“Let China sleep. For when she wakes up, she will shake the world,” a quote generally attributed to Napoleon two centuries ago became relevant again after the turn of the millennium when the momentum of China’s reforms was increasingly felt around the world. The word “appetite” is used in “China Shakes the World” by James Kynge, China Bureau chief for Financial Times, for China’s global gobble-up of jobs, raw materials, energy, and food.
Today, China has made aircraft carriers (albeit not nuclear-powered), and it is the consensus of its government and people to compete with the United States as a superpower.
Every day, in the official media and on social media such as Weibo, China’s Twitter, there are attacks of all kinds on the USA, who had supported China’s entry into the WTO twenty years ago. The Chinese government has even coined a phrase—“the party of the USA and the West” (Mei xifang). At first glance, this term looks somewhat illogical to single out the USA and have it juxtaposed with the West.“ But the communists have a reason to do so: to highlight a group of unfriendly countries steered by the USA, whose ”enmity” China needs to get rid of as a foremost diplomatic goal.
In other words, this term serves as a tool to struggle against the USA.
Following its ever-growing national strength, China’s inconsistency between words and actions is increasingly felt. A national power comparable to that of America entails more international responsibilities, which China denies on the ground that it is still a “developing country.”
This is China’s “red line,” which it will not let go of. People’s Daily, China’s state media, claims that “no matter how far China will develop, China will always be a developing country.”
The reason is simple: the developing country status will continue to bring China much-needed benefits such as low-interest/interest-free loans, tariff concessions, trade protection, restrictions on foreign access to its domestic market, and foreign technological assistance.
The world should ask: why fatten up a country that shamelessly expresses hostility to universal values?
Like the government, like people. Whether China has become a superpower is debatable, but it is many people’s experience—especially that of Hongkongers—that the Chinese run wild from time to time. They seem to have developed a habit of making big deals out of small matters, intentionally looking for “evidence” of China being humiliated on a global scale.
A recent incident involves Cathay Pacific, whose flight attendants were recorded chatting about a passenger’s poor English during a flight break. The result was quite disproportionate: Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee Ka-chiu joined China’s state media to request Cathay fire the crew members involved.
This incident incited some Chinese passengers to pursue humiliation-seeking journeys. Some said they always had their smartphone cameras on during their flights, wishing to capture the precious moment of “humiliating China.”
Why does China approve of such acts? Probably such passengers serve the regime’s purpose to expand its soft power. For example, after the above Cathay incident, it was found that its crew members took the initiative to speak in Putonghua rather than English, which the regime is undoubtedly happy to see.
Legendary Hero Fok Yuen-kap, a Hong Kong TV oldie on a martial art master in modern China, has a popular theme song whose lyrics go, “After a hundred years of sleep, our countrymen are gradually waking up.”
Those who have woken up and run wild should have remained asleep.
