Andrew Singer Talks About China
Andrew Singer Talks About China
Vol 1., Issue 3
A Note from Andrew
In the run-up to the US Presidential election in just a few weeks, this month there is a discussion of the state of China-US Relations and a look at current Chinese society. There is also an introduction to Chinese influence on the early American Founding Fathers and a review of three unique Buddha statues.
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-Andrew Singer
China-US Relations
In less than a month, the United States will hold a Presidential election. As world stability and direction have taken significant hits over the past decade, culminating in a staggering 2020, the outcome of the election will be consequential.
China is intent on spreading her wings. America has been intent on breaking molds. The clash is evident. A turning point in world history is upon us. Relations between China and America will not return to what they were even if Joe Biden wins the election, but they will certainly continue to crater if Donald Trump stays in office. In such an event, engagement and peaceful co-existence are unlikely to be able to survive. I believe that engagement and respectful co-existence is the best path forward; however, it is also a two-way street, and I do not believe that either country currently appears desirous of such a course.
Unless you believe in a zero-sum game of geopolitics, it is in everyone’s best interests to minimize suffering and death from disease, and this argues for a shared, global response to pandemics and climate change. Unless you believe in a zero-sum game of human occupation of the earth, it is in everyone’s best interests to promote education, healthcare, housing, and economy. When people have a safe place to live, clean water and food, knowledge, and a job, then they have hope, opportunity, and a way forward. There will always be have’s and have not’s, domestically within nations and worldwide among nations, but working towards a common goal with common purpose, or at least common understanding, is a first step.
The Chinese government for the most part is incredibly focused on a plan. They are cohesive (if not monolithic). The U.S. government for the most part is anything but focused, awash in deep-seated polarization and regressive stagnation. The course of human history demonstrates time and again that one of these methodologies, whether for good or bad, is traditionally more effective than the other.
China Today (and Tomorrow)
“Seventy percent of China’s population has only known high growth rates and high expectations.” This is a quote from Professor Jean Oi of Stanford University. She made it during a webinar discussing Fateful Decisions: Choices that Will Shape China’s Future, a recent book she co-edited with Thomas Fingar.
The statement stood out to me. More than six out of ten Chinese in China now live in an urban area. In 1978 before the beginning of the Reform and Open Movement that has led to China’s success, the figure was less than two out of ten. This means that approximately 850 million Chinese now live in a city of some sort. And most of them (70% according to Professor Oi) have only ever known success and want it to continue. This is a large demographic.
They live in a society with wide-ranging opportunities to earn money, buy material goods and property, go on vacation, and experience stable and fulfilling lives. They live online lives in a cashless society. Mobile payments from one’s cell phone (WeChatPay, AliPay) are standard and with one’s face (facial recognition scanning) are growing. WeChat and Weibo dominate conversations and communications.
They are confident and proud. They live in a China that to them has regained its rightful strength. As Thomas Fingar noted in the same webinar, much of China’s self-image is tied to these decades of double-digit growth. But he threw a qualifier on his remark, “…growth that is not coming back.”
China faces significant issues, issues that the Covid-19 pandemic has, as with much of the world, accelerated. The economy was likely not keeping on its torrid pace anyway, but then it got whomped by the pandemic. While it has since stabilized, the loss of jobs and reductions in income result in savings needing to be tapped, further growth being curtailed, and properties and opportunities being lost. This can quickly take a toll on confidence.
On top of this, China faces three structural threats: 1) hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Chinese college graduates are annually returning from overseas to slot into the economy with many millions of new domestic college graduates, 2) China’s population is aging quicker than most countries, and 3) China’s population struggles with a substantial male-female ratio imbalance. In a country that does not have a well-developed social security net or retirement culture, families remain the principal avenue for caring for the elderly. Yet, in a country with such a gender imbalance, many men will never be able to marry due to lack of available partners. And even in new families, the birth rate has been falling due to the high costs of raising children and other impact on economic opportunities. These will all play a significant role over the next several decades.
Expectations lead to powerful highs, but they can quickly also result in powerful lows. When combined with strong nationalist sentiment (which the Chinese have aplenty), a significant and lingering disruption in the growth trajectory of Chinese society and in these high expectations will not bode well for international relations and is worth watching carefully.
Chinese History and Early America
China played an important role in colonial America both before and after the American Revolution in the eighteenth century. This is so even though direct contacts between the two peoples were not initiated until the American merchant vessel, Empress of China, left New York Harbor in 1784 with a cargo of thirty tons of ginseng and $20,000 of Spanish silver coins, among other commodities. And it is much more than simply the fact that the tea dumped into Boston Harbor in 1773 during the American Tea Party protest was Chinese tea from the holds of British ships.
A number of the leading thinkers and players in the thirteen colonies of America, many to be Founding Fathers, studied and looked to China for inspiration in areas of governance, technology, economy, culture, art, and philosophy. This is particularly so for Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). The statesman, writer, newspaperman, and inventor was well read and intensely curious. He analyzed China from reports sent by Jesuits in China, from interviewing people who had been to China, and by studying books and objects coming through Europe, in areas as diverse as navigation and shipbuilding; horticulture, sericulture, and husbandry; home heating technology; and more (Virginia Review of Asian Studies, Dave Wang, 2010, Page 148 et seq., “How China Helped to Shape American Culture: The Founding Fathers and Chinese Civilization”).
Benjamin Franklin also looked east for moral grounding. In a 1749 letter to George Whitfield, he wrote “[o]n this principle [leading a model life] Confucius, the famous eastern reformer, proceeded. When he saw his country sunk in vice, and wickedness of all kinds triumphant, he applied himself first to the grandees; and having by his doctrine won them to the cause of virtue, the commons followed in multitudes.”
Franklin wrote about Confucius to his American audience. “In 1737, Franklin carried a series of papers, titled ‘From the Morals of Confucius’ in his weekly magazine, Pennsylvania Gazette. In this essay he introduced to his readers the content of Confucius moral philosophy. According to him, Confucius moral philosophy ‘treats of three considerable things: 1. Of what we ought to do to cultivate our Minds, and regulate our Manner, 2. Of the Method by which it is necessary to instruct and guide others, and 3. Of the Care every one ought to have to tend to the Sovereign Good, to adhere thereunto, and, I may say to repose himself therein.”
Franklin went further and created his own personal code of conduct, the Thirteen Virtues: Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Charity, and Humility. He was not completely successful at achieving these, but he dedicated his life to meeting them as well as he could. Dave Wang has tied eleven of these thirteen virtues directly to Confucian thought.
The connections between the United States and China have deep roots. At times, the relations are positive, and at times they are negative. At the very beginning, the former (incomplete though they may have been) held sway.
Chinese Art
Buddhism has a long tradition in China. The religion first made its way from India to China two thousand years ago. A proud lineage of traveling monks traveled over land and by sea to India to bring Buddhist scriptures and texts back to China, the prime period being during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 C.E.). Buddhist art was already established in China by that time. The cliff and cave carvings of the Yungang Grottoes at the Buddhist pilgrimage site outside Datong in Northern China are more than 1,500 years old.
Buddhist sculptures appear in many mediums—clay, stone, metal, and wood. A unique medium for Buddhist sculptures, however, is lacquer. The Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC presented an exhibition of three, rare, life-size lacquer Buddhas in 2017-2018. Dating to the sixth and seventh centuries (Sui and Tang Dynasties), these sculptures are now part of the collections at the Freer Gallery, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, respectively.
This exhibition used cutting-edge technology to study how these Buddhas were created, including X-radiography, computerized tomography, fluorescence analysis, and a scanning electron microscope. Two of the Buddhas had clay forms that were removed during the lacquering process. The third Buddha has a wooden core.
The cores were covered with fabric strips that were glued on with wet lacquer. Additional layers of lacquer were then added, building the sculpture. Some of the bulking materials they used to thicken and strengthen the lacquer sound rather unusual to us now—oils, blood, and burnt bone. Once dry and complete, the sculptures were painted in bright colors and with gilding. Today, only traces remain of the pigments and gold. These Buddhas were displayed in a dimly-lit room that was reverently quiet and reflective.
China Resources
Here is a sampling of the daily news sites I follow to stay current on China, U.S.-China Relations, and many things Chinese: SUP China, South China Morning Post, and Inkstone News.
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