40 Years Ago: Ping-Pong Diplomacy & China's Rise

Regard a ping-pong ball as the head of your capitalist enemy. Hit it with your socialist bat and you have won the point for the fatherland - Mao Zedong

Here's a timely scenario for you given the fortieth anniversary of ping-pong diplomacy between the US and China: What if the Cold War never ended, the Iron Curtain never fell, and the US failed to exploit the growing ideological divide between China and Russia? In general, international relations scholars treat counterfactual ("what might have been") research the same way Vogue magazine treats those with normal body weight: with complete and utter contempt. Still, prominent American IR scholar and rat-choice critic Ned Lebow encourages such research when conducted in an intellectually rigorous manner. See his recent work which I have on my virtual bookshelf, Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations (the PUP site has excerpts of chapter 1).

An obvious point you can raise is that the Iron Curtain was inherently flawed and bound to collapse anyway regardless of developments in China. However, you can also argue that the budding economic renaissance of China in the mid- to late-nineties opened the eyes of many socialist regimes to the possibilities of co-opting some capitalistic activity. At any rate, I merely sketch out here the important international political economy implications of the counterfactual absence of a US-China detente circa 1971. That is, would Chinese development have progressed so far so fast had conditions not been laid out for Western firms experimenting with transferring their manufacturing operations to mainland China when Mao "Death to Capitalist Roaders" Zedong met his end (real Communists don't believe in makers)?

It's certainly a question manufacturing-obsessed and -romanticizing leftists would avidly ponder. Had China not become an FDI destination because MNCs shunned it during the time period in question due to still-lukewarm US-China relations, would it have developed quickly or meaningfully at all? As my erstwhile LSE IDEAS colleague Niall Ferguson likes to point out, Henry Kissinger has literally thousands of critics who froth at the mouth upon hearing his name. LSE IDEAS being a centre for researching strategy, however, give credit where credit is due.

Ping-pong diplomacy was an artful way of publicizing to the world the idea that the (then) arch-capitalist and the not-so-arch-communist had more than a few strategic interests in common. Inarguably, it served both countries' purposes. As early as 1967, Nixon already envisioned "Asia After Vietnam" in the pages of Foreign Affairs by allowing PRC involvement in world affairs. However, it took an accidental bus ride by a hippie US table tennis team member with his PRC counterparts to set things in motion. From there it is not at all a long stretch to trace the rise of modern China. Nixon's Secretary of State Kissinger prepared for such a fortuitous opening and never looked back.

While we can certainly quarrel with the eventual results--did the US dig its own grave by encouraging China's emergence, for instance--modern-day American international relations lacks similar grand strategy. Witness Hillary Clinton's laughingstock "Internet freedom" of an idea and compare it to a time when, to paraphrase Sidney Sheldon, real masters of the game still existed in the United States. In the 21st century world economy, they in all likelihood reside in the PRC with its long-term vision of how to shape the world to their advantage.

In any event, I much recommend a recent LA Times article that touches on the political significance of sport as well as how ping-pong diplomacy set the stage for US recognition of the PRC as China instead of American crony Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek's Taiwan:

"It's hard for us to really understand just how little direct contact Americans and Chinese had with each other," said Clayton Dube, associate director of USC's U.S.-China Institute. "It was a place that was much talked about, and it was a place where the imagination ran wild."

In the years leading up to 1971, however, leadership from both countries was sending signals that they might wish to normalize relations. Secret meetings were held in Warsaw in the 1950s, and before his presidency, Nixon had written that "China needs to be brought into the world community."

US and China table tennis teams interacting eventually led up to diplomatically significant gestures such as the former lifting trade restrictions on China:

What happens next is unclear. But officials from both teams expressed interest in a visit, and an invitation and acceptance came quickly. On April 10, nine [American] players plus officials, spouses and journalists crossed a bridge from Hong Kong to China. The group spent a week playing table tennis and sightseeing.

The visit paved the way for Henry Kissinger to conduct a secret visit to China in July, which set up Nixon's historic visit in February 1972. The U.S. then formally recognized that there was only one China and thereby set the Taiwan question aside to normalize relations.

Nixon called it "the week that changed the world," but Wei Wang remembers the words of Chairman Mao. She was a child in the early 1970s and says she doesn't recall much about the events. But the former U.S. Olympian and current Westside Table Tennis Center instructor does remember one thing clearly. "The prime minister [sic] said, 'The little ball moved the big ball' — a pingpong ball moved the earth,' " she said. "That was the metaphor. China opened up from that — from table tennis."

The Nixon Foundation also has a comprehensive and entertaining primer on this momentous occasion if you have some time to spare. Table tennis is renowned as the world's fastest sport, and international relations is probably not far behind in terms of pace. It seems to me and probably most of the rest of the world except for America#1-style flunkies, Palin acolytes, and other gullible Yankee toadies that the US has long since lost the ability to serve up something that befuddles, let alone outpaces, China. Those who succeeded Kissinger who were largely bereft of grand strategy did not fully realize what the consequences of integrating China into the world economy were for the US.

The great game has moved on and left slow-moving and slow-witted America behind.

Fondly Recalling Thatcher's Handbag of IPE Doom

It is one of the most notable incidences in European integration history: Although the exact wording is still being debated to this day, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously went before her European Community colleagues in 1984 demanding that the UK not pay so much into the infamous Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of agricultural subsidies since Britain believed it paid far more than it received in this scheme.

Demanding a rebate, she slammed her handbag into the conference table and exclaimed something to the effect of "I want my money back!" While the CAP's share in the EU budget has gone down from being over three-quarters at its height to less than half today, it remains a big sticking point in WTO negotiations over agricultural market access of LDCs to developed countries, but that's another story for a different post. Here is a brief backgrounder on the UK rebate which exists to this day:

The UK won the rebate in 1984, after the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher threatened to halt payments to the EU budget. "We are not asking the Community or anyone else for money," she said at a summit in Fontainebleau. "We are simply asking to have our own money back".

The UK was then the third poorest member of the Community but was on course to become the biggest net contributor to the EU budget. This was mainly because the UK had relatively few farms, so it got a relatively small share of farm subsidies, which at the time made up 70% of Community expenditure.

The formula for determining how much a country paid into the Community budget was also unfavourable to the UK. It was in effect penalised for raising more revenue from VAT than most other member states and importing more goods from countries outside the Community.

So we now have this splendid story of a charity auction of some famous people's possessions. A finals match ball from England captain Lawrence Dellaglio's 2003 Rugby World Cup winning side went for £13,500. One of "Slowhand" Eric Clapton's Fender Telecasters commanded £16,000. And, apropos for today's story, Mrs Thatcher's now-famous handbag--swung around for emphatic effect in various national and international political arenas in her heyday--highlighted the auction and sold for £25,000:

A handbag belonging to Margaret Thatcher fetched £25,000 when it went under the hammer on Monday, auctioned by Lord Archer. The black glossy leather bag, owned by the former prime minister for more than 30 years, was pictured in a photograph taken as she walked alongside then US president Ronald Reagan during her visit to the United States in 1985.

The lot donated by Lady Thatcher was among a number of highly prized items sold by amateur auctioneer and author Lord Archer for charitable causes. It was bought by an unnamed Cypriot who is understood to have been a student in Britain during Lady Thatcher's tenure as prime minister. The Cypriot, a private buyer, is said to be a "great admirer" of the former Conservative leader.

It literally carries considerable British history, and surpassing prissy stuff like mace, pepper spray and stun guns, made "handbagging" a true weapon worthy of IPE Mortal Kombat:

As the auction at Christie's headquarters in central London concluded, Lord Archer said: "The handbag makes you automatically think of Margaret Thatcher. Someone has captured this and will have, frankly, a historic document for the rest of their lives."

Lady Thatcher's daughter Carol, who joined bidders in the packed sale room, said her mother was "longing to know" how much the bag had raised for her "carefully chosen" charities. "I hope that the highest bidder knows that if he's into handbagging, he's got a weapon with quite a track record. After all, my mother invented the verb 'to handbag'," she said.

Talk about girl power before that hackneyed term was developed:

Edwina Currie, a former minister in Baroness Thatcher's government, said: "It wasn't a shield, it was a weapon. "It said, 'I am Margaret Thatcher, I'm the boss, I'm in charge. I have all this power and I have control'. "That was why the handbag was always so neat and tidy and black and shiny and dominant. It would go on the Cabinet table.

Make no mistake: the Iron Lady had bigger balls than nearly everyone else while maintaining a distinctly feminine touch. WHOMP! Former US Secretary of State George Schultz is said to have enrolled her into the Grand Order of the Handbag:

In 1988 Mrs Thatcher received a handbag as a gift from George Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state. He told her it was ‘to mark your ability to produce from within the right form of words to end a tedious discussion. You are the first and only recipient of the Grand Order of the Handbag’.

Those were some days.

US-Pakistan Ties Through the Lens of Pax Britannia

Would you like to see Britannia rule again, my friend?
All you need to do is follow the worms

[NOTE: With ex-Pink Floyd member Roger Waters currently playing the London leg of his globetrotting revival of The Wall, I guess this post is apropos. There are reasons why I've included a clip of Sir Bob Geldof in imperial mode from the film version of The Wall.]

It isn't news that already shaky US-Pakistan ties are under further pressure with the extrajudicial and extraterritorial elimination of Usama bin Laden. While you can certainly debate whether the intrusion was justified, this much is clear: Pakistan greatly resents the United States despite being quite dependent on it for aid, the IMF bailout, security cooperation and the rest. While we can debate American hegemony till the cows come home, there is little doubt that its economic and military heft is being felt by the Pakistanis. And, as many American commentators note, there has not really been all that much gratitude for US "largesse." You have Pakistani forces now shooting at NATO helicopters making excursions from nearby Afghanistan to avoid Usamagate II. Meanwhile, the Pakistani press is getting even more strident about American interference in its affairs.

Call it biting the hand that feeds what other provide. I'd argue, after all, that it's the Chinese ultimately lending to the Americans to lend to and supply the Pakistanis if we are more honest about this messed up world of subprime globalization. Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani has even called China his country's best friend in a reflection of strained ties with the US. Take that, Yanquis; some fine reward for all your troubles.

If you think US-Pakistan ties are frayed, roll back the years, decades, and centuries to the heyday of Pax Britannia for an even more uncomfortable relationship in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. While Pax Americana has not been formal in name--its tradition is ostensibly small r republican--Pax Britannia in all its majesty held sway over Pakistan at the height of its powers. Just as the visit of Senator John Kerry occasioned a lot of anger in Pakistan, it was only a few weeks ago that a representative of the erstwhile imperialist in Prime Minister Cameron visited Pakistan. Instead of urging further cooperation on anti-terrorism and so forth, I think Cameron actually did something smart by attempting to jettison some of the historical baggage.

You see, Cameron was caught on camera attributing a lot of what's wrong in Pakistan today to British colonial rule. By the measure of how the maps of today's regions look like--particularly in Africa and the Middle East--you can certainly argue that the British Empire has had a more profound effect on the modern world than the Americans ever did. Hence the unfinished business in places alike Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Historical reappraisals of British Empiretend to go in cycles. Our own Niall Ferguson is of course of the opinion that yes they were often racist and killed/brutalized/enslaved us coloured peoples, but overall, they had a positive influence on the development of the modern world.

However, what Cameron did was, as far as I can observe, a more politically tactful ploy since he was received better than Kerry was. Indeed, British traditionalists were quickly up in arms against what they saw as the latest apologia for empire:

David Cameron has been criticised for being “simplistic and trendy” and for being “more PC than PM” for trying to apologise for Britain’s imperial past. Historians also said he was being naïve to suggest that many of the world’s ills can be traced back to when they were British colonies.

Seán Lang, a senior lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University, where he teaches British Imperial History, accused Mr Cameron of “touting for applause”. He told The Daily Telegraph: “His comment was simplistic and trendy - more PC than PM. I certainly wouldn't accept such a sweeping generalisation from one of my own students. “Perhaps the Prime Minister should spend a bit of time over Easter back at Eton, where the very strong history department could quickly put him right.”

The Prime Minister risked controversy when he appeared to blame Britain for the conflict in Kashmir and many other international disputes during a visit to Pakistan. Asked how Britain could help end the row over Kashmir, he insisted that it was not his place to intervene in the dispute, declaring: “I don’t want to try to insert Britain in some leading role where, as with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place” [my emphasis].

Mr Lang said the Prime Minister’s comments showed why “people in public life need extensive, detailed and accurate historical knowledge, and why the seed of this needs to be sown in the school classroom”. He said that while Britain’s hasty withdrawal from India in 1947 certainly led to the Kashmir dispute, blaming the British overlooked “notably the heightening of inter-communal tensions between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims”, he said.

Britain’s empire was a “multi-faceted phenomenon”, he said, which “cannot simply be categorised as ‘good’ or ‘bad’”. Mr Lang said that “even historians very critical of British imperial rule recognise that it also left considerable benefits.

In an odd twist, it turns out that Cameron meant this solely for Pakistani consumption, not British (although he probably had little fear of losing his invitation to the royal wedding). In fact, he's said to have directed some f-bombs in the direction of the reporters who made light of this slagging of Pax Britannia in Islamabad:

David Cameron swore angrily on the plane journey back from his trip to Pakistan after he learned of the row caused by his comment that Britain is to blame for many of the world’s problems.

The Prime Minister turned on a journalist who had reported his remark and said, ‘You f*****!’. The outburst came after Mr Cameron’s apparent attempt to distance himself from the UK’s imperial past had received a warm welcome from his audience in Pakistan.

The mixed legacy of British Empire continues to shape our world. However, I do think that despite being received poorly at home by some, Cameron's attempt at humility went down much better than did Kerry trying to lord it over the Pakistanis as if he were the new guv'nor. Having had much time to think what the loss of empire means, the British have a greater appreciation for the subtleties of winning friends and influencing people they did not necessarily have during their salad days.

With America waning, you'd hope it learns these skills, too. Lest we forget, others like the Chinese offer friendship with...fewer demands. At present, the US follows the worms.

Asia Learned From Its Financial Crisis; US Didn't

While visiting the website of those famous bond fiends PIMCO, I came across an interesting article on the resilience of Asian economies since the 1997-98 financial crisis. Chia-Liang Lian makes the case that Asia--particularly developing Asia--represents a good investment opportunity. This, of course, comes in tandem with PIMCO's Bill Gross famously dumping malodorous US Treasuries. Times are a-changin': Asian developing countries are now well-placed to secure better credit ratings as you'll read below, while the US is famously set to be downgraded in the likely event that its economolested finances deteriorate even further. While most of us have a mental image of developing Asian countries being reliant on the US market as an export destination, the reality is that the EU surpassed it as such quite a few years ago:
Lian cites reserves as self-insurance (perhaps overdone IMHO), emphasis on fiscal discipline, monetary prudence, and manageable impact from the Japan quake as reasons to expect Asia to carry on nicely. Especially in the fiscal and monetary arenas, there is certainly a contrast of crises evident: While Asian countries learned their lesson (and most European ones to a lesser extent), the United States' money-for-nothing policies have resulted in an unyielding depreciation of its currency and a concomitant disbelief in incredulous policy statements.

But let's not dwell on the hopeless and look at the bright side in Asia. Let's start with Indonesia which was pretty much ground zero of the Asian financial crisis. A scant twelve years on, it is on the brink of realizing investment grade status. Plus, its designation as such by two credit rating agencies should further bolster local capital markets as large institutional investors are given the effective "go" signal. From the Jakarta Post:

It has been more than 12 years since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, and Indonesia still has not managed to regain its investment grade status from rating agencies like Fitch, S&P’s and Moody’s. In the last few years, Indonesia has been blessed with relatively stable political condition, which enabled both portfolio and foreign direct investments to come in. This coupled with strong international commodities prices accelerated Indonesia’s economic growth, resulting in flushed foreign exchange reserves, which reached the highest ever at US$106 billion in March 2011.

The above trends translate to the maturation of Indonesia’s institutions and policy framework, as evidenced also by the easing of the country’s fiscal and external debt burdens stemming from the government’s track record of pragmatic fiscal and debt management policies.

The strong fundamental improvements that we have seen in Indonesia in recent years is the reason why Fitch is looking to upgrade Indonesia’s long-term foreign currency sovereign debt to investment grade sometime in the next 12-18 months. This move, when it materializes, will reinforce the market’s perception that Indonesia has been on the right track. More importantly, the upgrade, reflecting a safer investment destination, would make it possible for a wider universe of international investors, including massive US pension funds, to begin investing into the Indonesian stock market.

However, the real plus for Indonesia will come when a second rating agency also upgrades Indonesia’s rating as large US fixed-income investors, including pension funds and other institutional investors use the Lehman Aggregate Bond Index as their benchmark, which requires two investment-grade ratings in order for a bond to be included in the index. Worth noting is that once a rating agency upgrades, at least one would tend to follow within a year.

Another crisis-affected country to a lesser extent is the Philippines. Alike Indonesia, its macroeconomic picture is looking up, and it has just mounted a roadshow to convince the aforementioned credit rating agencies to consider upgrading it towards similar investment-grade status in the near future. With public debt reduced to 55% of GDP (North American debt lubbers take note: this is not a typo), it isn't a far-fetched goal:

The Philippines is wooing the three major credit rating agencies-—Moody's Investors Service, Fitch Ratings, and Standard & Poor's—-for an upgrade in its credit scores, as economic managers believe the country deserves it amid improving fiscal situation and external liquidity.

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima told reporters on Thursday that he went recently to New York and Washington D.C. and met separately with representatives of the three credit rating firms. In the meeting, he presented fiscal and monetary data on the Philippines that he said should encourage the rating firms to lift the country's credit scores. He also reiterated the Aquino administration's commitment to meet its medium-term fiscal goals.

The Philippines is rated three notches below investment grade by Moody's, and two notches below the same by Fitch and S&P. Purisima said the credit rating of the Philippines has been lower than that of Indonesia, but added that the fiscal situations of the two countries have been similar. He also cited the country's declining debt-to-GDP [gross domestic product] ratio and deficit-to-GDP ratio. "Our debt ratios and deficit are declining, and our financial sector is well managed, and so we deserve better ratings," Purisima said...

The Philippine government has P4.7 trillion [about $109.6B] in outstanding debts, equivalent to about 55 percent of the country's gross domestic product. This has been brought down from over 70 percent a few years ago.

It remains utterly ludicrous how American deficit deniers believe that even looser money policies than those that brought on the US subprime crisis are the solution to what ails it. I guess the Asians learned from their crisis, but the Americans didn't. Their contrasting public finances tell the story, and even the habitually tardy credit rating agencies are coming around to this fact. Here is the PIMCO conclusion on Asia's sunnier side:

Our conviction of the resilience of emerging Asian countries leads us to be open to adding exposure as attractive opportunities arise. We continue to maintain exposure to emerging Asian currencies. We expect growing acquiescence to currency appreciation as an effective tool to keep imported sources of inflation in check. In this regard, the gradual appreciation trend in the Singapore dollar should remain intact. Despite recent gains, we believe the South Korean won and Chinese yuan remain fundamentally undervalued.

In external credits, select high grade, quasi-sovereign bonds in South Korea and India offer attractive reward opportunities for the risk. We look for avenues to “shake hands with governments” in countries where credit fundamentals are continuing on an upward trajectory. Specifically, Indonesia appears on track to potentially achieve investment grade status in the next twelve months. While the sovereign bonds have largely priced in the prospect of an upgrade, select higher-yielding corporate bonds offer an attractive risk-reward balance, particularly those that have demonstrated a consistent credit record. In the credit default swap market, we look to add, during periods of generalized market weakness, exposure to high quality sovereigns with strong credit metrics.

Churchill and 3M Famine Deaths in Bengal in 1943

It's the debate that just won't go away: being a wartime prime minister, was Winston Churchill culpable in the death of 3 million Bengali subjects of the British Empire in 1943? A new book by Madhusree Mukerjee suggests the answer is in the affirmative. TIME has a book review of Churchill's Secret War:

In 1943, some 3 million brown-skinned subjects of the Raj died in the Bengal famine, one of history's worst. Mukerjee delves into official documents and oral accounts of survivors to paint a horrifying portrait of how Churchill, as part of the Western war effort, ordered the diversion of food from starving Indians to already well-supplied British soldiers and stockpiles in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, including Greece and Yugoslavia. And he did so with a churlishness that cannot be excused on grounds of policy: Churchill's only response to a telegram from the government in Delhi about people perishing in the famine was to ask why Gandhi hadn't died yet.

As Mukerjee's accounts demonstrate, some of India's grain was also exported to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to meet needs there, even though the island wasn't experiencing the same hardship; Australian wheat sailed past Indian cities (where the bodies of those who had died of starvation littered the streets) to depots in the Mediterranean and the Balkans; and offers of American and Canadian food aid were turned down. India was not permitted to use its own sterling reserves, or indeed its own ships, to import food. And because the British government paid inflated prices in the open market to ensure supplies, grain became unaffordable for ordinary Indians. Lord Wavell, appointed Viceroy of India that fateful year, considered the Churchill government's attitude to India "negligent, hostile and contemptuous..."

Mukerjee's prose is all the more devastating because she refuses to voice the outrage most readers will feel on reading her exhaustively researched, footnoted facts. The way in which Britain's wartime financial arrangements and requisitioning of Indian supplies laid the ground for famine; the exchanges between the essentially decent Amery and the bumptious Churchill; the racism of Churchill's odious aide, paymaster general Lord Cherwell, who denied India famine relief and recommended most of the logistical decisions that were to cost so many lives — all are described in a compelling narrative.

Naturally, the Churchill Centre would most strenuously demur:

We asked author [of Gandi & Churchill Arthur] Herman to elaborate. He writes: “The idea that Churchill was in any way ‘responsible’ or ‘caused’ the Bengal famine is of course absurd. The real cause was the fall of Burma to the Japanese, which cut off India's main supply of rice imports when domestic sources fell short, which they did in Eastern Bengal after a devastating cyclone in mid-October 1942. It is true that Churchill opposed diverting food supplies and transports from other theaters to India to cover the shortfall: this was wartime. Some of his angry remarks to Amery don't read very nicely in retrospect. However, anyone who has been through the relevant documents reprinted in The [India] Transfer of Power volumes knows the facts:

"Churchill was concerned about the humanitarian catastrophe taking place there, and he pushed for whatever famine relief efforts India itself could provide; they simply weren't adequate. Something like three million people died in Bengal and other parts of southern India as a result. We might even say that Churchill indirectly broke the Bengal famine by appointing as Viceroy Field Marshal Wavell, who mobilized the military to transport food and aid to the stricken regions (something that hadn't occurred to anyone, apparently).”

The salient facts are that despite his initial expressions about Gandhi, Churchill did attempt to alleviate the famine. As William Manchester wrote, Churchill “always had second and third thoughts, and they usually improved as he went along. It was part of his pattern of response to any political issue that while his early reactions were often emotional, and even unworthy of him, they were usually succeeded by reason and generosity.” (The Last Lion, Boston: 1982, I: 843-44).

The Unconsidered Factor: World War II

If the famine had occurred in peacetime, it would have been dealt with effectively and quickly by the Raj, as so often in the past. At worst, Churchill’s failure was not sending more aid—in the midst of fighting a war for survival. And the war, of course, is what Churchill’s slanderers avoid considering.

The fog of war still clouds this moment in history.

Visualizing the World's Shifting Economic Centre

From the latest issue of the LSE Research newsletter--which I will talk about more soon--comes interesting research in economic geography care of Danny Quah, head of our nation- and perhaps even world-leading Economics department and a fellow here at LSE IDEAS like a certain blogger you may know about ;-) Click for a larger image:

Danny Quah writes: This map depicts the dynamics of the global economy's centre of gravity, the average location of economic activity across geographies of the Earth. My calculations take into account all the GDP produced on this planet. I found in my research that in 1980 the global economy's dentre of gravity was in the mid-Atlantic. By 2008, as a result of the continuing rise of China and the rest of East Asia, the economic centre of gravity (ECG) had drifted to a location east of Helsinki [Finland] and Bucharest [Romania]. Extrapolating growth data in almost 700 locations across Earth, I have projected that by 2050 the world's ECG will have shifted east 9,300 hundred kilometres from its 1980 location--landing, appropriately enough, at a point between India and China.

PRC Tips for Understanding American Naivete

In Graham Greene's famous, twice-filmed novel The Quiet American, the titular character Alden Pyle represents blind faith in The Enduring Goodness of America despite harbouring much capacity for harm in trying to bring such naivete to life. That is, remaking the world in the image of American-style capitalist liberal democracy would supposedly deliver the rest of us primitives to a higher state of enlightenment.

To be sure, there is a bland, whitebread sameness that pervades much of the Amerocentric blogosphere. While you get variations here and there, the end message inevitably converges on a similar idea: a combination of democracy and markets will deliver freedom 'n' growth to uplift even the most benighted.

So it comes as no surprise that the Chinese have been at the receiving end of this shtick for the longest time from the Americans. However, China's relative ascent means it has become less and less willing to take rewarmed Alden Pyle-ish statements at face value. Recently, I read David Shambaugh's book China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation. An important takeaway is the Chinese do understand that the Alden Pyle complex is very much real. Compared to Europeans who've been there, done that, seen the movie, and bought the T-shirt, the US still tries to do what the erstwhile European imperialists ultimately gave up on.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences came up with this trenchant observation quoted by Shambaugh on p. 101:

The most characteristic policy in Europe is rationalism, while the most valued philosophy in the U.S. is pragmatism. The latter deals with the world task-by-task and does not tend to analyze situations deeply or systematically. While it is not irrational, it is a more simplistic and shallow worldview than rationalism. European rationalism considers situations more comprehensively and more deeply. As a result, Europe has a more mature outlook on the appropriate paths for global development. The philosophically shallower U.S., however, often has a hard time understanding the depth of European thinking and the extremely complex world.

U.S. assessments of the global situation are often simplistic and biased, as exemplified by the belief that transforming the rest of the world in the mold of American-style democracy will guarantee world peace. Europeans once wanted to use religion and weapons to conquer the world, but their experiences with the tragedies of many wars have forced them to reexamine the nature of power. Americans are merely repeating the mistakes that Europeans have already learned from. European culture is actually more respectful of diversity of cultures…The U.S. approach to global cultures is to try to conform other cultures to Western civilization. In contrast, Europe emphasizes the need for global cultural tolerance and dialogue.

That sounds about right to me. Just see how far plying freedom 'n' growth shtick will get you in today's world. Make no mistake: the Chinese understand.