In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

8 Shall the Twain Ever Meet? Old Themes and New Trends in the Last Decade of the Century During the 1990s, China experienced a notable transition from the politi‑ cal idealism typical of the preceding decade to a much less exciting but far more comforting economic pragmatism. The tragic failure of the 1989 protest movement destroyed the hope, held by many Chinese, for rapid democratic changes in China. The watershed event shifted the attention of the nation from politics to the improvement of Chinese people’s material well‑being. In this latter enterprise, China proved to be rather successful. Economic growth soon resumed, on a far larger scale, spreading wealth across the country, although by no means evenly. China’s newly found prosperity significantly altered the dynamic process that shaped Chinese attitudes toward the United States of America. Not only continued economic growth substantially broadened China’s contact with the U.S., but the liberalization of the Chinese society that occurred along with economic growth also created an environment more tolerant of American culture and lifestyle. As the exchanges across the Pacific expanded and the situation in China continued to evolve, America lost much of its exoticness and became more familiar, even likeable, to Chinese people. Meanwhile, China’s economic success greatly boosted the Chinese nation’s self‑confidence and gave rise to a heightened sense of national pride. After struggling for over a hundred years, China seemed to have finally found a path forward and started to compete with the world’s great powers on an equal footing. The accomplishment was real enough, and the national pride derived from the accomplishment was quite palpable. Against this background, many Chinese found disputes between China and the U.S., of which there were plenty, increasingly irritating and insufferable. Some of these quarrels had long historical roots, such as the continued U.S. support for Taiwan; others were more recent in origin, such as trade frictions or the U.S. Congress’ effort to prevent Beijing from hosting the Olympic Games. 191 192 / China’s America In these disputes with the United States many Chinese perceived inherent American hostility to China. For much of the 1990s, therefore, two opposing and paradoxical forces converged to shape Chinese perspectives on the United States of America. On the one hand, the development of a free market economy and the related liberalization of the Chinese society led to an increasingly positive reception of American ideas and the American way of life. On the other hand, embold‑ ened by their recent national success, many Chinese increasingly resented what they viewed as American arrogance and selfishness in Sino‑American relations and in world politics. These two trends, antithetical as they were, came out of the same larger events in China and in Sino‑American relations in the 1990s, which affected the behavior of the Chinese state, intelligentsia, and masses as a whole. Compared to the situation in the preceding decade, the Chinese government, intellectuals, and general populace now shared a broader common ground and greater consensus in their attitude toward the U.S.A.—nationalism appealed to them all, albeit to different extents. At the same time, given the fact that the new Chinese nationalism was largely based on China’s economic success, which in turn had resulted from liberal economic reforms, national pride did not simply translate into the rejection of American culture. In the 1990s, therefore, Chinese resentment toward the United States as a world power and Chinese acceptance of American lifestyle, which were manifestations of the antithetical nationalist and liberal tendencies unified at their roots, balanced each other out and prevented a movement to either extreme. One may characterize the end result as either indecisiveness or maturation of views. In any event, the phenomenon reflects what the Chinese, based on their own life experience, made of the United States of America at the end of the twentieth century. I The Chinese government entered the last decade of the twentieth century in a precarious state. By brutally suppressing the 1989 pro‑democracy movement, the Communist Party survived a severe crisis and maintained its hold on power, but the violent crackdown also delivered heavy blows to its prestige and claim to political legitimacy. It is quite understandable that in the wake of the June 1989 upheavals, leaders in Beijing felt deeply insecure and were highly defensive about their policies. Therefore, immediately after the Tianan‑ men Square crackdown, officials in Beijing instinctively tightened ideological control to fend off criticism...

Share