Are Americans’ Attitudes Toward China Really That Simple?

There are some Chinese who complain that Americans’ attitude toward China is simple, which is not unique, because people in other countries also often believe that Americans’ attitude toward world affairs is simple. Are Americans’ attitudes toward China really that simple? The answer, it seems, cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” — that would be oversimplified.

Those Americans who hold simple attitudes toward China perhaps don’t quite understand American pragmatism and the give-and-take culture of communication. To begin with, Americans live in a country that is a highly market-oriented economy — all aspects of the basic necessities of daily life are closely linked with the market. A slight commotion on the market will have an immediate and clear impact on Americans. For example, the recent high oil prices at more than $4 a gallon have added insult to injury with unemployment and income below inflation for Americans. An Associated Press poll found that one-fourth of respondents indicated that the high gas prices had a serious effect on their lives. There’s an increase of two-car families changing into one-car families. People buying fuel-efficient cars is also clearly increasing — so much so that there’s a shortage in the stock of fuel efficient cars. Another example: China’s rise has led to an upsurge in learning Chinese; the numbers of American students coming to China for short-term study is unprecedented. Therefore, the average American’s attitude toward China more often than not comes from an already interrelated perspective, practically speaking.

Meanwhile, the attitude of the general American population toward China is fair — there are both pros and cons — and non-simplistic. A Pew Research Center study at the beginning of this year found that Americans have already gone from emphasizing Europe to emphasizing Asia. This poll was published in The Wall Street Journal, and the transformation of attitudes is described as unprecedented. Close to one-third of respondents said they were interested in news about China, and their interest in other countries like England accounts for less than half of their interest toward China. According to world public opinion surveys collected over the years, the American people believe China is a rising economic power. Although China has become America’s economic competitor and U.S.-China trade has a negative impact on the United States, they still affirm China’s rapid economic development. Similarly, they do not regard China as a military threat or as a hostile country.

Second, American culture respects differing viewpoints. Consequently, Americans like to come straight to the point in communicating. Americans certainly do not identify with the civilities valued by Eastern cultures and a culture of communication that avoids offending people. For example, Americans all speak bluntly among themselves. They won’t say one thing in public and then something else in private; they say what they mean. Sometimes this sort of habit of straightforward communication makes people from other countries believe that Americans are naïve.

The explanation above seems to have simplified the view that American attitudes toward China are simple, but, in fact, Americans see China in a complicated way. They have taken “understanding China” and made it into a branch of scholarship; at universities there are masters and doctorate degrees. American Chinese studies — whether it is the personnel, the number of research institutions or its influence on China policy — are all unrivaled in the world. Most schools equipped with Chinese studies fields are the famous ones, including Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and the University of Michigan on the East coast, as well as Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley on the West coast. The students that these schools’ Chinese studies branches cultivate are “old China hands,” who comprise a part of the elite of American society. Currently, Ezra F. Vogel, Harry Harding, Ken Lieberthal and David Shambaugh are among the “ace experts” and leaders of the Chinese studies field.

Some media have described the old China hands as the “brains of America,” which is not an exaggeration. They have two channels of exerting influence: entering government departments and directly participating in government policy, or serving in unofficial think tanks. As far as government officials go, take as an example Susan Shirk of the University of California, who once served as Assistant Secretary of State for Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Clinton administration. At the moment, Kenneth Lieberthal is a member of Obama’s China Advisory Group. Among them, none is more influential on China policy for the United States than the president’s National Security Council advisor, Dr. Henry Kissinger. Kissinger is recognized by the public to be a national-level strategic thinker, and in the past several decades, American presidents have all sought counsel on China policy from him. Some media commentators have said that because Kissinger studied under the great history scholar William Elliot at Harvard University, he believed that if you don’t deeply understand a country’s culture and history, then it’s not possible to understand that country’s politics and government. He often quoted Chinese history as the center point of his policies; his new book, “On China,” fully demonstrated this kind of view. During an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Kissinger said that he and the current crop of senior Chinese leaders all have face-to-face contact, but, according to the view of Chinese leaders, he hasn’t left an impression.

Regarding serving on think tanks, old China hands have pervaded all the big think tanks and brain trusts across the United States, such as the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Heritage Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations. They influence government policy decisions with their profound views on China issues through congressional testimony and holding such events as academic symposiums. This author once spoke with Kissinger at a Heritage Foundation think tank seminar, and his views were sharp. His understanding of China was not only insightful but also forward-looking. Therefore, however you look at China, America has already established a system of academic officials, the old China hands. They see China both as a theoretical study and as an opportunity for providing operational American policy recommendations. Of course, they take American values and American interests as their starting point.

Somewhere in between the general American public and the elite old China hands is the American media, which is playing the role of how to see the key factors of China. This is because the elite experts’ attitudes need to pass through news reporters to be communicated to the American public and transform public opinion, and thereby influence government decision-making. Each large think tank has a public relations department and the familiar and big media communications. For example, the Carnegie Endowment has a Chinese website, and they published online a “Carnegie China Perspective,” which released their latest views toward China. In addition, American think tanks often hold academic conferences in Washington and New York, inviting both the media and the government to participate. In the future, most media will be in-depth reporting. Chinese media scholar Zhang once praised the country as a news source. He analyzed The New York Times and The Washington Post and discovered that for the reporting on China done by these two most influential papers in America, the White House administration is their biggest news source, and the reporters’ style of writing stories includes anonymous sources, press conferences and speeches.

More importantly, reporters who are specially assigned to China become a part of the American elite early on. The news reports on China after China and the United States established relations in 1977 clearly reinforced, to a great extent, the strong expertise that had already existed. What’s interesting is that among the American reporters covering China, several have also become old China hands — not only writing reports for the media but also writing academic works looking at China. For example, Christopher Wren of The New York Times wrote the book “China Wakes.” Another Times author, University of South Carolina alumnus Patrick Tyler, wrote the treatise “Six Presidents and China.” The Los Angeles Times foreign affairs correspondent James Mann wrote a book on three ways of observing China. When he talks about how to see China, he says that in order to understand China, “an impulse to simplify is understandable; however, China is too big, too complicated and too different. You can’t look at it from only one perspective. You can’t use a simplistic formula to understand China.”*

Are Chinese people still able to grumble and say that American attitudes toward China are simplistic?

*Editor’s Note: This quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.