Pacific Rim Report No.14

Copyright 1988 -2005 USF Center for the Pacific Rim The Occasional Paper Series of the USF Center for the Pacific Rim :: www.pacificrim.usfca.edu Pacific Rim Report No. 14, April 2000 Asia: No Longer a Monolith A discussion with Michael Oksenberg This Pacific Rim Report presents the second in a series of Pacific Rim 2000 Briefings entitled "Asia: No Longer a Monolith" held on March 15th this year. Cosponsored by the USF Center for the Pacific Rim and the Commonwealth Club of California, the briefing featured China expert Michel Oksenberg, Ph.D., in conversation with journalist Marsha Vande Berg, Ph.D. The evening program, held at the Commonwealth Club's downtown San Francisco headquarters, was introduced by University of San Francisco president and Commonwealth Club of California Executive Committee chair, Rev. John P. Schlegel, S.J. Michel Oksenberg is a senior fellow at the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he is also professor of political science. He writes and lectures on contemporary China, Asia Pacific affairs, and on American foreign policy in the region. His research specialties include Chinese domestic affairs, China’s foreign policy, Sino- American relations, and East Asian political development. Earlier in his career he taught at Columbia (1968–74) and the University of Michigan (1973–92), where he was also director of the Center for Chinese Studies. From 1977 to 1980, while on leave from the University, he served as senior staff member of the National Security Council in Washington, D.C., with special responsibility for China and Indochina. From January 1992 to February 1995, he served as president of the East–West Center, a federally funded research and training institute in Honolulu. Oksenberg is the author of numerous books and articles including China: The Convulsive Society (1971); Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structure, and Process (1988); and China’s Participation in the IMF, the World Bank, and GATT: Toward a Global Economic Order (1990); A United States Policy for the Changing Realities of East Asia: Toward a New Consensus (1996); Living with China (1997); Shaping U.S.– China Relations: A Long-Term Strategy (1997); The Chinese Future (1997); and co-editor of China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects (1999). Oksenberg’s B.A. is from Swarthmore College (1960), and his M.A. (1963) and Ph.D. (1969) in political science are from Columbia University. IIn discussion with Dr. Oksenberg,erg, Marsha Vande Berg has worked for major U.S. dailies, in television, and as an editorial consultant. She has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and she is a member of the German Quandt Foundation’s Transatlantic Forum. She was also a 1997 Salzburg Media Seminar fellow. Vande Berg’s education includes a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and an M.A. from Duke University. We gratefully acknowledge the Kiriyama Chair for Pacific Rim Studies at the USF Center for the Pacific Rim for funding this issue of Pacific Rim Report. Marsha Vande Berg (Vande Berg): Michel, please describe the China of today for us. Michel Oksenberg (Oksenberg): China is in the midst of enormous change, yet also ‘forever China’. As to the enormous change, consider that this vast land of 1.3 billion people is in the midst of transformations that took 200 or more years in the West. I’m speaking of the transformation from an overwhelmingly rural society to an urban one, and from a predominantly peasant society to one of great diversity in occupations, including (I am not sure whether I am pleased in saying this or not) lawyers, with all that implies for the guarantee of legal rights. China is also in the midst of industrialization, with an increasing percentage of its GNP generated by the heavy industrial sphere and the service sector. It is a society being transformed by the telecommunications and transportation revolutions that, of course, have also affected us. But even with rapid changes in the society, in the economy, and also to a certain extent in the culture, there are also continuities evident in China. These continuities entail a certain persistence of traditional values and a political system that is changing more slowly than the economic and social domains, and, to some extent, perhaps, is beginning to constrain the rate of change in the economy and the society. Above all, one must think of China as a very diverse land, and not at all a monolithic society, a point perhaps best exemplified by the 8% of China’s population—nearly 90 million people—made up of minorities and occupying the peripheral, border regions. China’s diversity can also be captured in another way: I believe there are five great cuisines in the world. The first is Sichuanese, the second is Pekinese or Shandong style, the third Shanghainese, the fourth Cantonese, and the fifth would be debatable—French or Italian. And we know that both of those derived all their sauces from China! Vande Berg: Well, that begs any number of questions about whether you are a cook or not, Michel, but let me stick to the topic of China. Do you think that there might be a ‘Chinese Gorbachev’ waiting in the wings? Oksenberg: No, I don’t think that a ‘Chinese Gorbachev’ is on the horizon, and certainly the Chinese hope that there isn’t one because most of them believe that Gorbachev’s policies led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and, from a Chinese perspective, to disaster. And that is not just a governmental view, in my opinion. It is beyond question that the years since the reforms began in China in 1978 are the best 22 years and more in over 150 years for China and the Chinese, and both the leadership and the populace have one overriding concern among their many, many concerns: not to lose the progress that has been made in the past 22 years as they continue to try and develop. So, if you suggested to the premier of China, Zhu Rongji, that he is a Gorbachev, he would hasten to say, “Thanks a lot, but don’t apply that name to me.” In any case, I would say that there is not going to be a Chinese Gorbachev because the Chinese path will certainly grow out of its own history, its own culture, and will be a response to its own problems, which are not the same as those confronted by the Soviet Union at the time when Gorbachev came along. One of the main points that I would make (and one of the reasons why I answered the first question the way I did) is that China still retains its distinctiveness. It is all too easy to suggest that what’s going to happen to China is just like in the case of Japan, or Germany, or the Soviet Union; i.e., that all great powers rise alike. But I think that in any forecast of the Chinese future one has to begin by first looking at the Chinese condition itself, at where their own internal forces are propelling them, and then not making too easy comparisons. Vande Berg: So, what are those internal forces? Obviously the government, the military, and the people play important roles. Oksenberg: If you look at the present time, it seems to me that the leaders of China are grappling with five issues over the next two to four years, which is a relatively short time horizon. In other words, what is the agenda of issues currently confronting the Politburo, the Standing Committee, of the Chinese Communist Party? First, Taiwan. This is not an issue which the leaders of China would necessarily have wished to put at the head of their agenda, but it is there partly because Hong Kong has returned to Chinese sovereignty, as has Macao, and now Taiwan, from their perspective the last of the areas of China (with perhaps the exception of Mongolia) taken away from China during its protracted period of humiliation at the hands of the outside world from mid-19th century on. So, the leaders are increasingly focusing on Taiwan and they see Taiwan, perhaps incorrectly, drifting away from the Mainland. Now, I have to say that there’s a reason that Taiwan is drifting away from the Mainland; the Mainland is not that attractive. The Mainland’s approach to Taiwan, as Tom Friedman has pictured it in the New York Times, is a little bit like someone courting a potential mate and saying, ‘Marry me or I’ll kill you.’ This is not necessarily a line that wins great affection. It’s a complicated picture and the leaders of China are nervous because none of them wishes to go down in history as the person who ‘lost’ Taiwan. I’ll quickly tag the other four (you see, I have a 40-minute lecture on this subject; professors can’t really speak in three-minute segments!), and these are: the succession [after Jiang Zemin], maintenance of social stability and order, how to deal with the military in the reform process, and finally, how to keep the economy going while reforming it to make it even more congruent with a market economy. Vande Berg: I think as Americans we all struggle with how to understand this vast and complex country with so many, many people. Your catalog of issues on the Politburo’s agenda is very helpful. Could you flesh it out with some insight about who China’s leaders are, especially Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji? Also, inside the Politburo and the Standing Committee, what are the tugs and is power shifting from one person to another? Oksenberg: It’s a very, very difficult question, Marsha.

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