China Looks at the World

Abstract

Fred Edwards has put in two stints at Beijing Review, in 1989-90 and again in 2000-1. With Shu-ning Sciban of the University of Calgary, he is co-editor of Dragonflies: Fiction by Women in Twentieth Century China (forthcoming, Cornell University Press). He currently is a copy editor in the Toronto Star's Business section.A PLAY ENTITLED Beijing has no Winter enjoyed a successful run last year in the Chinese capital. The title referred to the recent string of warm winters in northern China, where temperatures rarely fell below freezing. The winter of 2000-1, however, was every bit as cold as I remembered my winter in Beijing in 1989-90. As with that earlier experience, the chill was not just climactic. Then, Beijing was enduring the aftermath of the violent suppression of the democracy movement, what we know as the 'Tiananmen massacre' and what the Chinese refer to as the 'Tiananmen event.' Heavy machine-guns were deployed at major bridges and intersections and convoys of soldiers circulated throughout the city, especially in the Haidian district, home to the major universities.The new chill had a different quality, directed less against domestic opponents of the regime (with the exception of the Falun Gong movement) than against perceived international adversaries, particularly the United States. The official Chinese media denounced United States 'hegemonism' and 'power politics' on an almost daily basis. There were days when the entire commentary page of China Daily, the official English-language newspaper, was devoted to criticism of American behaviour. And following the collision on 1 April 2001 between a Chinese Navy interceptor and a United States reconnaissance aircraft off Hainan Island, there was the faint but distinct beating of war drums. The depth and intensity of China's new assertiveness remain unclear, however. Contradictory notes were sounded. Financial and business publications openly admired American economic practices and technological skill, and even foreign policy commentary from time to time expressed a desire to preserve or revive the Sino-United States 'strategic partnership.'Analysis of just about every area of Chinese policy is handicapped by a lack of independent sources of information. Even Orville Schell, who has written prolifically and perceptively about China, calls it 'one of the most opaque countries in the world.'(1) Chinese foreign policy is particularly difficult to analyze because, unlike domestic events, it is not an area in which reporters can gather hard, first-hand information. One is left with the official media and fragments of information that drift down from officialdom through think tanks and official journals to be gnawed on by the politically aware. The inadequacy of this information has permitted foreign analysts to say just about anything they like about China's intentions - from seeing it as a dangerous threat to Western interests to being basically benign and defensive.(2) Here I would like to set analysis aside and present some of the main themes sounded in official Chinese commentary from August 2000 to July 2001. In my second year-long stint in Beijing, I worked as an editor - the Chinese prefer the term 'polisher' - at Beijing Review, a weekly magazine published by the Chinese government. During that time I had the benefit, if that's the right word, of contact with the fringes of Chinese officialdom.Curiously, although China was isolated internationally in 1989 because of the crackdown on the democracy movement, the media's tone on international issues in those days tended to be non-confrontational. An incident at Beijing Review in the summer of 1990 is revealing. Shang Rongguang, a Beijing Review reporter, used the opportunity of the fortieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War to interview Chai Chengwen, a retired general and author of a new book on the Panmunjom negotiations. In the interview, as in the book, Chai criticized American behaviour and raised old grievances, such as propagandizing by Kuomintang agents among Chinese prisoners, failure to repatriate all Chinese prisoners of war, and intimidation of communist negotiators by United States air strikes and even strafing runs near the site of the negotiations. …