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Who will be the Last One Standing?
January/February 2001 Family Voice
FV: What were your initial impressions of China?In 1979, Steven W. Mosher became the first American social scientist to conduct research in China. He thought he would find the communists had done good things for the people. Instead, he was unpleasantly surprised, and the truth he brought back has forever colored the way we view the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
In an interview with Family Voice senior writer Catherina Hurlburt, Mr. Mosher discusses this rising superpower and his newest book, Hegemon: China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World (Encounter Books). To purchase Hegemon, call 800-323-2200.
Mosher: In 1979, the people were worse off than they had been in 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party came to power. They’re better off [today] because the Chinese government has turned to the West. But it’s not producing any political benefits.
The citizens were kind, gregarious and friendly, but the government regarded me with a great deal of suspicion.
What hostility did you experience?I had been given permission to go on a trip to the interior of China. I travelled about 500 miles when I was stopped by the police. They put me under house arrest [and] said they would hold me until I wrote a confession. “Let me call the U.S. embassy,” I said. They said, “No.” So there I was stranded in the belly of the beast. I realized for the first time how precious the liberties are that so many Americans take for granted.
“Tell me what you want me to write,” I said. The police official who had been bullying me in Chinese smiled widely. He dictated the confession, and I wrote the opposite ... in English.
Why did you choose the term “hegemon” to describe China?“Hegemon” means a single, all-powerful country. China is rising. It will soon be a military and economic superpower. But it doesn’t want to merely be a superpower. It wants to dominate Asia and wider parts of the world. Does the current U.S. appeasement policy toward China pose the same dangers as Great Britain’s appeasement policy toward Hitler?
Oh, absolutely. Chamberlain, before World War II, continued to make concessions toward Hitler, thinking giving him more territory would satisfy his ambitions. It merely whet his appetite.
We’re making the same mistake now. Clinton appeased China when he declared that Taiwan was a part of the PRC, fought for “normal trade relations” without conditions, consistently ignored the advice of his security specialists about China’s growing threat, and sold supercomputers which China’s military use to test and design nuclear weapons. We are simply encouraging China to be more demanding and more aggressive in the future. They view us as a power in decline.
What makes them think this?In Asia, they’ve seen our military presence decline dramatically since the 1980s. They think the United States will be out of Asia in 2020. We’ve got to change this misperception by a targeted, modest increase in our military forces. How likely is it that we will go to war?
The Hong Kong press reported Chinese President Jiang Zemin told his military to plan for war with the United States on or before 2008—a limited war in Asia, perhaps over Taiwan. [Last summer], the PRC minister of defense Chi Haotian said, “War with the United States is inevitable.” The Chinese press shows the government believes war with the United States is inevitable sometime over the next few years. They believe they can win. They believe that at the end of the day only one country will be left standing: a Hegemon. They intend for that hegemon to be China.
As long as China is a one-party dictatorship that doesn’t respect human rights or international agreements, it’s dangerous to pretend we can be “strategic partners.” The only thing “strategic” about our relationship with China is its missiles pointed at our cities.
In the late 1980s, many hoped the democracy activists would elicit significant change. Why has that not happened?Young people at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre were rejecting communism, looking to the West, and holding signs with quotations from Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington. The Chinese Communist Party put down that rebellion by deadly force and tightened police controls.
[The Communist Party] also initiated a patriotic education system where from kindergarten through college, every day, Chinese kids [hear] about the glories of China’s long imperial history. They’re told about China’s “long night” of national humiliation. They’re told all of China’s troubles arose because the Western powers invaded China and made it into a semi-colony. The communists have raised up a generation of young ultranationalists—who want to recover the glories of China’s lost empire.
Will trade help improve human rights?We believe political and economic freedom go hand-in-hand because that’s our history. It hasn’t worked that way in Asia. There, you have free-market economies in many countries that have been and remain authoritarian. In China, it may take a long time for economic freedom to produce political change. We don’t have a long time. China is going to be a military superpower in the next few years.
The ruling elite, of course, resents our suggestions to improve their human-rights situation. When we criticize, the Chinese people secretly applaud and hope we will continue to pressure China.
What fuels the Chinese government’s animosity toward religion?It fears Christians. After the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, Chinese communists set up commissions to study what happened. They saw the role that Christians played. Dissidents used these groups to spread the word about protests and organize other activities against the state. Beginning in the early ’90s, the Chinese government has engaged in severe persecution of the underground Church movement. The Chinese government views any group that has a national network of supporters as a threat. What impact will China’s one-child policy have on its future?
This is going to cause all sorts of social pathologies over time. One is the “little emperor” syndrome—the spoiled only-children, mostly boys because so many little girls have been killed by sex-selective abortion, female infanticide or abandonment. Parents spoil their little boys because they know they will only have one child. [The government has] pruned away all the branches from the family tree.
Twenty-five million young men will not be able to find brides. There’s already increased prostitution and the buying and selling of women who have been bribed or kidnapped from poor areas continues. There’s cross-border trafficking in girls sold as brides or into sexual slavery. There are also growing rates of homosexuality and crime.
These young men will also make excellent “cannon fodder,” because they will not have families. The government will be tempted to take large numbers of men off the streets, enlisting them in the army.
If you could design a new policy for U.S.-Sino relations, what would be the foundation of your plan?I would abandon the notion that our foreign policy should revolve around China. We should, first of all, have good relations with our allies. Then we can insist China play by the rules internationally and at home. Human rights are universal standards that come from the fundamental dignity of man as a creature of God. We should encourage human rights, expand broadcasting through Radio-Free Asia, and support dissident groups. We should also strengthen our own defenses: a missile defense system, closer ties with allies in Asia, and a modest military buildup to correct the misperception that we’re a power in decline.
This would go a long way toward convincing the Chinese government that its interests lie not in challenging the United States and its allies, but in working with us toward the goal of peaceful economic development. We have to buy time for the Chinese people to democratize China.
At CWA’s 2000 Convention, Lady Thatcher, Great Britain’s former prime minister, said China will not give up communism voluntarily. Why should Americans be concerned?Our own national security depends on the ability of the Chinese people to wrest control of their government and to install democratic governance. We need to promote human rights so democracy will have a chance to flourish. It is a pre-condition for peaceful relations between China and the United States. A dictatorial China will attempt to solve differences through military force.
China has to overcome its dark totalitarian past. We have to help the Chinese people do that, for the sake of our own national security and that of other democratic countries. [Our Asian allies] are very concerned about China’s growing military power and are looking to us to be a counterweight. They don’t want to offend China by speaking out publicly. They are hoping we will rise to the occasion.
Steven Mosher is the president of Population Research Institute, dedicated to presenting the truth about population issues. (Population Research Institute, P.O. Box 1559, Front Royal, Virginia 22630; E-mail: pri@pop.org; Phone: 540-622-5240)
More from January/February 2001 Family Voice
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