Why Can't the Chinese Be More Like US

It seems like Americans are often lamenting, “Why Can't the Chinese Be More Like US?” And, that’s what I’d like to address today beginning with analogies to the eternal issues raised in Alan Learner’s “My Fair Lady”.  The parallels work and his lyrical portrayal is a joy to recall.  

Remember, Henry Higgins got it all wrong and paid the price.  His Fair Lady left him cold and wished him ill.  He couldn’t understand, after all he had done for her, “what could’ve possessed her?”  At least he knew, he couldn’t understand her at all.  One thing’s for certain: Women’s heads are not “full of cotton, hay, and rags.”  Irrational seeming, at times, especially when they’re tapping into their intuitive power and the deeper reaches of Nature.

This age old problem is quite simple to describe, but still daunting to solve.  Men are different than women.  Men have their organizing principles of behavior and women have quite a different way.  Result: dissonant behaviors.  Lacking understanding of these complex constructs, leaves both talking past each other.  Progress, though, is possible by embracing paradigms. 

Paradigms are a set of attributes that a complex, dynamic situation will tend towards.  Each of the tendencies of a given paradigm are generally highly correlated.  Now, take a pair of contrasting paradigms, offensive versus defensive, for example.  Then, for any one attribute common to both try exchanging their tendencies.  The result will feel quite disconcerting; like it doesn’t belong.  In any situation under the influence of one of the paradigms, will try to expunge the oposing tendency and restore the previous one.  This homeostasis makes paradigms both robust and difficult to change. Women and men operate on two contrasting paradigms, as do East and West!

John Sculley, of Apple fame, kicked off two decades of my interest in paradigms with his generous attribution to me for having inspired his contrasting management paradigms for which he got much acclaim.  My ideas are coalescing in the book I’m writing, The Life Cycle of Revolutions.  I show that revolutions go through four paradigms in this order: visionary, disruptive, administrative, and adaptive.  The automotive revolution had representative leaders in Benz as visionary, Ford as disrupter, Sloan as administrator, and Iacocca as adaptor.  China had its march of leaders, as well, in Sun (visionary), Mao (disruptor), Deng (administrator), and Jiang (adaptor).  

Paradigms can be ascribed to many complex systems including foreign policy.  In that realm, US, that is the United States, functions more on an offensive than defensive paradigm.  The offense paradigm is characterized by valuing: rational, force, destruction, focus, consistency, substance, initiative, reality, and on and on.  Whereas, the defense paradigm is characterized by: intuitive, flow, nurture, diversity, harmony, appearance, reaction, and so forth.  Contrasting paradigms have conflicting homeostasis, that is, inherent propensity to restore, which causes fruitful and fitful friction when they coexist, such as in a marriage.

Today, we are witness to the same kind of frustrations between East and West as Professor Higgins experienced between him and his Fair Lady.  The US is all too masculine: proud, invincible, dictating, intimidating, and blind to all!  China is more understanding much like women knowing more about men, than vice versa.   However, one day and perhaps soon, the US may take just one too many aggressive initiatives and China may slam the door, then watch out as all hell breaks loose.  In future centuries, historians will ponder, what on earth could have possessed them?  

Two blinders trending in US today are based on misguided assumptions:  US power is limitless and everyone thinks like US.  Ho Chi Minh won against US’s unbridled onslaught and Chiang Kai-Shek lost despite US’s overwhelming materiél support.  Ho won because US underestimated Easterners’ group commitment.  Chiang lost because US underestimated Chinese concern for face and overestimated Chinese commitment to ideologies.  The Ugly American, it’s déjà vu' all over again, except it’s not just diplomats this time, it’s policy makers and journalists causing trouble, potentially, really big trouble!

China and US are different, and Chinese don’t think like US.  China has the oldest continuous culture in the world.  China is racially homogenous with over 90% belonging to one race, Han.  Paradoxically, China is diverse; provinces’ climate and locations are distinct enough that Chinese upon meeting will often ask, “what is your ancestral hometown?”  They will soon enough determine the other major cleavages: urban versus rural, schooled versus trained, rich versus poor, and connected versus “common”.  US is racially diverse and regionally homogeneous, and Americans don’t identify themselves by wealth and connections, except maybe in Washington.

The contrasts are even deeper.  US celebrates individuality and declares exceptionalism; Chinese, on the other hand, bond with groups, large and small, and admire conformity, that is, flexible conformity to the situation, like water does, not like a martinet.  Chinese seek the middle path, prefer to flow than force, and strive for harmony over consistency or candor.  

The Chinese behavioral culture which has held together for over 3,000 years is a defensive paradigm, and, as such, their culture is feminine-like – held together by relationships.  Being defensive, like women, China is keenly tuned to its surroundings.   I contrast this with men who were offensively oriented who hunted in small groups and by “engineering” their surroundings, create chances for gain and domination.  To be effective, men had to focus, ignoring or destroying anything not tied to their goal.

Defensive and offensive provides two fundamentally opposite organizing principles for survival and beyond.  Defense tends to be holistic whereas offense tends to be reductionist.  A good defense develops a strategy to thwart all manner of offense, for example, by building a Great Wall or a vast buffer or by having safety in number or by turning an adversary’s strength against themselves.  Whereas, a good offense develops a strategy to reduce or destroy the effectiveness of defensive constructs.  That leads me to generalize about the respective behavioral cultures of China versus US.

China’s behavioral culture is obsessive about appearances, is harmony seeking, and is confrontation avoiding.  Chinese engage in soothing by spinning the truth.  China’s behavioral culture is oriented to the group, from the immediate to the national, and is accepting of exceptions to rules.  Consequently, Chinese are strong in relationships, good at nurturing, and respectful of tradition and, also, in the spirit of complexity, dynamically stable.  

US’s behavioral culture is masculine: obsessive about integrity, seeking truth and justice through rules, ready to confront, goal oriented, and fixated on the individual.  Consequently, US is strong in technology, good at leveraging, adept at war (including against diseases and all manner of ills), and respectful of science and progress (over tradition).

In China, relationships are assets as useful as a bank account and a lawyer, combined.  The Chinese ran a trillion dollar economy (up to 1998) among themselves without contracts; unimaginable in the West!   Chinese tackle daunting engineering projects on scales well beyond America’s, such as the Three Gorges, a second Central American Canal, diverting the Yangtze River’s water to the North (first example is Grand Canal to Beijing begun over 14 centuries ago), high speed rails for the entire country, and ultra-high voltage electrical distribution.

Let’s recognize that China settled its border disputes around 1999 with scant resistance to claims by its neighbors, Russia, in particular.  Today’s border disputes are on unpopulated lands that the Chinese feel are crucial to their people, for security and natural resources.  That’s not a justification, just an observation.  The only exception is Taiwan which, as everyone knows, China considers to be a wayward province.  However, China will, on the scale of decades, keep up non-violent pressure and enticements to bring Taiwan voluntarily back into their fold.  By contrast, the US has questionable claim on Guantanamo, yet occupies this land that once was populated by Cubans.  The potential policy blunder is US’s estimation of China’s willingness and manner of fighting.  Recall, "Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."  For example, Eliza Doolittle called for no less than Henry Higgins’ head!

So, as the US tilts to Asia, we need to heed this 300 year old adage.  The US love affair with China is waning as China’s power, especially economic, rises.  America’s, deployment of military assets around China’s border, the sale of advanced military weapons to Taiwan, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) initiative, and US support of Japan, Vietnam, Philippines over border disputes could be interpreted as the beginnings of a hatred.  Admittedly, those neighbors need US’s might to provide negotiating strength and to bolster their sovereignty claims against China imposing its military power.  However, US should be wary of unleashing a rage and triggering a lose-lose standoff, or worse.

Unlike Western emerging powers of centuries ago, China has no appetite for conquering neighbors or establishing colonies anywhere.  Don’t count Genghis Kahn (known in China as: Chéng Jí Sī Hàn 成吉思汗 ); he was Mongolian, not Chinese.  On the other hand, Zhèng Hé ( 郑和 ), the great 15th century navigator, was Chinese and a great maritime explorer.  With an armada of hundreds of ships (his flagship was more than 4 times the length of Europeans largest!) and tens of thousands of men, he visited 37 countries mostly in Asia and Africa before Europeans even “discovered” Indian.  When attacked by miscalculating opportunists, Zhèng Hé ferociously prevailed (bringing their heads back to China), but was otherwise peaceful and gifts bearing.  The conclusion based on his explorations was that the “outside world” had nothing worthwhile to offer and both would be better off left alone.  So it would be for hundreds of years, until Europeans imposed themselves on coastal China and along the Yangtze River (known in China as: Cháng Jiāng长江).

Another notable Chinese was Máo ZéDōng (毛澤東) who delivered the message, don’t underestimate the cohesion and resolve of the Chinese.  The US Congress, quite heady after winning the big war, miscalculated Mao’s political power, lost China, and then blamed the State Department.  Real trusted Americans on the ground, like General Joe Stillwell had it right, but no one listened.  Congress’s miscalculation had consequences that took decades to mend, in large part, because the Chinese people never bent under the West’s sanctions.  It was a colossal, classical, lose-lose standoff.

In fact, Mao consciously discarded “isms” as useless in filling bellies and rallying emotions.  Rather, he pointed to a single, simple, enemy, the Japanese, as his means to rally Chinese peasants to fight.  Mao then tapped into those peasants’ enmity and, like a woman scorned, holistically wove that enmity into a political, economic, cultural, moral, as well as a military force.  That holistic strategy then defeated his adversary, Chiang Kai-Shek (or, as he’s known in China, Jiǎng Jiè Shí  蒋介石) who had, for the most part, over ten times the financial and matériel resources.  Not only did might not win, it did not even intimidate the peasants due to their group cohesion and faith in their culture’s resilience!

The extreme coherence of Mao’s forces is quantified by the 90% casualty rate his army incurred in the 1935 The Long March (HóngJūn ChángZhēng 红军长征) without significant desertions or attempts to overthrow Mao.  Chinese endured those casualties, the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and the discipline and intrusion of the “One Child Policy” all without significant protest.  Let us not forget the sacrifice of the Kamikaze pilots as yet another indication of Eastern cohesion, or national loyalty, if you prefer.  These group forces are substantially alien to our individualistic society and, all too often, to American policy decision makers and media.

Turning to contemporary policy posturing, US is seemingly taking sides against China at every turn.  This might explain the paucity of Foreign Direct Investment by China in US, despite having an overflow of dollars that by many indications they’d rather not have.  The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which is popular in Washington (in 2016 when this was written) is viewed as an attempt by US to isolate China, despite China’s latest avowed “wait and see”.  And, the US’s “pivot to Asia” is viewed as a military threat against China and China alone.

How will China respond to the TPP and the “pivot”?  Not offensively which translates to setting up a competitive Trans-Asiatic Partnership or a military “pivot to the Americas”.  Rather, first by sweetening trade with Asian neighbors, then, patiently, squeezing these trading partners (or manipulating US to squeeze them) into a choice, US or China.  Realizing that China is a neighbor with whom they have the preponderance of their trade (not to mention a trusted Chinese Yuan), then the TPP alliances are likely to experience disintegration pressures much like the EU today.  In the end, China will either be badly hurt again, but will never be destroyed nor even attempt to destroy the US.  And, yes, it could be a return to lose-lose diplomacy and beyond.  

China has already responded.  The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, and the Silk Road Economic Belt act as economic tools that temper America’s financial clout while competing with the International Monetary Fund’s lock on undeveloped nations, not to mention the PetroYuan.  China is shifting its foreign trade towards massive infrastructure development and away from cheap manufacturing.  That shift has been inadvertently abetted by America’s pressure to force the Chinese Yuan to track the dollar while all the rest of China’s customers’ currencies became cheaper.  The US should not lose sight of the fact that massive infrastructure development is lasting and can, at any time, become political, whereas products are merely personal and ephemeral.  And, economically, China itself has an aggressive stance to raise its economy by domestic, rather than foreign, consumption which acts to diminish China’s dependency on US.  

If US militarily attacks Chinese outpost’s claims in Japan and in the East China Sea, what might China’s response be?  Most likely rhetoric and posturing, but not military retaliation, much like Putin’s response to Turkey.  America’s military presence around China’s border is not likely to be an intimidation as America might expect.  China’s one aircraft carrier is but a symbol, not a counterpuncher.  However, China’s resolve is every bit as determined, if not more so, than Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam.  Mao won by wearing down Chiang; China may just wear down the US by creating incidents that hurt the US in the world of public opinion (and having nothing directly to do with the either sets of islands).

Unlike Clausewitz’s and Sūn Zǐ’s (孙子) war strategies, Chinese are in any struggle for the long haul which is how they came to be.  China has resolutely and peacefully pursued unification with Taiwan for decades.  Another lever of Chinese influence seldom exercised is moral persuasion – US underestimates the hypocrisy of occupying Guantanamo and the terror of drones which are, among others, a propaganda bonanza for US’s adversaries.  Admittedly, China has their hypocrisies and moral vulnerabilities, however we’ve already shot those bullets.  And, in conflict, China may diminish its political vulnerabilities thusly availing China with considerable moral persuasion at its disposal.

We are confronted daily with flashpoints of armed conflict.  China is not a potential instigator of World War III, but USA, and others like Turkey, are.  In the calculus preceding the decision to go to war, the press plays an enormous role, as in the sinking of the Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and Iraq’s weapons of mass deception, oops, destruction.  Objectivity, with so many choices in this complex world, is too ambitious a standard for reporting, whereas seeking some semblance of balance is both constructive and appropriate.  Balance will keep both sides alive, whereas one sided reporting will embolden one side to force itself on the other.  That would make you, the press, complicit in what could become the greatest of civilization’s calamities.

As a friend of the Chinese people, I am repeatedly struck by how China doesn’t defend itself against accusations.  For example, US attacks China’s “one child policy”, the Tibetan issues, Muslim strife, rule of law, and on and on.  These all have good constructive defenses, including progress and some agreement, that are not voiced.  And, China doesn’t engage in attacks on a whole slew of US vulnerabilities.  It was explained to me that China’s unspoken position is that such exchanges would escalate differences and harm the dialogue so vital to settling issues.  Wouldn’t it be really constructive if US balanced its position on these issues and, simultaneously, pursued discrete negotiations?  This is a Chinese way that they believe leads to a more harmonious relationship and a safer world.  Instead, too often, the absence of Chinese defending themselves is assumed to be weakness and guilt and that is a miscalculation fraught with danger.

For years, I’ve been asked a simple question by voraciously curious Chinese youth, “When will China become the world leader?”  My answer is “never” which never fails to disappoint them.  The singular “leader” subconsciously imbedded in their question, if humanity is to thrive, will become an anachronism.  Rather, the world will, hopefully, be treated to a pair of leaders, one masculine, one feminine or equivalently, one offensive, one defensive (yes, a Yang and Yin, respectively).  They will interplay with constructive tension which will guide our collective progress safely.  And, I propose the two leaders of a balanced world at the middle or end of this century will be the United States and China.  The alternative, a single world order, is too cancerous and fragile for wise Men to pursue or even accommodate! 

Let me strike you with something memorable: “Whereas men can beat women at anything!”   And, before celebrating, balance one’s self with, “Women can beat men at everything!”  A battle is a thing, but the war is everything.  Let’s not repeat Vietnam on a global, or even a regional, scale.  Let’s not slam the door, call for anyone’s head to be chopped off, or run off and join another partner.  Instead, let’s revel in the greatest and most successful nation building the United States has ever participated in, that is, bringing China into the Modern World!  Thank you.

 © 2016 Jim Cook 48120 USA  Free to quote with attribution.