John Pomfret Interview (2007): Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
Page 5 of 5
As you watch these changes in China, it seems there are pluses for the Chinese people's attitude toward the Americans generally, and there are negatives. Is there a core constituency in the middle class that supports America, that wants to see their children go to America to be educated, that would be leery of any hostile encounter with the Americans? Or are they Chinese nationalists and loyal to their government, on the other hand?
I think the average person's view of the United States in China is still relatively positive, but it's a lot less positive than it was in 1980 when I first went to China. That's because of history, and it's also because as we've gotten closer we've gotten to know each other better, and as you get to know someone better you get to know all their faults. The same with the relationship between the two countries. But America is definitely considered a wonderful place to educate one's children after grade school, and it's still a main destination for the Chinese elite to study. Hu Jintao's daughter, for example, studied in America. Jiang Zemin's son studied in America. So, it's a great location. At the same time, there is a lot of anti-American propaganda in the Chinese media, and that's had a significant influence on the Chinese. America has changed as well since 1980. The Chinese have changed as we've changed, too.
What about the interdependency that we have a sense of here, the extent to which China is acquiring and banking [U.S.] dollars, we're buying their products and creating these huge trade deficits? America, from my perspective, always thinks it can tell China what to do. What sort of reaction is that getting in the country? Is China feeling its oats now and pushing back?
Yes. Not in every case and on every issue, but definitely. But the relationship is obviously clear, that we're inextricably interlinked. They have $800 billion in U.S. Treasury Bonds; we have a trade surplus with them of, what, $200 billion a year. You go to any Wal-Mart and of course, everything's made in China. That relationship is only going to grow closer with time. It's quite clear. The pressure that the U.S. administration exerts on China is sometimes enormous to do things that the Americans want them to do, but the Chinese, of course, don't want to be seen to be caving in to American pressure because that's politically untenable for them in their own country. You're going to see a lot more of that. The Chinese are becoming a lot more self-confident, and so there will be a lot more significant push-back as America pressures China in the future, especially with trade talks coming up, and the desire to have the Chinese revalue their currency.
We're looking at a world where they are going to be the other power who potentially, many years down the road, could balance our power and check it. Given your studies and your living experience there, and your work for the Washington Post there, what sort of a global power will China be, do you think?
I think that's a great question, Harry, and I think that's a big unknown. If suddenly tomorrow they were to turn into a global power, it would be a totally mercantile power that would have no human rights policy whatsoever, that would do business with anyone and everyone with a kind of cash-on-the-table basis and pursue aggressively their own interests without thinking of any broader issues of democracy or human rights whatsoever. So, from Sudan to Zimbabwe to North Korea, they would be dealing like they're dealing now but at a higher level, and they would export their model, which is authoritarian governance and a freer market economy. That model is actually of some significant attraction to states like Syria, for example, which has literally, in the government's public statement, said that they like the Chinese model and they want to follow the Chinese model. So, I think China has a significant thing to export to the rest of the world which would be interested in adopting the Chinese model vis-à-vis a democratic model.
That's how I look at China right now, but the thing is that China's always changing, and this is a country that is now involved in a very serious search for meaning: what it means to be Chinese, what do we believe in. Now, most of the society is generally launched on this Deng Xiaoping journey to enrich themselves, but even the Communist Party recognizes that in China there's a moral vacuum. Public trust is at a real all-time low in that country, and the issue of public trust affects everything, not only their foreign policy, it also affects how business is done, it affects the crime rate, it affects the whole problem with Falun Gong and the growth of religious sects, etc. Society is now trying to deal with what do we believe in, and I think as that debate happens in China, if it can happen organically (which is very difficult in an authoritarian system), you could see the real possibility for change in China.
It's going to be battled at every step by the Communist Party, which wants to control the debate, but the Communist Party recognizes it's a problem, so the Communist Party's begun to reintroduce Confucius back into society, which is ironic to say the least, considering that in the sixties you could get thrown in the hoosegow for being a Confucian. But that at least illustrates that the Party recognizes that the society needs to believe in something, now that Mao and Marx and all these other leftist shibboleths are gone, and now that capitalism is really the only system that they have to embrace. They also understand that it's dangerous to totally go the other way and to embrace complete nationalism, because then you have the problem of the Nanjing demonstration against the blacks in 1988.
Or against the Japanese.
Exactly. The first two days it's against the Japanese, [or] the first two days against the blacks; on the [third] day it becomes against the regime. And that is something that you can't control, that nationalist passion, or that anti-black passion, whatever passion. Once it's turned against the Party state it becomes very difficult to control.
In an earlier period when we were trying to deal with the Soviet Union and its emergence as a great power, there was a big debate about, "Well, how do you shape their future?" And that question applies to what impact can we have on China in the process that you've just described, because clearly if we do too much there will be an opposite reaction to what we're proposing, but you must have a sense of the subtle ways in which America can help lead China to its global role.
For a long time U.S. - China foreign policy has been run by a group of very educated -- effectively Mandarins, if you will: people who understand China and think they know best what's best for U.S. - China relations. And so, often our relations with China are couched in terms of, well, China has to be treated as a special case because the Chinese have issues of "face," the Chinese are more prickly, the Chinese don't like to be criticized, these types of issues, and that we can only achieve things in China much more slowly than we can achieve with other countries. I think China really needs to be treated like a normal country, because the most you treat China like a normal country, the less it will demand special treatment, which is a prerequisite for any normal relations between states. I think that would be a basis to try to move from, because for too long it's been a special relationship, and I think that's not productive, because it gives the Chinese leadership the sense that they can get away with things that they shouldn't be allowed to get away with.
Do you think the environment will be an issue where we might work together in the future, that we can point things out to them that they're pretty much behind on?
Yes, but I also think [that with many issues,] for example, human rights issues, or civil rights issues, or poverty issues -- the best that the United States can do in relationship with China is to clean up its own house and improve its own situation. So, as we improve our environment, then China will come along to improve its environment. Of course, there's always the trade possibilities of clean technology. That's a huge area of growth. But as America cleans up its environment, as America improves its civil rights, that becomes much more of a powerful beacon to China than us yammering at the Chinese and telling them what they should do. I think leading by example is much more important than leading by vitriol.
One final question, a brief answer: students watching this program who want to study China or want to report on China, how do you advise them to prepare for their future?
Go there. Obviously Beijing is fun, there're lots of foreign students
there, Shanghai's great too, 
but
I would go into the interior, as long as they don't speak a dialect that's
too unintelligible, and spend time there. Spend a lot of time traveling.
Travel by yourself. I once traveled by myself for thirty days and didn't
speak any English at all. It's a great experience, it really is a great
experience, and it's an amazing country. It's not as beautiful as it used
to be but there are still some wonderful places there.
John, on that note, thank you. I want to thank you very much for coming back.
Thank you. Thanks a lot for having me.
I want to show our audience your book again and recommend it very highly, Chinese Lessons. It gives a real sense of the granularity of China and how it's changing to inform the bigger picture. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.
© Copyright 2007, Regents of the University of California
To the Conversations page
To the Globetrotter Research Galleries: China and Journalists and their Work