China, the shy superpower

This once sleeping dragon has taken full flight but believes in flapping its wings softly to allay fears of its real intentions. 

 

1. Vision and ambition: Xi (right) speaking with US Secretary of State John Kerry at the end of the eighth round of the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China. — EPA

TWO years ago, it was predicted that China’s economy would surpass the United States as the world’s biggest. But instead of rejoicing and thumping its chest, the Chinese government strenuously sought to play it down.

This led to several articles on the Internet sporting headlines like “Why China doesn’t want to be number one”, “Why China hates being No. 1” and “China ‘fearful’ of becoming world’s number one economy”. This was in the first half of 2014.

Indeed, China was declared No. 1 by the end of that year but with the slowing down of its economy, it has slipped back to second place with the United States taking back the pole position.

Beijing must have heaved a sigh of relief but to many, China is still the power to reckon with. After all, the ambitious One Belt, One Road (Obor) Initiative launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013 remains a key strategy, through which China will become an undisputed regional and global power.

In fact, even if its economy is now second to the United States, China is widely seen as the superpower of the 21st century. But that is also a title Beijing is extremely uncomfortable with and one which Chinese leaders reject vehemently.

“China is not a superpower, we are still a developing country ... we have a long way to go to realise modernisation” was how Chinese premier Li Keqiang responded to questions from visiting editors from Asia News Network in Beijing on May 31.

Granted, China is a very big country and there are still millions among its 1.3 billion citizens who need to be lifted out of poverty. But by just about every yardstick, China measures up to superpowerhood.

By some reckoning, it achieved that status when it successfully detonated its first nuclear bomb in the late 1960s. Since then, it has built up a formidable military force with the world’s biggest standing army of 2.2 million.

Results from a survey in Australia and major Asian countries by a group of regional think tanks released last week showed that a wide majority of Australians and significant numbers of Asians already consider China more powerful than the United States.

China, once the sleeping dragon, is fully awake and airborne, creating huge turbulence and strong winds that are felt across the globe.

But no, “there are no grounds for China to become a superpower and neither does China have the intention to be one,” Li told the ANN editors.

Neither does it see itself as a Big Brother but a good friend to all, regardless of size and wealth.

The same consistent message of assurance was given by Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastruc­ture Investment Bank (AIIB), when he met the editors in a separate session.

The AIIB was one of the financial institutions created to support Obor, now renamed the Belt and Road Initiative, which came about because China was dissatisfied with existing multilateral lending entities like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank.

But the AIIB has also created suspicion and skepticism over China’s motives.

The eloquent Jin, who fielded a wide range of questions, kept to the script which was to give the assurance that China had no ill intentions and that the AIIB would be fully transparent in its activities and guided by three principles in choosing the projects to fund, namely that they must be financially sustainable, environmentally friendly and socially acceptable.

What’s more, he pointed out that if the AIIB is so bad, why have 57 countries become members and another 30 on the waiting list?

Why indeed. While he admitted that the AIIB had an international trust and credibility issue, he bristled when I suggested that nations signed up because they were basically hedging their bets.

After all, which country wouldn’t want the chance to get their development projects funded by a new lender in town? It is no skin off their nose.

Neither did Jin take kindly to my comment that he had painted a very rosy picture of the bank and its aims.

“I take issue with you. I never pick the rosy pictures, I always pick the realistic pictures,” he said.

Yet for all his claims of openness and transparency, no editor could pin him down on details on the type of projects that the AIIB would fund and the shortcomings of existing development banks that led to the creation of the AIIB.

Instead, Jin quoted from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, “Skepticism must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure”, substituting “selfishness” in the original text with “skepticism”.

Even though the editors met Jin and Li separately, their answers to all the questions were essentially same: China comes in peace; all it wants is cooperation and stability; it believes in prospering with its neighbours and has no desire to bully any country, no matter how small or weak; and it definitely has no wish to be a superpower.

As the Chinese say, you can talk till your saliva dries up but to no avail. China is just too massively important and influential, and it also harbours ambitions that go beyond military and economic ascendancy.

It is, as the BBC puts it, even “supersizing science” in its quest to become a global leader in science and technology. One of its most visible efforts is the building of the biggest radio telescope, the 500m Aperture Spherical Teles­cope, that when completed in September, will dwarf the current title holder, the 300m Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

It is also making huge investments in medical research and in the exploration of both inner and outer space. Its scientists have built a vessel to explore the world’s deepest oceanic trenches, all in the name of science.

But even that has reportedly spooked certain nations as they fear China will use its advanced marine technology to further its control in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea which have been dragging on for years.

The world’s “beautiful game” too has caught China’s fancy. It wants to be a football superpower by 2050 and has unveiled a blueprint on how to achieve it: build at least 20,000 football training centres and 70,000 pitches by 2020, according to the BBC.

Clearly, this is a nation with great ambitions and many achievements that it can be justifiably proud of, so why such extreme modesty and humility in dealing with the world?

Back in 2014, various experts and observers gave their take on it. The general consensus was that one of the biggest reasons was China’s fear of responsibility as in the classic line, “with great power comes great responsibility”.

Fortune.com opined that while the Chinese government would love to brag about its growing global influence, it is also pragmatic. It doesn’t want the “cumbersome international obligations” like being the world’s policeman and donor that are expected of a superpower or economic giant.

It would also seem that Chinese leaders believe taking the “softly, softly does it” line of diplomacy is most reassuring to the rest of the world and will create the least line of resistance to their overtures.

But it appears that this overly modest and diffident approach hasn’t quite worked as planned. Beijing may want to rethink its strategy because, to quote Shake­speare, it’s a case of “the lady doth protest too much, me thinks”.

By June H.L. Wong Sunday Star Focus

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Start work on Friday for better luck? Sink or swing with the Monkey: Pay peanuts, get monkeys!

THE fifth day of the Chinese New Year, which falls on Friday, is the best day to start work in the Year of the Fire Monkey, China Press reported.

The best time to report to work on that day is from 5am to 11am and from 1pm to 3pm, according to Feng shui Master Wei Xuan.

However, Wei Xuan said it was not a good date to start work for those born in the Year of the Horse.

He said other good dates to start work are on Feb 15, 16, 19, 22, 24 and 27.

According to Chinese belief, a person will have a prosperous year if he or she starts work on an auspicious date and time at the beginning of the lunar calendar.

Wei Xuan also advised the employees to be dressed decently and not to be late on the first day to work as it will affect their luck.

Bosses and their employees should also give angpows to each other on the auspicious day, he said.

Sink or swing with the monkey

There’s a lot to learn about this simian which can be lovable and loathable in equal parts.

WELCOME to the third day of the Year of the Monkey!

I must say it’s a great relief to say goodbye to a wild and woolly Year of the Yang during which we witnessed much sheep-like behaviour and had quite a lot of nasty things rammed down our throats.

A year ago in this column, I shared that yang is Mandarin for a horned ruminant mammal which can mean either sheep (mianyang) or goat (shanyang).

I argued the case for celebrating the Year of the Goat as the animal has more attractive and positive traits than the sheep.

Sheep have been documented as dependent, nervous creatures that require close supervision and are known for being mindless followers.

Goats, however, are a lot smarter, independent, nimble-footed and full of fearless curiosity.

Well, as it turned out that while some Malaysians tried to be goat-like, there were more who were sheep-like and got spooked by scare-mongers who, as usual, used the race and religion cards, and the sheepish ones ended up bunching together even more tightly in fear and suspicion.

So, what now in the Year of the Monkey? What sort of traits does this simian have that can give us some pointers to go by?

But first, we should get some basics right. Just as we had to separate the goats from the sheep last year, I have learned there are 264 known species of monkeys, but the chimpanzee is not one of them. The chimp, like the orang utan and gorilla, is an ape. Monkeys are different from apes, the most obvious difference being apes don’t have tails. So, let’s not confuse monkeys with apes.

Primatologists will tell us that monkeys in the wild behave very much like humans. They are intelligent creatures with the capacity to learn, innovate and live in social structures.

According to monkeyworlds.com, “the hierarchy of the social structure is very detailed. It doesn’t matter if there are only a few members or hundreds of them. They all have their role within that group”.

Interestingly, like humans in political parties, the monkeys can form smaller groups (what we would call factions) within the larger group. What’s more, if the monkeys aren’t happy about their social status within that group, they can leave and create a brand new group.

The similarities don’t end there.

Male monkeys frequently challenge the leaders of the group. Experts say this is to give better opportunities for breeding: a strong alpha male will sire sturdy offspring which will ensure the survival of the species. That happens in monkey groups but sadly doesn’t seem to have the same effect in political parties.

The monkey society is also admirable in that they have a welfare state: they “help each other with finding food, caring for the young, and staying protected” to quote monkeyworlds.com.

But like humans, they can be stressed if they lack food and shelter, which can lead to conflicts. But when there is plenty of food and they don’t feel threatened, monkeys are more likely to live in harmony with each other. Co-existence 101!

Perhaps it is because they are so human-like that the monkey is an animal that evokes both admiration and scorn.

In most African and Asian folk tales, it outsmarts its cunning adversaries like the crocodile and the shark, but in some, the overconfident primate takes the fall.

In Chinese culture, the animal is immortalised as Sun Wukong or the Monkey King, and the main character in the classic novel, Journey to the West.

Sun Wukong is depicted as highly intelligent, mischievous and so bold as to rebel against the Jade Emperor that results in his imprisonment by Buddha for 500 years. He is finally freed to allow him to atone for his sins by accompanying and protecting the monk Xuanzang on his perilous pilgrimage to India to obtain sacred Buddhist sutras to bring back to China.

Then there are Japan’s Three Wise Monkeys. That’s how they are seen – wise – in Asia because their desire to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil has roots in Confucianism which exhorts people to not look, listen or speak in a manner that is contrary to propriety.

But in Western societies, this behaviour has a negative connotation.

It’s associated with pretending to not see, hear or speak about the misconduct or impropriety of others. It’s similar to the idioms “turning a blind eye” and “looking the other way”.

I must say, I am pretty pleased with the Star Media Group’s clever take on the Three Wise Monkeys by turning a passive response to an active one.

The message urges Malaysians to see with clarity, hear with an open mind and speak with kindness.

These are actions we sorely need to connect with each other again. This is especially so in a year that has been predicted to be seriously difficult and challenging on many fronts.

After all, in simian terms, many people feel like they have already started the new year with a monkey (or two) on their back and wish the authorities will stop monkeying around with them.

And I would add, after months of witnessing a lot of monkey business, especially among politicians who seem to turn the state assemblies and Parliament into a monkey house, people would dearly like less monkey see, monkey do behaviour from both leaders and their supporters.

Of course, some people may see antics in the August House as more fun than a barrel of monkeys but I would prefer to throw a monkey’s wrench into that sort of nonsense.

Indeed, many of us keep hoping to return to a time when sanity, equilibrium, inclusiveness and trust and honour prevailed, but cynics will most likely reply, “I’ll be the monkey’s uncle!”

I have saved the last idiom which I think will resonate with a lot of my fellow citizens, which is a reminder to employers thinking of pay-cuts and hiring cheaper and that is “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys”.

But for this festive season, enjoy your peanuts because the huasheng (as it is called in Mandarin) is an auspicious food representing good health and long life, as well as wealth and good fortune.

That’s the Chinese for you. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

By June H.L. Wong, So aunty, so what?

Aunty was gobsmacked when the pig character Zhu Bajie went missing from the Monkey King 2 movie posters and billboards in Malaysia. If this animal is the cause of so much sensitivity, how in the world are we going to celebrate the Year of the Pig in 2019? Send feedback to aunty@thestar.com.my.


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