{"id":1814,"date":"2020-05-11T08:26:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T08:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/?p=1814"},"modified":"2020-08-27T20:03:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T20:03:58","slug":"the-coronavirus-has-helped-us-finally-see-china-for-what-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/?p=1814","title":{"rendered":"The coronavirus has helped us finally see China for what it is"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Chinese paramilitary police officer wearing face mask and goggles stands guard outside the Forbidden City in Beijing on May 1. (Tingshu Wang\/Reuters)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By<\/p>\n

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Kathleen Parker<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Columnist<\/div>\n
May 9, 2020 at 1:59 a.m. GMT+3<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Thanks to a tendency to project our own values onto other countries, many Americans mistakenly assumed that China would become more like us as it embraced a free market.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This assumption has guided U.S. policy through several administrations, despite growing evidence that China never had any such intention. Nothing says \u201creality check\u201d like a deadly pandemic, a national quarantine, a collapsing global economy \u2014 and little or no cooperation from the country where the virus got its start.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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The\u00a0novel coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0has helped us and our international partners to finally see the communist nation’s malign instincts. Though the virus originated in China, the government there\u00a0denied\u00a0<\/a>U.S.\u00a0officials access to essential health data or to\u00a0reveal\u00a0<\/a>Patient Zero. It has yet to\u00a0provide\u00a0<\/a>a live virus sample or allow outside investigators in. China also underplayed its infection and death rates, thus skewing data and handicapping researchers trying to solve the mystery of covid-19.<\/p>\n

As with any unhealthy relationship, it\u2019s worth considering our role in getting here. Ever since President Richard M.\u00a0Nixon\u00a0opened<\/a>\u00a0relations with China nearly 50 years ago, we\u2019ve wanted engagement even at the expense of American values. We\u2019ve not been demanding enough on human rights, starting with the 1989\u00a0Tiananmen Square massacre<\/a>. We downgraded our relationship with our longtime friend, Taiwan, on the condition that the \u201cTaiwan question\u201d would be resolved peacefully to normalize relations with Beijing. And, we minded our own business during China\u2019s one-child policy, which led to forced abortions and \u201c30 million<\/a>\u00a0bachelors.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, as co-dependents of a sort, we\u2019ve happily allowed China to become an economic and military superpower while we fattened ourselves on cheap imports, washed down with the elixir of naive faith in the irresistible allure of democratic principles. Perhaps young nations such as ours shouldn\u2019t presume to outmaneuver nearly 4,000-year-old cultures through flirtation and flattery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By now, even President Trump\u2019s critics may be willing to concede that he was right on this one. If he was elected partly to end China\u2019s unfair trade practices, his reelection could depend on how successfully he navigates the China-Pandemic Problem.<\/p>\n

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There is little doubt that the Trump White House has been deploying anti-China rhetoric lately, seeking to blame China for the\u00a0coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0as a key piece of its reelection strategy. It\u2019s a fact, nevertheless, that China has a record of being the origin of viruses that are unleashed upon the rest of us, including H1N1 and\u00a0SARS<\/a>. As a strategic response, the Trump administration may be gearing up for a broader anti-China campaign in coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But this new strategy doesn\u2019t seem to be so much about the administration changing course; it is about changing how the rest of us regard the Middle Kingdom. A top administration official with whom I recently spoke said this attitudinal reset will require both a reeducation of the public, which sounds slightly Chinese-ish, as well as a mind-set shift at universities and corporations, many of which are deeply invested in China and, therefore, in the success of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some universities, for example, are heavily dependent upon Chinese students who pay full tuition. Many schools don\u2019t realize, the official said, that they\u2019re helping China\u2019s Communist Party.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At the same time, the Chinese government exerts outsize influence on U.S.\u00a0financial institutions because of its control of capital flows throughout the world. In a\u00a0speech\u00a0<\/a>last October before the Hudson Institute, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned conversations he has had with U.S. business leaders, who, heavily invested in China, were \u201cforced to comply with China\u2019s terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the Trump administration\u2019s views, U.S. firms are being forced to choose between profits and human rights. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has\u00a0steadfastly\u00a0<\/a>championed democracy and human rights in China since Tiananmen Square, understands this, the official suggested. \u201cWe can\u2019t have different standards for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The official suggested the United States would be taking other diplomatic steps soon to keep a closer eye on Beijing. I don\u2019t doubt it. But I asked the official whether this supposedly new American resistance to China\u2019s authoritarian methods might provoke an unwanted response.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The official cautioned that Washington did not want a confrontation with Beijing. He said this in a number of different ways: \u201cWe aren\u2019t backing China against the wall. . . . We do not consider China an adversary but rather a competitor. . . . We prefer engagement. . . . It\u2019s not about blame but about prudence.\u201d He seemed to think the Chinese would match prudence with prudence, saying, \u201cWhen China is challenged, it backs down immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether that is so, we\u2019re likely to find out. But such thinking does remind one of exactly the sort of they\u2019ll-think-like-us thinking that got us into trouble in the first place.<\/p>\n

Source:https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/the-coronavirus-has-helped-us-finally-see-china-for-what-it-is\/2020\/05\/08\/27edeed0-9171-11ea-9e23-6914ee410a5f_story.html<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kathleen Parker Columnist May 9, 2020 at 1:59 a.m. GMT+3 Thanks to a tendency to project our own values onto other countries, many Americans mistakenly assumed that China would become more like us as it embraced a free market. This assumption has guided U.S. policy through several administrations, despite growing evidence that China never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101020,"featured_media":1815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/101020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1852,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions\/1852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.uyghuracademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}