By Guy de Jonquières, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Guy de Jonquières is a senior fellow at the European Centre for International Political Economy. The views expressed are his own.
You do not need to be a panda-hugger or a Beijing apologist – and I am neither – to think that Western critics sometimes give China a bum rap. Not because China is innocent of the charges they make against it; but because when accusers point fingers or raise suspicions about its conduct, they tend to forget that many of the malpractices they condemn were common – indeed, even encouraged – in the West not long ago.
Take the recent two-week “disappearance” from public view of Vice Premier Xi Jinping, China’s presumed next president. Many commentators seized on Beijing’s stonewalling about his absence and its failure to respond to the ensuing frenzy of rumors that he had fallen ill as a glaring example of the unhealthy secrecy that cloaks activities at the top of the Communist party.
True, decision-making in Beijing remains frustratingly impenetrable – to the Chinese people, as well as to foreigners. However, China is not the first country to hush up sensitive or embarrassing information about one of its leaders. The U.S. did so in the case of several presidents, concealing from the public Grover Cleveland’s operation for jaw cancer, Dwight Eisenhower’s heart attack and John F. Kennedy’s excruciating back problems.
Equally, it took years for the truth to leak out about the ill-health of several British prime ministers while they were in office: Clement Attlee’s duodenal ulcers, Winston Churchill’s series of incapacitating strokes and Anthony Eden’s botched gallbladder operation at the height of the Suez crisis were all kept secret at the time. Eden actually “vanished” for three weeks to Jamaica to recuperate at the house of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, which had no direct telephone link to London.
Another frequent target of Western wrath is China’s poor record on intellectual property rights. But in making free with other people’s inventions and ideas, China is only following a path not only long trodden, but fiercely defended, by the United States.
The U.S. recognized foreign patents only well into the 19th century, until when American IPR pirates were free to steal and copy foreign inventions and technology with impunity. Washington took even longer – until 1891 –to legally recognize and protect foreign copyright, and delayed until 1988 signing up fully to the century-old Berne international copyright convention, to which most other industrialized countries had long subscribed.
Impassioned pleas by Charles Dickens failed to persuade Congress or the Supreme Court to halt the pirating of his novels by hordes of 19th Century American copyright thieves. That does not, of course, excuse Beijing’s weak IPR enforcement. But when America’s IPR lobbyists indignantly condemn Chinese piracy today, perhaps they should pause to ask themselves why what Washington strenuously asserted was good then is bad when China does it today.
There is a sniff of double standards, too, about Western criticisms of China’s “indigenous innovation” policy, which is intended to build up the country’s industrial base in advanced technologies at the expense of foreign competitors.
The latter have cried foul at the combination of large subsidies, discriminatory procurement and standards-rigging that China has employed. Yet these are much the same methods as were widely used by governments in Britain, France, Germany and other European countries from the 1960s until the mid-1980s, in an effort to breed “national champions” in computing, chip-making, telecommunications and other high-tech industries.
Arguably, none of China’s non-military activities excites more suspicion abroad than overseas expansion by its state-owned energy companies, as they snap up oil reserves around the world. To some foreign commentators, the companies making this “land grab” look like stalking horses for a stealthy international extension of power by the Chinese state itself.
Perhaps the reason they are suspicious is that in the West, the global interests of Big Oil have long been so tightly intertwined with those of political power. Often, those interests have been identical, such as when a U.S.- and British-backed coup deposed the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, after it nationalized the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (known nowadays as BP).
Yet the evidence suggests that, in practice, the interests of China’s oil companies are aligned much less closely with those of its state. For one thing, little of the oil they raise abroad gets shipped back to China: most of it is sold or swapped on international markets. For another, Beijing has clearly been embarrassed more than once by the oil companies’ ruthless tactics abroad, such as Petrochina’s alleged human rights abuses in Darfur.
Furthermore, China has been conspicuously reluctant to involve itself in protecting the companies’ overseas operations against threats. When the Libyan uprising broke out in 2010, Beijing responded by hastily evacuating Chinese citizens working there – risking $20 billion of contracts in the process – despite popular pressure at home to adopt more muscular action in defense of its national interests.
True, China’s oil companies effectively control its energy ministry, out of which they were carved. However, they appear largely to set their own rules, separate from the country’s overall foreign policy agenda. Indeed, a report last year by the International Energy Agency, to which China does not belong, concluded that its oil companies generally operate independently of Beijing.
What most of these examples tell us is the exact opposite of what China’s critics often contend. Far from being a self-confident emerging global superpower, poised to sweep all before it, it is actually a rather large developing country that confronts the rest of the world from a position of relative weakness and often seems strangely behind the times.
Western governments may have gotten away 50 years ago with news blackouts about their leaders’ whereabouts and health. It is far harder for Beijing to do so today, when new media, instantaneous communications and a less deferential and more questioning public expose it to searching scrutiny at home and abroad. We may not know the truth about Xi’s “disappearance,” but official silence has only added to the Chinese public’s rising skepticism and mistrust of the ruling Communist Party.
China’s IPR piracy, infuriating as it is to companies operating there, is actually another sign of backwardness. Economies with strong knowledge and technology bases act to protect them: those without steal. As and when Chinese innovators start to produce real commercial breakthroughs, their incentive to embrace strong IPR rules will increase in tandem – just as it did in the United States.
As for China’s “indigenous innovation” policy, it seems destined to repeat the mistakes that made Europe’s state-backed “national champion” policies expensive failures. Europe’s experience showed that hefty subsidies, government-ordained standards and protection against global competition are not enough to leap to the forefront of commercial technologies, especially when the beneficiaries are the large and often inefficient established companies that are best placed to petition for government favors. Rather than turning China’s market into a springboard for international success, ringing it with artificial barriers could end up isolating it from advances made elsewhere.
Finally, overseas expansion by China’s oil companies does not threaten supplies to the rest of the world. It actually makes no difference, because oil is a fungible commodity and one extra barrel pumped by China means one more barrel available for everyone else. That would be true even if all the oil lifted by Chinese companies abroad were shipped home.
Concern about the companies acting as advance guards for the onward march of the Chinese state is equally misplaced. Indeed, the exact reverse is true. As China’s dependence on foreign sources of energy and raw materials grows, so will the need to protect those supplies and thus the likelihood of being drawn inexorably, just as western governments have been, into the political complexities of the countries that produce them.
That will test to the limit China’s adherence to “non-intervention” in other countries’ affairs as a central pillar of its foreign policy. Lacking the West’s diplomatic experience and intelligence networks and boasting few close international allies, it appears at present ill-equipped for the challenges ahead. If it is to meet those challenges – and a host of others – successfully, China still has a lot of catching up to do.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Western World Standard = Double Standard. Why surprise?
I disagree with the author about China, in general. I am convinced China does not now nor ever will have any interest in dealing with the West on a level playing field. China's sole interest is maintaining full employment in China via supplying manufactured goods to the West. Their adaptive style of capitalism is working well and stealing intellectual property is part of their plan. China will NEVER be an American ally in any true sense of the word.
BINGO! If you look at China's history, at one point and time, they did allow westerner in their society and it ended up in disaster (8 wester nation alliance against china). The relationship between US and China will be based only on how it benefits each other.
Diplomacy is a skill developped in the West to manage communication and relationships between nations in the international community. To be able to practise this skill one has to be tactful in dealing with people in difficult situations, hence one has to be a hypocrite.
j. von hettlingen, if you practice your kwok zucking skill a little more often, I promise to give you a mouthful and not aim for your eyes like your uncle did. I promise you will not be blinded by my kum and not able see the crimes your uncle has committed around the world.
Amen to that! The author is right in his historical-based arguments about the hypocrisy of the west. However, that is history – we need to look at how the world is going to be for our future generations. We cannot let countries in their quest for economic supremacy, create conditions that led to world war 1 and 2. China has emerged as the leading perpetrator of Intellectual property theft in almost all areas including defense, IT, manufacturing – quasi-state sponsored. They have also mastered the art of cloak and dagger diplomacy; they have infiltrated the ranks of all South Asian countries by way of fomenting stealth unrest in various sections of that countries populace through supply of arms, monies, etc..Through their politburo/communist part heads, they have embarked on a holistic, integrated, and orchestrated campaign to achieve total dominance including military, industrial, finance, technology, and natural resources. Meanwhile, we in the US are asleep at the wheel with our complete and total incapability to deal with China; and we are completely immersed in the wrong geopolitical arena, i.e. middle east; when we should be focused on our #1 enemy, China. We need to become a generation similar to the ones who gave their lives in World War 2; I fear that we have nothing to leave for our future generations; we have squandered our leadership in almost every aspect by giving way to unfettered capitalism at the expense of National security.
no surprise either that being a hypocrite doesn't make one wrong necessarily, but isn't good for ones cred- so it remains a convenient excuse to accuse one another while wasting time and resources "playing" by rigged rules, leaving the masses in many cases to suffer the consequences. Imagine if way less people acted badly how much we could save and put towards effective action, policies etc. There would be no need for fearful actions like violence / war. The planet is loaded with resources, enough for everyone and then some if we'd cut the wasteful, hateful bad behavior. At least at a personal level- "Teach your children well"
Oh no, Sinophobia? What could possibly be the cure?
uh "panda-hugger" seems mildly offensive, no?
no- everyone loves / hugs pandas, and the only place they come from is China
I completely agree that China gets slapped in the face for what other nations were doing only 100 years ago. A couple things do change the dynamic slightly; mainly its all technology.
China has one of the most oppressive Marxist regime's in the world, openly flaunting their disregard for human rights and freedoms, and not to mention environmentally unfriendly policies...yet WE'RE the problem? At least we admit and try to do something about our flaws as a nation. This article came off as nothing but a whiny, self-righteous rant about Western Civilization in general.
Congratulations! The stupidest comment I've read all year...and that's saying something. The truth hurts.
You are so very wrong.
Hypocrits come from both sides.
So...China is environmentally friendly (who knew they had an OSHA or EPA?), and has a Democratic, free society where it's citizens can express themselves without fear of retribution or Draconian punishment? Must be that American-style Bill of Rights they have that no one knows about. Cheap, slave labor? Nah, just dramatic under-employment to people like you. Tell all that to the kids who got mowed down by the Chinese military in the late-80's, or to a prisoner in one of their gulag's. If my comment was stupid, then your lack of an intelligent explanation of your accusation is even dumber! THAT says even more.
HM8432:
Why so glum, Hirsute Meathead #8432? You no longer own the stupidest comment on the forum.
I agree. But America smelled corporate profits and greed trumps everything else. So our government signed free trade agreements that shipped millions upon millions of good paying American jobs to China to exploit their cheap labor. A cash/profit windfall for corporations and their shareholders (the wealthy), but at the cost of employment for the working class here in the U.S. We now have unemployment/under-employment with a growing percentage of our working class relying on food stamps to survive.
HM8432, China is oppressive because it must have forbid you from zucking kwoks and swallowing kum. It must also have forbid you from bending over. As a result, your azz is still intact. Did China also forbid you from fingering your azz too. If it did, then China definitely is oppressive.
Slavery is not human right violation?
I have to disagree. America still have lots of problems that they aren ot willing to change such as sticking their noses in someone eles business and plays the blame game when it comes to their economy. I mean honestly Americans blame China for everything. But it's to be expected, it's what they are good at.
So you justify bad behavior to point to our past, no-longer-active bad behavior. You are a Beijing apologist, you just fail to see it in your own writing.
"No-longer-active bad behavior." Hahahaha. I retract my reply to HM8432.
Amelica ebil!
I fail to see how policies from decades or even centuries ago equate to hypocrisy today. In 1912, did we have jets? Televisions? Computers?
Laws and protections evolve based on technology and civilization. To equate what happened more than 100 years ago to how civilization functions today is moronic.
I was at a club a decade ago, and heard two US businessmen talking to a Senator. One told the story of how his company had opened a plant in China with a Chinese partner (at the time, it was required to have a Chinese partner). Three years after opening the plant, the "partner" built a plant across the street and undercut their prices by 30% – driving the joint venture out of business. The second business man told the same story (they were in different industries).
To this date, I still don't understand why people do business in China, where a deal you strike today is only good until a better deal comes along.
Your phucking eyes must have been blinded by your uncle's kum when you were zucking his limply kwok, as a result, you do not see the crimes that your uncle has committed in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
LOL BURNED
china is america's master-deal with it
A wound that is still not healing in a generic mind of a big populations. This wound of feeling interlectually under neat of every modern societies is still there. I feel sorry but not sorry for you since you don't know how to get over, and move on to get above the water.
Gene:
Your comment would be more credible if you could spell.
Truth hurts does it not?
Gene:
Better effort! With a bit of determination you CAN pass grade 3!
Your comments are always well written and spelled properly?
Maybe, but content is everything, and buddy, you fail miserably.
Trolling does not make your comments better then those of others.
While you're at it you may as well argue that the American eradication of Native Americans justifies curent Cultural genocide policies of China toward Tibet and Xinjiang. State owned companies set up operations in those provinces, import Han Chinese workers at higher pay, and leave ethnic Tibetan's and Uyghurs without income or social status. The only thing missing is smallpox infected blankets.
Dick head, first of all, your uncle is still sending his soldiers to commit crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan. Second of all, if you can go around zucking kwoks in different state here in America, I don't see why Han chinese can not move to Tibet or Xinjiang province. Is it because you have special privilege to zuck kwoks in different state and the Han chinese don't? Should I give you a mouthful so that you will be full of it or not?
Is the author really commenting on what the U.S. did in the late 1800's and comparing it to China now? Also, keep in mind that the U.S. government always had freedom of speech, something the Chinese do not have today. The blackout of information they receive is far more broad then anything the citizens of the U.S. have experienced. I really find it amusing when people like the author above really try to compare China's practices compared to the U.S., as if they are in the same ballpark. As an example, keeping 400 foreign terrorists in guantanamo bay is not even CLOSE to the Chinese behavior of locking up their citizens for simply speaking their minds, but I see people use it as a comparison all the time. Ridiculous.
Bill, I am sorry to tell you that you sound like a typical American kwok zucking kwok zucker who has zucked his uncle's limply kwok one time too many and swallowed one mouthful too much. You really have to take a good like in the mirror to see the kum that is ozzing out from your kwok zucking mouth from being full.
u r sic, very sick
Uhmmm, yeah. The U.S. has a trade embargo against Cuba. But with China, it is the complete opposite, on steroids.
so wrongs committed 100 years ago are alright to be "aped" in 2012?
You prepared to give US landmass back to Native Americans for the theft that happened during the 1800s?
Odd to see Americans criticizing China for human rights abuses when this country, only a very few years ago, launched an unnecessary and unjustifiable war, based on crude lies and misrepresentations, that resulted in 100s of thousands of deaths and vast squandering of our nation's hard-earned resources. This country carried out a brutal, Nazi-like war in Vietnam, not so long ago, that killed millions of people, purportedly to "save" them from communism. Americans would spend their time better trying to understand why their own nation now so closely resembles the totalitarian nations we fought against in WWII than the America of previous generations. Americans might also ponder the fact that, as a group, Americans are proably the most poorly educated, least informed people of any developed nation, as a result fo which they can no longer compete in the global economy, and resort to military spending to prop up their sick economy.
Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. Perhaps we should over look a few slaves in China. Let's not be hypocrites!
Overlooking slavery is a more odious sin than hypocrisy.
Half-agree. I used to think something similar about the US' condemning South African apartheid when we had only ended our own apartheid a couple of decades earlier. At the same time, though, the world today changes quickly. For a lot of the issues mentioned in this article China has had plenty of time to catch up with the modern world and yet has refused to do so. If China wanted to remain isolationist I would say they can do what they want. But they are benefiting supremely from international trade and yet do not want to abide by international norms (and again, they have had plenty of time to catch up more than they have).
The historical references are interesting and largely true. However, I simply do not buy the line "hey, you did it 100 years in the past so it's OK for them to do it now" line. That's hardly an approach to progress for humankind. Not to mention all the slippery paths such thinking leads to.
Couldn't agree more. Another thing, you have to understand the chinese culture to deal with Chinese.
Poor little China with it's NUCLEAR WEAPONS and one of the largest militaries in the world.Do these authors realize this fact or do they conveniently overlook it .We don't call it "RED CHINA" for nothing.
Actually, the most stupid thing in dealing with China is prelabeling it as red. Go to China, you'll find nothing really red there. It's not a communist nation as it was 30 years ago.
Hmm, I've been to China recently and despite the veneer of western commercialism... it is still run by the communist party and MANY heavy-handed minor despots.
You must have been forced to zuck some Mandarine kwoks while you were there and they did not pay for your service? Why didn't you ask your uncle or the U.S. diplomat to pay you instead?
If not for Amelica in 1942, we still speak Nihongo and plovide comfort wimmen.
China bashing equates to anti Semitism.
"they tend to forget that many of the malpractices they condemn were common – indeed, even encouraged – in the West not long ago"
If they [the malpractices] are now illegal... then they should be illegal for China also. A level playing field is better for all teams.
Can you explain to me why your zucking of your uncle's kwok and swallowing his kum is legal? Is it just because your kwok zucking mouth says so?
Apparently, most of the contributors to this comment board forgot to read the article. China is curiously out of step with the modern world because of their rigid political system, and is repeating the same crimes and mistakes that the Western World committed many years ago. They are not inherently different. They are embarrassingly behind the times. China is, in the current scheme of things, a shockingly large and muscular adolescent with little wisdom and much ambition.
On point.
That why they are winning the superpower war – because they are behind the times?
You mean "out of step with the western world " not the "modern world" right? Just because China doesn't do what the western world told it doesn't put it on the wrong side of the history.
you can't expect Americans to remember this history – we've got the shortest term memories on the planet.
Wow, first it's our fault that the Muslims murdered our Ambassador, and now all of China's hatred is our fault too! We sure are ignorant, CNN!
mAersk is definitely a kwok zucker, being so obsessed with the act. He also has a thing about his uncle. Perhaps uncle forced him to kwok zuc when he was boy. What an inmense talent for creativity. He also seems mildly anti american, however he is so inarticulate and poorly educated, only iteki is worse.
Reblogged this on To Perceive is to Filterpret and commented:
Well said and all valid points. We are holding China ( and in fact much of the developing world) two a double standard. China should be given a free pass to copy our mistakes, but they should not be castigated for following in our footsteps.
So.... the author is also saying that he agrees with wife beating, taking a child bride & the Spanish Inquisition, among other things the west has done in the not so recent past.
全部是廢話. Total nonsense. Author has not lived and worked in China. He is an couch potato evaluating real world situation from 12000 miles away Did you know that learning Chinese was a capital offense meriting immediate decapitation. This changed only after TWO wars(Opium war 1 and 2). Up until about 60 years ago, if a white man walked down the street in Taiwan, he could be decapitated – by law. These are examples of the Great Wall. China has improved – a little. IPR piracy is a sign of backwardness. Author has it backward. Copying is THE cunning and calculating jet engine behind a country going from rice field to economic juggernaut in 30 years. Same is true of Korea.
i meant to say white man walk down street holding hand of Chinese girl
This is a long very strange article that I disagree with on a number of points. The autor seems to be implying that since it was common practice to do something in the 1800, it's pefrectly acceptable that one of the most powerful economic countries play by old standards. Plus the part about Libya was odd. The author seems to be implying that the decision to pull out of Libya and risk 20 Billion in contracts to protect it's citizens was gesture that wasn't supporting the companies, whereas as we now know the real problem was that China is democracy wrapped around a totlitarian system - they had to leave because China's business was with the Libyan government and China refused to help push or side with those fighting the dictator - China always sides with stability because they fear protests against their own government and the singular Communist party - and even after it was obvious that the rebels needed assistance, did nothing to support them. If anything the west should be criticized for the hypocracy of doign business with China, but not Cuba which a few miles off our coast - or supporting the Arab spring yet choosing not to get involved in the supression of demonstrators in Bahrain becuase we have a naval base there.
Finally, someone in the western media dares to speak the unbias truth.
One question for CNN.... is the author going to get fired because they're not "opinionated" enough?
You can blame America's hate-China, luv-bashing China syndrome on – Hollywood. Yes Hollywood!
I remember seeing countless past movies in which Chinese were potrayed as the evil, conniving and murderous gangsters and crooks. So, those Hollywood brandings of the Chinese have been leaving deep, and false, impression on wide eyed and somewhat frogs-in-the-well Americans today.
When I've young, they told the me red Indians are bad.
I like the part where he validates China's actions by pointing to similar actions that other countries have done in the past, like that suddenly makes them okay. Aren't we supposed to learn from the past, or something like that? I'm pretty sure we don't give people a free pass just because they can act like they didn't know better (and China knows better, they just have nothing to stop them).
Have the US ever learned from any of it's past mistakes? The answer would be no. Look at how aggressive the US foreign policy is towards other countries and even within the US there's race issue among many others.
So don't point out the stick in another's eye when you got a log in your own!
If the US can solve most of them, then they can talk otherwise just shut up because most of the world is tired of the US's unreasonable actions.
what is this article about?