America needs an enemy to fear. To be more specific, many American politicians are quick to let the American public know who they should be fearing and why that threat justifies their legislation, emphases, etc. Usually, the result isn’t pretty. In cases where a foreign power is the looming monster waiting to take away our freedom, our “protection” has included McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and the Patriot Act. The list could go on and on. And another endless one could be made for domestic “threats.”
While not as pressing a threat as terrorism right now, China seems to rank high on the list, particularly from an economic perspective. Obama’s recent “pivot” to Asia implies that the region poses a potential danger to our way of life, requiring heightened attention to the area. While North Korea’s recent missile experiments no doubt are a large part of that concern, China’s economic policies* likely play a role, too. Meanwhile, Romney wants to increase defense spending because of the growing militaries of some rising countries, including China. There’s also the “threat” of China cashing in the U.S. debt it owns, which, according to this fear, would wreck the U.S. economy (never mind that China, as of 2011, owned only 8% of all American debt and that China needs a strong US economy in order to sell its manufactured goods).
These fears have as one of their assumptions that China is a thriving country with a huge population that can mobilized at once by its strong central government. There is a sliver of truth here. China’s economy has grown leaps and bounds in the last 20-30 years, making it the second largest economy in the world. However, as I’ve pointed out before, its GDP per capita puts it squarely amongst developing countries. The easily mobilized population fear is, I suspect largely based on the assumption that China’s central government can do what it wants when it wants when it comes to domestic matters. The majestic Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony seemed to only reinforce this idea in many Americans’ minds.
Although an impressive display (and, I’ve since discovered, no exception. The Chinese know how to put together an open ceremony), the coordination and planning necessary to execute the ceremony is no more representative of daily Chinese life than High School Musical is indicative of an American high school’s ability to smoothly perform a school-wide dance (at least that’s what I think happens on that show). While power is focalized here, the government’s reach can be exaggerated. Yes, there is a Great Firewall and Internet monitoring (although, the latter probably isn’t uncommon in the U.S., either). However, black cabs flourish. Unlicensed business owners dot nearly every corner, their carts bursting with food or sundry items. A food-safety crisis looms. These are not the only reasons to question this fear.
The new library on campus that will likely never be occupied.
Living in Guizhou, the least developed and poorest region in China, has diffused any such concern we had before we arrived. Anshun is dotted by unfinished buildings. In what seems to be a fairly typical Guizhou story, the shell of one apartment building just outside campus has been abandoned; the developer has fled with the down payments of prospective apartment owners, including some of our colleagues. A beautiful, modern library on our campus has been nearly completed for a few years, ready to replace the cramped, crumbling library in use now. However, it isn’t likely to get any closer to being finished as the building failed to meet code, and the expense of taking it apart and putting it back together is likely prohibitive. No one is likely to ever step foot in the building, in part due to a very large dog who is very good at warning people not to enter it.
For the past two weeks, our water has been unreliable. On two separate occasions, we’ve been without water for four days. The same situation greeted us at the beginning of last semester, but our province was suffering through a drought at that time. Later last year, construction of a road meant the water pipes had to be disconnected and then reconnected. In both situations, we knew when we wouldn’t have water (and, at least as importantly for us, why) and were able to plan accordingly.
The latest shortages, however, are different. These outages were unannounced and unexpected by everyone. After a couple days, our boss was, as always, quick to make sure we had water to drink and clean with, even offering to take us to a hotel to shower if the problem persisted. We later learned the cause of the shortage: the new middle school (which is beautiful, by the way) that opened this school year was using so much water that our campus was not getting any. In other words, the government introduced thousands of people, some of whom live on campus because their homes are too far away for them to commute every day, without studying a basic thing like how the area’s water supply would be affected. The problem seems to have since been rectified (fingers crossed), but this lack of planning is not the action of a foreign power that keeps a person up at night.
The point isn’t to belittle China or its power. There are a lot of Chinese people, which means a large military and workforce. China does have a long history and rich culture from which to draw on, and the people, even those who are vocal about their disagreements with those in power, are proud of their heritage and country, as they should be.
Furthermore, while it still faces many obstacles, the country’s economic progress has been astounding. In fact, this growth is perhaps the biggest factor in our dry period. More and more students are able to afford high school here due to the relative prosperity China is experiencing. With that growth only continuing in the future, I am sure the government felt the school had to be constructed as soon as possible, which left no time for basic planning. The signs of construction dot every city I pass through, train rides often seeming like very large slide shows of cranes. While the new buildings are a sign of faith and hope in the economy, there is also often a rushed feeling to the construction, as if companies often decide to build now and figure out the basic logistics later.*
No, the point is that fear often reveals more about the fearful person than what keeps him or her up at night.** To paraphrase Churchhill, and put his words in a completely different context, what we have to fear isn’t China. What we should fear is our quickness to fear them.
*I realize the US isn’t immune to poor planning. The difference seems to be that we are aware of the poor planning and move ahead anyway, usually because it means making more money. For some reason, knowing that someone knew what they are about to build is a bad idea from a structural standpoint is more comforting for me than if the mistake were a result of ignorance. Maybe that’s the American in me, though.
**Although, what it reveals isn’t always bad. If a loved one has a potentially fatal disease and it keeps a person up, that just shows that said person is, you know, a person. Similarly, if a person suffers a traumatic event and has trouble sleeping because of it, that just reveals the person, at the risk of being repetitive, suffered a traumatic event.
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