Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006 | 7:17 a.m.
Editor's note: Brian Greenspun spent more than two weeks in China in October, traveling the country as part of a study tour conducted by the Brookings Institution. Today he concludes a series of articles that began Nov. 19 on what he learned about one of the world's most intriguing and powerful countries.
The last word on China? Not hardly.
I have tried to give Sun readers a glimpse of what I witnessed last month in China on a study tour with the Brookings Institution.
Traveling with the institution's chairman, John Thornton; its president, Strobe Talbott; and its China scholars made for a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to see this amazing country not only through our eyes but also through the eyes, ears and minds of its leaders.
Since the end of the repressive "Cultural Revolution" of Chairman Mao, China has been on a decadeslong effort to modernize and transform itself from a backward, distrustful and internalized country into the kind of player on the world stage that its 1.3 billion people, their resources and their work ethic would require of them.
China is an environmental mess - and she is dragging the rest of the world with her. Because of the single-minded course she set to make the Chinese people an economic power with which to be reckoned, the leadership knowingly grew at the expense of the environment.
China has succeeded on the one hand and is failing miserably on the other. Not only is that country the rest of the world's largest trading partner but she has just passed the $1 trillion mark. That means China has $1 trillion in cash and most of it is ours! Any questions?
Whether it was in our meetings with China's central bankers, her top entrepreneurs, real estate developers or even her charming and welcoming premier, Wen Jiabao, the message was the same:
"China has made her bed, set her course and committed all that she has. The course is inexorable, and it is to join the nations of the world on their terms." Period.
That means not only the economic terms but the environmental and human capital terms that the nations of the world have deemed essential for everyone getting along. China is committed, and we need to figure out how to help her get there.
Of course, there are always caveats. China believes to its core that the internal affairs of each country should not be interfered with by outsiders. It doesn't like us telling her leaders how to deal with their internal issues and the 1.3 billion people - how could we even begin to fathom those answers - and it doesn't believe they should do so either. We see that manifesting itself in the United Nations debates.
Nevertheless, when it comes to a North Korea trying to go nuclear and threatening all of Asia, it was clear to us that Condi Rice, while always welcome in China, was not needed to convince China to act forcefully yet quietly in her own interests. That noninterference stuff works on the surface. I am certain, though, that there was a healthy dose of realpolitik interference administered to the North Korean leadership when China's envoy went a calling to "explain things."
Can you imagine a future in which the United States and China held hands on all manner of issues that confront this world?
When we visited with Premier Wen, we asked him what China wants from the United States. His answer was simple: China wants from America "friendship, help and time."
Our country has missed some great opportunities in the past for a much friendlier relationship with China. After World War ll, Mao pleaded for a better relationship with the United States. We were involved with the anti-communist thing (not an unreasonable position) so nothing happened, except China became an adversary. When President Richard Nixon went to China, we had another opportunity. Blinded again by the trees of anti-communism, we couldn't capitalize on that historic event. And, even following Mao's death and the resulting thaw in relations, it seems we still couldn't find a way to be friends.
Now we have another opportunity. China needs our help to fix its environmental disaster in the making, it needs technological assistance to take its place on the world stage - it will with or without us - and it needs our friendship because as friends we can "own" the rest of this century together.
What we need to give China is time. They have come a long way since Mao left the scene, and they still have a long way to go.
But I believe they are trying very hard to get there.
They have exactly the kind of government they need to deal with the enormous challenges - no lawsuits, no protests, no eminent domain issues - and it is a government that will change as the middle class grows and empowers itself.
China just needs time and our friendship.
Two examples, if you please. On a 25-minute ride toward the outskirts of Chongqing, we counted close to 1,000 building cranes. (China has 40 percent of the cranes in the world, uses nearly that percentage of concrete and steel and has urban planning institutes that show every building to be built for the next 10 years - and they are built on schedule and on budget.) Can we help them build and invest in their future?
When they tell you how much their cars cost, for example, out the door, they calculate by the cost per pound of raw material! That means the labor component is nil!
That will grow over time but that means that manufacturing, with a little help from forward thinking American companies, will happen there while less happens here. We can become the high-tech component to their low-tech world, and we can both win.
So, what did I learn in China?
I learned that the rest of this century could belong to the United States and China if we are smart. And, if we are not, if China has to figure out its mess all by itself, it could take us all down in the process.
The good news is that some really smart people at the Brookings Institution are hard at work on the policies that will help bring us together. All they will need is an open-minded America willing to embrace those policies.
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