Site Overlay

Debating The Long Term Sino-US Relationship, Part V

In Part IV I talked about road blocks from the American side without spelling them out. This blog will start from that.

The Dangerous Four “Os”

Looking from a distance, the assumption of global hegemony applies well to China and the US, as both countries possess the necessary power and resources and it does not require a leap of faith for them to want global superpowers. Using the example from my blog before, China is not Nepal but is 65 times larger in land area and contains roughly 46 times more people according to this website. Their difference in economic outcomes is even more staggering: China’s GDP is roughly 480 times of Nepal’s according to this website.

Looking closer however, things are quite different from when one looks from afar. I believe the greatest danger the world faces today is not so much of China’s rise per se, but rather the national psychology of the four “Os” in the US to likely trigger an escalatable war:

  1. Overestimating China’s powers;
  2. Overresponding to China’s defensive moves;
  3. Overstretching domestic political mileage; and
  4. Over-projecting our own preference

Of the four above, the last one — as exemplified by Mearsheimer — is the root problem preventing both parties from developing right perceptions of each other. The other three, especially the second and the third, have a stronger action link as they go beyond perceptions to potentially bring us closer to military conflicts — even though the Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that it does not want a war with China, that it is not forming an alliance against China, and that it has no objection against China’s growth.

In other words, the national psychology of antagonism has its own logic of deteriorating, or rather escalating, to battles or even a war, even though both sides are better off from engaging in peaceful interactions than from dogfight or fights. The problem is that at least one side, more likely the US, believes the other side has an evil intention — and the matching resources — of destruction, triggering the need to enter a collision course for self-defense, while regretting for not having dealt a preemptive and decisive blow against China earlier.

The easy model coming to mind from the game theory is the game of chicken (aka Hawk-Dove), which provides some fit as a two players game. On the other hand, national pride plays a crucial role, even to an irrational degree, in the game of chicken, while the Sino-US game of misjudgment is less about national pride than about resources for mutual understanding.

Why Mearsheimer Will Dominate The US China Policy

This morning I was walking with my friend James on the soccer field and he told me that during the Youth Camp opening ceremony today the staff were making the kids chanting something like “Who Are The Best? We Are!” James had an interesting comment that I have not heard many people saying: “You see, unlike the Chinese who appreciate humility, we Americans are teaching kids to be the champion of the world from early on.”

Several thoughts came to me after hearing James’ insightful comment. First of all, it is nothing wrong to desire winning. A country is just like a person, most of the times one must first want to be the winner in order to win. Sometimes an individual or a sports team may win by pure luck, but when it comes to a country, pure luck is not enough. Economic growth for example requires so much attention, coordination, twists adjustments — all the things demand high motivation and commitment. This explains why there are far more “loser” than “winner” countries in the world . The reason the US and China are economically top players in the world is because both people treasure and crave winning so much.

Secondly, Chinese have lost themselves under Xi Jinping, who is more interested in Marxism and Mao than China’s own tradition. If they followed the Confucianism and Taoism (see more below), China would not have the wolf worrier diplomacy at all in the first place. With Xi’s “penny smart and pound foolish” governing style, the country fails to realize that Confucianism and Taoism are the best shields for China to defend itself from the US. Xi lately asked for a modest and humble diplomacy to make China “lovable” to the world, but those words sounded more like a window dressing. True Confucianist humility means to learn from anyone, not just dressing up to be humble.

James told me two stories this morning while we were walking around the soccer field, one about IBM’s Deep Blue beating the world best chess player and another on Google’s AlphaGo beating the best Go player in the world from South Korea. The chess champion is a Russian and according to James, after losing the game the Russian complained for unfairness because Deep Blue was programmed after his style. On the other hand, after losing the game the Korean champion was smiling and said he learned a lot from AlphaGo. Which one is the right response? Of course the Korean guy is smarter, because playing the game is ultimately about learning, with beating others as a side goal.

Unfortunately, nowadays when people of the world think of China, they picture a country completely wrapped by a huge communist red flag with the pictures of Marx & Mao on it — rather than pictures of Confucius and Lao Tzu.

Thirdly, the real key in successfully managing the US-China relationships is to do things in the right degrees. Both China and the US I believe can benefit from the middle-ground doctrine of Confucianism (see more discussion below).

An excellent visionary leadership example is from Dr. Fauci in his comment on searching for vaccine origin. In the review Fauci said exactly the right things: “Obviously you want openness and cooperation. One of the ways you can get it, is don’t be accusatory, try to get both a forensic, a scientific, and an investigational approach. I think the accusatory approach is only going to get them to pull back even more. We’ve got to do it in a combination diplomacy, scientific, forensic, investigation, and do it in a way that the people of good faith, not who want to do blame.”

Comparing these words of wisdom with Trump the loser’s demand for $10 trillion damage payment from China, it’s easy to figure out who is smarter and who is dumber — or the dumbest — leaders from this country.

Back To The Middle-Ground Doctrine

The antidote to the global dominance thinking is the ancient preference related to the middle-ground doctrine (中庸之道) in Confucianism of China. Americans tend to “go full length when they think they are right,” while the Chinese under Confucianism would “go half the length even when they are proven right.” The idea of not pushing too hard but in modesty is to avoid extremes, to save room for future maneuvers and to maintain flexibility for “what ifs.”

Strategically, the middle-ground doctrine is often translated into internally self imposed constraint in competition. To illustrate the difference, some common words or phrases Americans tell their sports team before a game, big or small, are to “kick some ass!’ or “beat the shit out of them!” People in this country find it difficult or nonsense to go half length against competitors if their resources allow full strength strikes.

The middle ground doctrine for Chinese on the other hand means winning is not everything, but constrained winning is the thing. The latter means it is unlikely for Chinese to adopt the “winning by all means” approach. In fact, another Chinese military thinker, Sun Tzu in his famous “The Art of War,” proposed that “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” In other words, avoid the use of forces anyway you can.

Revisiting The Inactions Of Taoism

Another philosopher, Lao Tsu of Taoism, believed more in “inaction” (无为) than action. One of the most famous slogans of Taoism is “To govern by doing nothing against nature!” (无为而治), which pushed the idea of cost cutting through leveraging natural forces to an extreme. Although Taoism is not the most popular thinking in China, especially after emperors found Confucianism convenient for strengthening their ruling, we have seen its trace from time to time. That idea of “winning by not fighting” of Sun Tzu was Taoism applied to military, for example.

Taoism shares at least one idea with Confucianism: Setting limit or boundary to human efforts and do not go extremes in trying.

My Own Preference On Competition

Speaking of boundaries, my favorite poem was written by Mao Zedong on plum blossom (Ode of Plum Blossom). I do think Mao was guilty of humanity crimes but I can’t change the fact that I grew up my early life under Mao. People back then had no choice but to read and memorize his writings, as little else was allowed. Meanwhile, my parents taught me to expand the sources of learning, even from “bad guys” from time to time.

Anyway, in this particular poem, Mao admired an early plum flower that harbingers the springtime, featured by flowers all over the places. When the spring arrives, the “Mao flower” would smile in a sea of other flowers, not competing for the title of “a beauty queen” but staying as ordinary and indistinguishable as every other flower.

I must admit that the poem has been inspiring me ever since I read it. I found the idea of devotion to self-imposed mission beautiful. Oftentimes I want to be that “Mao flower” and instead of competing my heart out with others for fame and fortune — the American way — I would rather stay away from the limelight to make quiet and unique contribution — the old Chinese way.

This is nothing against competition, which is one of the most important engines for society to move forward. The American way has been proven working better than the old Chinese way, because most people do want fame and fortune and do not mind beating others on those dimensions.

If anything, the Taoism helps instill a more balanced view toward competition. To quote my favorite Chinese saying: “If you are lucky, make the world a better place; if you are unlucky, make yourself a better person” (达则兼善天下,穷则独善其身). You will have peace of mind even if you failed to win over others — by being a better you.

Yesterday I hiked to the top of the hill for the first time and then walked down by the Panoramic way. Took me slightly more than one hour to finish (got lost by walking on the Panoramic Way twice) but it felt good.

This morning I started a fasting and so far ate nothing except water. I was not planning on it but started it at a moment’s notice. I believe it is good to surprise your body. If everything is predictable, your body develops inertia and things work less well. The worst thing is to become a slave of your own routines: Just because you ran four miles yesterday does not mean you must do the same today — like otherwise you are failing yourself. That’s a wrong way to go because our body is not a machine. Having variety of amounts and paces is better.

The campus is now alive with the Youth Camp opened today for 10 weeks!

A breaking news this morning: The FDA approved first medicine for Alzheimer’s