Chapter 30 26. Similarities and problems

China and the US may be on two paths that will eventually meet as we both work on our own modernization.There are obvious similarities in our experiences since the 1960s, but these similarities are superficial compared with the differences in our circumstances.China can't develop according to our model, the Chinese want certain things and ways of the United States, but for many Americans, these things and ways will only be available in the future.This kind of pursuit is an aspect of Chinese life, which must be observed under the premise of a comprehensive understanding of the situation, otherwise we will mistake this kind of pursuit for the trend of the future.

The pace of change in China evokes the observer's imagination and recollection of history.The pragmatism promoted by Deng Xiaoping in recent years is not reminiscent of Mao, but of John Dewey's two-year visit and lectures to China from 1919 to 1921, and the Hu Shi faction of the "May 4th Movement" at that time. The reformist view (“bit by bit, drop by drop”).Hu Shi was Dewey's student and translator, and he opposed all kinds of ideological "isms" and the violent means advocated by these "isms". The Chen Duxiu faction who believed in Marxism-Leninism in the "May 4th Movement" did not establish the Chinese Communist Party until July 1921, when Dewey happened to have returned to the United States. In the 1940s, violent revolution was undoubtedly very important for creating a new order, but in the late 1940s, when Mao called for violent revolution again during the Cultural Revolution, this was too much.People later turned against this approach in favor of gradual and pragmatic reforms, which brought a happy harmony to Sino-American relations.The problem of modern development has always been on our throat, and now it is also starting to threaten China.We sent delegations to exchange visits to discuss issues in this regard.Negotiation is possible because, at least as far as Sino-US relations are concerned, neither the Chinese nor the Americans are currently in the hot-headed pursuit of ideological justice, which happens from time to time in our modernization process.

In 1966, we Americans staged the last ideological farce in the extremely distant Vietnam, while the Chinese carried out Mao’s Cultural Revolution at a relatively low cost in their own country. Our crusade against Vietnam from 1965 to 1973, and Mao's campaign in China from 1966 to 1976, these two manias went hand in hand for almost 10 years and nearly ruined both of our countries.Are the two related?There must be a connection.First, note the intellectual limitations of patriotic leaders in China and the United States. After the painfully public split between China and the Soviet Union in 1961, any American leaders who believed until 1965 that the Soviets and Chinese were united and an unbreakable force needed to be checked for mental illness.But they could be forgiven if they didn't understand Vietnam's ancient grudge against China's control, since those of us didn't hear about Vietnam until WWII.Japan, Russia and even South Korea achieved modernization by learning from foreign countries.If China's leaders arrogantly believe that China can solve China's modernization problems by rapidly reinventing the wheel and the steam engine, and changing the class structure by repeatedly emphasizing Mao's ideas, in a state of xenophobic and anti-intellectual isolation, then they You should also check whether you understand the reality of China.Of course, Mao was convinced that he had grasped the reality in the cave dwelling on the hillside of Yan'an.

Since the leaders of both China and the United States are prisoners of thought, the above-mentioned intellectual limitations have an even stronger impact. In the 1950s, China and the United States were united because they feared the threat of foreign "communism" and foreign "imperialism."They are a pair of similar demons, each seeing the other as a colossal menace that must be taken with new seriousness.While American soldiers were bombing Vietnamese villages, Chinese Red Guards were attacking intellectuals—two ugly acts that echoed each other, and it was only pragmatic common sense and their respective disasters in North Korea that kept both sides from sending troops to fight in North Vietnam.

When the crusades of Mao Zedong and Lyndon Johnson ran into resistance in the late 1990s, similarities in the experiences of China and the United States became less obvious.The fall of President Nixon in 1975 and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 1976 undoubtedly have some similarities.At any rate, in 1987, it now appears that both of us are less fanatical and more dazed, looking only for relief from a lofty, confident sense of justice.It was this sense of justice that made the national movement possible. Orville Scheer reports on China's transition from the misguided Maoist fanaticism controlled by the Gang of Four to Deng Xiaoping's pragmatic policy of promoting the Four Modernizations.Schell, along with a small group of other radical American students, had farmed in 1975 in Dazhai Brigade, Mao's advanced national collective agricultural unit.Dazhai is located on the Loess Plateau in Shanxi Province, southwest of Beijing (now accused of being a false model).Since Mao's death in 1976, Schell has returned to Beijing and Shanghai three times to meet some Chinese dissatisfied with the government.These people were speaking more and more freely, and their conversation made Scheer wonder: "What happened to Mao's revolution?"

What Schell wrote was not the smooth report of the consulate general, but the impression left by personal contact with people: the children of farmers in Dazhai were suddenly lured into the road of consumerism by a Polaroid camera; a coffee shop in Beijing The disco life and the most viable form of consumerism - prostitution; the self-Americanized Shanghai youth on motorcycles; the beautiful daughter of an official who farmed in Mongolia for 6 years, worked as a worker for 4 years, and finally got married again. universities; an elderly gentleman in Shanghai who was imprisoned for working for a foreign company; Dalian's newly opened free market.The question is how much influence such urban residents will have on rural people, because the consumption desire of the latter may be greatly reduced.

In these short essays from the People's Republic of China, Scheer also inserted his impressions as a reporter of Deng's visits to Washington, Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles.In these cities, the American press reported on our materialistic gizmos and extreme consumerism, broadcasting to China's new television networks.Scheer paints a picture of an America that is modernizing, an America that is so free that it lacks self-discipline.The United States wants to provide its cultural chaos to China, which is proud but envious of the United States and is pursuing modernization, but China cannot accept it, and at most can only accept part of it selectively.Scheer's essay is full of symbolism.Deng patted a yellow limousine freshly assembled off Ford's production line in Hapeville, Ga., as he signaled to Chinese television viewers that "Western-looking luxuries are now allowed and technologists can be elevated." position".Scheer also saw a breakthrough at the rodeo in Simonton, Texas: Americans mobbed Deng and his entourage (all of them celebrities) and demanded souvenirs.But the Rodeo Texans "are not as courteous as other people."They were "cheerful and hospitable as usual" and had no other intentions.This helps the two countries to recognize each other, including the obvious fact that the two countries face some common problems, and on these problems, we can help each other.However, the continuous expansion of Chinese contacts with the United States can only be a dream, and this dream seems to have disappeared in China.The vast differences in lifestyle between the two countries suggest that our interactions must slow down.Neither Orville Scheer nor his Chinese friends believed that Americanization could proceed without limit in China.His friend wanted to flee China to America.Among the 1 billion Chinese, private cars have not yet become a necessary tool in life, and the Chinese cannot agree with some of our views, such as a fetus less than five months old is already a human being, and guns are free in the market like other things Goods traded.The material conditions of the Chinese do not allow them to be as profligate as the Americans.At the same time, our legal and litigation system is not much superior to China's traditional morality.

Deng and his successors must work hard to cool down the post-revolutionary developments to manageable levels.For example, sociological research is an integral part of scientific modernization, but this does not mean that American sociologists can move freely in rural China.Everything in America has side effects because they can cause high expectations and frustrations in Chinese.Since the People's Republic of China has the world's largest concentration of talent among its population of one billion, too much American stimulus can cause such tension that it explodes.It is too easy for us to make excuses.Instead of sending the Harlem Globe to China to recruit players, we have to wait for the Chinese basketball authority to field its own 7-footers.

Let's not forget that China is little more than a minor developing society in today's internationalized world, but until recently it was a major civilized country with a majority population in its region, so China is embracing this development Move slowly when standing in mid-society.America, a society of immigrants and pioneers, will likely continue to expand its relationship with China.But, like Mao, China's leaders always wanted to keep the outside world at arm's length. The combination of self-esteem and poverty of a billion Chinese people with a strong sense of identity and material need further reinforces this idea.The post-1957 alienation from Maoism that Scheer saw in the marginalized people he knew appeared to be widespread among Chinese intellectuals, first and foremost among the many victims of the Cultural Revolution.During the hysterical process of the Cultural Revolution, the new revolutionaries wanted to wipe out the old revolutionaries.Mao played the role of tyrant by leading the process of "bombarding the headquarters" and destroying the party organization.This left Deng's new leadership in a dilemma when it came to legitimacy.After Stalin's atrocities were exposed, the Soviets could still respect Lenin as the founder of the Soviet Union.But it is now clear that Mao was both the founder of the Chinese revolution and a tyrant. The destruction and destruction of things, people, and moral standards during the "Cultural Revolution" is horrific, and now more and more incidents of this kind are being exposed. overthrow together.

The Chinese certainly wouldn't do that, and there's no reason to.But they clearly need to limit the Americanization of modernization, not only because of the high cost of Americanization, but also because of that more subtle tradition of xenophobia.Scheer's book is titled "Beware of These Foreign Guests! ", this title just reveals this kind of tradition in China.In short, pragmatism also has its own limits, and it cannot go all out when dealing with the United States. This review is on Beware of These Foreign Guests! , published in The New York Review of Books, April 16, 1981, entitled "Drop by Drop."