The Tide Turns

As the world watched the Obama inauguration with a great sigh of relief, one group of observers, hidden away behind the vermilion walls of Beijing's "Zhongnanhai" seemed a bit nervous. We expect a bit of anxiety from the shrunken and increasingly disdained Republican minority in Congress as well as from those Investment Bankers that are still employed. With the Republicans, the worry is understandable; the voters have spoken and the verdict was a harsh one. Now that Henry P. is out of Washington, along with his lap dog Neel Kashkari, the American public can hope that there will be at least a little bit of accountability in the Big Bank Bailout. In all likelihood, the days of "no questions asked" cash gifts to both troubled & untroubled banks will end. To many knowledgeable observers, its not the bailout that is at issue anymore, but the lack of accountability for what amounts to windfall gifts.

But back to the official Chinese reaction: much has been made of the Chinese censorship of the translation of Obama's inaugural address. From my perspective, this is not very surprising and nothing new. Censorship is alive & well in the Peoples' Republic. But underlying the surface facts, as usual, is another reality that is more telling. Official China, indeed, does seem to be a bit nervous. The question is, "Why?" To some extent, its perfectly understandable. As the Chinese themselves have pointed out, U.S.-China relationships have been remarkably unruffled over the last eight years since the Hainan Plane Incident in 2001. The only real threat coming from Washington wasn't from the Bush Administration at all, but from Congress and was centered around trade relations and, in particular, the relative value of the Chinese Renminbi against the U.S. Dollar. Since that time, the Peoples Bank of China has allowed the RMB to appreciate by almost 22% (from July 2005 through October 2008, its apex). That is not an inconsiderable movement, in the world of currency values. This doesn't mean that the pressure for change won't return, but at least defenders of PBOC currency policy will have a more defensible position.

So what is it that makes some people here nervous? The answer lies, at least partially, in who Obama is & how he thinks. As the first African-American President, Obama has achieved something that is almost inconceivable to Chinese leaders. China, of course, is approx. 92% ethnically Han. The likelihood of a Chinese head of state being Mongolian or Zhuang or Manchu (as they were during the Qing Dynasty) is extremely remote. And even the Manchu Qing largely pretended to be Han while they reigned. Even less likely are those minorities better known to the outside world: Tibetans & Uighurs. The even remote possibility that this could happen in China causes anxiety for some Chinese. The second reason has to do with who Obama is, not what he is. And who he isn't. Obama is not a party hack. He has had only three years as a member of the U.S. Senate. He is best known as having been a community organizer as a young man; community organizers are not your basic insiders. Obama also symbolizes to many the hopes & aspirations of the common man, not often these days something the rich and powerful in China are sympathetic to. In his initial appointments, he chose people of proven ability, but also of independent mind who speak their minds without fear. Obama also, I believe, looks to the Chinese -- with their often simplistic understanding of the U.S. -- as a sort of American Cory Aquino, a manifestation of "People Power". And in Obama's case, sporting a success fueled by outsiders (women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, etc.), by small financial contributions (not big corporate ones), and popularly elected, no less. Obama's campaign famously used state-of-the-art eTools -- Instant Messaging, Facebook, even the more prosaic email & Internet web sites that have become ubiquitous political resources in the worlds' democracies for years. For some of China's Han leaders, Obama's rise to leadership is as worrisome as an imaginary charismatic Tibetan or Uighur leader who might rise to power in China on a wave of public popularity among the Laobaixing, the Chinese masses.

It is Common Wisdom among close (and even casual) observers of U.S.-China relations that, whatever may be said during Presidential campaigns about China, after a switch in power things continue pretty much as they have been since Jimmie Carter normalized relations 30 years ago. I don't expect that to change and China's leaders shouldn't either -- even if the rhetoric heats up by a few degrees. But the tide of history has surely turned in U.S. politics. The whole world has, rightly, taken notice. If this moment is an indicator of the flow of world history, as I believe it is, then China's leaders are right to be a bit anxious.