US and Chinese Planes Clash,” The Guardian, 2 April 2001.
469“U.S. Seriously Violates International Law,” Xinhua, 16 April 2001; Sean D. Murphy, “Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law,” The American Journal of International Law 95, 3 (July 2001), 630-631.
470Rosenthal with Sanger, “U.S. Plane in China.”
“"'According to Mark Valencia, this difference in interpretation “surrounding navigation rights, military activities and the use o f force” EEZs constitutes a “grey area” in international law. Mark J. Valencia, “The Rights of Spy Vessels,” Far Eastern Economic Review (21 March 2002), 22; This issue is complicated further by the PRC’s contested claims on such outlying islands as the Spratlys (Rosenthal with Sanger, “U.S. Plane in China.”). After the initial explanations o f their actions were given, a number o f articles appeared that undermined both the PRC and the U S’ claims. For example, see Christopher Drew, “Old Tactics May Pull the Rug from the U.S. Claim to Plane,” New York Times, 4 April 2001.
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defected to the US.472 President Bush and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
had placed a freeze on upcoming military-to-military exchanges with the PRC, pending
review.473 Also, a number of Chinese-born American scholars had been detained by the
PRC, spurring calls for their release from American human rights advocates, US
Congress, and prominent newspapers.474 Moreover, the yearly debate over arms sales to
Taiwan was just about to be addressed by the US Congress—a persistent irritant to US-
China relations 475
Meanwhile, indications were that Chinese President Jiang Zemin was being
pressured by the PLA and CCP hard-liners to take a strong stance on the incident. While
considered moderate toward the US, Jiang had been widely criticized within the PRC as
being too weak in his response to the Chinese embassy bombing.476 While the outcry
was not nearly as vociferous as with the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy, the
472“Bush Over China: Beijing Would Be Wise to Avoid a Fight,”London Times, 3 April 2001.
473Rosenthal with Sanger, “U.S. Plane in China.
474One strange coincidence was that perhaps the highest-profile detainee at that time was American University researcher Gao Zhan. In 2001, American negotiators spent a lot of political capital trying to secure her release from the PRC. However, subsequent investigations revealed that Gao Zhan had avoided paying taxes on an import-export business and may even have been providing the PRC with sensitive technology, leading to calls for her to be deported after spending time in jail for these charges. See “...Detention for Scholars,”Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2001; Susan V. Lawrence, “Fallen Heroine,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 December 2003,24; Matthew Barakat, “Government Argues Dissident Betrayed US,” The Associated Press, 23 January 2006, 7:26 PM.
475Michael R. Gordon, “Secret U.S. Study Concludes Taiwan Needs New Arms,” New York Times, 1 April 2001, 1.
476Lam, “Beijing Looks to Get Tough.”
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Chinese populace was riled by what were interpreted as further attacks on China’s
sovereignty and for American disregard for the fate of their pilot.477
Initially, US President George W. Bush displayed his irritation with the Chinese
via his public statements.478 However, it soon it became clear that the US government
would not be able to retrieve the crew without some diplomacy. For one, it was difficult
for US officials to contact Chinese leaders to address the situation and arrange to meet
with the crew.479 US armed forces were placed on heightened alert,480 while behind the
scenes, US officials warned their Chinese counterparts about the potential damage to
Sino-American relations 481
On April 3, 2001, American diplomats finally got to meet with the crew, albeit
with Chinese officials monitoring the interactions. Meanwhile, Chinese President Jiang
477Actually, the US offered to help search for Wang Wei, but the PRC never responded or reported this gesture. However, the presence of three US destroyers in the South China Sea was mentioned in Chinese media—and without the information about the US offer to provide search and rescue assistance, their location seemed threatening instead. Upon orders from the US, the three warships soon left the area. See David E. Sanger, “Bush Demands ‘Prompt’ Return o f Plane and Crew,”New York Times, 3 April 2001, 1; “China-US Mid-air Plane Collision Incident,” China Daily, 18 April 2001, accessed 17 April 2001, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/highlights/militaryjet/index.html.
478Steven Mufson and Philip P. Pan, “Spy Plane Delays Irk President: Bush Asks ‘Prompt’ Release by Chinese,” The Washington Post, 3 April 2001, A l.
479According to US Ambassador to China Joseph Prueher, “The basic problem that we are having right now is the Chinese officials with whom we normally deal on a day-to-day basis to handle all situations have clammed up. And so the normal dialogue we would have to try to reason this out and discuss this in a factual way has not been available to us” (“Analysis: China and United States Continue Standoff with Regards to US Surveillance Plane and Its Crew on the Island o f Hainan,” Morning Edition, NPR, 4 April 2001, 1). See also Steven Mufson and Mike Allen, “U.S. Voices Regret Over Chinese Pilot: Powell Stops Short o f Formal Apology,” The Washington Post, 5 April 2001, A l.
480Dao, “China’s Shadowing Had Annoyed U.S.”
481Steven Mufson and Vernon Loeb, “U.S. Warns of Damaged Relations with China: Cheney, Powell Urge Return o f Navy Crew,”The Washington Post, 9 April 2001, A l.
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Zemin made a public statement that the US must bear full responsibility for the plane
collision and should give an apology for the incident, and called on President Bush to halt
surveillance flights off China’s coast. In response, the US Secretary of State Colin
Powell says that the US had “nothing to apologize for.”482 Starting that same day,
Chinese hackers began to attack some US government web sites, and American hackers
responded the next day with operation “Chinakiller,” an attack of Chinese web pages.
On April 4, Jiang Zemin embarked as planned on a tour of South America and
repeated that the US must apologize for the plane collision. In time, Secretary of State
Powell expressed “regret” over the loss of the Chinese pilot and reinforced the
conciliatory gesture with a letter to Deputy Prime Minister and Beijing’s senior foreign
policy official, Qian Qichen. Soon thereafter, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
spokesperson responded that while Powell’s letter was a “step in right direction,” the US
still must apologize first for its mistakes 484
By Friday, April 6, the US endured some diplomatic setbacks, as Wang Wei’s
wife sent to President Bush, criticizing him as being “too cowardly to voice an
‘apology.’”485 Furthermore, the pilot of the second Chinese jet, Zhao Yu, testified
482David E. Sanger, “Powell Sees No Need for Apology: Bush Again Urges Return of Crew,” The New York Times, 4 April 2001.
483Zhou Derong, “Cyber Patriots Wage War,” World Press Review 48, 7 (July 2001), originally published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt, Germany, 24 April 2001.
484Bill Gertz with Rowan Scarborough and Donald Lambro, “China and U.S. Show Signs They Are Ready To Deal,” The Washington Times, 6 April 2001, 1.
485John Pomffet and Philip P. Pan with Thomas E. Ricks and Mike Allen, “China Insists on U.S. Apology: Talks Continue on Fate o f Crew,” The Washington Post, 8 April 2001, A01; “Missing Chinese Pilot’s Wife Writes to Bush,” Beijing Review, 19 April 2001, 8-9.
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publicly and blamed the US for incident.486 However, while China’s leaders remained
adamant publicly about the need for the US to apologize, they seemed more conciliatory
in talks with American diplomats. 487 Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage,
“known as a tough negotiator,” was leading the American side of the diplomacy and was
talking frequently with Chinese Ambassador Yang Jiechi in Washington while
Ambassador Prueher was holding talks in Beijing with Assistant Foreign Minister Zhou
Wenzhong.488 Also, American diplomats were allowed to meet with the crew again.
Eventually, the plan emerged for a letter to be drafted that would be signed by
Ambassador Prueher instead of President Bush. Also, President Jiang made a statement
in Chile that mentioned that, in many countries, when accidents occur, the people
involved “always say ‘excuse me.’” Since he said “Excuse me” in English and referred
to an “accident,” American officials tried to determine whether it was a signal that less
than a “full apology” would be acceptable.489
By the next day, however, these positive trends seemed halted yet again. While
the American officials were allowed to meet with the crew for a third time, Deputy Prime
Minister Qian Qichen sent a letter to Secretary of State Powell reiterating that only a full
486“China-US Mid-air Plane Collision Incident,” China Daily.
487Bill Gertz with Rowan Scarborough and Donald Lambro, “China and U.S. Show Signs They Are Ready To Deal,” The Washington Times, 6 April 2001, 1.
488Ibid.
489David E. Sanger and Craig S. Smith, “Bush and Jiang Exchange Drafts of a Letter Stating U.S. Regrets,”New York Times, 7 April 2001.
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apology would do.490 Also, the PRC’s Defense Minister Chi Haotian had some sharp
words to convey to the Americans that an apology was necessary.
“It’s impermissible for them to want to shirk responsibility,” said Chi of the U.S. refusal to apologize. “The People’s Liberation Army does not agree to it, the Chinese people don’t agree to it. The people of the world also won’t agree to it.” ... State-run television ... for the first time, carried reports that President Bush had expressed regret over the loss of the Chinese fighter pilot, but the evening news program also included a lengthy segment featuring interviews with angry and emotional people from across the country who said “regret” was not enough and an apology was what they wanted.491
By April 8th, the crew had been detained over a week. The American diplomats at
Hainan worked to gain unrestricted access to the twenty-four crew members twice per
day, while higher-level officials warned the PRC that the situation was threatening to
harm US-China relations. President Bush also sent Wang Wei’s wife a letter expressing
regret for the untimely loss of the pilot. Over the next several days, further behind-the-
scenes negotiations and public signals by the US’ use of such words as “regret” and
“sorry” seemed to inch the situation closer to resolution.
Finally, by Wednesday, April 11th, Ambassador Prueher’s letter of “very sorries”
led to the release of the American crew and resolution of the crisis. This agreement over
the letter of “very sorries” was quite tenuous and almost fell apart on several occasions.
The letter, which the US embassy produced only in English, allowed China some room in
490Pomfret et al., A01.
491Ibid. It is curious that Chi speaks first o f the PLA, then the Chinese people, and last, the people o f the world. The PRC itself is not mentioned. Perhaps the implication is that the PLA is the true guardian and representative o f the Chinese people— not the civilian government itself.
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terms of how it translated the “very sorries” into Mandarin.492 The PRC allowed the
twenty-four Americans to be released due to “humanitarian considerations.” While
falling far short of its initial demands, the PRC claimed victory by receiving the letter,
but many of its citizens were not impressed.493
Soon after the exchange of the letter of “very sorries,” the American crew
suddenly was spotted by CNN as they prepared to board a plane to leave China for Guam
on April 12th 494 However, even as the crew prepared to leave the island, diplomatic slip
ups threatened to undermine the agreement. For example, consider the following little-
known report:
A perceived diplomatic slight almost prompted China to renege on releasing the 24 members of a U.S. surveillance aircraft this month. The flight papers carried by the U.S. government-leased Continential Airlines jet stated its destination as “Haikou, China, R.O.C.,” the abbreviation for Taiwan, China’s enemy. The Chinese went nuts and the mission almost went “tango uniform,” in Air Force lingo, before the pilot calmly crossed out “R.O.C.” and wrote “P.R.O.C.” for People’s Republic of China.495
492The US translator for Ambassador Prueher even improvised during the presentation of the letter, switching to English to say “very sorry” instead of creating precedent by choosing the Chinese words to express the sentiment. Fay Sim, translator for U.S. Embassy in Beijing, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 21 November 2003.
493Rebecca MacKinnon, “China Hails U.S.-China Agreement as Victory,” CNN, 11 April 2001, 9:17 PM EDT, accessed 1 March 2004, http:www.cnn.eom/2001AVORLD/asiapcf/east/04/l 1/china.reax; Michael A. Lev, “Chinese Public Reacts Bitterly: People Primed for U.S. Apology Let Down by Outcome,” Chicago Tribune, 12 April 2001.
494CNN correspondent Lisa Rose Weaver used a videophone to transmit the image from her hotel room. The Chinese government in Beijing eventually caught on to the transmission and subsequently detained Weaver and her crew. At the time, the Chinese government viewed the videophone as illegal equipment, but has since changed its position because of the videophone’s worldwide use. Given that this story was the first to make significant use of the videophone, negotiations had to be undertaken to retrieve this particular videophone from the PRC. Now it resides in the Newseum in Virginia. Jaime A. FlorCruz, CNN Bureau Chief, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 14 November 2003 and Weaver interview.
495Paul Bedard, “Washington Whispers: For want o f a P,” U.S. News & World Report 30 April 2001.
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Upon the return of the twenty-four American crew members to Hawaii, the Bush
administration began to claim that the letter of “very sorries” did not constitute an official
apology and that the Chinese fighter pilot was to blame for the collision.496 Moreover,
American officials made clear that the US would not stop its surveillance flights off the
Chinese coast.497 After maintaining a low profile during the crisis, US Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld showed a videotape, purportedly of Wang Wei harassing a
previous American surveillance mission by China’s coast. According to Rumsfeld, “For
12 days, one side of the story has been presented... It seemed to me that, with the crew
safely back in the United States, that it was time to set out factually what actually took
place.”498
Not surprisingly, Chinese officials angrily fired back, denouncing Rumsfeld’s
statements as irresponsible. Moreover, on April 14th, the search for the missing pilot was
ended and Wang Wei was accorded the status of a national “martyr.”
Despite what may be seen as the successful conclusion of the incident itself, Sino-
American relations remained tense for months thereafter. Chinese hackers continued to
sabotage various American websites.499 Initial joint talks about arranging for the return
496Marc Lacey and Steven Lee Myers, “With Crew in U.S., Bush Blames China for Collision,” New York Times, 13 April 2001.
497Dave Boyer, “White House Won’t Stop Flights,”The Washington Post, 13 April 2001, A l.
498Quoted in Greg Jaffe and Peter Wonacott, “U.S. Says Few Chinese Pilots Pose a Risk — Despite the Collision Furor, Officials Say One Base Causes Most Problems,” Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2001, A3.
499Ariana Eunjung Cha, “Chinese Suspected of Hacking U.S. Sites: Anger Over Plane Collision Produces Calls for Revenge, Advice on Web Attacks,”The Washington Post, 13 April 2001, A13.
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of the EP-3E airplane were stormy and unproductive, focusing on the issue of which side
was responsible for the collision.500 Moreover, debate continued to swirl over whether
the PRC was able to retrieve military secrets from the US surveillance plane.501
Other political fallout from the incident included cancellation of an order for
600,000 Chinese-made berets for the US Army.502 American politicians also blasted
traditional US ally Israel over the news that it had provided the PRC with the missiles
used in the Chinese F-8 fighter jets.503 Last, but not least, George W. Bush stated in an
interview that the US would do “whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself,” a
statement that required immediate explication from his staff since it contradicted decades
of US foreign policy toward Taiwan and the PRC.504
This statement, combined with the Bush administration’s campaign pledge to
focus more on its relationships in East Asia with traditional allies like Japan and South
Korea, probably made China’s leaders realize that they had to make an effort to improve
500Clay Chandler, “U.S., China Resume Talks on Air Crash: China Agrees to Discuss Return of Damaged Plane,” The Washington Post, 19 April 2001, A l.
501Bill Gertz, “China Grabs Secrets from Plane,” The Washington Times, 27 April 2001, 1.
502Joyce Howard Price, “Senators Call for ‘Retribution’ Against China,” The Washington Times, 16 April 2001, 1; Rowan Scarborough, “House May End Contract for Berets,” The Washington Times, 25 April 2001, 1.
503David A. Fulghum, “U.S. Confirms Israeli Missiles Used by China,”Aviation Week & Space Technology 154, 18 (30 April 2001), 34.
504Neil King, Jr., “Bush Sows Confusion as He Pledges to Defend Taiwan, Then Backs Off,” Wall Street Journal, 26 April 2001.
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US-China security relations if progress were to be made on other fronts.505 After all, the
George W. Bush administration remained determined not to be associated with President
Clinton’s “constructive engagement” policy. While US officials wanted to stabilize the
relationship, they did not want to give much ground to the Chinese.
Indications are that US-China relations already had begun to improve in July 2001
when Secretary of State Colin Powell came to visit China.506 According to a staff
member at the US Embassy in Beijing, both sides recognized that they had come too
close to derailing the relationship.507 The events of 11 September 2001 only accelerated
this rapprochement, making clear that the PRC was a “potential threat” versus a “clear
and present danger.”508 Nevertheless, mutual distrust remained.
To this day, there are indications that “the EP-3 incident has not been completely
resolved.”509 For example, one particular issue that remains is that of payment. The PRC
had asked that the US pay it $1 million for costs and damages incurred by the EP-3E’s
landing and the stay of the 24-member crew on Hainan. Instead, the Pentagon offered a
505Robert Sutter, “Cross-Strait Relations and US Policy: Retrospect and Prospect,” in New Leadership and New Agenda: Challenges, Constraints, and Achievements in Taipei and Beijing, eds. Deborah A. Brown and Tun-jen Cheng (Jamaica, NY: Center o f Asian Studies, St. John’s University, 2002), 270.
506It probably helped that the dismantled EP-3E plane finally was returned to the US in early July (“The EP Comes Home,”The Washington Times, 5 July 2001), despite protracted negotiations and logistical difficulties. See also Neil King, Jr., “U.S., China Return to Business as Usual: Relations on ‘Upswing’ Despite Spy Cases,” Wall Street Journal, 26 July 2001.
507Frank Neville, public relations staff of the US Embassy, interview by author via the telephone, notes, Beijing, China, 6 March 2003.
508Derek Mitchell, CSIS, interview by author, notes, Washington, DC, 12 August 2004.
509Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, “Inside the Ring,” The Washington Times, 29 April 2005.
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check for $63,000 which was rejected by the Chinese. According to Bill Gertz and
Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times, the uncashed check remains in the
Pentagon.510
Still, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell emphasized that communication
improved in the wake of the crisis. When Powell had the opportunity to meet with
Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, the two of them had a brief private talk.
Powell says he told Tang, “No matter how difficult it is for you, when I call you you’ve got to take the call.” Powell says Tang promised, “We will.” Powell then told Tang, “Any time you call me, no matter where it is, what it is, I’ll take the call, because you and I have to figure out how to solve these kind of problems. Since then, on “issue after issue over the last four years, we’ve never had a problem communicating with them or getting an answer from them, and it was always a straight answer.. .”5U
Nevertheless, most foreign policy experts indicate that the situation remains
roughly the same as prior to the plane collision. Chinese fighter jets still shadow
American surveillance planes. Efforts to create mutual “rules of the road” have stalled,
from the creation of the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA) to the
establishment of a military hot line. According to reports, the Pentagon has a direct crisis
telephone line to the militaries of over thirty states, and China is the only UN Security
Council member not to have such an arrangement with the US.512 According to Derek
Mitchell, the MMCA talks are not going anywhere because the Chinese just lecture the
510Ibid. Other reports indicate that the check was only $34,567. See “Regional Briefing,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 23 August 2001, 10.
5uSusan V. Lawrence, “How China Relations Improved: An Insider’s View,”Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 October 2004, 16.
5l2Bryan Bender, “In Talks, China Dismisses US Proposal for Military Hot Line,” Boston Globe, 29 April 2005.
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Americans and want the US to take full blame for the incident. Thus, this situation
C 1 -3 remains a potential “time bomb.”
Citizens’ Interpretations
In general, Chinese respondents expressed far less interest in this event as
opposed to the 1999 embassy bombing, although some interviewees commented about
the two incidents together.514 Nearly all of the Chinese interviewees assumed that the US
government knew exactly what it was doing and that the “bumping event” was no
accident. Furthermore, almost all believed that the American EP-3E plane hit the
Chinese fighter jet515—whereas the American public generally believed that the slow EP-
3E plane was struck by the nimbler Chinese jet.
Several interviewees, including a sixty-nine-year-old retired English teacher,
expressed concern about Wang Wei’s family and asked whether the US government
compensated his family for their loss.516 She recounted that the story of Wang Wei
513Mitchell interview.
5I4Many of the respondents who commented on the EP-3E event were interviewed on the same day and all worked at the same quasi-govemmental agency. It is likely that word came from some of the early interviewees that the research project was about the Hainan event in particular— when it actually is on the NATO bombing also. The provided list of interview questions mentions explicitly in Mandarin and English that the topic is on these two particular incidents.
515At one point dining my research, a group of MBA students were visibly shocked when I told them that Americans had been told by press reports that it was likely that the Chinese fighter jet had been responsible for the accident.
516American officials interviewed for this dissertation uniformly stated that they did not know the answer to this question, although it is notable that one official from the US embassy in Beijing claimed that he received a call from Washington and therefore had to end the interview upon hearing this question.
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eventually disappeared from Chinese media since the official search and declaration of
his death—a notable change after widespread press coverage. One of the workers in the
coffee house, a young man of twenty-two from the Jiangsu countryside with only a junior
high school education, noted that, “due to the weakness of the Chinese government, it
ended by letting the matter drop.”
One woman in her sixties who was visiting the coffee house made comments
about the US acting as a “bully” and not demonstrating respect for the PRC as its
“equal.” Similarly, one of the strongest reactions to the EP-3E event came from an
articulate twenty-five-year-old man with a university education who argued, “If I slap
you, this is not right.” He claimed that George W. Bush was new and wanted to seem
“tough” by testing the US-China relationship. Moreover, he pointed out that while the
US always is lecturing the PRC about human rights, Americans did not demonstrate
much concern or respect about the human rights of Wang Wei and his family. Instead the
US government was concerned primarily about retrieving its property, the plane. While
he was forthright about his disdain for the American government’s actions in this event,
he made the distinction that “individual Americans are very good.”
Several other university-educated people from the same quasi-govemmental
agency were more philosophical about what had taken place. A young woman of twenty-
seven indicated her confusion over how and why the collision occurred, and suggested
that the US government should have communicated more with the Chinese in order to
lessen misunderstandings. A male data processor of twenty-five focused more on the
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power of actions by suggesting that the situation would have been improved by the US
c i 7 cooperating with China to search for Wang Wei.
A thirty-year-old man noted that, as the “first power in the world,” the US is able
to fly surveillance planes anywhere. Thus, this sort of incident is “very natural” and can
only be prevented by “every country” being more careful to keep adequate space between
military planes. Toward the end of the interview, however, he underscored the point that
the US plane was indeed so close to China that it decided to fly there to land.
Similarly, a thirty-eight-year-old male manager went on at length to analyze the
Hainan incident with reference to the need for the apology, face, and responsibility.
But sometimes, the situation is... I think maybe you are not wrong, but because of the face concern, I require you to apologize. I hope you will apologize, otherwise, considering my face I cannot back out with good grace. This is a Chinese saying. Therefore, I strongly demand an apology from you, although it might be that I was wrong. Talking about this incident,... I think most American people and most Chinese are not able to know what exactly happened then. So, as for our Chinese common people, what we got was the Chinese official report; and as for Americans, they all got official report too. These two reports should be completely the opposite. So under this circumstance, to argue who was right and who was wrong, I think it is not very meaningful. But from another perspective, as an international conventional practice, my planes fly around the world to reconnoiter and gather communicational signals, eavesdrop on other signals, on what they are talking about. This is open spying activity. ... Maybe as a conventional practice, it’s very normal. However, from another angle... neither of our two sides knew what the real situation of what happened then. Based on this... [as] the thing happened in front of my gate, you came here to my gate, then, conflict occurred, so in principle, I think you don’t have legitimacy. Therefore, it should be you to apologize. On the contrary, if this happened on America’s border, then, it should have been the Chinese side that apologized. This is my understanding. As for at that moment, who provoked first and who struck back after, what was the relation between them,
517None of the respondents seemed aware that the US had offered its assistance in helping search for Wang Wei, but the lack of a response on the part of Chinese authorities meant that the matter was dropped. Some American China experts speculated that it was typical on the part of the Chinese to take matters into their own hands.
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this shouldn’t be taken into consideration, because there is no real video tape for us to analyze their psychological states then. So this is my point of view. As for this incident, I think, it will [would] be beneficial for the American side to apologize.
Similarly, a sixty-year-old retired woman living in one of Beijing’s famous
hutongs (traditional alley neighborhoods) discussed the issue of the proximity of the
surveillance plane to the Chinese coast. According to her,
We tend to believe our [news] report. Because after all, it [the plane collision] happened in China, so we think the US should apologize. If it happened in the US, that place, there would be things we didn’t know, and that could be understandable. But it happened in China, it happened in our home, it’s you the US who came into our China. Then I think—I believe our government—the US should apologize...... We’d like to listen to the US government’s view on this specific issue. Common people are rather concerned about it, because it involved our territorial land and territorial sky. ... If Chinese planes fly in your American sky, when this happens, how would you react? ... Common people are rather concerned about things like this now, they want to know why [the US] would do that, what consequences it has caused us, and how to solve the problem, especially so things like that don’t happen in the future.518
The last two respondents focus a great deal on the issue of China’s sovereignty and
norms of proper international behavior. If the US was so close to China’s borders, then it
should be viewed as provoking the incident.
Historical Analogies
A couple of respondents mentioned such historical analogies as the NATO
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the Korean War, given the fear of
another war against the US. Moreover, a number of men and women alike used the
518While later in the interview, the woman and her husband (who also was interviewed) qualify themselves as “city people” and distinguish themselves from “farmers,” she also makes reference to herself as being part of the “common people.”
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interviews to discuss their views of the war on Iraq—also under President George W.
Bush’s watch.
One twenty-eight-year-old male office worker compared the Hainan incident to
“6/4,” better known in the US as the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. In his words,
the Chinese government “has definitely done something wrong” and “someday will
apologize to the Chinese people” for the violent crackdown. After all, “using force runs
counter to ... international practices.”
Meanwhile, the thirty-eight-year-old manager weighed in by saying that, in fact,
“many international wars were all caused by little incidents. In fact, as long as [someone
would have] said ‘I’m sorry’ once, they would have been over.”
Findings of Interviews with American and Chinese Foreign Policy Experts
One of the primary obstacles to researching this particular incident was its recent
history. As mentioned previously, American officials—particularly those with the US
embassy in Beijing—were reluctant to be interviewed.519 American journalists indicated
that American embassy public relations personnel seem to have been tightly restricted
under the George W. Bush administration. Indeed, a number of journalists mentioned
how little information came forth from official US briefings during the crew’s detention,
leading a pack of them with little better to do than to follow Brig.-Gen. Sealock and
519For example, Brig.-Gen. Neal Sealock, the US embassy’s defense attach^ at the time of the crisis, declined to be interviewed by the author. Despite the passage of time, he indicated via an intermediary that he was not permitted by the US government to discuss the EP-3E event. Whether one chooses to take such a statement at face value is another matter.
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other officials to a department store in Hainan as they shopped for contact lens solution
and other sundries for the detained crew.
Meanwhile, there was a wide gap in interpretation once again between Americans
and Chinese—both in terms of citizens and foreign policy elites—about “the facts of the
case.” Similarly, media representations of the event generally differed according to
national identity.
Furthermore, even political scientists speculated as to the other side’s “real
CA 1 intentions.” Reading the other side’s motivations is particularly difficult to avoid
under the intensified time and political pressure of a crisis situation when it is difficult to
separate “rumor” from “fact”522 and remain “cool-headed.”
520This guarded stance seems to have been the case even prior to the events of 11 September 2001. Lisa Rose Weaver recounts that, during the eleven days that the American crew was detained, Brig.- Gen. Sealock apologized to her personally that he was not being permitted to state more on the record (Weaver interview). The one exception is that John Keefe, special assistant to US Ambassador Prueher during the EP-3 crisis, was allowed to provide a behind-the-scenes account to the Far Eastern Economic Review less than a year later (John Keefe, “A Tale of ‘Two Very Sorries’ Redux,” Far Eastern Economic Review (21 March 2002): 30-33). Interestingly, Frank Neville, public relations staff of the US Embassy, mentioned to the author that he did not concur with Keefe’s interpretation of the events, but declined to comment further (Neville interview.
52lMember of Chinese think tank C-15, interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 17 October 2003.
522There are some rumors with this incident, although not to the extent seen with the 1999 bombing o f the Chinese embassy. For example, one off-the-record informant noted that the Chinese were prepared with crash trucks and had cleared the runway before the American EP-3E plane made its emergency landing. So either the second Chinese jet and/or the Americans’ mayday signals must have reached the Chinese military, allowing them to prepare for the impending crash landing. While suggestive, this source hesitated to go on the record and said that she had heard this information second-hand from someone relatively high in the US military. Such accounts generally are not granted as much weight in journalistic circles— let alone social science— without additional confirming statements and other empirical evidence.
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Historical Analogies
At the time of the plane collision in 2001, various media reported that the dispute
threatened to start a new Cold War. By the time that these interviews were conducted,
however, September 11, 2001 had occurred, so the respondents had the benefit of
knowing that US-PRC relations had improved. Therefore, none said that he or she feared
a new Cold War. Even so, one Chinese foreign policy expert noted that China has a long
memory of being “victimized” by the US, from American involvement in the Chinese
Civil War, Korean War, and so forth.524
Otherwise, the 1999 NATO bombing of the embassy was mentioned by several
citizens as well as Chinese foreign policy experts as a similar historical incident.
Meanwhile, several US foreign policy experts mentioned the relevance to the Pueblo
incident in 1968 when North Korea seized the ship and detained its crew for almost a
523For instance, see Alan Dowd, “Cold War II?” The Washington Times, 4 April 2001, 19; Thom Beal, “From the Cold War Playbooks,” Asian Wall Street Journal, 5 April 2001; Susan V. Lawrence with David Murphy, Murray Hiebert, and Nayan Chanda, “How to Start a Cold War,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 April 2001, 14-18; Mona Charen, “Is the China Encounter a New Cold War?” The Washington Times, 18 April 2001. More particularly, one commentator argued that George W. Bush was facing a situation similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis. See James Hackett, “Chinese Hardball Game,” The Washington Times, 3 April 2001, 14.
524Interview with Chinese think tank member C-15.
525Chinese official C-6, interview by author, e-mail correspondence, Beijing, China, 14 November 2003. This observation is supported by similar findings in Chinese internet chat rooms and media accounts. For example, see Rose Tang, “Air Incident Sparks China Chat Attack,” CNN.com, 2 April 2001, 7:15AM EDT, accessed 1 March 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2001AVORLD/asiapcfeast/04/02/china.crash.chat/index.html.
526Peter Grier and Robert Marquand note that not only did the Pueblo incident bring the US to the brink o f war, but a “hollow apology,” instantly repudiated by US negotiator Maj. Gen Gilbert
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Meanwhile, one Chinese journalist suggested that the PRC should have shot down
the EP-3E plane. After all, the PRC had done so with American surveillance planes in
the past.527 Instead, the PRC demonstrated its weakness by its unwillingness to utilize
force, she said.
Instead, most Chinese academics and officials pointed out how well the American
crew was treated—even housed in a hotel after the first few days. American foreign
policy experts conceded that the American crew was fairly well taken care of by the
Chinese, although the EP-3E’s pilot, Shane Osborne, underwent intense questioning
during the eleven days of detention.
Some Chinese scholars discussed China’s relative position in the international
system using power transition theory. One individual interpreted the PRC as a rising
power and therefore “a revisionist state” that is dissatisfied with the status quo. Since
China is a relatively weaker state in terms of material power, then it became viewed as
Woodward, was necessary to gain the crew’s freedom. See Peter Grier and Robert Marquand, “Risks Rise as Plane Standoff Drags: Pressure Builds for Beijing and Washington to Act Tough as Politics, Pride Collide,” Christian Science Monitor, 6 April 2001.
527While not widely known among the American public and even some US-based foreign policy experts were unaware of this fact, there were numerous such incidents during the Cold War. See, for example, “Search for ‘Spy’ Pilots in China,” BBC News, 8 July 2002, 16:35 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http://www.bbc.co.Uk/l/hi/world/asia-pacific/2116368.stm.
528Interview with Chinese journalist C-5. These other surveillance plane incidents were not well publicized in the US, occurring decades ago during a time of less intense media scrutiny.
529In fact, the crew was separated from Lt. Osborn, leading them to refuse to eat if he was not allowed to join them for meals. They tried to engage in another hunger strike to protest their overall treatment, but were dissuaded by Brig.-Gen. Sealock, who informed them that their actions were making negotiations more difficult “because the Chinese thought the protests were disrespectful.” The crew also refused to stand to attention when Chinese military entered the room. James W. Crawley, “Aviator Recounts Captivity in China: La Mesa Native Says Jailers Relented after Hunger Strike,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 April 2001.
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more essential that it win the argument on moral grounds. This reason explains why
Jiang Zemin insisted upon the apology—he needed a symbolic victory to show the
Chinese public.530
Apology Was Not a Central Issue
Once again, Chinese foreign policy experts expressed little interest in apology—
only viewing it as something to appease the Chinese public and manage the crisis rather
than a subject worth further study. According to one professor of journalism, “[The
giving of an] apology is not [done] to please the government. It’s to please the Chinese
c i 1 people [and] save [the] Chinese government’s face.”
Even so, one female official—who otherwise could be described as a Chinese
“hawk”—mentioned the need for the apology to be sincere. As she stated, “Interstate
apology is a kind of diplomatic rite. Sometimes it is sincere, sometime it is hypocritical,
just like interpersonal relations. I hope there could be more sincerity and less hypocrisy,
for the sake of world peace.”
Meanwhile, some American foreign policy experts protested that the US was right
not to apologize as it “did nothing wrong.” After all, the collision was Chinese fighter
pilot Wang Wei’s fault for having gotten too close to the EP-3E plane. Moreover, the
530Interview with Chinese think tank member C-15.
53'interview with professor C-12.
532Interview with Chinese official C-6.
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EP-3E was in international airspace.533 The letter of “very sorries” was done in order to
achieve the instrumental goal of retrieving the American crew. Besides, apologies are a
standard part of diplomatic behavior; people are not indicating that they feel personally
responsible if they tell a grieving spouse at a funeral that they are “sorry for your loss.”534
Lessons Learned
Interestingly, citizens and foreign policy experts agreed on several of the lessons
learned from the Hainan incident.535 For one, a number of Chinese people and experts
indicated that the PRC learned that it must bolster its military in the face of this challenge
from the US. This stance has been reflected by the PRC’s sizable arms buildup in recent
years.
In addition, Chinese citizens expressed concern about finding ways to avoid such
crises in the future. There also was widespread agreement among foreign policy experts
in the US that the Chinese do not know enough about crisis management and need their
own version of a National Security Council to deal with emergencies.
533Practically all Western foreign policy experts and media thought that Wang Wei had been flying in a risky manner, miscalculated his proximity to the EP-3E and caused the accident. However, a few conservative commentators speculated at the time that the American plane had been forced down. See James Hackett, “Chinese Hardball Game,” The Washington Times, 3 April 2001, 14.
534Sim interview.
535Interestingly, both American and Chinese foreign policy experts discussed primarily on what China, as opposed to the US, had learned. However, there also were some more overtly “political” comments about the George W. Bush administration from the Chinese and Communist leadership’s governing abilities from the Americans.
536Blackbum interview.
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Thus, it should come as no surprise that Chinese government and foreign policy
experts have become more interested in learning about crisis management. As one
scholar noted, before the 2001 Hainan incident, there was no such thing as “crisis
C '5 ’7 management” in China.
After all, at that time, Chinese officials were operating on a “different time scale.”
Once the collision occurred, the American response was “instantaneous.” According to
Banning Garrett, US officials nearly “hyperventilated” over having to wait so long to talk
with the American crew.538 Meanwhile, Chinese leaders were busy with a formal tree-
planting ceremony—and no subordinate interrupted to update them with this news.
In the wake of this incident, however, the PRC has worked to catch up to the more
immediate time frame and the importance of having someone at all times empowered to
be in charge in case of a crisis.539 Indeed, since the 2001 Hainan incident, during
important conferences, at least one member of the senior leadership is absent in order to
be on watch for crisis management purposes.540
Also, there was general consensus among experts that US and China need to
develop some bilateral mechanisms to avoid such problems in the future. In the words of
537Interview with professor C-7. One note of progress, however, is that since the early 1990s, foreign policy experts in China have become savvier about the “noise” emanating from Washington. That is, whereas before inflammatory statements from members of the US Congress were taken as indications of the official American stance toward the PRC, now they realize that democracies allow many voices to speak. Such statements should not be read as signaling American intentions, although they are indications of how much controversy certain policies may generate (FlorCruz interview).
538Banning Garrett, interview by author, notes, Washington, DC, 10 June 2004.
539Ibid.
540Interview with professor C-7.
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one Chinese academic, the “two countries should increase trust and reduce suspicion at
all levels. With the development of bilateral relations, we should establish a mechanism
to deal with the unexpected.”541 For example, the US and China have an agreement
about avoiding military accidents in the ocean, but have nothing in place regarding
clashes between air forces.542
More specifically, it would have helped to have a summit hotline, mid-level
officer-to-officer ties and strategic confidence-building at the technical level.543 For
example, US General Blair of the US Pacific Command tried to reach the Chinese
secretary-general, but was unsuccessful. Given that the Chinese Politburo takes time to
conduct consultations, mid-level mechanisms and contacts need to be more
institutionalized so that there are channels open to permit communication immediately
after an incident.544
However, high-level contact proved to be problematic even after the initial event.
Some news accounts indicate that the Bush administration was reluctant to make use of
the “hotline” that President Clinton had established with President Jiang. The stated
concern was that such direct contact could escalate the dispute by making the
541Interview with professor C-l 1.
542Interview with professorC -l.
^Interview with professor C-10.
544Ibid,
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negotiations too high-profile and public.545 On the other hand, some Chinese experts
suggested that such use of the hotline would have been beneficial.546 Similarly,
development of simple “rules of the road” to prevent future air collisions—despite
mention from both US- and China-based foreign policy experts547—have not gotten
developed because of lack of agreement over who primarily is responsible for the 2001
bumping event.
At a more scholarly level, there is a bit of a divide between the American and
Chinese academic communities in terms of how best to categorize the 2001 plane
collision.548 Most American China watchers viewed this incident as being part of the
larger phenomenon of Chinese nationalism. Meanwhile, many academics in China (as
well as officials and policy experts from both countries) view the EP-3E incident more as
an example of crisis management. In fact, Chinese scholars have wanted to have joint
conferences to learn more about crisis management, but at times their American
counterparts are not eager to do so, some viewing the Chinese as too opaque and mere
“information gatherers” for the Chinese leadership.549
545Of course, an election issue for Bush was o f not appearing to deal with the Chinese the same way that President Clinton had.
546Willy Wo-Lap Lam, “Beijing May Reduce Demands,” CNN.com, 5 April 2001, 5:43 AM EDT, accessed 6 April 2001, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf7east/04/05/china.demand.will/index.html.
547In the wry words o f one Chinese academic C -l, “Lessons learned: Keep long distance [away] from US aircraft.”
548To a certain extent, American academic training socializes people to ask, “What is this a case of?”
549Mitchell interview.
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However, Robert Suettinger has a different take on the EP-3E incident and crisis
management. As he sees it, “crisis management is about ‘How can we get good
information?’ Neither side had good information at the time. That’s why they don’t
want to talk about it.”550
A related area of disagreement is that some Chinese experts blame the US for
publicizing this military accident in the first place. From their perspective, the US Pacific
Command did not need to make a statement. Previous military incidents—whether
involving the PRC or the US or both—had been managed quietly. The plane collision
should not have been any different.
As one scholar pointed out, this situation was similar to a traffic accident. The
US should have been willing to let the local police take control of investigating the
matter.551 Similarly, Minxin Pei noted that the Chinese focus on inquiry was not meant
to be antagonistic.
“They want to see who is at fault and not let anyone leave the scene, so they can sit down and talk about it. The Chinese view is: What’s the hurry? We have to sort it out completely before anyone leaves.” [However, when] .. .China balks at a quick resolution, the United States sees that stance as intransigence. The Chinese view America’s determined prodding as an attempt to embarrass them by dictating what should happen.552
550Robert L. Suettinger, interview by author via telephone, notes, Washington, DC, 10 December 2003.
55‘interview with professor C-l 1. Of course, since the implication was that the “local cop” would be Chinese, this idea of following local jurisdiction makes most Americans quite nervous.
552Robin Wright, “News Analysis: For U.S. and China, The Looking Glass Yields Disparate Views of Accident,” Los Angeles Times, 8 April 2001, 8; emphasis added.
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So, instead the US broadcast its concerns about the crew. Unfortunately, by
taking its concerns to the global public, the American government effectively pushed the
Chinese government into a comer, forcing its leaders to “take a firm line on the issue or
risk a nationalist backlash.”
From an American perspective, however, US Ambassador to China Joseph W.
Prueher was concerned that once the incident occurred there was no one in the Chinese
leadership with whom he could contact to begin the process of resolving the dispute.554
US Secretary of State Colin Powell later recounted that, after the collision, “we couldn’t
get direct answers out of the Chinese government as to where our plane was, how our
crew was, and we weren’t sure who we could be talking to or should be talking to about
it.”555 They had to go public to get some answers.
Moreover, the detention and lack of immediate contact with their crew raised
American fears of reliving the Iranian hostage situation of 1979-81. As with the hostage
553This point of view is related within “Hainan Incident Increases Pressure in Sino-U.S. Relations,” Defense Daily International 2, 14 (6 April 2001), 1.
554Most American foreign policy experts had nothing but praise for Ambassador Prueher, a former Navy admiral who had been Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Command before General Blair and therefore supervised reconnaissance missions off the Chinese coastline. Not only had Prueher flown that kind of mission before, he had worked during his tenure as ambassador to interact positively with members o f the Chinese military. Erik Eckholm, “Ex-Admiral, Now U.S. Envoy, Finds Chinese Military Aloof,” New York Times, 3 April 2001.
555Susan V. Lawrence, “How China Relations Improved: An Insider’s View,”Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 October 2004, 16. Note, however, how the EP-3 plane is mentioned before the American crew. It was this kind of focus on material matters over humanitarian concerns that set poorly with members o f the Chinese public.
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crisis, military families and other Americans began to hang yellow ribbons to represent
their hope that soon the crew would be returned home safely.556
Foreign policy experts from the US generally agreed that the Chinese leadership
CC'T was poorly informed about the nature of the EP-3E collision. Furthermore, the PLA
was viewed as responsible for dragging out the standoff. The pilot, Wang Wei, had
been taking unnecessary risks and instead of investigating his actions, the local officials
in Guangzhou covered it up.559
Unfortunately, the Chinese Politburo received this “bad information” from the
PLA and rushed to press with it before verification of the second pilot’s account. After
high-profile statements by Jiang Zemin and others that proclaimed Wang Wei’s bravery,
the regime had left itself little room in which to maneuver.560 Chinese leaders therefore
had a difficult balance to maintain since the crisis had to last long enough to demonstrate
556“Anguish o f Spy Plane Families,” BBC News, 4 April 2001, 13:05 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http://www.bbc.co.Uk/l/hi/world/americas/1259863.stm. Interestingly, Amanda de Jesus, mother of one of the crew members, said on ABC’s Good Morning American that she thought President Bush should apologize just to retrieve the crew.
557Lieberthal interview.
558Gill, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis.”
559Suettinger interview.
560Again, there are questions of the extent to which the PLA manipulated the situation versus simply misreading it. Furthermore, an additional factor is that the Chinese naval air force is not as well trained as the regular Chinese air force (Lieberthal interview).
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the PRC’s strength and resolve, yet short enough not to damage trade relations with the
US.561
According to some US-based foreign policy experts, the key to ending the crisis
was accessing those Chinese in the government who believed in having a positive
relationship with the US (such as those in diplomacy or trade), and getting them to take
over decision-making from the PLA. Since Jiang Zemin was known to have wanted
good Sino-American relations and the continuation of China’s development, he had to
work to restrain “hard-liners” and manage this crisis.
Minxin Pei also asserts that hostile intent toward the US probably was not behind
official Chinese actions. Instead, Chinese leaders were subject to confusion and had to
balance several key concerns and constituencies, leading to some mixed signals to the US.
For one, Pei notes that those officials in charge of propaganda are particularly
conservative as a group and must conform to a “rigid” set of guidelines as to reporting an
incident.564
Of course, these surveillance flights are provocative to the PRC on several levels.
For one, the number of flights had increased in the latter half of 2000 to well over 200
56lDouglas Paal, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis: Implications and Next Steps for US-China Relations,” Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 12 April 2001, 2PM EDT, accessed 18 June 2001, http://www.brook.edu/comm/transcripts/20010412B.html.
562Ibid.
563Minxin Pei, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis: Implications and Next Steps for US-China Relations,” Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 12 April 2001,2PM EDT, accessed 18 June 2001, http://www.brook.edu/comm/transcripts/20010412B.html.
564Ibid.
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flights per year.565 Moreover, most of the Chinese public previously was unaware that
these flights took place, so the news came as a bit of a shock. As numerous Chinese
foreign policy experts pointed out, “You know, China has not sent any soldiers or planes
to fly near American [coasts].”566
However, most Chinese citizens probably are unaware that the PRC also conducts
its own reconnaissance flights. According to US defense officials, the Chinese conducted
their own surveillance missions of Taiwan and Vietnam during the incident. Thus,
Bates Gill argued that it was “the height of disingenuousness on the part of the Chinese”
to demand that the US cease its surveillance flights.
An alternate reading, indicated by Robert Suettinger’s previous statement, is that
both sides overreacted at first and mismanaged the military accident. For this reason,
David Lampton has argued that the 2001 incident was apolitical more than a military
crisis.569 Once both national leaders had taken such public positions about who was to
blame and what needed to be done to rectify the situation, a way had to be found for both
f< 7 A to back away from the crisis in a mutually face-saving way.
565Thomas E. Ricks, “Anger Over Flights Grew in Past Year: Proximity Riled China; U.S. Cited Interceptors,” The Washington Post, 7 April 2001, A01.
566Xiao interview.
567BilI Gertz, “Chinese Planes Collect Electronic Data,” The Washington Times, 10 April 2001.
568Gill, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis.”
569David M. Lampton, “China’s Rising Power—and What It Means for Asia and America,” talk given at American University, School of International Service, Washington, DC, 6 December 2005.
570Garrett interview.
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Actually, Banning Garrett made the comment that it was possible that the second
Chinese pilot’s vantage pointbehind the other two planes could explain why he would
have thought that the EP-3E suddenly veered into the much faster F-8. Signs are that
Wang Wei tried to fly underneath the EP-3E plane and accidentally clipped the propeller.
From the second Chinese pilot’s viewpoint, it would be difficult to discern cause-and-
effect. Of course, from the perspectives of the American crew, the situation looked
utterly different, which explains why the American side did not understand what the
second Chinese pilot had seen and viewed his testimony as based on lies. Thus, the
situation was ripe for a “total clash” of interpretations in which “no one wanted to say
that they were wrong.”571
This reading of the situation is unusually gracious compared to most American
commentators, many of whom focus more on blaming Chinese pilot Wang Wei’s
reckless flying behavior. Regardless, all American officials and journalists indicated that
they believe that the accident was precipitated by the Chinese jet flying too close to the
American surveillance plane.
Once the incident occurred, American officials needed to find a way to help the
Chinese regime “save face” and back away from open confrontation with the US. While
his role was not publicized, former Clinton administration official Kenneth Lieberthal
was present in Beijing at the time of the incident and was called in to assist fellow
Clinton-appointee Ambassador Prueher with the crisis negotiations.572
57'ibid.
572Lieberthal interview.
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Thanks also to the pivotal role of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the art of
diplomacy was used to find a compromise between the interests of the two powerful
states. In his words, Powell stated that it was “an exercise that involved figuring out
‘how to say you’re sorry without apologizing,’ and ‘how many ‘very’s’ did you put in
front o f ‘sorry.’”573
As Powell indicated subsequently, the crisis was responsible “for, ironically,
propelling U.S.-China relations to what he says is a new level.”574 By this reading, the
overall relationship was preserved and war averted without a compromise of “essential”
values.575 The letter of “very sorries” can be read as containing a “face-saving semi
apology.”576
In terms of foreign policy experts based in the US, many believed that, as with the
NATO bombing incident, the Chinese government obtained a great deal of intelligence
about American military capabilities. There was some question about whether or not
they could reap intelligence benefits from the plane because the systems would have been
encrypted,577 but most observers believed that the Chinese had reaped an intelligence
573Susan V. Lawrence, “How China Relations Improved: An Insider’s View,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 October 2004, 16.
574Ibid.
575Lieberthal interview.
576Blackbum interview.
577Tkakic interview.
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bonanza.578 Whether this interpretation is cynical or merely matter-of-fact is open to
debate.579
Some people might question why surveillance flights even are used in this age of
enhanced satellite technology since the latter would be less likely to cause diplomatic
tension.580 However, as intelligence expert James Bamford explains,
“.. .signals intelligence is where the US gets probably 70, 80 percent of its intelligence on what foreign countries and foreign governments are doing. On this particular flight, what they were interested in is the Chinese navy; where ships are, what they’re communicating, who they’re communicating with, what kind of radars they have. So the people on board the airplane would be listening for several types of signals.” This is the kind of intelligence we could not get from satellites. “.. .these particular signals—a lot of them are short-range and the best way to pick them up is with a plane or a ship in the area.” “They have electronic intelligence people that are trying to pick up information on the radars. And they have communications intelligence people that are trying to intercept the voices.”581
Moreover, since the Chinese military often changes the electronic frequencies its uses,
there is a need to update the information constantly.582
578Suettinger interview.
579Norman Polmar, a US Navy analyst, is quoted by James Dao as indicating that this EP-3E was the first ever to be seized by another state, adding “For them to obtain it would be a real intelligence loss.” Dao, “China’s Shadowing Had Annoyed U.S.”
580According to Bill Gertz, “Pentagon officials said the EP-3Es were monitoring a Chinese military exercise north o f the island and that the close passes between U.S. and Chinese aircraft have been occurring almost on a daily basis in recent weeks.” Bill Gertz, “U.S. Spy Plane Lands in China after Collision,” The Washington Times, 2 April 2001, 1.
581Transcript: “Interview: James Bamford Discusses the Intelligence Gathering Done by the US Surveillance EP-3 Plane,” “All Things Considered,” NPR, 2 April 2001, 1.
582Edward Walsh, “Crew Had ‘Destruction Plan’: Plane’s Personnel Trained to Destroy Equipment, Data,” The Washington Post, 3 April 2001, 17.
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Another issue of which most American and Chinese citizens probably are
unaware is that the US military expects the Chinese jets to shadow them. According to
Robert Kamiol of the Jane’s Defense Weekly military information service,
Once the [surveillance] aircraft is detected, China, as any country would, sends up aircraft to investigate it, and they certainly would try to ward people off. The interceptor’s job is to intimidate and follow the reconnaissance craft... Even if you’re spying from international air space then the people being spied on would like to encourage you to leave.583
Furthermore, surveillance missions also serve to test the response of the other
state’s defensive military apparatus. As Douglas Paal explains,
[Such missions allow the US to].. .get a sense of what’s there and how it’s used, what the pattern of deployments are. And this would permit American forces, should they be called on to engage with the capabilities China has developed, to reduce casualties and be more effective with the fighting power the United States has.584
Similarly, a former US military attache in China adds, “That’s one of the purposes of our
flying these aircraft, to see how they [the Chinese] scramble us, to see how we do,” he
coc said. “It’s not just against China—we do this around the world.”
Militarv-to-Military Exchanges
Although suspended by China in the wake of the crisis, these governmental
exchanges are designed to allow the respective militaries to learn more about each other.
More concretely, the personal contacts made during these interactions should promote the
583Quoted in Hopkins, “China, U.S. No Strangers in the Sky.”
584Paal, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis.”
585Jim Mann, “Encounters Routine for U.S. Patrol Missions,”Los Angeles Times, 2 April 2001.
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use of those direct connections in the case of a military incident. Such exchanges take
place among mid- to senior-level officials. According to Larry Wortzel, military-to-
military contacts include:
...activities ranging from joint exercises designed to improve the capabilities of different armed forces to fight as a team to exchanges of war-fighting doctrine, manuals, and tactics. At the most benign levels of exchange, U.S. forces disclose their activities to others as forms of confidence-building measures; with allies and friends, the U.S. military often seeks to improve foreign military capabilities through training and combined maneuvers.586
Military-to-military contacts may be undertaken for vastly different reasons. In
the case of the US and PRC,
The Pentagon believes that military-to-military contacts between China and the United States can give Americans firsthand insights into Chinese military strategy and policy and avenues of communication that will help to defuse tensions arising from misunderstandings. The Chinese see these contacts as a way of getting up-to- date information on U.S. strategic thinking and the deployment of military technology.587
However, military-to-military contacts have been halted numerous times, usually after a
spike in tensions between the US and China. Not only were such exchanges curtailed
after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, they also were interrupted after the Taiwan Straits
crisis in 1995-96, the Chinese embassy bombing in 1999, and the 2001 plane collision
incident.588
586Larry M. Wortzel, “Why Caution Is Needed in Military Contacts with China” (Backgrounder #1340), The Heritage Foundation, 2 December 1999, n.2, accessed 17 January 2006, http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/BG 1340.cfin.
587Starr, 104-105.
588Ibid.
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Supporters of US-PRC military exchanges note the important role that they may
r o Q play in correcting possible misperceptions as to American capabilities and resolve.
However, detractors believe that the PRC benefits disproportionately in such
arrangements. For one, many Americans noted that the Chinese military site visits were
more symbolic than substantive, indicating that they were not living up to the principle of
reciprocity. Moreover, American conservatives suspected that the Chinese could gain
access to US military secrets by means of these exchanges. Given these concerns, the US
Congress set forth the 2000 Defense Authorization Act to have a set of prohibitive
criteria to ensure that these exchanges do not permit the loss of key state secrets.590
However, Bates Gill notes that “the best evidence that these things work is the
resistance that the Chinese themselves have put up to try and expand and improve and
intensify these military-to-military exchanges.”591 Any eagerness on the Chinese side
could indicate the PLA’s sense that they could use these ties to their advantage. Instead,
the mutual paranoia and distrust are read—oddly enough—as reassuring. Apparently,
many in the Chinese military believe that any enhancement of military-to-military ties
follows rather than leads improvement in bilateral relations as a whole. According to
589Gill, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis.”
590Paal, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis.”
59lGill, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis.”
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Kurt Campbell and Richard Weitz, such contacts therefore function “as the proverbial
SO? canary in the coalmine, acutely vulnerable to harmful changes in their environment.”
Analysis of the Rhetorical Commonplaces in Use
For a single event, the EP-3E incident has received a great deal of academic
attention. What is particularly intriguing is that the numerous journal articles address the
2001 airplane collision from such different interpretive frameworks, whether in terms of
the “Chinese perspective,” international law,realpolitik, linguistics, rhetoric and cross-
cultural communication, crisis management, Chinese nationalism (sometimes aided by
some social psychology), or post-structuralism.593 As one might expect, the conclusions
that these authors have drawn have been quite different.
In terms of this dissertation’s framework, meanwhile, the rhetorical
commonplaces set forth in Chapter 3 appeared once again, albeit in different degrees. In
592Kurt Campbell and Richard Weitz, “The Limits of U.S.-China Military Cooperation: Lessons from 1995-1999,” The Washington Quarterly 29, 1 (winter 2005-06), 180.
593Interestingly, one aspect not studied explicitly is that o f American nationalism. For example, Joseph Yu-shek Cheng and Kinglun Ngok, “The 2001 ‘Spy’ Plane Incident Revisited: The Chinese Perspective,”Journal of Chinese Political Science 9, 1 (spring 2004): 63-83; see; Sean D. Murphy, “Contemporary Practice o f the United States Relating to International Law,” The American Journal o f International Law 95, 3 (July 2001): 626-655; Eric Donnelly, “The United States-China EP-3 Incident: Legality and Realpolitik,” Journal of Conflict & Security Law 9, 1 (2004): 25-42; Zhang Hang, “Culture and Apology: The Hainan Island Incident,” World Englishes 20, 3 (2001): 383-391; James Mulvenon, “Civil-Military Relations and the EP-3 Crisis: A Content Analysis,” China Leadership Monitor 1 (winter 2002); Albert S. Yee, “Semantic Ambiguity and Joint Deflections in the Hainan Negotiations,” China: An International Journal 2, 1 (March 2004): 53-82; Avruch and Wang, “Culture, Apology, and International Negotiation: The Case of the Sino-U.S. ‘Spy Plane’ Crisis,” International Negotiation 10, 2 (2005): 337- 353; Zhang Tuosheng, “The Sino-American Aircraft Collision and Its Lessons,” World Economics and Politics [Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi] 3 (2005): 30-36; Peter Hays Gries and Peng Kaiping, “Culture Clash? Apologies East and West,” Journal of Contemporary China, 11, 30 (2002): 173-178; and Fran 5ois Debrix, “Language as Criticism: Assessing the Merits o f Speech Acts and Discursive Formations in International Relations,” New Political Science 24, 2 (2002): 201-219.
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this situation, it seemed that the most prevalent issues of contention were the fear of
appearing weak and giving in to appeasement, and what constitutes civil behavior and
game playing. As with the 1999 embassy bombing event, some of the rhetorical
commonplaces were yoked together tightly, such as appeasement and weakness, for
example.
When it came to apology, the emphasis this time wasnot on sincerity. Meanwhile,
closure was more of an implicit concern. As one British journalist argued,
America is a society which is consumed with the need to achieve emotional "closure ” over its own domestic crises. The inability to see such incidents as others see them, and thus to allow others to achieve similar closure, has become a national attitude of mind.594
It is an intriguing observation that is intimately related to American media representations
of events and their simultaneous reflection and shaping of national interpretations.
In order to achieve some sense of closure, a “quasi-apology” was a necessary and
face-saving ’ way to bring the crisis to resolution for the Chinese government. While the
PRC did not receive the "full apology ” it desired and Wang Wei’s family probably was
never satisfied by the answers it received from the US, the “letter of ‘very sorries’ was
enough to address the matter at an official level.
Probably the most important theme that emerged, however, was the issue of
managing the weakness of both sides. Over and over again, the interviewees and other
commentators argued during the crisis about whether their country appeared strong or
weak.
594Martin Kettle, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word: United States Citizens Don’t Care to Apologise to China - Or Anyone,” The Guardian, 5 April 2001; emphasis added.
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The Fear of Appearing Weak
In the US, it was clear that there was an association once again between apology
and a gendered sense of weakness. The American side generally was adamant about not
giving an apology, and this attitude was reflected in such headlines as “The U.S. Owes
No Apology to the Chinese” and “No More Kowtows”—which signaled dislike of
China’s “outrageous apology demand.”595
Is an Expression of “Regret” an Apology?
Oddly, one editorial indicated the belief that President Bush made an apology on
April 2 when he mentioned his “regrets.”
President George W. Bush apologized unnecessarily to the Chinese for the accident. The unarmed U.S. plane was flying in international air space without violating either law or protocol. Mr. Bush has fortunately toughened his rhetoric since making the apology... The president should remain firm in urging China’s respect for the crew and U.S. sovereignty over the plane. Mr. Bush demonstrated sound judgment in deciding to refrain from contacting Chinese leaders himself to avoid the appearance the White House is in crisis mode. There is no reason to believe the plane accident should lead to any substantive damage in U.S.-China relations. And the White House should resist any efforts by Beijing to leverage the current situation to win U.S. concessions, particularly as regards Taiwan. 6
As mentioned previously, American officials often have used some form of the
word “regret” in diplomatic situations to convey sorrow while indicating at the same time
that the US is not culpable for the events that took place. Even in the case of military
595James Lilley and Arthur Waldron, “The U.S. Owes No Apology to the Chinese,” Wall Street Journal, 5 April 2001; “No More Kowtows,”Wall Street Journal, 5 April 2001.
596“‘Bumper Cars in the Air,’” The Washington Times, 3 April 2001, 16; emphasis added.
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accidents with allies, the American impulse is to keep the response as restrained as
possible. Again, from an outside perspective,
.. .America’s military instinctively refuses to admit responsibility when things go wrong. Whether they are slicing through a ski lift cable in the Italian Alps, or getting into a tangle with the Chinese air force, the thought of quickly uttering the soft words that might drive away wrath never comes naturally to the Pentagon. Instead, the US military - which in some other contexts can be remarkably open, honest and informative... - tends to go into instant denial. I f America is forced to respond, the apology generally comes too little too late, if it comes at a ll591
Beware of Precedent
Again, some outside observers claim that a lot of this caution comes from the fact
that, in the US, “the world’s most litigious society, the refusal to admit liability is
culturally ingrained.”598 It is true that American officials and foreign policy experts from
both the Republican and Democratic parties were convinced that apologizing officially to
China would “set a bad precedent” on a legal level, as that would be seen as agreeing that
it was wrong to conduct reconnaissance on the PRC.599 Such a move would set the US
onto a “slippery slope” that would allow China eventually to call for such flights to be
ceased entirely—the assumption being that it would be viewed as illegitimate and
difficult at that point for the US to argue otherwise.600 Furthermore, an official apology
597Kettle, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”; emphasis added.
598Ibid.
599“Issues Remain After U.S.-China Deal,” Associated Press, 11 April 2001.
600Moreover, it often is assumed that such demands will arise and be difficult for Americans to evade due China’s superior political maneuvering and “Machiavellian” negotiating skills.
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would “carry legal weight,” thereby providing the PRC ammunition to demand
compensation or put the American pilot on trial, for example.601 In order to prevent any
appearance ofappeasement or culpability, therefore, the American side quickly moved to
justify the continuance of its reconnaissance flights by an appeal to international law,
contending that the airplanes were not in Chinese air space when they collided.
Moreover,
For the Bush administration, making an apology would be admitting guilt, humbling the White House in the eyes o f Asian countries and among conservative Republicans who want the United States to stand up to China. Depending on the scope and wording of the apology, it might not only amount to an admission of wrongdoing but also create a legal norm that China could invoke to try to stop the United States from conducting coastal reconnaissance flights. Asia policy analysts say it would represent one small step for China toward pushing back the U.S. presence in Asia. “An apology’s not costless. I t’s not just a political gesture, ” said Peter Spiro, a professor of law at Hofstra University. “It’s like pleading guilty. ... It becomes a precedent.”602
Appeasement? Never!
During the actual crisis, most US-based foreign policy experts thought that, given
the detention of twenty-four Americans, the US was in a weak bargaining position and
would have to find some way to reach a compromise. Not surprisingly, however, the
concern that the US would “appease” China soon appeared in American newspapers.
601Steven Mufson with Charles Lane, “Apology or Regret: Not Just Wordplay: For U.S., Choice of Term Has Broad Implications,” The Washington Post, 6 April 2001, A28; emphasis added.
602Mufson and Lane mention that the US had a similar incident when a pilot-less American drone was shot down over Hainan in 1970 and the PRC expected an apology. Not surprisingly, he US was concerned about legal precedent and decided not to apologize in order to ensure that it still would have justification for the conduct of such missions. Ibid.; emphasis added.
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Still, some neo-conservatives were certain that George W. Bush would “stand up” to the
Chinese, given his strong anti-China rhetoric during the presidential campaign.
According to Amos Perlmutter, “The fact that the Chinese are oblivious to American
values enhances the position of the Bush administration’s China hawks. The hawks are
unwilling to follow Bill Clinton’s appeasement policy .”
Similarly, while most US-based foreign policy experts complimented
Ambassador Prueher’s actions, some commentators wanted him and anyone else
connected to the prior Clinton administration to be removed from leadership posts after
the crisis. In particular, Prueher came under conservative scrutiny for his role in
promoting military-to-military ties between the US and China. According to Don Feder,
Mr. Prueher, who’s scheduled to leave in a month, is a constructive-engagement cheerleader. .. .The New York Times notes that during his tenure, Mr. Prueher “earned the respect of many in the Chinese military.” The Marxists always appreciate a useful idiot. While he’s at it, Mr. Bush should also sack Adm. Blair. Despite his current tough talk, the admiral has been another appeaser. Talk is cheap. Beijing wants to see if Mr. Bush will blink in this eyeball- to-eyeball confrontation. It hopes it can win concessions to end a crisis it precipitated. Instead, Mr. Bush shouldoffer an escalation o f realism ,604
However, this confidence in Bush soon waned when the US gave “the letter of
‘very sorries’” to the PRC. According to Robert Kagan and William Kristol, the US
actually apologized by means of this letter.
...the fact o f our apology is all the more humiliating because the United States was in no way to blame for the incident. ...
603Amos Perlmutter, “Time of Appeasement or Confrontation?” The Washington Times, 3 April 2001; emphasis added.
604Don Feder, “Test of Wills in China,” The Washington Times, 5 April 2001.
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Confronted by this direct and deliberate challenge, the United States has apologized. ... [The letter of ‘very sorries’] was the product of Chinese extortion. They held our troops hostage until we said, “Uncle.” 05
From this line of argument, if the US gave an apology, it would mean that the American
crew had done something wrong or were otherwise the cause of the accident. Any claims
that the collision was a “tragic accident” ignores the fact that it was “deliberate Chinese
policy” to shadow the American surveillance flights so closely.606
However, American officials scripted the letter carefully to avoid any “true
apology,” let alone any sense of legal responsibility for the incident. In general, the “very
sorries” just suggests a sense of sorrow—much like one the “I’m sorry for your loss”
conveys sympathy to a grieving family at a funeral—no personal responsibility is implied.
Even the statement, “We are very sorry the entering of China’s airspace and the landing
did not have verbal clearance...” dances around the issue of American responsibility for
what transpired. The letter is an ambiguous document, created under duress, designed to
“satisfice” the Chinese government’s desire for an apology just enough to guarantee the
release of the American crew.
605Robert Kagan and William Kristol, “We Lost,” The Washington Post, 13 April 2001, A23; emphasis added.
606Ibid. Actually, China experts noted above that Wang Wei’s behavior was reflective of a particular military base rather than Chinese intercepts as a whole. Furthermore, these reconnaissance missions are designed to be provocative—they fly close enough to the Chinese coast to expect to be intercepted. It is likely that if the incident had happened in reverse— a Chinese surveillance plane collided with an American fighter jet off the coast o f Florida—that most Americans would be shocked, scared, and outraged.
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However, the “hostage” issue is problematic for another reason. As the crisis
drew to an end, Douglas Paal reflected that the Chinese almost definitely were able to
perceive the high price that the US government was willing to pay to gain their release.
... [o]ne area of concern I do have ... is the Chinese perception ...o f our weakness. ... I t’s their sense that we won’t take a casualty that worries me, and they saw the extraordinary attention to these 24 air people, air crewmen, and that’s reinforced that lesson.607
Indeed, the initial American reaction to the crew’s detention was quite strong—so much
so that it arguably was the most important foreign policy test that the Bush administration
faced prior to September 11th, 2001.
Despite the initial “hyperventilation” of the Bush administration, US Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld kept relatively quiet during the crisis. However, it was
apparent that his preference was to use compellence instead of diplomacy to end the
dispute.
Mr. Rumsfeld ... is said to have privately criticized the White House’s soft tone toward Beijing, according to a well-placed defense source. “Rumsfeld is worn out by the diplomats, all the statements of ‘regret’ and wants to stop the patty-cakes ,” the defense source said. “He and Powell are very much at odds over this.”608
The odd use of “patty-cakes” indicates that Rumsfeld viewed all of the back-and-forth of
diplomacy as childish and silly. In contrast, real men talk less and let the use of force to
do the “talking” for them.
607Paal, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis”; emphasis added.
608Gertz with Scarborough and Lambro, “China and U.S. Show Signs They Are Ready To Deal.” Of course, now that one can observe how poorly compellence has worked for the US in Iraq, diplomacy seems like it was the least damaging option.
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Different Demonstrations of Weakness
While the Americans pundits seemed to view an apology and other diplomatic
gestures as demonstrating the US’ weakness, many Chinese were upset about their
government’s impotent response to the violation of its sovereignty. While the Chinese
fighter jets intercepted the EP-3E plane, they were unable to force it to retreat. Not only
did their pilot lose his life, the “crippled” American reconnaissance plane was able to
penetrate their borders and land at Hainan Island, location of one of the PRC’s most
significant bases.609
Similarly, some American China watchers tried to explain that the PRC’s
awareness of its own weakness motivated some of its more obnoxious actions.610 For
example, some analysts mentioned that China’s “sense of resentful nationalism” and the
public’s desire for retribution for Wang Wei’s death drove the PRC’s call for an
apology.611 Of course, even some Asia experts wonder if all the focus on Chinese
nationalism is all smoke-and-mirrors—a built-in excuse from the PRC’s leadership so
that it may claim that it has no control over anti-American unrest. (\\0 After all, the PRC’s
609Philip P. Pan, “Americans Held in Strategic Spot: Hainan Island is a Staging Point for Chinese Ground and Air Forces,” The Washington Post, 8 April 2001, 20. The saying, “to add insult to injury” indicates that what is so galling is not the injury so much as the insult that arrives afterwards.
610Bates Gill, “China’s Weakness is What Makes It So Dangerous,” Los Angeles Times, 6 April 2001; emphasis added.
61'After all, Jiang Zemin had been widely criticized as not being tough enough in his reactions to the 1999 embassy bombing crisis. John Pomfret, “Jiang Caught In Middle on Standoff,”The Washington Post, 8 April 2001, A01.
612See Joe Bosco’s question in Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis: Implications and Next Steps for US-China Relations,” Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 12 April 2001, 2PM EDT, accessed 18 June 2001, http://www.brook.edu/comm/transcripts/20010412B.html.
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patriotic education campaign has worked to make young Chinese quite aware of China’s
past humiliations.
However, any conversations with citizens or glimpses at Chinese Internet chat
rooms indicate the degree to which nationalism can constrain the Chinese leadership.
Soon after the plane collision occurred, Internet chat rooms received angry postings about
the US’ lack of demonstrated concern for the missing pilot. Clearly, some of the ideas
that people posted would be politically untenable for the PRC’s leaders to do:
“.. .withdraw China’s ambassador to the U.S.; protest outside the U.S. embassy; put
Chinese defense forces on full alert; kill or jail the U.S. pilots; play the victim in the
international community; assassinate George W. Bush.”613 However, the central
government was careful to monitor the amount of anger against the US, censoring the
most inflammatory postings on the Internet and not permitting public demonstrations.614
Still, Jiang Zemin was under great pressure from both the Chinese public and the
PLA to appear strong. Called weak for his role after the Chinese embassy bombing,
Jiang was quick to call for punitive measures. According to the interviewees and other
Chinese citizens,
[Jiang Zemin] .. “sums up China’s plight right now: All he can do is talk.” ...
613Tang, “Air Incident Sparks China Chat Attack.” Generally, however, American intelligence analysts do not pay attention to Internet chat rooms because of the prevalence of extremist viewpoints. On line vehemence is seen more as “venting” frustration rather than serious intent to harm the US or its citizens (Sutter interview). Furthermore, the tendency for Internet chat rooms to have extremist viewpoints means that any research based on such source material may overemphasize the vehemence of such perspectives. All the same, Internet postings can be revealing in terms o f the rhetoric. Also, the Chinese who submit such posts would not be restrained by politeness toward a foreigner.
614John Pomfret, “Chinese Driven by Anger, Pride: ‘99 Bombing a Recent Memory,”The Washington Post, 4 April 2001, 1.
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"We think this just makes us look weaker ,” said Luo Raina, a 20-year-oid student in Beijing. "If Mao Zedong were still here, we would have shot that plane down, or thrown the Americans in jail. But Jiang can’t do that. He wants globalization.”615
Furthermore, as Jiang was due to step down from most of his posts in 2002-03,
China’s leaders were engaged in a behind-the-scenes succession struggle, thereby
increasing the stakes involved. Jiang had been closely aligned with the PLA for years
and was hoping to keep his most important post as chairman of the Central Military
Commission. In order to do so, Jiang had to continue to court the PLA’s leaders and
curry their favor. Therefore, he was quick to respond to their demands for a stem
response to the crisis. Paradoxically, Jiang’s weakness led him to engage in
brinksmanship, at least at a rhetorical level.
Thus, the PLA was in control of Chinese foreign policy during early phases of the
crisis. According to diplomats involved in the negotiations, “the Chinese navy is calling
the shots, then presenting its views to the leadership for a decision. Washington’s main
interlocutor, the Foreign Ministry, has no role in the process beyond passing messages
back and forth.”616
Macho Men
In addition to Jiang and Bush’s symbolic “showdown,” one of the more curious
parallels was the fact that both countries built up their pilots, Shane Osbome and Wang
615John Pomffet, “Jiang Caught in Middle on Standoff,”The Washington Post, 8 April 2001, A01; emphasis added.
616Neil King Jr., Michael Phillips, Greg Jaffe and Charles Hutzler with Jeanne Cummings, “Crisis Forces Bush to Balance Clashing China-Policy Camps,” Wall Street Journal, 4 April 2001, 1.
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bravery and willingness to die, if necessary, for their nation.
Once again, however, these images were sharply polarized. On the one hand,
much was made in the US about the collision being caused by the Chinese “hot-dogging”
f\ IS pilot, Wang Wei. The US military played videotape of Wang Wei flying within fifty
feet of another EP-3E surveillance plane, waving and holding up his email address.
Meanwhile, Wang Wei was portrayed in the PRC in maudlin ways as the ultra-patriotic
martyr and beloved son of China.
At the same time, Lt. Shane Osbome, pilot of the EP-3E plane, was promoted by
American media as a brave American hero worthy of human-interest profiles as well as a
book deal or two.619 However, a few voices argued that he should have intentionally
downed the EP-3E in order to prevent its technology, a “national asset,” from falling into
Chinese hands.620
617Edward Walsh, “Crippled Plane’s Pilot Hailed as Hero,” The Washington Post, 13 April 2001, A18; Pan Bian, “Searching for the Missing Hero— The Entire Nation Worries Over Missing Pilot Wang Wei as the All-Out Search Continues,” Beijing Review, 19 April 2001, 6-8.
618Interestingly, “hot-dogging” is something that the US military expects to a certain extent from its own pilots. According to the Associated Press, a number of American military crashes have been blamed on “recklessness, not enemy gunfire or faulty equipment,” and quotes Kris Elliott, a retired Marine pilot who states, “Anybody who says they haven’t hot-dogged as a pilot probably isn’t being truthful.” See Ted Bridis, “Military Wants Pilots ‘To Be Aggressive But Also Disciplined,”’ Associated Press,USA Today, 9 May 2005, 11.
619“Our Nifty 50: Shane Osbome,” People Weekly 55, 19 (14 May 2001), 183.
620Patrick J. Bums, “Another Assault on Accountability?” United States Naval Institute: Proceedings 127, 7 (July 2001), 87.
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The Symbolism Involved
In general, then, the 2001 plane collision event became dominated by symbols.
For example, the two heroes, the entire American crew, and their respective fates became
objects of national and media obsession. Yellow ribbons festooned many American
homes to signify the hope for the crew’s safe return—much as other ribbons had been
hung for previous hostages and prisoners of war. Given their numbers and the
uncertainty of a fair trial in the PRC, the crew must be retrieved quickly and safely.
Meanwhile, Wang Wei and his grieving family became emblematic for many
Chinese of the severe offense perpetrated by the American spy plane. How could the US
focus so much on their crew, safe and sound in a Chinese hotel, when a life hung in the
b alance? Are American lives more valuable than Chinese?
Last, there is the symbolism of the plane itself. From the beginning, there is a
certain artifice to how the situation unfolded. As mentioned earlier, the respective
militaries expect that the American surveillance planes are going to be intercepted by
“enemy” fighter jets. A ritual ensues in which the surveillance planes try to continue
their mission while the jets try to get them to retreat farther from the coast. However, this
particular day, one of the parties miscalculated and the dance took a fatal turn.
Differing accounts between the Chinese and American sides also point to the
presence of Wittgensteinian “language games” and political jockeying among the various
actors—for example, it seemed strange to hear that American “sovereignty” was asserted
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over the damaged EP-3E plane, even though it sat disabled on a Chinese tarmac. fVJ1 Even
the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson made light of the claim to sovereignty.
“‘Some people say the plane is part of U.S. sovereign territory,” said the Foreign
Ministry spokesman, Zhu Bangzao. “If this plane is sovereign American territory, how
did it land in China?’” By so stating, Zhu indicates that the PRC’s interpretation of
sovereignty is that diplomatic niceties are symbolic rather than actual. Just like
embassies on foreign soil, the maintenance of diplomatic “islands” of sovereignty is
highly dependent on the whims of the host state.
Nevertheless, the American claim about its plane’s sovereign status arguably is no
stranger than the Chinese assertion that its sovereignty had been violated by the
surveillance plane flights and the EP-3E’s emergency landing on Hainan Island.
Sovereignty infringements such as these happen all the time, as the US knows from its
experiences with Mexico, for example. However, it is the highly public nature of the
offense, the long track record of similar American infringements, and China’s history of
being subject to imperial powers that caused so much consternation in the PRC.
Meanwhile, the pressing desire of the Americans to retrieve the plane—in pieces,
if necessary—was notable also. Perhaps equally impressive is the Chinese requirement
that the EP-3E plane not be repaired in China so that it could fly back to the US.
621“A Hint of the Cold War Over the South China Sea,”The Economist, 7 April 2001,41; Ludwig R. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Vol. (3rd 1 ed.), G.E.M. Anscombe, trans. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973).
622Pomffet, “Chinese Driven by Anger, Pride,” A01.
623Susan V. Lawrence with David Murphy, Murray Hiebert, and Nayan Chanda, “How to Start a Cold War ,”Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 April 2001, 16.
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According to Deputy Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, if the spy plane were allowed to fly
over China again, it would inflame public passions and cause uproar.624
While some US-based foreign policy experts argued that the plane must be
retrieved given its price tag of $60-80 million,625 there were some rumors about the true
military value of the EP-3E. Moreover, once the EP-3E plane was restored and its first
test flight publicized, some patriotic American websites took on a triumphal tone,
praising that “THIS EAGLE HAS FLOWN AGAIN!”626
Taken together, these symbols brought sovereignty issues to the forefront of the
crisis. Whether it was the sovereignty of the plane or China’s borders, the personal
sovereignty of the American crew or of Wang Wei, the infringements thereof caused
great distress in both nations—seemingly beyond the magnitude of the event as compared
to genocide and war.
Who is Civilized?
Once more, a debate also arose over which side was “civilized” or “barbaric.” f i l l
According to the testimony of Zhao Yu, the second Chinese pilot, “It’s barbaric for the
624“Why China Not Allowing [sic] EP-3 to Fly Out,” China Daily 9 May 2001.
625Different sources quote a range of figures regarding the worth of the EP-3E plane.
626AV Web, 20 November 2002, accessed February 2006, http://www.avweb.com/newswire/8_47b/briefs/181735-l.html; comment also accessed February 2006, http://www.cargolaw.com/2001nightmare_apology.html.
627For an American perspective, see Safire, “The Politics of Apology.”
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U.S. plane to ram and ruin our jet right at our doorstep .” As could be expected, the
most severe rhetoric flew back-and-forth over the Internet.
The first cyber-shot fell three days after the incident in the sky, immediately after President George W. Bush uttered what the Chinese perceived as a “barbaric imperialist” threat, saying that instead of an apology for the [April 1] midair collision, ... he was planning to withdraw American diplomats and cancel his trip to China scheduled in October if Beijing didn’t return the plane and its crew to America soon. For China, this was a slap in the face. But for the wangmin, China’s Internet surfers, it was a declaration of war. “You Americans want war? ” runs their aggressive on-line slogan: “We ’11 give you war.”629 ... On the evening of April 3, furious Chinese cyber-patriots attacked selected America Web sites, including two that belong to the U.S. Navy. On one of these sites...the attackers left a message in English and Chinese saying, “As Chinese citizens we love our fatherland and the Chinese people.” In this case, “we” stands for the so-called “Hacker Union of China” founded by a hacker by the name of Lion: “We are deeply outraged over this imperialist aggression. Fatherland, we are prepared to give our all for you. Even our lives if necessary.”620
Given China’s Confucian tradition, there frequently is a cultural assumption that a
/ • ? 1 country’s rulers should demonstrate their moral virtue. Therefore, the US’ leaders
appeared quite arrogant when demanding the release of their crew and pointing out the
PRC’s violations of international law. According to Wang Xiaodong,
628“Eyewitness Recalls the Midair Collision”; emphasis added.
629Zhou, “Cyber Patriots Wage War.”
630Ibid.; emphasis added.
63'Kenneth Lieberthal quoted in Steven Mufson with Charles Lane, “Apology or Regret: Not Just Wordplay: For U.S., Choice o f Term Has Broad Implications,” The Washington Post, 6 April 2001, A28; emphasis added. Of course, some US-based China watchers are more sympathetic than others. Whereas Kenneth Lieberthal and David Shambaugh viewed the EP-3E incident as demonstrating the Chinese “need for face,” Richard Fisher of the Heritage Foundation interpreted Chinese “demands” as indicating its leaders’ “desire for foreigners to kowtow.”
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“President Bush and the head of U.S. Pacific Command are making stupid, unreasonable comments ’’’ ... “Bush and the head of U.S. Pacific Command should shut their stupid mouths and only open them again to apologize ,” he said. ... “We may be poorer and weaker than the U.S. but we are not afraid. The Chinese people will unite against such a threat. The right wing in the U.S. should be more intelligent and come back to their senses .”632
In contrast to the US’ imperialism, one professor and think tank member went on
at length in an interview about the PRC’s benevolent and pragmatic principles toward
foreign policy. According to him, the PRC operates according to principles of unity,
community, consultation, consensus, emphasis on development and prosperity, dialogue,
and persuasion.633 Again, the implicit comparison was with US foreign policy, especially
the invasion of Iraq.
Meanwhile, a number of US-based foreign policy experts indicated that they view
China as a young state as well as an ancient civilization. Therefore, the PRC must be
“socialized” via international law into the global system of norms. Many editorials also
weighed in on this issue. According to the Wall Street Journal , “the bigger game here is
getting China to play by the rules o f international order. Countries that want a place in
the civilized world don’t knock down foreign aircraft and then hold the crew hostage.”634
632Wang Xiaodong as quoted in Calum MacLeod, “Chinese Nationalism Prevalent in Reaction,” The Washington Times, 6 April 2001; emphasis added.
633Interview with professor C-l 1.
634“No More Kowtows,” Wall Street Journal, 5 April 2001; emphasis added.
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Furthermore, both sides issued arguments over which was the “grown up”
country.635 Many Chinese citizens and experts viewed the US as an arrogant and
disrespectful young bully, especially when compared to its renowned 5,000-year-old
culture. Meanwhile, some American commentators criticized China’s lack of “maturity”
during the crisis.
When, we wonder, will a 5,000-year-old country stop acting like a teenager who’s been jilted by his girlfriend? True, China was the victim of considerable foreign intervention and abuse during the past couple of centuries, and memories of that period remain vivid. But those things happened becauseChina was weak. Now it is a major power in the world (not as major as it might have been without the crippling curse o f communism, but important still), and it ought to start acting like one. That means standing up for your rights when they have in fact been violated, but it also means behaving maturely and appropriately in other situations— following international norms when an accident happens, rather thanengaging in bombastic bluster, and responding to criticism with reasoned defenses. 6
As the quotation above indicates, some Americans blamed China’s legacy of
Communism for its “brutish behavior.” Similarly, one of the US’ foremost voices on
proper international behavior, William Safire, had plenty to say about China’s lack of
civility and its Communist background.
The Chinese reaction to what is so obviously an accident reveals a standard cold- war Communist mindset... Hold our crew incommunicado and then, against all civilized custom, treat them as prisoners. ... Finally, the most significant Chinese reaction at the highest level was: ... Humiliate the United States in Asian eyes by demanding an official apology. An
635Moreover, some observers accused both sides of being immature. Consider the criticism of both states in the cover title of the 20 April 2001 edition ofAsiaweek, “Asia to Superpowers: Grow Up!”
636“Mature Nations Don’t Throw Temper Fits,” Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 5 April 2001; emphasis added.
637Thomas L. Friedman, “Sorry About That,” New York Times, 6 April 2001.
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expression o f regret or sorrow at the loss o f life would not suffice', Beijing made clear that only an abject confession o f being in the wrong, followed by a Clintonesque apology, would do. ... The welcome news is how the Chinese leadership is inflicting great damage on its strategic purposes. Its uncoordinated overreaction to the accident— especially its foolish demand that the U.S. grovel —is a gift to geopolitical realists here and a blow to softie Sinologists and amoral business interests .638
In addition, a sense was conveyed frequently that one’s side was rational and
reasonable while the other was being extremely demanding and irrational. As another
American editorial argued, “there has been an excess o f hyperbole and a dearth of
diplomatic reserve from the other side.”639 Similarly, it was stated that “Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell is rightly setting a measured and low-key tone in dealing with
China, while Beijing is making some histrionic hay of the incident.”640 Furthermore,
Any rational interpretation of what happened would conclude that it was an accident, something that shouldn’t be unforeseen in situations in which one country’s fast jet fighters intercept another country’s slow-moving surveillance aircraft and engage in a macho game o f “chicken .”641
Again, there also is a gendered dimension to these exchanges. Consider an
editorial that states that “the challenge now is to keep this incident from escalating into a
testosterone spill that could poison U.S.-Chinese relations, spur an arms race and raise
the risk of war.”642 Comments that the Chinese seemed “hysterical” or the incident was
638Safire, “The Politics o f Apology”; emphasis added.
639“U.S. Vs. China: The Challenge for Bush is to Stand Firm without Letting This Incident Escalate,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 4 April 2001; emphasis added.
640“Keep the Focus on Spy Plane Crew,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April 2001; emphasis added.
^ '“Mature Nations Don’t Throw Temper Fits”; emphasis added.
642“U.S. Vs. China”; emphasis added.
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threatening to spiral into a “testosterone spill” indicate once again the subliminal sense
that the different sides are displaying “macho” strength or feminized frailty.
Bullying and the Desire for Retribution
Another frequent charge was that the other side was acting like a bully. For
example, Wang Xiaodong claimed that the US bullies China because the PRC is not
democratic. This view is not rare. “‘America always bullies us ,’ complained another
[Chinese]. ‘And our reaction is too weak. We must do something to make America
suffer. ”’643 In particular, many Chinese saw a similarity to the 1999 bombing of the
Chinese embassy in Belgrade. In the words of one student, “‘The boys at our school are
quite upset,’ said Bo Liu, a graduate student in linguistics in Chengdu. ‘All o f us draw a
straight line between Hainan and Belgrade. People here want blood.”'644
Consider also the widespread presence of bellicose web pages and chat room
postings on the Internet. Citizens from both countries were claiming, in so many words,
to have an itch to clean the other side’s clock. On the American side, for instance, one
posting on a Yahoo board on April 3 suggested the following: “Blockade their ports with
submarines. Blow up their dams with cruise missiles. It is time to take the gloves off. I
support George W. Bush in any force that must be used against China. Give them pain
and get our plane.”645
643MacLeod, “Chinese Nationalism Prevalent in Reaction”; emphasis added.
^Pomfret, “Chinese Driven by Anger, Pride,” A01.
645Quoted in Swaroopa Iyengar, “China Posters Spew on Spy Snafu,” Wired News, 5 April 2001, accessed 16 February 2006, http://www.wired.com/news/politics/l,42818-0.html.
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Also, many mock apologies and other jokes at China’s expense were circulated
widely on the Internet. For example, one version states, “We sympathize with your need
to translate any and all portion of this letter as if it means turning the phrase ‘we did
nothing wrong and wish you weren’t so paranoid’ into ‘we prostrate ourselves before
your mightiness and beseech your forgiveness.’”646 The anger and half-serious “humor”
expressed on both sides seems to indicate a false sense of bravado, brought on by a sense
of powerlessness from watching the events unfold. Ordinary citizens generally do not
have much direct say in what their government does in foreign relations.
Both Sides Play Games
Therefore, it is not surprising that both sides accused the other of “playing
games.”647 As Robert Putnam has pointed out, however, such “games” have both
domestic and international dimensions. For example, Chinese intellectuals tended to
stress, albeit quietly and with a certain sense of resignation, the problem of the US being
in charge of dictating “the rules of the game” in international relations. More particularly,
they mentioned that the plane collision was inevitable given the changing relationship
between China, a rising and therefore “revisionist” state, and the US, the status quo
646Joel Achenbach, “Sorry? You Want Sorry? We’ll Give You Sorry,” The Washington Post, 13 April 2001, C01.
647Among Americans, see Michael R. Gordon, “Military Analysis: ‘A Dangerous Game,”’ New York Times, 3 April 2001, 1; James Hackett, “Chinese Hardball Game,” The Washington Times, 3 April 2001, 14; Kurt M. Campbell, “Old Game, New Risks: In the Cold War, the Rules Were Clear. Not So with China,” The Washington Post, 8 April 2001, B l; Suzanne Fields, “Game of Diplomacy,” The Washington Times, 16 April 2001; Larry Wortzel, “Plane Game Olympics,” The Washington Times, 27 April 2001; James T. Hackett, “Beijing Testing Bush Over Willingness to Play Hardball,”Insight on the News 17, 16 (30 April 2001), 44-45.
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power. In scuffles like the Hainan incident, the goal would be to try to determine which
“game” was being played.
Meanwhile, at a domestic level, Chinese ministries had different agendas as to
how the incident evolved. In the case of the PLA, one Chinese official noted that the
American crew was “a bargaining chip ” both in regards to the US and the rest of the
Chinese government.649 However, China also had to deal with the rising expectations of
its people as to its strength. For example, one Beijing designer claimed, “You Americans
are just too high-handed. When China gets stronger, you won’t dare play these
games.”650 Together, such statements indicate the increasing amount of domestic
pressure that President Jiang was facing. “‘Jiang really doesn’t have many cards to play ,’
said one Chinese political analyst... ‘By setting his price so high for the Americans —
an apology — he is probably going to fail, whatever the outcome.’”651
Similarly, President Bush was caught between pro-business and “national security
hard-liners” in his own party. Those who viewed China as a threat were by far the
648Of course, “reality” is not so clear. One does not necessarily know what game is being played, what benefits or punishments will be given for a certain behavior, how a behavior will be read and responded to, and so forth. Sometimes the experts appeared to be referring to Robert Putnam’s article on two-level games and game theory more generally at others. Wittgenstein’s “language games” also is a possible but unlikely contender. Last, there was reference again to power transition theory. Regardless o f the theoretical framework, all of these interpretations promote interest in how such transactions “play out.”
^Quoted in Pomfret, “Chinese Driven by Anger, Pride,” A01; emphasis added.
650Quoted in Ibid.; emphasis added.
651Pomfret, “Jiang Caught in Middle on Standoff,” A01; emphasis added.
652King et al., “Crisis Forces Bush to Balance Clashing China-Policy Camps.”
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more vocal group, accusing the PRC of engaging in a “dangerous aerial cat-and-mouse
game” and “brinksmanship.”
An Unusually Diplomatic George W. Bush
Given that pressure, one question that may not be answered until historical
records are made available is why Secretary of State Colin Powell was allowed to take
the lead in how the American side responded to the crisis. After all, the State Department
usually was marginalized during Powell’s tenure there. What could explain this unusual
level of his activity? Was it because this event occurred prior to 11 September 2001? Or
was it due to the influence of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on President
George W. Bush?
Available evidence suggests that the incident occurred at such an early stage in
the Bush administration that few political appointees were in place to address the
situation. Instead, career foreign service officers and Clinton appointees, such as
Ambassador Prueher, were responsible for handling the crisis.654
An additional factor was the significant role of National Security Advisor
Condoleeza Rice, President George W. Bush’s right-hand woman. Rice had an unusual
amount of access to the president and, according to accounts of Bush’s foreign policy
decision-making style, was responsible for giving President Bush private summaries of
653Rosenthal with Sanger, “U.S. Plane in China.”; “Brinksmanship in the Sky,” Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2001, A24.
654Gill, Press Briefing: “The Surveillance Plane Crisis.”
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the arguments for and against a certain choice. Bush then would expect Rice to advise
him as to a plan of action. Given the Bush administration’s general preference for
muscular response over diplomacy, it is possible that Rice played an important
intervening and—in this case—moderating role.
Furthermore, Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, also probably
counseled restraint. A previous ambassador to China, the elder Bush had significant
experience dealing with the PRC as did his staff, such as General Brent Scowcroft, his
national security advisor and one of the mentors of Condoleeza Rice.655
Last, there is the sense that the other possible options would be far too costly to
bear. For example, President Carter was pilloried for the botched rescue mission for the
Iranian hostages. Any attempt to gain the release of the crew by force could make
matters much worse.
Who Won?
Once the crew had returned to the US, Americans and Chinese speculated widely
as to which side had “won” this particular game.656 Indeed, there was a common
perception among many that the plane collision incident had devolved into a zero-sum
655According to Susan Page, George W. Bush did not like the speculation that he would rely on his father for advice on China. Spokesman Ari Fleischer was instructed to keep private any conversations between George W. and George H.W. Bush during the crisis. See Susan Page, “China Eases Tension, But Crisis May Still Define Bush,” USA Today, 5 April 2001, 1.
656For the “China lost” position, see Charles Krauthammer, “Two Very Sorries...” For the opposite view, see Kagan and Kristol, “We Lost”; Jake Tapper, “Critics: Bush Caved to China,”Salon.com, 13 April 2001; and Edward N. Luttwak, “The Advantage Goes to Chinese Militarists,” Los Angeles Times, 12 April 2001. Meanwhile, still others claimed that it was more of a draw, such as Peggy Noonan, “Both Sides Blink,” Wall Street Journal, 12 April 2001.
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game in which one side’s loss would be the other side’s gain. As a group, such
commentary also tended to share the assumption that diplomacy is rooted in the art of
CC‘7 semantics—which included “verbal fudging” or even “lying” if necessary to retrieve
the twenty-four servicemen and women.
Some analysts pointed out that while the Bush administration claims that an
official apology was not given, enough of an impression of an apology was given to bring
the crisis to resolution. Furthermore, compensation also was expected but not given.
Therefore, Bush won this game. Meanwhile, Kevin Avruch and Zheng Wang assert that
given the use of “constructive ambiguity” in translating the letter of “very sorries,” both
sides were able to “prevail” in some way, thereby allowing almost a “win-win”
solution.658
However, most American neo-conservatives viewed the incident as a significant
loss. According to religious neo-conservative Gary Bauer, “They paid no price for this,
and they’ve still got the plane.”659 Robert Kagan and William Kristol agreed, arguing
that
...we have suffered a blow to our prestige and reputation, a loss that will reverberate throughout the world if we do not begin immediately to repair the damage. The problem is not merely that we have lost face —though the Chinese are right to believe that great powers should place a high value on their reputation.
657Robert G. Kaiser, “What We Said, What They Said, What’s Unsaid,” The Washington Post, 15 April 2001, B01.
658Avruch and Wang, 350.
659Excerpt quoted from the Dallas Morning News in Howard Kurtz, “Deconstructing Bush’s China Compromise,” The Washington Post, 12 April 2001, 10 AM, accessed 13 April 2001, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10049-2001Aprl2?language=printer.
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.. .China must now pay a price forits appalling and bellicose behavior. The point is not to exact vengeance. ... The point is to make clear to the Chinese government that this kind of muscle-flexing and flagrant violation o f international norms cannot be tolerated, and will not be rewarded or excused.660
According to this line of reasoning, China’s “cold reality” and manipulation must be
contained.661
Of course, all of these interpretations also were voiced in the PRC, which
indicates the ambiguity of the outcome. Again, both Americans and Chinese generally
saw their own government’s response and position as being weak and the other’s as
relatively strong. Also, each tended to blame the other country for instigating the crisis.
In addition, both sides seemed to view the other as being highly cunning—even to the
point at which some claimed that the other side had deliberately humiliated them.662
Conflicting Accounts
Clearly, the problem of diametrically opposed accounts as to “what took place”
arose again.663 The largest gap in interpretation was whether the American or Chinese
pilot ultimately was responsible for the collision. On the one hand, Chinese citizens had
660Kagan and Kristol, “We Lost”; emphasis added.
“ 'For example, see Rowan Scarborough, “Incident Seen Giving ‘Reality Check’ on Chinese,” The Washington Times, 5 April 2001, 10; “The Cold Reality of China,” Chicago Tribune, 12 April 2001; James R. Lilley and Arthur Waldron, “The End of Illusions,” Wall Street Journal, 12 April 2001; Constantine C. Menges, “China: Myths vs. Reality,” The Washington Times, 12 April 2001; Jim Hoagland, “China, Revealing Its True Nature,”The Washington Post, 22 April 2001, B07.
662Again, a variation o f this reading was that the other actually was irrational and unable to “listen to reason.”
663John Gittings and Julian Borger, “Conflicting Stories of How the Aircraft Collided: War of Words: Washington and Beijing Set Out Their Versions,” The Guardian, 4 April 2001.
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been told by their country’s newspapers, radio, and television outlets that the American
plane had struck their fighter jet.664 The reverse was true in the US. Also, both
governments produced videotaped footage to back their claims that the other side’s
planes had been flying aggressively.
One intervening factor is that of the perspective of those reporting the incident as
word choice and tone affect the construction of the event. For instance, various
American accounts of the Hainan event mentioned that the “crippled” EP-3E plane had to
make a “forced landing,” a more emotionally charged description than those who
mentioned that the “damaged” plane had to make merely an “emergency landing.”
Meanwhile, Chinese and American media sources, foreign policy experts, and citizens
usually referred to the EP-3E as a “spy plane,” although some within the American
military took pains to call it a “surveillance” or “reconnaissance” plane instead.665 In the
US, there were questions from early on as to whether the twenty-four servicemen and
women were “hostages” or “detainees,” although Chinese officials protested the use of
either term.666 As the crisis persisted, such words as “stalemate,” “standoff,” or “high-
stakes face-off’ were used to describe the situation. (\(\1
^ “Evidence is Sufficient: US Spy Plane at Fault,”China Daily, 20 April 2001. However, it should be noted that, once again, many Chinese had access to Western media sources such as Yahoo via the Internet so that they could compare the different accounts for themselves.
“ TJS citizens and pundits tended to dismiss the charge that their military was spying, either saying that “all countries do it.”
“ ‘’Susan Page, “‘H’ Word May Soon Surface,” USA Today, 9 April 2001, 10.
667“U.S. Vs. China.”
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What is most striking, however, is the amount of polarization that occurred given
that this incident was a dispute instead of war. Moreover, ambiguity remains as to how
the outcome of the 2001 plane collision incident should be viewed. Was it a win, lose, or
draw for China and the US? Given the wide range of opinion, it remains a highly
debatable issue to this day. It is the opinion of this author, however, that while the crisis
was ended by means of pragmatic ambiguity—it was not resolved so much as it ended in
a draw —with damage done to the bilateral relationship and a legacy of mutual
misunderstanding and distrust.
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CONCLUSION: APOLOGY, IDENTITY, AND HISTORICAL MEMORY:
NAVIGATING CRISES IN SINO-AMERICAN RELATIONS
All tolled, several puzzles have emerged from these crises between the US and
PRC. For one, it is striking that these two incidents provoked such opposite national
understandings of what took place—over disputes instead of situations of war. Second,
there is the question of why apologies were so contested in these events and in
international relations more generally. Third, one wonders how US debates over China
became so polarized and stagnant. Let us consider each of these issues in turn, first
discussing the contradictory national interpretations of these two episodes.
Differing National Accounts and Historical Memories
It generally is well appreciated in conflict resolution circles that the history of a
particular conflict should be taken into account. Unfortunately, the so-called “objective
facts of the case”—those points in mutual history that meet with general agreement
among the interested parties—may be few and far between. Instead, one finds the
presence of divergent accounts, or common narratives shared intersubjectively by the
different sides of the conflict. These “predominant narratives” can be diametrically
opposed in terms of their understanding of “the facts”—which factors and points in
history are of particular importance, usually focusing upon the when, where, how, and
258
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/ / r o why that one’s side was egregiously wronged. As this dissertation indicates, the
problem of reconciling bifurcated narratives even may be seen in smaller-scale disputes
and crises, such as the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy and 2001 Hainan
incidents.
Both episodes reflect issues of communal identity processes and understandings
of historical memory—for example, how communities are defined as sovereign,
territorial entities, and how those boundaries are sustained. After all, one of the strange
commonalities between the embassy bombing and EP-3E events was that while there was
significant debate, generally there was consensus according to national identity as to
“what happened” and what should be done as a result.669
Historical issues should be clarified as part of this analysis since particular
memories of previous incidents help provide a guide to action. After all, “Identities and
memories are not things we think about, but things we think with. As such they have no
existence beyond our politics, our social relations, and our histories.”• f \ 7ft Given • the
shaping power of identity and historical memory, let us investigate the ways in which
interpretations of history guided the unfolding of these episodes.
^ F or example, consider Benjamin Broome’s article on the Cyprus conflict in which he contrasts a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot’s views of what has taken place. Benjamin J. Broome, “Views from the Other Side: Perspectives on the Cyprus Conflict,” inReadings in Intercultural Communication: Experiences and Contexts (2nd ed.), eds. Judith N. Martin, Thomas K. Nakayama, and Lisa A. Flores (New York: McGraw-Hill: 2002), 101-112. Generally, conflict resolution experts advise that the different sides try to create a mutually acceptable history— one that brings forth the variations in accounts and begins to try to confront them.
669In the case of the predominant Chinese interpretation, see David Rennie, “Chinese People Riled by Outcome,” The Washington Times, 12 April 2001.
670Gillis, 5; emphasis in original.
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In general, there was little overlap in terms of the historical analogies that were
evoked during these crises. Of course, the most notable exception is that both sides
accused the other of behaving like Nazi-era Germany.
Germany and World War II
For example, after the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, some
Chinese protesters carried posters that caricatured President Clinton as having a Hitler-
type mustache. Similarly, a prominent Chinese editorial compared US foreign policy
to Nazi Germany’s.672
Of course, Americans have been comparing the PRC to Nazi Germany for
decades now. Even some international observers pointed out the possible connection
during the 2001 plane collision crisis.
“My country right or wrong” went out of fashion as a creed in the U.S. after the Vietnam War, but in China it is a fair description of the public mood. This early sign offanatical patriotism has led some to suggest that a combination of economic development and social dislocation, whichproduced fascist regimes in Tokyo and Berlin in the 1930s, is having a similar effect in today’s Beijing.673
While both Chinese and Americans made reference to Nazi-era Germany,
however, the “lesson” of Munich is of singular importance to Americans and other
671For example, see the images accompanying such articles as “Bombs in Belgrade, Bricks in Beijing,” The Economist, 15 May 1999, 41, and Duncan Hewitt, “Beijing Backing Belgrade,” BBC News, 4 May 1999, 18:05 GMT, accessed 1 March 2004, http: /news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/world/asia- pacific/905495.stm.
672Suettinger, 375.
673Hugh Restall, “China’s ‘Victimhood’ Breeds Aggression,” Wall Street Journal, 4 April 2001, A20; emphasis added. Arguably, some themes similar to “my country right or wrong” reemerged in the US after the events o f 11 September 2001.
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Westerners. With both the 1999 and 2001 crises, American newspapers were filled with
editorials that argued that the US should not “appease” China674—a code word for 1938
Munich. For most Americans, “caving in” and “appeasing” Chinese demands would be
unacceptable, both because of the issue of creating historical and legal precedent as well
as the possible moral taint from doing so. Moreover, its supporters argue that this
approach prevents war.
Needless to say, we do not seek war with China. That is what advocates of appeasement always say about those who argue for standing up to an international bully. But it is the appeasers who wind up leading us into war. We have been calling for the active containment of China for the past six years precisely because we think it is the only way to keep the peace.675
Not only is it unwise to appease rapacious dictators, the argument goes,
Americans have a moral obligation not to do so. Therefore, the path to peace is through
unwavering rhetorical and material strength. Of course, the downside of such a stance is
that it promotes the frequent use of brinksmanship to deter each new “Hitler” on the
horizon.
The Cold War and Communism
The US’ Cold War legacy also helped shape Americans’ interpretations of these
crises by heightening fears of the PRC, the largest remaining Communist state in the
674William Kristol and Robert Kagan, “Call Off the Engagement,” The Weekly Standard, 24 May 1999, 9-10. Also Ted Galen Carpenter, “Appeasing China, Humiliating Ourselves: The Administrations [sic] Wrong Approach,” National Review Online, 14 August 2000, accessed 25 August 2000, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment081400b.shtml.
675Robert Kagan and William Kristol, “A National Humiliation,” The Weekly Standard, 16 April/23 April 2001, 11; emphasis added.
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world. As with the USSR, American attitudes toward China have been colored to a
certain extent by fear of Communism as well as by a Christian desire to spread
civilization beyond the US’ borders.676 Cold War interactions during the Korean and
Vietnam Wars also have shaped national attitudes negatively toward the other.
Since the end of the Cold War, both the US and PRC had been trying to redefine
their geo-strategic identities in terms of their largest threats. However, in terms of these
two crises, the US generally was the side accused of operating according to a “Cold War
mentality.” After all, while the US faced numerous other international threats, only the
PRC “fit” this preexisting interpretive framework.
Thus, despite significant economic interdependence, both governments were
under pressure from their respective citizens with both incidents to show their strength
and avoid backing down. Thus, after the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy, some
American foreign policy experts, such as Henry Kissinger, warned against considering
China a new global enemy along the lines of the Soviet Union.• f t 77 Similar • • concerns were
raised about the US in the wake of the 2001 plane collision. An additional complication
was that the 1999 embassy bombing created an atmosphere of mutual suspicion which
made resolution of the 2001 plane collision incident all the more difficult to achieve.
676Madsen, China and the American Dream.
677Henry Kissinger, “Storm Clouds Gathering: The Unnecessary Rush toward Confrontation Must Be Reversed by Both China and the United States,” The Washington Post, 7 September 1999, A 19.
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Rising after the Hundred-Year National Humiliation
One key difference between the US and PRC is that Chinese people are acutely
aware of their country’s “hundred-years of humiliation” at the hands of major powers.
According to this account, China’s humiliation began with the Opium War of 1839-42
when it tried to stand up to the British. At the time, the British were plying opium to the
Chinese as part of a strategy to reorient the balance of payments in their government’s
favor. Unfortunately, with China’s eventual defeat and the Treaty of Nanking in 1842,
China was subject to the first in a series of “unfair treaties” with the West, all designed to
force it open to trade in terms suitable to different “imperialist powers.” The Sino-
Japanese War of 1894-95 and the subsequent Treaty of Shimonoseki caused the next
episode of national shame, as China was forced to cede Taiwan, the Pescadore Islands,
and part of southern Manchuria, as well as give up all claims to Korea, open more ports
to the Japanese, and pay a significant indemnity. The most notable remaining
humiliations consist of the treatment of China in the Treaty of Versailles and the Second
Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45, including the Rape of Nanking. Only with the victory of
Mao Zedong and the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, it is said, did
this time period end.
Given this historical legacy of degradation, it is no wonder that Chinese
nationalism has become such a significant force. Much as the Holocaust led to calls that
“never again” should such an outrage be allowed to occur in human history, Chinese
citizens are determined never to let China be subject to foreign powers again. Moreover,
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the Chinese government will not let them forget this aspect of their history, especially in
reference to the island of Taiwan.
As Communism has become increasingly irrelevant to everyday life in China
since Mao’s death, Chinese nationalism has stepped into the void. As many China
watchers have noted, the group of “China Can Say No” books in the late 1990s tapped
into Chinese chauvinism and resentment against exploitation by foreigners, and also
indicate anger that the Chinese government has yielded too much, too often, to outside
c*70 forces, thereby hurting national dignity. Added to these intense emotions is a sense of
humiliation, paranoia, and indignation that China is not given its due on an international
level.
Therefore it should be underscored that the 1999 embassy bombing and 2001
plane collision incidents did not take place between equals. For while the PRC is
considered by many to be a rising regional hegemon, it cannot match the military might
of the world’s sole superpower, the US. Furthermore, the PRC primarily was the
aggrieved party in these two crises—the 1999 reprisals against the American Embassy in
Beijing and other consulates and the detention of the EP-3E crew and plane
notwithstanding.679
As interpreted by many Chinese, however, China’s impotence was demonstrated
in both the NATO and EP-3E incidents. After all, the PRC was not able to defend itself
678Fitzgerald, 47.
679However, some have made the case that the US was the wronged party in the Hainan collision. There also are American complaints that both incidents provided a wealth o f intelligence information for the PRC (“China Displays Embassy Raid Bomb,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 February 2001, 10).
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against the transgression of its sovereign boundaries, whether the embassy in 1999 or the
tarmac on Hainan Island in 2001. These gendered “wounds” of the body politic provided
reminders of China’s historic subjugation by various imperial powers, including the
United States.680 Furthermore, these incidents only reinforced stereotyped images of a
feminized and racialized East, victimized by the masculine West. This subconsciously
masculinist interpretation of these events may explain why US-China apology debates
potentially are so intractable—both sides want to evoke strong male images.
Given the PRC’s continued authoritarian leadership, the nationalist outrage
expressed by ordinary Chinese citizens and foreign policy analysts alike took the form of
indirect criticism of their leaders.681 As indicated earlier, some Chinese interviewees
argued that Mao Zedong or even Deng Xiaoping would not have tolerated such
provocations. Indeed, it is no mistake that “some students chanted ‘Long Live Chairman
Mao!’ during the demonstrations” against NATO countries in 1999. According to one
university student demonstrator, ‘“Mao was the only Chinese leader who really dared to
(LO*) stand up to anyone... He was afraid of no one.’”
In contrast, China’s third generation of leadership, under Jiang Zemin, was
viewed as weak and unimpressive; unable or unwilling to “stand up” to the US, the
680Chang, Return of the Dragon.
681Interviews o f ordinary Chinese indicated that, after President Abraham Lincoln, Clinton was rated second highest in terms of the American whom they admired. In contrast, George W. Bush was rated the most-disliked American. Of course, most Chinese expressed conviction that, even under Clinton in the 1990s, the US increasingly has been trying to impose its hegemonic vision and will on the rest o f the world, as evidenced by Chinese disapproval of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in the Balkans.
682Faison, “Rage at U.S. Is Sign of Deeper Issues.”
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world’s hegemon.683 Instead, in acknowledgment of its economic interdependence with
the US and relative lack of military power, China’s leadership and citizens tried to win
the argument on moral and symbolic grounds by attempting to get the US to apologize—
what some have called its “apology diplomacy.”684
Tiananmen Square 1989
Meanwhile, some more recent and briefer historical incidents also affected how
the crises unfolded. For example, the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy took
place at an unusually meaningful and tense time in Chinese history, the tenth anniversary
of the Tiananmen Square incident. Actually, one could argue that the 1989 Tiananmen
Square incident took place at a historically significant time, since China has a history of
May Fourth movements—times when university students and other intelligentsia have
engaged in nationalistic protests.
While the Tiananmen incident is symbolically significant to American self-
images too—indeed, Richard Madsen and others have argued that it has become the
central reference point for most Americans regarding China—these interpretations of the
event are not equivalent. For one, most Americans do not know about the legacy of other
nationalistic student protests in China. Also, Americans tend to idealize the protesters of
1989 as young “pro-democracy” demonstrators and view them as emulating the United
683See Todd Crowell and David Hsien, “Growing Backlash in China: Leftists and Rightists Criticize ‘Soft’ Leadership,” Asiaweek, 11 June 1999, 24. With the 2001 Hainan incident, see Craig S. Smith, “Students’ Unease over Weakness Could Threaten Beijing’s Leaders,”The New York Times, 6 April 2001.
684Gries, China's New Nationalism, 89.
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States.685 This widely held belief made the sight of enraged Chinese students protesting
against the US in 1999 difficult to fathom at first—until suspicions arose that the
Communist state was stage-managing the entire spectacle. Most Americans did not
realize that many of the Chinese supporters of the 1989 and 1999 demonstrations were
the same people.
The Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-81
As mentioned earlier, some PRC-based foreign policy experts were mystified
with the US for its decision to go public with the 2001 plane collision incident near
Hainan Island. However, it is likely that American officials were thinking partially in
reference to the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81 in which diplomats in the US embassy in
Iran were imprisoned by revolutionaries. US President Jimmy Carter was faced with
mounting public criticism for appearing so ineffectual in the face of this crisis, and
eventually lost his bid for re-election. While the Iran hostage crisis was not mentioned
explicitly, a code word, “hostages,” was used by critics of the Bush administration to
connote this incident. Also, it is no accident that yellow ribbons began to appear given
the emotional connection to this and other historical incidents involving American
hostages and prisoners of war.
With the plane collision incident, American officials were concerned about their
crew and the lack of contact with them after their arrival on the island. Chances are that
if only one American pilot was detained, the US might have acted quite differently.
685Madsen, China and the American Dream.
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However, the fact that there were twenty-four men and women in the crew likely
influenced American leaders’ decision-making calculus. Moreover, there had been
mounting tensions with the Chinese over recent “buzzing” incidents with Chinese fighter
jets during other surveillance missions.
Last, but not least, a new administration was in place. President George W. Bush
previously had denounced Clinton’s “strategic partnership” with the PRC during the
election campaign. His supporters tended to believe that he would not “appease” China
the way that Clinton had, so he was under pressure not to disappoint their expectations.
All in all, American and Chinese historical contexts were so different that it made
mutual comprehension incredibly difficult to achieve. Instead, simplistic and negative
attributions were made that painted the other in the worst possible light.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, one of the oddest aspects about the 2001
plane collision was that it was a dispute that spiraled out of control—one that normally
would have not been broadcast either to the American or Chinese public. Perhaps
historical memory is to blame for this crisis. After all, Chinese citizens and foreign
policy experts were outraged by this latest incursion on what was viewed as Chinese
airspace. They viewed this incident in the context not only of the 1999 embassy bombing,
but also the hundred-year humiliation. Thus, perhaps this incident was interpreted almost
as part o f a greater conflict, the chain of humiliating wars, unfair treaties, and other
insults inflicted upon China by Western imperialists and Japan since 1839.
Clearly, lack of awareness of another nation’s historical memories can lead to
significant misunderstandings. As indicated above, the American and Chinese frames of
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historical reference and cultural understanding were almost entirely different. Given the
importance of national identity in how the 1999 embassy bombing and 2001 plane
collision incidents were interpreted, let us now consider historical memory more directly.
National Identity and Historical Memory
The literature on what alternately is called public, social, historical or political
memory is vast, but not well integrated across disciplines. Of most importance here are
the “political aspects of social remembering and forgetting.” As noted above, nations
generally do not have a “bias-free” view of history. Rather, national identities are
associated with a selective recall of history. According to John Gillis, “National
identities are, like everything historical, constructed and reconstructed; and it is our
responsibility to decode them in order to discover the relationships they create and
sustain.”687
For example, M. Lane Bruner refers to Friedrich Nietzsche’s discussion of three
types of history, including the one of most salience for the purposes of this dissertation,
“monumental history.” This kind of history is designed to construct “a past ‘worthy of
imitating,’” one that is used “as an incentive to action.”688
686Patrick Devine-Wright, “A Theoretical Overview o f Memory and Conflict,” Thein Role of Memory in Ethnic Conflict, eds. Ed Cairns and Micheal D. Roe (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 14.
687Gillis, 4.
688M. Lane Bruner, Strategies of Remembrance: The Rhetorical Dimensions of National Identity Construction (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002), 8; emphasis in original.
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State and public leaders, intent on fabricating a commonly held account of who are “the people” that can be called upon in times of crisis to mobilize publics, engage in monumental history to suppress contradictory aspects of a nation’s history and to create widespread support for preferred policies.689
One could argue that both the US and PRC’s leaders have promoted monumental
senses of their respective national histories to create social cohesion, depending on the
needs of the day. However, Bruner argues that neither a romantic, naturalized view of
national identity from the “grassroots up” or an instrumentalist take of the same as “top
down” is enough. Rather, both citizens and their leaders are engaged in the continual
process of forging national identity.690
Historical memory also helps explain why the different parties were emotional
about particular issues. For the US as well as other NATO member states, the 1999
bombing of the Chinese embassy was an embarrassment. It undermined their argument
that their military intervention in the Balkans was just. Therefore, the destruction of the
Chinese embassy was characterized as unfortunate “collateral damage” from war.
With the 2001 plane collision incident, meanwhile, the American crew and plane
took on heroic dimensions in the US. Both the airplane and crew had patriotic secrets to
keep. The lack of moment-to-moment knowledge of their wellbeing intensified most
Americans’ feelings of concern as well as pride in the US’ first-class armed forces, and
sometimes even defiance toward the Chinese. The detention of the crew and plane also
underscored the US government’s arguments that the surveillance plane had every right
689Ibid.
690Ibid„ 92.
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to be flying over the international waters off the Chinese coast and such missions should
continue.
In the case of China, meanwhile, it may be important to consider whether the
ever-present memory of the hundred-year humiliation has created a sense that the
Chinese have been victimized collectively. In general situations of protracted intergroup
conflict,
As the number of human losses grows, societies develop beliefs about being victimised by the opponent. These beliefs focus on the losses, deaths, the harm, the evil and atrocities committed by the adversary while they delegate the responsibility for the violence solely to the ‘other’. This self-perception focuses on the sad and wretched fate of the group and frames its victims as martyrs. The dead and wounded become the salient, concrete evidence of the group’s status as a victim.691
While these passages were written in the context of violent ethnic conflict, they
help clarify the interactive dynamics of these incidents. Namely, consider the amount of
Chinese media and government attention given to and heartfelt—sometimes even
maudlin—national grieving for such figures as the three journalists in the Chinese
embassy in Belgrade and Wang Wei, the pilot killed in the plane collision. All four
citizens became official martyrs of the state and their families’ grief was highly
publicized during official meetings and ceremonies arranged with Chinese heads of state.
These martyrs’ actions ensured that their ultimate patriotic sacrifice for the motherland
would not be forgotten.
China’s national mourning and anger make more sense when compared to some
of the general dynamics of historical memory.
69IBar-Tal, 86.
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Group members are deeply and emotionally touched when compatriots are killed and wounded, especially when the loss is sudden, untimely and intentionally inflicted by other persons. .. .in the case of violent, intergroup conflict, even when those killed are not personally known, the personal relevance of the human losses is intensified. The killed and/or wounded are perceived as compatriots, kin, as group members, who have been harmed. ... They are considered as society’s martyrs, because they fell as a result of societal cause. .. .the loss of compatriots frequently turns the conflict into relevant experience for many society members. It is so, because many issues of disagreement between the parties in conflict are difficult to understand and are irrelevant to the lives of society members, but death of compatriots is an experience that concerns every society member and turns the conflict into concrete reality. The conflict then becomes a relevant part of society members’ lives and absorbs a new personal meaning.692
Of course, the question of intentionality and motive is a difficult one to answer. In both
cases, the US’ leaders claimed not to have intended such accidents to happen. The
relevant matter here is that the Chinese public and government interpreted these incidents
as intentional.
Similarly, there is the phenomenon of the calls within China for vengeance
against the US and NATO with the 1999 embassy bombing. During the demonstrations
in front of the US embassy in Beijing, a number of posters carried the words “Blood for
blood” and “An eye for an eye.” Parallel sentiments were expressed after the 2001 plane
collision, including Internet chat room postings that expressed the desire to avenge the
deaths of the journalists in 1999.693 Human losses increase polarization between groups
as well as in-group cohesion. Moreover, if the aggrieved group detects a lack of
692Ibid., 80-81; emphasis added.
693Calum MacLeod, “Chinese Nationalism Prevalent in Reaction,” The Washington Times, 6 April 2001.
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acknowledgment of these losses by the other side, their anger and the situation will
escalate. As Daniel Bar-Tal explains,
Killings within the context of intergroup conflict serve as a basis for vengeful acts. ‘An eye for an eye’ is a basic norm in many societies, and may even be considered a moral requirement. That is, the society’s members feel an obligation to harm physically members of the group in conflict, in retribution for the inflicted violence. Thus, once group members are killed, it is difficult to settle the conflict peacefully, before avenging those killed. .. .vengeance is perceived as a matter of national or ethnic obligation, an expression of responsibility to those that were killed. It is, therefore, seen even as a matter of national honour to punish the opponent, so as to ‘prevent’ future losses by showing the perpetrator that violence against the group will not be tolerated.694
Now that some of the theoretical dimensions of historical memory have been
discussed, let us turn to the interviewees’ interpretations of what took place and what
these views signify.
The “Real” Issues
Foreign policy experts as well as a few citizens claimed that apologies were not
the key to understanding these disputes. Rather, it was argued that other, more
significant issues exerted a magnetic pull, influencing how the crises unfolded like the
moon affects the tides.
The “Real Issue” Is Taiwan
For one, the larger conflict over Taiwan probably is the backdrop against which
these incidents should be considered. Shortly after the EP-3E incident in 2001, President
694Bar-Tal, 82-83.
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George W. Bush made the inflammatory comment that the US would do “whatever it
takes” to defend Taiwan—with the implicit understanding that the PRC was the likely
aggressor. This statement conflicted with the decades-long use of “strategic ambiguity”
in regard to Taiwan—a stance that that did not explicitly stand in the way of the PRC’s
claim of sovereignty over Taiwan, but by no means ruled out defending Taiwan in case of
a Chinese attack. The switch in diplomatic recognition from Taiwan, ROC to the
People’s Republic of China in 1972 was controversial. Indeed, many American officials’
personal loyalties remained with Taiwan.
Not surprisingly, Taiwan’s future is viewed as more central to the tension in Sino-
American relations than either of the two particular crises studied here. In particular,
Chinese people seem to view it as interference in their “sovereign, internal affairs” for the
US to sell weapons each year to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).
At one point, one foreign policy expert in the US even went so far as to exclaim
that “Taiwan is a stupid problem!” Upon further questioning, I realized that he was
implying that, if American, Taiwanese, and most particularly Chinese officials remained
cool-headed and rational, the situation could be negotiated to political resolution.
Unfortunately, protracted conflict rarely is that simple.
One of the commonplaces of escalated conflict is the sense of one or more parties
that the other side is “irrational” or “won’t listen to reason.” Thus it is no surprise that
interviews revealed frequent exasperation among Americans as to Chinese behavior
during these crises as well as with the Taiwan issue. In terms of the 1999 embassy
bombing and 2001 EP-3E incidents, Chinese officials insisted upon a full apology and
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American acceptance of responsibility in both situations. Second, Americans reported
that the Chinese demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to view these incidents
pragmatically and reasonably. This behavior is all the more puzzling because the US and
China have extensive economic exchange. Also, the PRC has been pragmatic in
extending a recent diplomatic “charm offensive” around the globe.695
Nevertheless, when an issue impinges on the PRC’s sovereignty and prestige,
dialogue becomes problematic. Most notably, Chinese leaders’ stony insistence upon the
“one China” principle stymies negotiations with the US and numerous other states, let
alone the political entity of Taiwan. Thus, significant gulfs in cultural logic and historical
memory prevent the US, PRC, and Taiwan from communicating effectively particularly
on issues charged with political significance.
While some American China watchers had hoped that Deng Xiaopeng’s
successors would be less focused upon the issue of Taiwan, this shift has not occurred.
Indeed, the PRC’s “patriotic education” campaign seems to have ensured just the
opposite. It is notable that some of the most nationalistic statements came from
minorities and teenage students—practically all of whom were in secondary school or
college when interviewed for this dissertation. Clearly, no Chinese leader can afford to
appear irresolute when it comes to Taiwan.
In fact, the word among Chinese foreign policy experts is that President Hu is
absolutely determined to take Taiwan by military force if necessary, signaling that he has
695Evan S. Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel, “China’s New Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs 82, 6 (November/December 2003): 22-35.
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the “political will” and the PLA the necessary material capacity to do so. While peaceful
reunification is preferred, Taiwan cannot take forever to return to the mainland’s embrace.
For one, the US has signaled that it is uneager to risk a war starting on another front
given the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the difficulty of deterring North Korea
and Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Thus, when Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-
bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) began to make pro-independence
statements after his re-election, he was strongly restrained by the US government. Soon
thereafter, Taiwanese political parties began to make historic visits to the mainland,
demonstrating their comparative willingness to find common ground with the PRC’s
leaders.
The “Real” Problem Is the US’ Behavior
Meanwhile, it also is unsurprising that numerous Chinese scholars, journalists and
some citizens interpreted the “real problem” to be the US and its imperial, unipolar
approach to the world. After all, many Chinese criticize the US openly as being a bully
in international relations—and toward China in particular. For example, the US’ actions
toward China in the Chinese Civil War (when Mao Zedong and the Communists were
fighting Chiang Kai-shek and the Guomindang), the Korean War, and so forth are cited
as evidence of American ill-will toward the PRC. As one twenty-eight-year-old assistant
manager said, “[t]he American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia and the
Hainan air-crash indicated that the US is carrying out [its role as] the self-acclaimed
‘World Police.’ It is arbitrary and domineering.”
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Actually, this research project indicates that the higher a Chinese citizen’s level of
education, the more likely that person feels hostile toward the United States and its
foreign policy.696 In contrast, working class citizens expressed more positive feelings
about the US. Practically even the most disapproving Chinese citizens, however, would
admit that their dream is to live and work in the US. Also, as mentioned before, some
citizens pointed out historical examples of American generosity toward the Chinese. So
there is a sense of ambivalence toward the US as well as other “post-imperial” states.
Given the US’ global dominance and its representatives’ apparent sense of
entitlement to tell the PRC what to do, Chinese officials also are ready to point out
examples of American hypocrisy. For example, attempts by the US to act alone in its
foreign policy or flout international conventions will be countered by a more
multilateralist approach by China. In such cases, the PRC will try to route the US’
actions through world bodies such as the UN, and extol it to act according to relevant
international legal norms. This noticeable contrast in styles serves the PRC well. Given
the Bush administration’s avoidance of diplomacy except as a stalling tactic, the current
Chinese charm offensive takes advantage of this void. Moreover, the US may be reaping
what it has sown. After 1989, Chinese officials and citizens (including many of the
protesters at Tiananmen Square) became increasingly upset with the US’
“obstructionism” with the 2000 Olympics, annual Congressional criticism of its human
rights record, and so forth.
696I must credit Kongmei for noticing this pattern first.
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Despite the claim that international law and diplomacy have promoted a common
understanding of interstate norms, China and other states contest various aspects of the
US-dominated world order. Attempts to coerce China to fall in line with the current
order will fail as long as Chinese people and the PRC’s leadership believe that they are
being dictated to or punished by the US. Most Chinese want to have their country be
honored for its lengthy history and accomplishment, not disrespected or treated like a
pariah state by such an immature country as the United States.
Another factor in this sometimes tense relationship is that Chinese people are all
too aware of China’s weakness relative to the US. Like many post-colonial or post
imperial states, the PRC has prized its sovereignty highly. In the past the PRC was less
adept diplomatically in its protests of American “interference” in the “internal affairs” of
other sovereign states. As noted above, it still relies upon such rhetoric when any issue is
interpreted as involving Taiwan.
The “Real” Apology Issue Is with Japan
Japan also was raised almost immediately by older interviewees as the more
significant apology issue that frustrates many Chinese—as well as Koreans and other
people victimized by Japan during the Asia-Pacific War.f\Q 1 Similarly, a twenty-six-year-
old office worker stated, “I hope that Japan will apologize to the Chinese
697A s seems to be the case with several key relationships in Asia, including US-China and PRC- Taiwan, economic interdependence between Japan and the PRC has not led to mutual understanding or positive regard.
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people... [because] they are at fault.” He went on to mention the controversy surrounding
Japanese textbooks that whitewash Japan’s actions during the Asia-Pacific War.698
In contrast, one fifty-five-year-old senior editor mentioned his shame about the
Chinese soldiers who surrendered so willingly during the Sino-Japanese War, adding that
“China is soft,” a comment tinged with gendered judgments. He found the issue of
China’s defeatism to be important despite the fact that “[s]ome Chinese people don’t
want to talk about it.”
“The Wily Chinese” Are at It Again
Of course, there were many Americans who laid the blame for these crises on the
Chinese for their “inscrutable” and patient “scheming,” especially in light of the 1999
Cox report on Chinese spying in the US. Thus, the issue of “the China threat ” always
seemed to lurk behind the scenes. Indeed, all of the rhetorical commonplaces that were
mentioned under the umbrella heading of “the wily Chinese” appeared. Sometimes the
themes were so closely linked together as to make it difficult to separate them for
analysis.
Chinese “Reality” and Realpolitik
At times the Chinese were portrayed as cleverly using apology during these
incidents to extract concessions from the US. One variation of this theme was put forth
698A s an American prone to directness, I sometimes am amazed that conflict-resolution questions seem not to have been asked o f Chinese citizens regarding their anti-Japanese sentiment: What would make the situation better? Would an official apology help? What should it look like?
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by several scholars—not China experts per se—who drew connections between Chinese
Communism and apology. This analysis focused upon the Communists’ imposed senses
of conformity and morality of the initial decades of the PRC.
To the Chinese Communists, extracting an apology, or confession, has long been a favorite technique in dealing with anyone seen as an adversary, especially when the person is in custody, according to several American experts on what is known as thought reform. Beijing’s demand for an apology for the spy plane incident, these specialists say, is therefore standard procedure. The demand for an apology “is consistent with the whole thought-reform ethos, which focuses on confession, self-criticism and apology” before the person can be freed, said Robert J. Litton, professor of psychology and psychiatry at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Professor Litton wrote the pioneering examination of the Communists’ use of thought reform coming to power in 1949, “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Chinese Brainwashing,” first published in 1961. The Chinese Communist emphasis on apology grew out of both the old Confucian tradition of conformity and the Soviet show trials of the 1930’s, Professor Litton and the other experts said.699
“Old China hands,” meanwhile, were more likely to focus on authoritarian aspects
of traditional Confucianism, portrayed here as coldly civilized and hierarchical.
...Lucian Pye, professor emeritus of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: “ When the Chinese have the moral high ground, they can be unrelenting in exploiting the situation. It goes back to the Confucian tradition, in which the ruler is morally superior, and therefore when your opponent apologizes it proves they are morally inferior and cannot be the legitimate ruler.” ... Merle Goldman, a history professor at Boston University and a specialist on China’s treatment of dissidents, said ... “Usually the first apology is insufficient,” Professor Goldman said, “so they make you do it again and again, to make you say what you did or thought was terrible. You have to be increasingly apologetic.” Professor Goldman says the origins of the Chinese emphasis on apologies lies in the Confucian value system, which stressed the need for “conformity to the views of the patriarchal father, and then to the emperor.” He added, “This kind of internalized consensus was the way China was ruled for thousands of years.”700
699Fox Butterfield, “The Culture: China’s Demand for Apology Is Rooted in Tradition: Bush and Jiang Exchange Drafts of a Letter Stating U.S. Regrets,” New York Times, 7 April 2001.
700Ibid.
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When the Chinese originally called for the United States to apologize over the Navy plane, they were saying “Washington must accept their view of what happened,” Professor Goldman said. ... Professor Pye said the plane incident also fed into a long-held “Chinese sense of victimization,” of having been the world’s greatest nation only to be humiliated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. “Other countries in Asia have actually had a much worse time, of actually being turned into colonies, like India, Vietnam and the Philippines,” he said. “But the Chinese make the most of being mistreated.”701 Professor Pye suggested that this attitude had its origins in Chinese child- rearing practices, “in which parents shame their children into proper behavior.” This has carried over into other areas of society, he said, so people “often find themselves in a game-playing situation, or struggle, in which you prove you are the superior party by shaming the other party.”702
It should be noted that there is some truth to what Pye says. For one, China was
not colonized so much as it was subject to imperialist powers. At the same time, Pye’s
tone is strikingly weary, ironic, and—if it can be said—judgmental, expressing distant
paternal disapproval.
Actually, much of the time China experts are ignored altogether by American
pundits. As stated before, there are indications of a troubling and persistent gap between
China specialists and others, be they international relations or US foreign policy experts
or journalists. For example, Robert Kagan and William Kristol stated sarcastically after
the 2001 plane collision that there “has been no end of speculation by America’s revered
7 A 1 China experts as to why the Chinese would make such a baffling demand.”
The broader purpose of the Chinese demand was to inflict upon the United States a public international humiliation. This, of course, is the flipside o f China’s face
701Ibid.
702Ibid.; emphasis added.
703Kagan and Kristol, “A National Humiliation”; emphasis added.
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conscious culture. In such a culture, to lose face is not only embarrassing. It is dangerous. It is a sign o f weakness that invites repeated exploitation by those who have witnessed it. To be deprived o f face by someone is in some sense to be vanquished and reduced to subservience. He who makes another lose face is essentially declaring himself superior and the other inferior, not worthy o f respect. ... By demanding a public apology from the United States, therefore, the Chinese government was not only saving its own face, it was consciously and deliberately forcing the United States to lose face, and thereby to admit to its weakness ,704
It is curious that Kagan and Kristol have used “face” as a central part of their analysis
despite otherwise dismissing the work of China specialists. Actually, their portrayal of
face is so negative as to be closer to the typical depiction of kowtowing.
China Plays Games705
As the above passage also shows, many foreign policy analysts in the US view the
Chinese as “arch-negotiators” who are sophisticated and Machiavellian in their use of
such techniques.706 In contrast, however, interviews conducted with both American and
Chinese experts indicated the relative inexperience of Chinese diplomats in these
704Ibid.; emphasis added. One almost senses that they suspect that (non-Chinese) China specialists in the US have “gone native,” loving Chinese culture more than their own. Some of this paranoia comes from the fact that some China experts were quite enamored of Mao in the 1960s and ‘70s before much information was available about the amount of political repression taking place at that time in the PRC. On a different note, it is interesting that Kagan and Kristol use the “universal ‘he’” in their analysis, indicating a subconscious connection between masculinity and power.
705According to Zhou Yongming, Chinese military websites indicate the emergence of a new “interest-driven, game-playing paradigm,” influenced by Western ideas, that is used to interpret national and international politics. One o f the key ideas is called the “Rules of the Game.” Zhou Yongming, “Informed Nationalism: Military Websites in Chinese Cyberspace,” Journal of Contemporary China 14, 44 (August 2005): 543-562.
706John Gittings, “An Explicit Threat - But Only in Chinese: Beijing Hints That the Crew Could Be Subject to Legal Action in China,” The Guardian, 4 April 2001.
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situations.707 Indeed, many of the Chinese foreign policy experts interviewed insisted
that they learned their negotiation skills from attending American universities and
seminars on negotiation.• 708
Meanwhile, some American experts indicated that the problem was not that
Chinese negotiators were so adept, but that Americans are so bad.709 Thus, in spite of the
US’ hegemonic status, American officials displayed a fair amount of insecurity about
their bargaining ability.
Who is Civilized and Who is Barbaric?
Ethnocentrism and Moral Superiority
Part of the competitive dynamic between the PRC and the US may be fueled by
ethnocentrism as both countries’ citizens seem to have trouble interpreting world politics
beyond their own national frame of reference. In terms of China, or the “central
country,” it historically has been viewed by its people as the center of the world, a proud
and vibrant civilization that has contributed significantly to world development. Is it any
wonder why prominent scholar Yan Xuetong states that “the rise of China is granted by
nature”? Indeed, “the Chinese regard their rise as regaining China’s lost international
707These comments are echoed by Bates Gill, “Hainan Incident: Loud Wake-Up Call for the Region,”Newsweek Korea, 6 April 2001.
708Chinese journalist (C-2), interview by author, notes, Beijing, China, 6 November 2003.
709Suettinger interview.
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status rather than as obtaining something new.”710 These words indicate a romantic and
essentialist construction of the Chinese nation and people, and also signal the importance
of historical memory and identity in interpreting “China’s rise.” 711
Another feature of these competing world views is that both sides want to claim
the moral high ground. With the 1999 embassy bombing and 2001 plane collision events,
both states tried to make their case to the public in both factual and moral terms. Both
want to project the image of a “benign hegemon,” whether regional or international, and
seem to believe that their good nature ought to be assumed by others. However, as the
literature on historical memory reminds us, certain aspects of history are enhanced while
others are neglected. For example, some Americans cannot believe—even in the face of
photographic evidence of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq—that the US
can be a repressive state.
Moreover, many patriotic Americans across the political spectrum—citizens as
well as foreign policy experts—have trouble understanding how other countries’ people
can view the US as anything but beneficent in maintaining the world order. During the
interview phase of this project, it was notable that a number of US-based foreign policy
7l0Yan Xuetong, “The Rise of China in Chinese Eyes,” Journal of Contemporary China 10,26 (2001), 33 and 34. Yan also writes that “Since 1992, some foreigners have been referring to the ‘China threat.’” (p. 36; emphasis added). The use of the term “foreigner” (as opposed to “American” or “international observer,” for example) indicates a certain amount of Sinocentrism.
71'indeed, in China’s case, the nation has been constructed more in terms of common ethnic- cultural heritage than a shared sense of civic culture, focusing on the central role of the Han Chinese. However, not all Chinese citizens are Han Chinese, and, as mentioned earlier, the “Han Chinese” are not as homogeneous as usually presented. After all, ...identities and memories are highly selective, inscriptive rather than descriptive, serving particular interests and ideological positions. Just as memory and identity support one another, they also sustain certain ideological positions, social boundaries, and, of course, power. (Gillis, 4)
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experts made statements to the effect of “We don’t act like an imperial power.”
This dynamic helps explain why the PRC’s attempt to win the moral argument
during the 1999 and 2001 crises provoked indignation in those Americans who view the
PRC itself as inherently immoral.712 Again, some of this upset comes from American
• 71-3 historical memories of the “last battle”—in this case, Tiananmen Square in 1989. Ever
since that event, many Americans have depicted the US as the true defender of Chinese
citizens given the PRC’s “illegitimate” and “totalitarian” government.
However, the PRC, despite its calls to the US to treat other states as equals,
probably would not do that itself if the roles were reversed. For while many Chinese
downplay China’s past as regional power, history indicates that it treated other countries,
such as Korea, as subordinate vassal states. Will the PRC’s rise alter this sense of
hierarchy?
Emotions and Misunderstandings
While such issues provided the backdrop for the 1999 and 2001 crises, probably a
more significant problem during negotiations was the moment-to-moment
misunderstandings of different cultural logics. As mentioned above, while at times US-
based foreign policy experts focused on Chinese cold manipulations, other times, they
revealed frustration at the Chinese heightened level of emotional response to these
incidents. Consider the following exchange, titled “It’s the Stupidity, Stupid,” between a
712See Isaacs.
713Madsen, China and the American Dream.
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Chinese woman and a Time journalist after the embassy bombing:
.. .her eyes clouded when she talked about the funeral in Beijing for the three Chinese killed in the embassy attack. Her words became bruised, accusatory. I asked, “Do you really believe that the Americans did it deliberately?” “Absolutely!” she said. “Makes no sense,” I replied. “Why would we do such a thing?” “Ah," she said, “there had to be a deeper reason: CIA out to subvert...” Her line of conspiratorial inference trailed off. “Possibly,” I allowed. “But more likely the reason was stupidity. Just look at all the adjacent stupidities...” [during the bombing campaign]. ... My Chinese friend would not budge. ... I think I backed the more plausible option.714
The above discussion reveals several misunderstandings. An issue that
undermines constructive Sino-American dialogue especially during crises is when one
side views the other as “irrational” or “too emotional” about the issues at hand, while the
other sees their own behavior as perfectly logical, rational, and even pragmatic. Indeed,
during both crises, the Americans and Chinese alternated between emotional and
pragmatic responses, but usually in such a way as to maximize mutual
incomprehensibility.
For example, consider again the American foreign service officer who lost his
temper about Chinese behavior during the 1999 embassy crisis. Given the finding that
cultural politeness can cause an increase in rage when the “rules” are seen to have been
transgressed, his severe shift in mood makes even more sense. This perception of
Chinese ill-behavior only worsened with the EP-3E incident, enraging many Americans
who previously had remained calm. For example, columnist Thomas Friedman wrote,
714Morrow, “It’s the Stupidity, Stupid.”
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You cannot have a normal relationship with an individual or country whose attitude is: When you are wrong you must apologize, and when I am wrong you must apologize ...there are red lines o f international law that China has crossed.. ,715
There even were a number of voices that argued that China should apologize to the
United States rather than the other way around. 71 f \ A common denominator was the firm
belief that the “facts” were conclusively in favor of the United States’ account of what
had taken place—another indication of America’s legalistic bent.
While some Americans grumbled about President Clinton’s apologies in 1999,
they at least could grasp why Chinese citizens were upset—although not to the extent it
was expressed. However, the 2001 plane collision incident appearedstranger to them
than the 1999 embassy bombing. The Chinese “demands” for apologies after the plane
collision went against American common sense, especially since it seemed clear to them
that the Chinese pilot was to blame for the mishap.717
Furthermore, there were numerous statements that indicated American diplomats’
“increasing anger at the Chinese” due to the obstructionist behavior of the PRC’s officials
on Hainan Island.718 Similarly, interviews revealed that President Bush was so angry
715Thomas L. Friedman, “Myth-Matched Nations,” The New York Times, 17 April 2001; emphasis added. Actually, there are times in human relations when the breach is so severe that it may be wise for both sides to apologize (although the first party to be aggrieved should receive the first apology). Otherwise, the lack of what is seen as a gracious reception of an apology and requisite improvement in attitude may mean that the relationship is beyond saving.
716“Just Who Should Apologize?”Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 April 2001, 8.
717It is intriguing that various American media tend to phrase public requests or calls for apologies as “demands.” The word has a petulant and commanding tone to it, making it less likely to be viewed with approval.
7l8David E. Sanger, “Powell Sees No Need for Apology: Bush Again Urges Return of Crew,” The New York Times, 4 April 2001.
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with the situation that he was “fit to be tied.”719 Moreover, one American official
admitted that he still remains “angry” because of Chinese behavior during and after the
EP-3E crisis, in part because the PRC has not agreed to maritime “rules of the road” to
prevent similar crises. Chinese officials continue to insist that the US take full
responsibility for the collision and will not discuss anything else until this issue is settled.
Given this American sense of resentment, it is understandable why one
conservative American China expert exclaimed during his interview, “The Chinese are
not our friends!” Of course, there are many allegations that the PRC has spied on the US,
it has not complied with intellectual property laws, its assistance with the War against
Terror has been minimal and so forth. Still, this statement is remarkable considering that
the US has disputes with and conducts surveillance on its closest allies, and vice versa.720
“Friendship,” in international relations, seems to be interpreted in a highly contingent
fashion. Sometimes, “friendship” can be separated into economic and strategic spheres,
for example, as seen between Japan and the US during the last years of the Cold War.
Other times, as with Israel, security differences are largely ignored given the overall
closeness of the relationship as well as the connection to America’s Christian mission.
Among Chinese foreign policy experts, meanwhile, there were two variants in
tone toward the US. Most policy officials, many who attended graduate school in the US,
expressed interpretations of the relationship that were solidly realist in their foundations.
719Tkakic interview.
720For example, consider the Jonathan Pollard case. Pollard, a previous US Navy intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty to spying against the US for Israel. See “U.S. Court Rejects Israeli Spy Pollard’s Appeal,” Reuters, 22 July 2005, 12:56 PM.
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Their tone was calm and resigned, indicating a rather fatalistic view of Sino-American
relations. The tensions between the PRC and US are inevitable given the structure of the
international system.
On the other hand, there were occasional flashes of anger at China’s treatment in
the 1999 and 2001 incidents. After all, in both situations the US infringed upon Chinese
sovereignty and several citizens were killed. Chinese people were the injured parties—
not the US.
In terms of interviews with Chinese citizens, the respondents’ tone ranged widely
from idealistic to cynical, with the more pessimistic respondents being fairly uniform in
their negativity whether the subject was US-China relations, apology, or the particular
incidents.721 Both idealists and cynics, however, focus on morality in international
politics. Chinese citizens’ deeply instilled sense of pride can clash with the arrogant
attitude of the young nation of the United States, a country that also has its own sense of
historic destiny and patriotic nationalism.799
Meanwhile, many Americans were surprised and then angered by what was
interpreted as a heightened emotional response on the part of the Chinese. This upset
stemmed from not only the extent of the Chinese people’s rage but also the way in which
it was expressed during the 1999 demonstrations. Also, the PRC’s actions—including its
calls for apologies—were viewed as highly cynical politicking. Both sides, however,
72lFor example, such Chinese interviewees seemed to view American apologies and “very sorries” just as attempts at damage control. In the words of a fifteen-year old female student, an interstate apology is “a GOOD way to get rid of responsibility” (emphasis in original).
722One of the rare articles in US mainstream media to mention American nationalism is Roberts and Engardio with Magnusson, “Commentary: Lessons of a Crisis.”
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interpreted themselves as reacting to the other; the other side started it.
Thus, it is important to investigate the causes of the palpable anger on both sides
of the bilateral relationship regarding these two incidents. For one, the visceral response
from Chinese and Americans alike seem to be in response to what are perceived to be
attacks on national pride and sovereignty.
Gendered Weakness and Sovereignty
For example, many Chinese argued that the PRC’s sovereignty had been violated
by the embassy bombing, surveillance plane flights and the American reconnaissance
plane’s emergency landing on Hainan Island. Meanwhile, many Americans were upset
over the sense that the US’ sovereignty and power over the US embassy and consulates in
China as well as the damaged EP-3E plane were breached by the Chinese.724 The
propensity for rhetoric on both sides does not erase the significance of these social
actions. Whether the issue is the sovereignty of a state’s embassy, plane, or borders, the
principle remains the same.
Arguably, personal sovereignty also was an issue, given the norm that civilized
nations ought to respect the bodily integrity and freedom of movement of foreigners.
723There is evidence that the Chinese officials have protested the “violation of their airspace” by the US for years. See Lucian W. Pye, The Spirit o f Chinese Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 72.
724It is worth asking whether the 2001 plane collision crisis would have been so prone to escalation if it had not occurred during peacetime for the US. At that time, Internet chat room postings indicated a longing for American military action, heroes, and patriotism. Given the lack of cultural understanding, however, it is likely that the American reaction to Chinese behavior still would be vociferous.
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This principle was violated in 1999 by the US and NATO as three Chinese journalists
were killed and others injured when the PRC’s embassy was bombed. However, the fact
that American diplomats were under siege in the US embassy in Beijing and the
American consulate and consul’s residence in Chengdu also were damaged indicates that
the PRC also failed as a host state to protect the US adequately.
With the 2001 plane collision incident, meanwhile, the pilot, Wang Wei, and his
fighter jet were casualties of the encounter, while the American crew did their country
proud by landing the “crippled” surveillance plane and protecting state secrets. These
individuals became heroes and even “martyrs” for their respective nations.
The presence of Shane Osborne and Wang Wei as iconic national heroes in the
2001 crisis also points to the gendered aspects of these interactions. As this dissertation
indicates, both American and Chinese citizens seemed to interpret their country’s
response and position as weak and the other side as strong during these episodes. On the
American side, whether the debate is characterized as being between China “hawks” and
“doves,” or those who are “hard” or “soft” on China, there are not-so-subtle issues of
what should be properly “manly” behavior in the realm of international politics.
Soft Power
In contrast, consider a liberal internationalist theoretical notion that has gained
some popular attention in recent years, Joseph Nye’s “soft power.” According to Nye,
Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. When you can get others to want what you want, you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your direction. Hard power, the ability to coerce, grows out of a country’s military and economic might.
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Soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies. When our policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced.7 5
There is little that is objectionable in the above paragraph, at least at first glance. Of
course Americans want to be able to influence and lead others effectively!
The immediate context is that Nye is arguing against the current Bush
administration’s over-reliance on compellance—a fair point. Even so, by contrasting
“soft” with “hard,” the notion itself is laden with gendered assumptions. Are diplomacy
and public relations to be construed as mere “feminine arts”? Is “soft power” too wimpy
and emasculated? Or does it just put a pleasant face on compellance?
This same dichotomy of strength versus weakness operates throughout American
politics. For example, due to gendered interpretations of weakness and “resolve,”
Democrats and/or females often are considered not to be knowledgeable or “strong
enough” to handle autocrats and dictators—especially of the Communist variety.
Ironically, given such widespread assumptions, women and/or Democratic leaders could
be more likely to engage in military ventures and “brinksmanship” in order to prove their
strength.
Meanwhile, Chinese “hysteria” over the infringement of the PRC’s sovereignty in
these cases reveals a similar fear of appearing weak and “defenseless.” This sense of
emasculation or feminization of the PRC by the US due to sovereignty violations
indicates the persistence of this gendered dichotomy in international relations.
725Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Soft Power and American Foreign Policy,”Political Science Quarterly 119,2(2004), 256.
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“Get Over It, China!”
Therefore, one frequent comment heard from US-based experts was a frustration
and lack of understanding as to why Chinese people and officials have not tried harder to
“move beyond this,” focusing instead on their historical victimhood, especially in regard
to their relationship with Japan. Many observers believe that China’s sensitivity
regarding its historical weakness and humiliation has gotten to the point of being
pathological. Even one Chinese professor volunteered that both the NATO bombing and
EP-3E plane collision had an impact on average Chinese in terms of bringing out their
“victim psychology.”726 Based on China’s past history, this feeling was available to be
tapped into, which indicates once again that the PRC’s patriotic education campaign may
have proved to be all too effective.
Whether one agrees or not with such this charge of “victimology,” the answer is
the same. While irritation with the PRC and its people is understandable, probably more
patience is needed, not less. Instead of trying to hurry past the thorniest topics, maybe
time has to be taken first to ask Chinese officials, foreign policy experts, and other
citizens about what concrete gestures, acts, and rituals would help improve relations with
the US as well as Japan.
Rationality
Actually, this issue underscores how many times Americans and Chinese focused
on the “crazy” or “irrational” behavior of the other (although some commentators
726Interview with professor C-10.
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highlight the other’s behavior as demonstrating near-omniscient “realpolitik”). With war
as well as more minor crises, rationality often is raised as an issue—after all, in the words
of Richard Clutterbuck, “War is mass lunacy.”727 Violent conflict should be avoided if
possible. However, miscommunication, cultural misunderstandings, time pressure, and
the like increase the risk of irrational behavior.
Clutterbuck continues to describe the problem,
We shall never be wholly free from wars, but they are still an appalling way of resolving disputes, not only because of the waste of lives and economic resources, but also because of the misery suffered by millions of families displaced from their homes. Many wars could have been avoided if the crisis from which they exploded had been better managed.728
Rationality, even if employed in a “thin” sense, operates imperfectly. Crisis
management is necessary because accidents happen, especially when both sides are
engaging in risky behavior. Thus, rational decision-making is something that must be
assisted, as issues such as pride, honor, “face,” and other identity issues work to block the
“logical” path to resolution.
For example, consider the 2001 plane collision crisis: Rationally, the Americans
could have gotten the crew back even faster if President George W. Bush had kept quiet
from the beginning, for example, and the American administration had given an apology
or the “very sorries” letter sooner. Rationally, Americans could come to understand that
just because something is permitted by international law does not make it morally
727Richard Clutterbuck, International Crisis and Conflict (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 3.
728Ibid.
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acceptable. After all, most Americans would not feel secure if the Chinese flew
surveillance missions near American coasts.
Meanwhile, the Chinese could understand that their boundaries are not precisely
what they designate but what is understood in a shared international context. During the
two crises, the PRC’s leaders could have picked up their telephones tocommunicate with
their American counterparts. Rationally, mutually designated “rules of the road” could
prevent such air collisions from occurring again. In short, if rationality was evenly
understood, shared, and sufficient, there would be no need for conflict resolution or crisis
management.
Mere Semantics?
In contrast, many Americans charge that debates such as these over interstate
apologies are resolved only by “mere rhetoric.” Indeed, a verbal tug-of-war over
interstate apology is quite common. When such situations are investigated more closely,
one of the issues frequently raised is that of the one side “not apologizing enough” or, on
the other hand, “apologizing too much.”790
Moreover, given the difference in interpretation with both incidents, many
American observers were quick to assume that the Chinese state media, which William
Safire charged with putting forth “propaganda slander” during the EP-3E incident, were
729For an example with the NATO bombing o f the Chinese embassy, see Stephen J. Yates, “No Concessions to China after the Mistaken Embassy Bombing,” The Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum No. 600,28 May 1999. Notably, Yates has written after President Clinton already gave an apology, but still expresses a strong concern that the US not make “excessive apologies” to China.
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to blame for this gap. However, this explanation is both dated and simplistic. While
the PRC’s state-run media played an important role in shaping Chinese public opinion,
the predominant Chinese interpretation of what occurred also was shared by many of
those Chinese with ready access to the Western free press. Furthermore, many Chinese
Americans thought that the US should apologize. The same response occurred with
the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
Despite significant government censorship, the information technology revolution
has made nearly instantaneous reaction and informal coordination possible among
Chinese people. Given its citizens’ increased access to non-PRC sources of information,
it has become more difficult for the Chinese government to be successful in its
propaganda and other diversionary tactics.733 At an official level, nationalism is double
730Safire, “The Politics o f Apology.” This tendency to downplay the role of the Chinese public is described further by Ying Ma, “China’s America Problem,” Policy Review 111 (February & March 2002): 43-56.
731Gerald Mzejewski, “Local Chinese Residents Want U.S. to Apologize for Fatal In-Air Collision,” The Washington Times, 5 April 2001.
732See Ralph A. Cossa, “Can Sino-U.S. Relations Be Salvaged?” Pacific Forum CSIS, PacNet 20, 21 May 1999, accessed 14 December 1999, http://www.ncuscr.org/cossa.html.
733Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Beijing Declares Victory but Chat Rooms Are Skeptical,” The New York Times, 13 April 2001. Of course, it must be noted that the government has made strides since the 2001 plane collision in blocking inflammatory emails, instant messages, pages, and removing objectionable postings in Internet chat rooms. As the anti-Japanese demonstrations of 2005 demonstrate, the Chinese government can use Internet, email, and mobile phone technology to curb protests when they are thought to go too far. At the same time, once Chinese citizens realized that certain key words would lead to their messages being blocked, politically sensitive discussions were allowed to flourish by means of “proxies”— for example, an on-line forum on a well-known short story written by Lu Xun in 1926 was used as a proxy for more overt discussion o f a case of state repression. See Philip P. Pan, “Chinese Evade Censors to Discuss Police Assault: Sometimes Veiled, News Spreads Online,” The Washington Post, 17 December 2005, A 01.
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edged as it can place limits on statecraft, as may be seen by clamor from Chinese citizens,
particularly observable in Internet chat rooms, that the PRC obtain an apology from the
US for the plane collision incident.734
Indeed, these issues lead one to consider whether, for some on both sides,
continued conflict is deemed more palatable than the giving o f an apology. If so, this
indicates that nonmaterial factors such as face, prestige, and honor seem to play a pivotal
role in such interactions. Therefore, it is possible that demands for apologies may
increase tension and misunderstanding in the short term. All the same, while interstate
apology was no panacea, some exchange of apologetic discourse was necessary to end
both crises.
There also was support for intersubjective belief in a strong connection between
words and deeds and even attitude. In each of these incidents, language use became of
great importance to both sides. For example, the 2001 EP-3E incident involved multiple
revisions and extremely careful issues of word choice.
Thus, while many American commentators viewed this parsing of words as “mere
semantics,” and others criticized the Chinese as being too insistent upon the need for
formal and complete apologies, these claims probably miss the point. Each incident
required joint work by representatives of the two states to come to some mutually
acceptable resolution. The artifice of such solutions is not remarkable —rather, that
these particular joint transactions were interpreted as “artificial” is what is of interest.
734Smith, “Students’ Unease.”
735Steven R. Weisman, “The Art and Artifice of Apologizing,”The New York Times, 13 April 2001 .
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However, while both of these incidents were ultimately resolved by rational,
incremental diplomacy, little was done to soothe the roiled “intersubjective” reactions on
either side. Emotional satisfaction for most American and Chinese citizens seemed to
come via “venting,” the airing of noxious (including racist and stereotyped) feelings in
protests and Internet chat rooms.
Indeed, the Internet often seems to fan the flames of nationalist passion instead of
encouraging mutual dialogue. Instead of enhanced discussion, the two sides mostly
talked with others who were from the same socio-linguistic background. When mainland
Chinese and Americans did interact, the gap between their interpretations usually was so
large that neither side could understand the other—instead chalking up the anomalies to
sheer power politics and nationalism rather than cultural differences.
In the wake of these crises, some long-term observers of Sino-American relations
predicted that it was only a matter of time before another crisis would disrupt the
relationship.736 Since July of 2001, however, both countries’ governments came to the
conclusion that positive relations was in their mutual interest, and a series of meetings
solidified this new conciliatory attitude.737 Part of this change is viewed as the PRC’s
awareness that nationalism is useful only if can be managed satisfactorily. Also,
736See Minxin Pei’s excellent article, “China’s Fragile Mindset,” The Christian Science Monitor, 9 April 2001.
737As mentioned previously, since the American Embassy in Beijing was nearly as close mouthed as Chinese officials about discussing these cases, I suspect that there is more tension in the relationship than either side wished to acknowledge. This finding is o f importance given that some American experts on China have declared that the present constitutes a golden era in which US-China relations are “much more stable” than they have been since Nixon began the process of rapprochement in the early 1970s. David M. Lampton, “The Stealth Normalization of U.S.-China Relations,” The National Interest 73 (fall 2003), 38.
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observers believe that both sides are well aware of their need to maintain positive
relations due to such issues of mutual interest as the WTO and the current War against
Terror.
While many China watchers have advocated that China “get over it!” in terms of
the 100-year humiliation, this kind of statement is neither realistic nor helpful. After all,
if the roles were reversed, most Americans would be outraged both by their predicament
and this uncaring treatment. The problem was one of clashes between national
interpretations, and the need to work out a mutually acceptable solution to the crisis at
hand. For example, diplomats had to negotiate a way for both states to “save face”
through the creative (and differing official) interpretations of the use of language with the
2001 Hainan incident.
Unfortunately, while effective solutions were reached both in the embassy
bombing and EP-3E events, these incidents were managed as opposed to resolved.
Mutual understanding has not yet taken place. Even though these incidents took place at
an interstate level, both Americans and Chinese seem to want to retain a sense of dignity
as well as gain a sense that they have been heard and understood before such conflicts are
resolved. Furthermore, there is evidence that the US leadership believes that the PRC
will continue to be problematic in the future, particularly in reference to Taiwan and
738Some citizens indicated as much during their interviews. According to a twenty-six year old male office worker, the embassy bombing incident finally was resolved satisfactorily, “but [the] process is [sic] very difficult.”
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cross-Strait tensions. 7^0 Perhaps the key is not getting people to act in “rational” ways,
but finding ways to understand different people’s cultural logics—however “irrational”
they may seem—and then proceeding to work with them as productively as possible.
Apology Findings
Understandings of Apology
One area of cultural misunderstanding stems from the fact that Americans and
Chinese apparently have different ideas regarding apology and what it entails. It is true
that apologies touch upon considerations of humiliation, honor, sovereignty, and face in
both cultural contexts. However, it became clear from interviews that most Chinese
citizens did not understand why it would be difficult for the US to tender apologies—let
alone apologies to the extent desired.
From the predominant Chinese perspective,face-saving was of the essence with
both incidents. If one state hits another, the second state loses face and respect. In order
to regain some face, the US should apologize to China and the Chinese people. However,
if the US did not apologize and “the government appearstoo weak in dealing with this
issue, the people will be angry and the government will lose face .”740
739For example, the US National Security Agency actively is recruiting speakers of foreign languages, “especially Arabic and Chinese,” indicating the relative importance placed on China-related issues. See Stephen Barr, “NSA Makes No Secret of Stepped-Up Recruitment Effort,” The Washington Post, 22 April 2004, B02. For more explicit discussion of the focus on China, see Richard Halloran, “Eastern Threat: The Bush Administration’s Major Review o f Defence Policy Sees the Focus Shift to East Asia,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 18 October 2001, 32.
740MacLeod, “Chinese Nationalism Prevalent in Reaction”; emphasis added.
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Furthermore, as Kenneth Lieberthal explains, “China views the apology issue
from the perspective o f a victim and of a national tradition that emphasizes harmony .”741
Thus, in both the embassy bombing and EP-3E events, China wanted the US to admit its
responsibility for the incidents. Not to receive an apology would be considered
unacceptable to most Chinese due to China’s previous “hundred-year national
humiliation” bainian guochi). Not surprisingly, some Western commentators
focused instead on China’s “hysterical” demands for apologies—another gendered
comment that portrays Chinese leaders as acting like “irrational• females.” 749
While it is true that the US apologized in the case of the embassy bombing, its
early statements of regret were restrained and limited in scope, reflecting American
tendencies to interpret such events from a legalistic framework. After all, many lawyers
in the US advise people to avoid apologies or other statements that connote acceptance of
responsibility as it is feared that such actions will lead to issues of compensation.
From the perspective of many Chinese citizens, however, if the US gave an
appropriate apology, it could strengthen the relationship and enhance American prestige.
Many interviewees did not see the possibility that something crucial might be lost in
apologizing—on the contrary, they believed that an apology would enhance mutual trust.
However, foreign policy experts in China were far more likely to admit that apologies are
741Kenneth Lieberthal quoted in Mufson with Lane, “Apology or Regret”; emphasis added.
742Gerald Segal, “The Logic of Taiwan Points toward Independence,” International Herald Tribune, 20 July 1999.
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difficult to give—even in interpersonal contexts—and that the apology giver would lose
something in the process.
As mentioned previously, American and Chinese foreign policy experts were
almost unanimously dismissive of apology as a topic worthy of study in political
science.743 While some Chinese foreign policy experts noted the importance of the US
giving an apology to the Chinese people, there was little sense of appreciation for
apology in a broader sense. For example, they noted that if a particular relationship had
become quite tense, or apologies were forced rather than natural, then apologies would
have little impact. Others stated that apology must include both the acknowledgment and
remorseful attitude that one has done wrong as well as an explanation of why such a
negative action took place at all. Also, the offender should provide reassurances that
such actions will not be repeated in the future.
However, a few experts in the PRC viewed apology as a more meaningful
phenomenon; that by apologizing, that side is demonstrating its belief that the
relationship is worth trying to save. If a relationship is to be on-going, then some
attempts must be made to show respect to the other party. Depending on the situation,
sometimes the weaker party desires the show of respect engendered by giving a sincere
and full apology.
743For both American and Chinese experts, however, if I framed my research in terms of “crisis management” instead o f international apologies, then it was viewed as more worthy of serious investigation. While I never made such a claim, foreign policy elites seemed to interpret my research interest as indicating that I viewed apology as a kind of “silver bullet,” magically able to heal any wound. In contrast, I found that citizens were far more likely to see apology as important, but even then not all viewed apology as being worthwhile. O f those who desired an interstate apology, most wanted it to come in the form of an apology to their state and, more importantly, an apology to “the Chinese people” themselves.
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In consideration of American accounts of these two incidents, indications are that
many Americans believe that the US should not give such apologies.744 While there is an
American cultural tendency to interpret apologies legalistically, there also is support for
the claim that issues of “saving face” go beyond Asian contexts.745 Together, these issues
explain why American officials exerted a great deal of effort during the EP-3 crisis to
prove their case that—in the words of US Secretary of State Colin Powell—the US had
“nothing to apologize for.”746
One cannot ignore the interpretations ofgendered weakness in the requests and
giving of apologies. This complication makes apologies a murkier exercise than at first
glance. To a great extent, apologies can demonstrate the potential “power of
vulnerability.”747 By almost inviting censure and abuse, this ritualized humbling can
744Even in situations involving international allies, as with the Japanese in theEhime Maru incident o f 2001, there was significant debate in the US about whether to apologize. Multiple official apologies were made (by various representatives o f the United States) before the matter began to subside (James Morrison, “Embassy Row,” The Washington Times, 11 January 2002; also Doug Struck, “Japan Is Given Letter of Apology from Bush,”The Washington Post, 28 February 2001, A21.). One particular matter of concern among the Japanese was that USS Greeneville Cmdr. Scott Waddle did not apologize personally as quickly as they would have liked— a situation he hastened to rectify, thereby going against the advice of his lawyer (Ilene R. Prusher, “Sub Accident Apologies Not Translating Well to Japanese: U.S. Sends Regrets, But Japan Waits for the Greeneville’s Commander to Say ‘Sorry,’” The Christian Science Monitor, 28 February 2001, 7).
745Goffinan, Interaction Ritual, 44.
746Sanger, “Powell Sees No Need for Apology.” Part of this dynamic may be that the new Bush administration wanted to distance itself from former President Clinton’s China policy. Consider also US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who provided international media with videotape to support American claims that the Hainan incident was caused by the alleged “aggressive contact” of the Chinese pilot, Wang Wei (Edward Walsh and William Claiborne, “U.S. Faults China on Crash Account: ‘Aggressive’ Chinese Pilots Won’t Halt U.S. Surveillance Flights, Rumsfeld Vows,”The Washington Post, 14 April 2001, A 01).
747The Rev. Mary Ann Neevel deserves credit for coining this phrase.
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have a positive effect. The problem is that apology by encouraging such potential loss of
prestige, honor, and face, there is a risk that this sacrificial move will promote
exploitation instead.
Still, the use of apologies, when merited, could signal increased awareness of how
one state’s actions impinge on others. This taking responsibility for actions of the state
would almost certainly enhance the conduct of international relations, taking it beyond
mere “hypermasculine” posturing.
In summary, apologies are one tool, but context dependent. Given the gendered
sense of “apology equaling weakness,” care will have to be taken in discerning whether
the pertinent audience(s)—domestic or international—will respond positively to such a
move. Since accurate and helpful prediction is difficult under the best of circumstances,
such efforts probably will have to be undertaken in a trial-and-error fashion in the near
future.
Perhaps we should think in terms of degrees of success rather than in such
absolute terms. For example, it just is not wise to pin all of the offending state’s hopes on
“putting the matter behind us” by the giving of such an apology. Controversy will not
cease in the wake of such an event. After all, with both events, it seemed that the US was
more focused on achieving “closure ” and China a “full apology. ” Thus, while both
were trying to achieve ideal-type results, they had different goals and therefore measures
of success—some of which may be based on positional differences between the
“offender” and “victim.”
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Future Directions in the Study of Public Apologies
A few points may be raised here in the spirit of furthering our knowledge of
apologies. After all, apology debates can be quite telling in terms of what issues are
perceived to be at stake. More to the point, apologies (and, for that matter, non-, pseudo-,
or quasi-apologies) do not take place in a vacuum.148 Frequently aired grievances among
the citizens of either the perpetrator or victimized state indicate that the conflict has not
been addressed adequately. Similarly, the aggrieved parties must be watched carefully,
as seeking redress for communal “historical wounds” and grievances have often been
claimed as a central reason to engage in violence and retaliation.749
Apologies probably should be considered part o f a processrather than a one-time
event. Given the length of time and scope of harm that some “historical wounds” have
been endured, apologies and other conciliatory measures probably will have to be re-done
from time-to-time in order to promote trust among the parties. Even with shorter-term
incidents, however, apologies may have to be negotiated.
Similarly, the desire to reach "consensus” on apologies may prove illusory,
especially in the short term. This recalcitrance is understandable when it is considered
how difficult it is to acknowledge that one’s country may be wrong. Nationalism
inculcates a feeling of moral rectitude.
Across situations o f group conflict, apologies are neither necessary nor sufficient.
748Whether an apology (or, for that matter, reparations or other actions meant to make redress) is seen as adequate, “complete,” or “sincere” depends on the way the interaction is interpreted by various sides. Differing interpretations reflect intersubjective debate over what has taken place.
749See Joseph V. Montville, ed.,Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990), 538-540.
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Nevertheless, in specificsituations, depending upon the situation, they may well be
necessary and sufficient. The context at hand and the dynamics among the parties are
what are of importance.
Hence, apology’s transformative power is not intrinsic. Rather, there probably
has to be a dynamic between the former aggressor and victim in which each
acknowledges the pain and cost suffered by the other—although not in an equivalent
sense that “we’re all victims.”750 Most attention tends to be focused on the victims’ need
for their pain to be acknowledged. Nevertheless, the tensions faced by aggressors (or
bystanders) in trying to atone for their past actions also must be considered. Depending
on the situation, perpetrators may have more to lose by giving an apology.
I f they are to occur, public apologies probably will require deliberation and
initiative. The public needs to be prepared by efforts from above and below to make an
official apology. Thus, apology-making needs to be placed on a conscious agenda,
especially at the state level.
Even so, inter subjective understandings among the members o f a given state can
work to constrain the state’s range o f “possible ’’policy options at an interstate and
regional level. In my own research, I have found that most “aggressor” states and
institutions are reluctant to apologize—with a few notable exceptions, of course. While
legal issues are often mentioned as inhibiting apology, other dynamics seem to be
750Depending on the situation, it may be beneficial to find alternatives to the term, “victim,” such as “survivor.”
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•je 1 involved, such as prestige, honor, or face. Indeed, in certain situations, an apology for
something interpreted as essential to the well-being of the person, group, or country, is
seen as traitorous to one’s cause.
Some commentators argue that apologies show acknowledgement and an
acceptance of responsibility. However, others point out that apologies only help if they
are sincere and demonstrate adequate contrition. Otherwise, they are empty and
superficial.
As noted earlier, however, sincerity is interpreted and negotiated. This issue leads
to a broader concern. When it comes to public apologies, how can official
representatives convey sincerity? By choking up with emotion? Spontaneous rending of
garments? Is it like pornography: “You know it when you see it”?
After all, every aspect of a public apology seems subject to minute scrutiny by the
“audience”-—in this case, both countries’ citizens, leaders, and media, as well as
international observers. Such factors as: the timing, setting, dress, the level of official,
tone, word choice, delivery, even the emotionality of the apology, will be inspected for its
meaning and relative authenticity.
Furthermore, apologies may be more or less forthcoming depending upon the
behavior o f the recipient state?52 Often it is asserted during such debates that certain
incidents “deserve” an apology more than others. This situation also comes up in relation
751If this intuition is correct, it indicates that Maslow’s hierarchy o f needs may need to be revised, as national identity and other higher-order needs often seem to take precedence over “basic needs.”
752An important dynamic of public apologies is that official leaders may have expended a great deal of “political capital” domestically to generate an apology to the victims. If the apology is not received graciously or is rejected, it may harm the domestic standing of the political leader.
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to limited “incidents” versus wider-spread (over space and/or time) situations of mass
<7C1 human rights violations. However, such issues of relative merit arise when one side’s
testimony is thought to be particularly questionable. This observation is particularly
salient in Sino-American relations.
Who Is the Victim?
Furthermore, with the 2001 plane collisions incident: both sides got the story that
the other was to blame. Thus, even the roles of victim and offender may be contested.
This dual role of both victim and perpetrator seems to be the legacy of nations and states
the world over.754 Unfortunately, it also seems to be a pattern that it is preferable to
concentrate on one’s own wounds rather than the wounds one has inflicted upon the other.
National histories can contribute to this myopia by glossing over negative actions taken
in the name of their state and focusing instead upon situations in which their own citizens
have been victimized.
In bilateral relations, this situation can lead two sides to talk past each other, each
paying primary attention to one’s own injury—especially if the parties have caused each
other’s wound. Sometimes, the two sides will try to settle the question of which side
suffered more—a situation of “dueling victimhoods.” When such claims compete for the
moral high ground, stagnation may result. Even when episodic controversies die down,
753Richard Cohen, “We’ve Apologized Enough to Japan,”The Washington Post, 27 February 2001, A23.
754For example, consider the dynamics between the US and Japan regarding Pearl Harbor versus the bombing o f Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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these competing claims simply remain in the ether, ready to be re-deployed at a
moment’s notice.
One component of crisis management is that of learning from past mistakes. If
possible, joint mechanisms and confidence-building measures should be taken to prevent
similar crises in the fixture.755 Depending on the context, an interstate apology could be
considered a type of confidence-building measure.756
In terms of fixture directions for research, perhaps an ideal “apology process”
should be sketched out for what it should look like between two states. Alternately, a
broader investigation of the connections between diplomacy and gender should be
explored. Last, I believe that more should be done to investigate how to improve
intercultixral conflict communication, especially in regard to comprehending different
moments, levels, and types of emotional expression.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Despite these and other crises, thus far Sino-American economic interdependence
and pragmatic attempts to build the relationship due to “mutual interests” have
maintained the relationship—albeit primarily on an economic level. Given the high
755While some focus on interstate and US-PRC relations in terms of dyads, social network theory provides the useful reminder that, given the nature of interaction, it may be better to think in terms ofthree, or triads. In the case o f Sino-American relations, it is important to keep in mind that, for example, Taiwan is a key party implicated in such interactions. Alternately, the EU is a significant competitor with the US for business in China. Last, Japan often is compared to China as it is a close ally o f the US— and there also is the on-going tension between Japan and China regarding the historical legacies o f the Asia-Pacific War. In short, the Sino-American relationship does not take place in a vacuum. See John Scott, Social Network Analysis: A Handbook (2nd ed.) (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2000).
756Jeong, 148.
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levels of distrust and cultural misunderstandings, however, there remains a significant
chance of another crisis situation in the not-so-distant future.
The problem remains that while effective solutions were reached in the two US-
China crises studied here, these situations were managed as opposed to resolved.
Unfortunately, it remains likely that another incident could occur, necessitating another
round of crisis diplomacy. Given loss of mutual trust from these previous incidents, such
work would be difficult at best.
Clearly, the US leadership believes that the PRC will continue to be problematic
in the future, particularly in reference to Taiwan and cross-Strait tensions.757 If a crisis
were to involve Taiwan—territory central to the PRC’s nationalist project of restoring its
past borders—the situation could be especially prone to escalation.
Much of the risk comes from the double-edged quality of Chinese nationalism.
On the one hand, nationalism has provided crucial support for the Chinese Communists
remaining in power. However, public demand and anger has increased from these crises
as well as other actions that are interpreted as demonstrating China’s weakness. If the
pressure becomes too great, Chinese leaders may be driven to engage in brinksmanship to
satisfy public passions. Of course, in spite of differences in regime type, American
nationalism may provoke much the same response in the US’ leaders.
757Jim Yardley and Thom Shanker, “Chinese Navy Buildup Gives Pentagon New Worries,”New York Times, 8 April 2005.
758Michael Swaine, “Trouble in Taiwan,” Foreign Affairs 83, 2 (March/April 2004), 42-43.
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Thus, historical issues constrained Chinese and American government leaders in
terms of their interpreted range of choices. Not only were both governments under
pressure from their citizens, the leaders were subject to the same fears of historical
pitfalls.
At a more technical level, both incidents involved a breakdown in crisis
communications. From an American perspective, immediate communication and
clarification of matters can help prevent matters from spiraling out of control. However,
Chinese leaders refused such communications several times, and even President Bush
opted not to use the crisis hotline between the US and China.
Enhancing Mutual Trust
In terms of policy, one of the most obvious preventive measures would be to
maintain and expand upon current confidence-building measures (CBMs), such as
military exchanges, between the US and China. While controversial, CBMs can reduce
uncertainties and enhance transparency in regular and crisis situations. As argued by Ho-
Won Jeong, “To enhance its own security, a country should recognise the vital interests
of its opponents and allay fears that it poses a threat to those interests.”759
However, as indicated by this research and backed by other findings, one of the
negative impacts of these crises was that the Chinese military embarked on upgrading its
capabilities.760 Also, a continuing problem is that US-PRC military-to-military exchanges
759Jeong, 147.
760Starr, 97.
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remain weak and underdeveloped. In order to achieve strategic trust, these exchanges
should be continued and enhanced if at all possible.
Also, the US’ representatives need to work on its cross-cultural communication
skills. According to David Lampton, Chinese officials are most comfortable when the
other side’s interests and intentions are clarified, whereas Americans focus on a state’s
material capabilities. To assist in enhancing mutual understanding, the US should start
framing its intentions more concretely.
However, given the typical Chinese focus on gaining agreement on principles
first, it is no wonder that US and China have not been able to get far in creating mutual
“rules of the road” in the air via the MMCA talks. Their understandings of what took
place are fundamentally different, so even the first point of discussion meets with no
agreement.
Unfortunately, US-China relations in general are trapped in commonplace
binarisms. When interpretations fall into those polarized grooves, there is no further need
to investigate what has taken place—or at least, that which must be explained becomes
severely limited to functional questions.
Even the recent scholarly focus on Chinese nationalism risks perpetuating one of
the key misunderstandings of Americans: that Chinese nationalism is an interactive and
reactive process, requiring outside parties to perpetuate the dynamic. After all, while
most US-based commentators focused on Chinese nationalism, it could be argued that the
1999 embassy bombing and the 2001 Hainan incidents whipped up nationalistic fervor in
761Lampton, “China’s Rising Power,” 6 December 2005.
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both countries. Such attention to the Chinese side of the equation takes the onus off
Americans to view their role in this interaction. The PRC, with fourteen bordering states,
faces more threats than the US. More to the point, if the US (and Japan) keep on
behaving in ways that can be interpreted as “imperialistic,” then this dynamic will
continue.
How will this stance affect US-PRC relations in the future? There will be
occasions when Chinese and American “interests” dovetail, such as with North Korea at
the moment, but many issues will remain that fuel mutual dislike and distrust. In the
meantime, the US and PRC will remain subject to the latest predicament in their ongoing
relationship, with lows and highs that cycle on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.
The major stumbling blocks to US-China relations will continue to be divergent
historical legacies, cultural logics, and the gendered desire to maintain national face,
honor, and prestige. Until these logics are better understood and allowances made for
differences, any further clashes will lead only to crisis management—a poor substitute
for conflict resolution—to prevent escalation into war.
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Interview Questions of Citizens
1. (What is the US capital?)
2. ? (Who is the US president?)
3. ffciUR—>HtH A ® J? (Do you know an American?)
4. (W. 'hi£, m & , §rS> I ) (How have you learned about the US? (Sources: movies, novels, TV (?), friends, news, newspapers, work)
5. (Is there an American you really admire? Dislike?)
6. f^ )^ S ? (Are you interested in international relations/politics?)
7. ? (What is your job?)
8. Ift^W JLfW A? (Where are you from?)
9. ? (What is your level of education?)
314
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10. (What is your age?)
11. i i ft'^ A R §■ ? (What foreign languages have you studied?)
I. "MM" fEAiHsklf'f'ffiffffl: First, questions as to the role of apology in their personal experiences:
12. ( ^ f r 3 i J A 3 M » ) A ff4? m m , ■, #^ii#jA#«Mo w A£Bfr±*ram, A itt!^ ? pj ? ) Is it possible to apologize on behalf of someone else? Which situations and why? (For example, China now has “apology companies”; at banquets, you may have someone drink for you. Also, can a friend apologize for another friend’s behavior in a street fight? Can a spouse apologize for the other spouse? Can a parent apologize for a child’s behavior?)
13. lift? A f t^ .? Are there situations in which it is more difficult to apologize? Which situations and why?
14. i« w £ ? M ? ?&? Are there benefits to apologizing? If so, what? (And in which particular situations?)
is. mm, mtE&mm If you must give an apology to another person (at home, at work, in a public setting, or to a friend), what do you do and say?
II. Then, the particular incidents: 1) 1999 NATO bombing o f the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade; 2) 2001 Hainan incident. 1) 1999 2) 2001
16. I f n'/'IWiS;? A f fA ? Of what situations in history did this incident remind you? Why?
17. “ W ffllA ^ S A /U H A ” What kinds of lessons do we draw from this incident (for Sino-US relations)?
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18. ( W ^ H A I ^ ) ? How do you believe the “average Chinese” (or American) viewed this incident?
19. m & ? What does an interstate apology look like? What should it look like? Why?
20. HA/£A, *|sl¥#MA, $SA*P Afcf A ^ f^ t» '-6t ? How do you believe that working-class Chinese, farmers, northern/southern Chinese, men/women, different generations, urban/rural Chinese, etc., would see this situation?
21. What, if anything, is/can be lost/gained in apologizing? Why?
22. A fh A ? What would have improved the situation? Why?
23. What constitutes an official apology?
24. iil^:#f#^'i’AKlp^?bn%kMi> % {t& ? A f f ^ ? Does an apology have to be official? Why or why not?
25. i B 'M t f g , trn&M&M? XjT&BbttmmMMXM, i^ H l|C (ft Ilf ? What should a state do if it believes that it did nothing wrong? Should its officials apologize just to help improve state relations?
26. A ? What does an apology mean to you?
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Interview Questions for Scholars, Journalists, and Officials762
M ^ M : 1 ) 2) 2001 The two cases are: 1) the 1999 NATO bombing o f the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade; 2) the 2001 Hainan incident.
Preliminary issues: • Do you need for this interview to be off-record? If yes, then please suggest how I should describe your job position. • T o Of course, I plan to check what I write based on this interview with you.
• LU^IhJ ^ o If you think that a question is too sensitive, please tell me. You do not have to answer me.
1. Of what situations in history did this incident remind you? Why?
2. mx%, What kinds of lessons do we draw from this incident (for Sino-US relations)?
3. What, if anything, is/can be lost/gained in apologizing? Why?
4. What would have improved the situation? Why?
762These questions served as a guide rather than a strict format for interviews with foreign policy experts. Often the list o f questions was altered slightly in order to target a particular expert’s area of knowledge or pursue a new line of inquiry.
317
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5. %, ? What should a state do if it believes that it did nothing wrong? Should its officials apologize just to help improve state relations?
6. Why do you think that the U.S. acted the way it did in the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy?
7. jfciA AIiffl AlS:#!® EP-3 V'f4:43 A lt' Az?Why do you think that the U.S. acted the way it did in the Hainan EP-3 incident?
8. Why do you think that the PRC acted the way it did in the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy?
9. Why do you think that the PRC acted the way it did in the Hainan EP-3 incident?
10. 'fftiAAj 1999 What, in your opinion, really happened in the 1999 bombing?
11. ifcik Ih]^ ? What, in your opinion, really happened in terms of the Hainan plane collision?
12. jia /a a , AfDA-fct A ^ f^f > How do you believe that working-class Chinese, farmers, northern/southern Chinese, men/women, different generations, urban/rural Chinese, etc., would see this situation?
13. ^^iA A ^^iA ^^hft-A A ? 3^1im jlfcA i^t& #jl3W Do you have any suggestions of others I should interview? Could I mention your name as having referred me?
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ADDITIONAL INTERVIEWS
C-l: Chinese editor. Interview by author, 14 November 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C-2: Chinese journalist. Interview by author, 6 November 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C-3: Chinese journalist. Interview by author, 11 November 2003, Beijing, China. Tapes.
C-4: Chinese journalist. Interview by author, 20 November 2003, Beijing, China. Tapes and notes.
C-5: Chinese journalist. Interview by author, 21 November 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C-6: Chinese official. Interview by author, 14 November 2003, Beijing, China. E-mail correspondence.
C-7: Chinese professor. Interview by author, 11 November 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C-8: Chinese professor. Interview by author, 12 November 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C-9: Chinese professor. Interview by author, 13 March 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C-10: Chinese professor. Interview by author, 21 October 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C-l 1: Chinese professor. Interview by author, 22 October and 11 November 2003, Beijing, China. Notes and e-mail correspondence.
C -l2: Chinese professor. Interview by author, 23 November 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C -l3: Chinese publisher. Interview by author, 13 November 2003, Beijing, China. Tapes.
C-14: Chinese writer. Interview by author, 14 November 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
C-15: Member of Chinese think tank. Interview by author, 17 October 2003, Beijing, China. Notes.
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