there has been nothing we can call a Chinese empire: there has only been China. Vast, yes. Powerful, without question. But ultimately a four-sided enclosure. Ultimately an enormous siheyuan.
One may debate whether this ingrained xenophobia served the Chinese people well. What should be beyond debate is that it has served the rest of us well."
Ambler moved nearer to the fifty-six-inch high-density screen, riveted by the image of the eloquent scholar, the burning intelligence he seemed to radiate.
"Some political scholars believed that China would change once the Communists seized control," Palmer said, after taking a sip of water from a glass at the lectern. "Surely international Communism was just that-international in its orientation. Surely its expansionist horizons would turn China outward, open it at least to its Eastern bloc brethren. So students of politics supposed. Of course, that is not what happened. Chairman Mao maintained the tightest control over his countrymen of any leader in history; he made himself into a godhead. And for all the bellicosity of his rhetoric, he not only insulated his countrymen from the strong winds of modernity, but he was deeply conservative, indeed reactive, in his projection of military force. A few very minor skirmishes aside, there are only two instances of note. One was the conflict in the Korean peninsula in the early fifties, where-nota bene-the Chinese actually believed that the United States was planning to launch an invasion. The Korean standoff resulted from a defensive, not an offensive, posture. The fact is that Chairman Mao was truly the last emperor-one whose obsessions were inward, having to do with the purity of his followers."
Palmer's expression remained dispassionate as he elaborated his vision, but his words were spoken with mesmerizing fluency. "It is only in recent years that we have begun to see a seismic shift within China-a genuine turning outward, fueled by its incredibly swift insertion into the system of global capitalism. It was the very development that one American administration after another fervently hoped for, and sought to promote. But as the Chinese would say, one should be careful what one wishes for. We have awoken the tiger, hoping to ride it." He paused, and his mouth formed a thin smile. "And, dreaming as we have of riding the tiger, we have forgotten what happens when you fall off it. The political strategists convinced themselves that economic convergence would lead to political convergence, a harmonization of interests. Something like the opposite is true. Two men in love with the same woman-a recipe for peaceable coexistence? I think not." The sound of scattered laughter from the audience could be heard. "Likewise when two entities share the same competitive goal, whether economic domination in some realm or political dominion over the Pacific region. It seems to have escaped the attention of our myopic political masterminds that, as China has become increasingly market driven, she has become increasingly war-like as well. A decade after Mao's death, China sank three Vietnamese ships in the area of the Spratly islands. By 1994 you see the clash between American ships and a Chinese submarine in the Yellow Sea, and in subsequent years the seizure of Mischief Reef from the Philippines, the missiles fired by the coast of Taiwan, in an international waterway, and so on. The Chinese navy has acquired an aircraft carrier from the French and a series of surveillance radar systems from the British, while China has constructed a passage from the Yunnan Province to the Bay of Bengal, thus securing access to the Indian Ocean. The actions we have seen so far can be easily dismissed, for they are deceptively small in scale. In fact, these are probes, nothing less, attempts to assess the resolve of the international community. Time and again, they have learned of the toothlessness of their competitors, their rivals. And make no mistake, we are-for the first time in history-rivals."
Palmer's gaze grew eerily intent as he pressed his point. "China is on fire, and it is the West that has provided the fuel. By its moves toward economic liberalization, China has gained hundred of billions of dollars in foreign capital. We're seeing a GDP growth rate upward of ten percent a quarter-faster than any nation has grown without massive upheaval. We're seeing gigantic increases in consumption, as well: the awakening tiger will, within a few years, be consuming ten percent of the world's petroleum production, a third of its steel production. Simply as a consumer, it has a disproportionate influence over the nations