‘Chinese Encounters with America’ argues U.S. and China lost shared interests : NPR
Columbia University Press
In March 2000, an American congress package arrived at Fudan University in Shanghai. Inside was an American flag that had flew over the Capitol – sent as a gesture of appreciation for XIe Xide, the famous Chinese scientist who was recently deceased. XI had played a key role in promoting cultural and scientific exchanges between the two countries.
Stories like this are almost inconceivable today in the United States and China, because the tone of their bilateral relations has fundamentally changed. But in the new book, Chinese meetings with America: trips that have shaped the future of ChinaThe profiles of 12 Chinese people remind us of the optimism that has once defined the commitment of the two countries. This optimism has faded in recent years.
The dozen profiles of this published volume highlight the positive aspects of the American exchange, which began seriously after diplomatic relations were established in 1979. These accounts range from academics like XIe Xide, to environmental activists like my Tianjie, and diplomats like Ji Chaozhu, who served as an interpreter during the historic visit of President Richard Nixon Beijing in 1972.
Today, as the United States and China are found in a period of intense competition, these stories can be interpreted differently, according to the reader’s own opinions on the former popular commitment policy. However, they recall a unique chapter of bilateral relations, as brief.
Book co -editors, Deborah Davis – a leading sociologist on China – and Terry Lautz, author of Americans in Chinamaintains that the book highlights the value of finding common ground. They express their concern that the Americans and the Chinese lose sight of their common interests and the advantages that came from cooperation.
In an exchange of emails with NPR, the publishers sent joint answers to the questions about the problems addressed in the book. Here is a published version of the exchange.
NPR: You said you feared that the Americans and the Chinese have lost sight of their common interests. Why did it happen?
Davis and Lautz: The unexpected arrival of China as a major economic and military power sparked a descending spiral in American-Chinese relations. Washington saw the rise of China and its diplomacy hard as a challenge for the existing world order. Beijing considered the United States as a threat to its interests, in particular the claim of the RPC to the island of Taiwan. This new dynamic of power has undermined the long-standing hypothesis that the Sino-American commitment would lead to a positive and peaceful change. Instead, he produced a climate of fear and mistrust. The goal of our book is to show the advantages of cooperation and mutual understanding despite our differences.
NPR: In short, how did the meeting of the United States change these individuals-and China itself?
Davis and Lautz: The impact varies over time. Those who returned to a poor China during the Cold War were faced with different challenges and had different reasons from those returned in the 1990s or 2000s when China was more politically and prosperous. The consequences of their meetings also vary according to the occupation – education, dance and diplomacy to civil society, science and sports.
Their life stories are remarkable. For example, XI XIDE, a renowned physicist who received her MIT doctorate in 1951, became the first woman president of a large Chinese research university in 1983. But she also spent years cleaning the soil during the cultural revolution. Wang Jisi, one of the most eminent America observers in China, spent seven years elapling sheep in interior Mongolia during the cultural revolution before entering Beijing University in 1978. Lang Ping, an icon of Chinese sport, led the American women’s volleyball team to a silver medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, then led the team of Beijing 2008 China in gold at the 2014 World Championships. Peng-Peng Gong was trained at the Juilliard School in New York, but has moved away from a lucrative career as an international concert pianist and returned to China as a resident composer of the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra in 2014. He is called “a translator in the two directions”.
Lang Ping, an icon of Chinese sport, led the American volleyball women’s team to a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, then led the Chinese gold team at the 2014 World Championships.
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NPR: Among the 12 people you have profiled, whose history has resonated the most with you – and why?
Davis and Lautz: It is difficult to choose one, but the diplomat and interpreter Ji Chaozhu stands out because his life reflects the high and the dramatic stockings of Chinese politics and American-Chinese relations. The Chinese Communist Party sent his family to New York when he was a boy and when he returned to New China in 1950, after his second year at Harvard, he could barely speak Chinese.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent JI to make English transcriptions for armistice negotiations to Panmunjom during the Korean War. But because of its American history, it took several years before being able to join the party. He was “sent” to the campaign during the cultural revolution, but re-moved to interpret for Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai during the trip of President Nixon in 1972 and accompanied Deng Xiaoping to the United States in 1979. There were moments when he could have been looking for asylum abroad, but he remained patriotic, convinced that the Communist Party was the best choice for the future of his country.
Ji Chaozhu (left) was an interpreter during the historic visit of President Richard Nixon in China in February 1972. This photo shows that Nixon and the Prime Minister of China Zhou Enlai posing together at Shanghai airport before Nixon’s departure for the United States on February 28, 1972.
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Ji Chaozhu (left) was an interpreter during the historic visit of President Richard Nixon in China in February 1972. This photo shows that Nixon and the Prime Minister of China Zhou Enlai posing together at Shanghai airport before Nixon’s departure for the United States on February 28, 1972.
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NPR: The tone surrounding the bilateral links today has changed so dramatically that some in Washington, now commitment, it was a mistake from the start. Has this perspective resonated with one of the people you wrote on?
Davis and Lautz: From what we know about their public life, none of them would say that commitment with the United States was a mistake-for themselves, for China or China’s relations with America. On the contrary, they have returned from the United States with knowledge and skills that could be used to make China a strong modern nation. And that’s exactly what they did. It was a complex process to adapt what they had learned to meet the needs of China while working to improve the understanding of the United States China. All considered commitment as an opportunity to advance their career and improve the world status of China.
NPR: Your book extends over the Cold War, reconciliation, reform, commitment and ends with globalization and cooperation. If you were to continue, who could you choose to profile in the current climate of rivalry and distrust?
Davis and Lautz: We probably choose someone in science and technology. Take, for example, the chapter of Abigail Coplin on Deng Xing Wang, a brilliant plant biologist who grew up in poverty in an agricultural village in the Hunan province. When he left China for higher education at the University of California in Berkeley in 1985, no one could have imagined that he would become a professor chaired at the University of Yale. And no one could have predicted that he would abandon this and return to China to start his own business and lead a large research institute. Although our governments can see “American science” and “Chinese science” as a distinct tendity, the history of Deng shows that the prosperous peak search on cooperation as well as competition through national borders.
