Peaceful War : How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a New Pacific World Order 9780761861881, 9780761861874

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PEACEFUL WAR

ii

ALSO BY PATRICK MENDIS

Sri Lanka in Pictures Human Environment and Spatial Relationships in Agricultural Production Freedom on March Glocalization Human Side of Globalization Trade for Peace Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the American Empire

www.patrickmendis.com http://patrickmendis.gmu.edu

PEACEFUL WAR

_________________________ How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a Pacific New World Order

_________________________ Patrick Mendis

Foreword by Jack Goldstone

University Press of America,® Inc. Lanham · Boulder · New York · Toronto · Plymouth, UK

Copyright © 2014 by University Press of America,® Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 UPA Acquisitions Department (301) 459-3366 10 Thornbury Road Plymouth PL6 7PP United Kingdom All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America British Library Cataloging in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013949574 ISBN: 978-0-7618-6187-4 (clothbound : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-7618-6186-7 (paperback : alk. paper) eISBN: 978-0-7618-6188-1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992

DEDICATION

To the most beautiful friend, Cheryl—my wife of 25 years and the two who opened a new world to me—our son Gamini and daughter Samantha

CONTENTS

Figures ix Foreword xi Prologue: Sino-American Relations A Sino-American Journey 3 Part One: Pacific Renaissance 1. The American Dream in China 15 Part Two: Nature’s God and the Mandate of Heaven 2. One Vision, Two Philosophies 45 3. From the Forbidden City to the Federal City 73 Part Three: The Great Drama in the Indo-Pacific Region 4. China’s Manifest Destiny in the Indian Ocean 103 5. The Ménluó Doctrine and the Asia Pivot Policy 133 6. The String of Pearls and the Colombo Consensus 181 Part Four: Chinese Destiny in America 7. Birth of a Pacific New World Order 219 Notes 237 Bibliography 272 Index 284 Acknowledgements 291 Author 294 Praise 295

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FIGURES

1.1. Birth of a New Friendship 14 1.2. The “Pacific” Effect 38 2.1. The Celestial Connection of Eagle and Dragon 44 2.2. The First American Cartoon: “Join, or Die” 58 3.1. Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi 75 3.2. The Forbidden City and the North Star 83 3.3. A Celestial-Terrestial Connection of Washington 90 4.1. Admiral Christopher Columbus and Zheng He 102 4.2. The Voyages of Discovery by Columbus 104 4.3. The Size of Ships Used by Zheng and Columbus 107 4.4. The Voyages of Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty 113 5.1. The Ménluó Doctrine in the South China Sea Disputes 136 5.2. The TPP Pacific Rim Countries 169 6.1. The Major String of Pearls Locations 196 6.2. Shared Geoeconomic and Geostrategic Interests 207 7.1. The Chinese Statue of Liberty in Guangzhou 218

FOREWORD

A “Pacific” New World Order The United States welcomes the continuing peaceful rise of China as a world power and that, in fact, it is in the United States’ interest that China continues on the path of success, because we believe that a peaceful and stable and prosperous China is not only good for Chinese but also good for the world and for the United States.1 President Barack Obama Sunnylands at Rancho Mirage, California on June 8, 2013

No international relationship is more important to the future of the world—to the prospects for lasting peace and economic prosperity—than that between the United States and China. The United States has been the world’s greatest economic and military power for the last sixty years. But China filled that role for several hundred years prior to the eighteenth century, and is now aiming to recapture its historical supremacy in the economic, cultural, and technological realms. Many scholars have attempted to shed light on this relationship, whether from the perspective of great-power rivalry, or China’s recent economic progress, or American decline. Yet none of these approaches fully captures the history and cultural identity of these two nations, or their long relationship.

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Patrick Mendis, an award-winning public servant and acclaimed author, was born in Sri Lanka, where Chinese and Western influences have met since the sixteenth century. Educated in the British and American systems, he has served the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and in various agencies of the U.S. government. From his early youth, living in a UNESCO World Heritage Site in his native land, he has risen to become a commissioner of the United States National Commission for UNESCO— an appointment made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House. Mendis has also taught at several major universities in the United States and China, and traveled extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. With this rich diversity of experiences, he is ideally situated to bring a fresh perspective to this pivotal relationship, capable of looking at two countries as both an insider and an outsider. THE VISION THING Mendis takes us deeply into the roots of Chinese and American cultures. America considers itself an exceptional nation in world history; but so too do the Chinese. America is built on a vision, on an “American Dream” of equality, freedom, and growing prosperity for all. China is also built on a vision, or rather a blend of two visions: the Confucian ideal of a harmonious society ruled by virtue, and the Communist ideal of a vanguard party that leads China into the modern industrialized world. Mendis illustrates how the American and Chinese visions powerfully shape both foreign and domestic policy; indeed they shape the way each nation sees itself and its relation to others. The United States has offered its vision to the world as the “Washington Consensus” based on free markets and liberal politics. China too has offered its vision globally, as a “Beijing Consensus,” in which strong central government, development planning, and an emphasis on a stable and orderly society are more important than democratic freedoms. In which direction will the world turn? Mendis asserts that China will have to move toward embracing the American dream—

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because that is what the Chinese people are coming to demand. Quoting Thomas Jefferson, Mendis observes that “Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic [and the Pacific] and will be alike influenced by the same causes.” Noting that people everywhere, once they have a basic level of security, want accountable government and personal freedom, Mendis boldly predicts that “sooner or later, if left unaddressed, this natural human tendency will undermine the entire CPC [Communist Party of China] pyramid like a chamber of magma lying beneath a mammoth volcano.” In my view, it is also an economic imperative for China to undergo political change. If China is to move to the next stage of economic development, it will need to reward creativity, originality, and innovation. Yet it is difficult, if not impossible, to reward these qualities in the context of tight central controls on information and communication. Innovative thinking emerges more easily and naturally in a free and open society. Nonetheless, even if China develops western-style democracy, it will be a democracy with distinctive Chinese characteristics— what Mendis cleverly describes as “rewriting the American Dream in Chinese characters.” Moreover, the translation will not come all at once, as at present America and China are in competition everywhere—geopolitically, economically, and ideologically. Beijing is investing heavily in Africa, south Asia, Latin America, and even in America’s own backyard in the Caribbean. Mendis views this as the subtle application of a Monroe Doctrine-like approach by China. At the same time, America has declared a “pivot to Asia,” strengthening its commitment and cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, building ties to new (Vietnam) and old (the Philippines) allies in the region, and seeking to play a strategic role in managing conflicts in the South China Sea and throughout the western Pacific. A BUDDHIST CONNECTION Mendis illustrates an interesting development in his native Sri Lanka. In the days of Imperial China, Sri Lanka was famed as the “crown jewel” in the Chinese string of pearls naval strategy to se-

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cure China’s access to the Indian Ocean. It was a port of special interest to the Ming Admiral Zheng He, an imperial envoy to this Buddhist nation during his voyages across the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433. Although after World War II, Sri Lanka was a pro-American parliamentary democracy, the Buddhist country is now a satellite state for Beijing with increasing infrastructure investment, economic interest, and Chinese access to Colombo harbor and the newly-built Hambantota deep-water seaport. Mendis reveals China’s innocuous Buddhist diplomacy, harking back to the religious ties that had linked both countries for millennia, as a shrewd strategy in the region to counter the maritime interests of India and the United States. Although China professes to be pursuing a “Peaceful Rise,” China’s pursuit of its strategic interests in the Indian Ocean, Africa, and the South China Sea, and its ethos of historical supremacy and Confucian superiority, are fanning the flames of nationalism and creating risks of conflicts abroad. Yet drawing on his longerterm historical perspective, Mendis is optimistic that China and America will avoid overt conflict. Instead, he foresees a “Peaceful War” of ideas and positional maneuvering between these great powers. Mendis describes this possible scenario as “the presence of force without war.” Somewhat like the Cold War, it will involve competition for global influence between major powers; but unlike America and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, China and the U.S. will remain major trading partners for their mutual economic prosperity. The Chinese and American people, too, will continue to trade in ideas, practices, and knowledge. Mendis, for example, predicts that Chinese students in American colleges and universities (over 723,000 enrolled in the 2010-2011 academic year) will return to China as “missiles of freedom” from liberal U.S. institutions. This is a distinctive feature of Sino-American relations, quite different from the Soviet era. Moreover, given the demographic issues facing China (an aging and shrinking labor force) and the fiscal issues facing the U.S. (the need to bring down a massive level of government debt), both countries will benefit from cooperation and seeking win-win solutions. Mendis explains that the potential for a “social cliff” in

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China and a “fiscal cliff” in America will inevitably force both nations to find creative solutions for their domestic challenges as a prime national security issue. A “PACIFIC” DREAM Using the past as a prism to see into the future, Mendis traces the history of U.S.-Chinese relations back to colonial America, and lays out America’s long-standing love affair with China and things Chinese. His research shows that the relationship between these two countries has always been important and evolving for mutual benefit. Mendis notes the risks involved when American belief in its own manifest destiny confronts a China whose “Chinese Dream” is to again be the world’s dominant nation. Nonetheless, Mendis argues that their “Peaceful War” will lead to the birth of a new “Pacific” New World Order, in which both countries cooperate for the sake of trade, economic growth, and regional stability. I know of no better guide to the multi-faceted relationship between America and China, and its likely evolution in the coming decades, than this book. The author takes the reader on wonderfully rich voyages, back and forth over the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea—and across time. Throughout, Mendis is a superbly engaging, erudite, and thoughtful guide. At a time when both America and China are engulfed in anxiety about the relations between themselves and among their allies, Patrick Mendis offers a much needed and timely antidote to prevailing pessimism. I genuinely hope that leaders on both sides of the Pacific will read and pay attention to the innovative and inspiring ideas in this book; they point the way to a better future for all of us. Jack A. Goldstone, PhD

Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Professor of Public Policy George Mason University

PROLOGUE

Sino-American Relations

Geographic Destiny of China and the United States

The total area (both land and water) of China is either slightly smaller or larger than the size of the United States, making it the world’s third or fourth largest country, after Canada and Russia. The cities, states, and provinces (including the disputed Taiwan) give a general sense of geographical orientation. .

A Sino-American Journey

Yes I am [a Hindu]. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, and a Jew.1 Mahatma Gandhi

Three years before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I was born into a family of a Buddhist mother and a Catholic father in the medieval capital city of Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My long journey to America began—at least in my mind—when Peace Corps volunteers and 4-H exchange students visited my paternal grandparents’ three-acre rice field. One volunteer, a Catholic from Iowa, showed me a photo of the youthful American president who had established the Peace Corps. They were evidently inspired by Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address:

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Prologue

To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery [here, the president was speaking about me], we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.2 For me, however, the most enduring impression was not the blackand-white photo of Kennedy but the free-spirited enthusiasm and sense of adventure exuded by these young goodwill ambassadors. Even though their stay was brief, the unrehearsed events— attending a Catholic mass, visiting a Buddhist temple, and playing with our water buffaloes in the rice field—were more than memories. They instilled an American dream in me: a dream that I might someday walk, talk, and think like them. My American dream quickly dimmed when the socialist government came into power in 1970. Not only did the Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike regime sever long-cherished U.S.-Sri Lanka relations overnight, but the world’s first woman prime minister also embraced Chairman Mao Zedong’s China.3 A year later on April 5—two days before my eleventh birthday—a youth insurgency broke out and political violence followed; a state of emergency was enforced. My introduction to socialism began with the infamous 1971 bloody revolt as I was compelled to wait in line for a loaf of rationed bread at the village cooperative store in the early hours of every morning. The seven years that ensued were a life of economic austerity but I found solace in the free magazines and pictorials from China. The creation of a police and an army cadet corps (similar to Mao’s youth brigade, the Red Guard or the junior ROTC in the United States) was a blessing as I joined them to develop my discipline and patience—and craft a renewed purpose for my life. As my American dream subsided, I was captivated by the triumphs of Mao’s Cultural Revolution depicted colorfully in Chinese weeklies—a sort of propaganda. A new Chinese “dream” began to form,

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proving the ancient Confucian adage: “The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it.”4 A LIFE OF PILGRIMAGE This book is not about me; it is the worldview of an islander immersed in two cultures. As I do not have formal academic training (a PhD in Sino-American relations), I am obligated to tell the reader upfront of my scholastic deficiencies in comparative analysis. Throughout my formative years, however, I was not only fascinated by the culture, history, and geography of the United States and China but also studied their philosophies. Over the years, I have often been comparing and contrasting the American and Chinese political economy while traveling to all 50 states (and Guam and Puerto Rico) and the majority of the 34 provinces and special regions of China, including Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Tibet. My active engagement in both cultures came with academic pursuits. First, my American dream was revived when I was selected to receive one of nine American Field Service (AFS) scholarships—out of over 100,000 applicants in Sri Lanka—to attend school in Minnesota in 1978. I learned to speak English there and graduated from high school in Perham, a rural resort town of 1,000 lakes similar to Garrison Keillor’s mythical Lake Woebegone in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.”5 Second, after I completed two tours of teaching with American forces in the NATO and Pacific Commands of the Pentagon and before I joined the U.S. State Department, the University of Maryland offered me a visiting professorship in summer 2000 at Northwestern Polytechnic University in Xi’an, the earliest and best preserved capital of China. This urban center was once a melting pot of Muslims and other traders traveling to the starting point of the ancient Silk Road in central China. The walled city is now home to a world-renowned excavation of terracotta sculptures, depicting the warriors and horses of Shi Huangdi—the “first emperor” of China and the founder of the Qin dynasty (259–210 BC).

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Prologue

After returning from Xi’an, my interest in China lay dormant until I was doing research for my previous book, Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the American Empire (2010). When I uncovered historical evidence that my birthplace of Polonnaruwa had long-term friendly relations with the Middle Kingdom, my attention was rekindled. The ancient royal city of Polonnaruwa reached its pinnacle under King Parakramabahu the Great (1123-1186), who unified the island under one rule. The king constructed an extensive irrigation system for this Buddhist city, and even sent successful expeditionary forces to India and Burma. Sri Lanka went to war with King Alaungsithu of Burma when the “commercial interests” of the maritime trade relations between the island’s great king and the powerful Khmer kingdom of Cambodia were threatened by the Burmese ruler.6 With a network of massive reservoirs and canal schemes (alongside Buddhist monasteries, public libraries, and other community work projects), King Parakramabahu launched an unparalleled agricultural revolution. His wise axiom, “Not even a little water that comes from the rain must flow into the ocean without being made useful to man,” revealed his dedication to building a hydraulic civilization and providing inspiration to the Green Revolution.7 This meticulously engineered city was connected to the ancient Silk Road of the sea through the eastern port of Gokanna (which lies in a natural Trincomalee harbor also known as “China Bay”); agricultural surplus—mostly rice—sailed through the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea to the corners of Southeast Asia and the Middle Kingdom.8 In his History of Sri Lanka, Professor Kinsley De Silva writes: Though most of the vessels used in her external trade were generally of foreign construction, sea-worthy craft were built in Sri Lanka as well, and are known to have sailed as far as China. Perhaps some of the latter may even have been used to transport Parakramabahu I’s troops to Burma.9 During these years, commercial trade relations flourished. A century later, “swords and musical instruments were imported from

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China, and Chinese soldiers served in the king’s army” in the reign of Parakramabahu III, 1287-1293 (emphasis added).10 For me, the intricacy of this historic record provides an insightful context to understand the contemporary situation of Sri Lanka and its foreign relations with China and beyond. In addition, the medieval Buddhist capital of Polonnaruwa also speaks to me spiritually. My paternal grandparents, who lived in a nearby village, adopted me when I was an infant and I grew up with them in a secluded Catholic environment where Christians were not always welcome by predominantly Buddhist population. My biological mother, a practicing Buddhist, decided to give me away before my first birthday for medical and astrological reasons. Entrepreneurial by nature, my grandfather was one of the early settlers who voluntarily moved from the west coast once colonized by the Portuguese to find new life in a recently-created colonization scheme designed to revive the ancient glory of the city’s agricultural economy. A small community of Christian rice farming settlers secretly attended a makeshift church, which was later known as the first “church” in Polonnaruwa. Built on a “small plot of land” donated by my grandfather, that church later became the Holy Rosary Church.11 During my determinative years, I attended a Buddhist public school and was influenced by Buddhist teachings, but weekends were always confined to church-related events and Bible studies. Thus, I have grown to identify myself as a “Catholic Buddhist:” a Christian by faith, a Buddhist by practice. The confluence of Buddhist and Christian religious teachings led me to a vision of unity in everything and with everyone. The synchronized message of my Polonnaruwa narrative—both personal and global elements—later made the city famous in the English-speaking Christian world after Reverend Thomas Merton (1915-1968), a Christian mystic at Gethsemani Monastery in Kentucky, visited the medieval capital in 1968. The American Trappist monk later wrote that he had attained his enlightened “insights” and “total integration” with God when he was contemplating on a rock in front of three beautifully stone carved, larger-than-life figures of a meditating, standing, and reclining Buddha at Gal Vihara

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(“Rock Temple”) in this consecrated city.12 In a famous passage of his Asian Journal, the reverend wrote, I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of sunyata” [emptiness].13 The contemplative pilgrim concluded his journal with these words, “This is Asia in its purity, not covered over with garbage, Asian or European or American, and it is clear, pure, complete.”14 It is remarkable that while the place has long been a metropolis of ancient ruins, its stunning remnants provided the Catholic philosopher a new realm of intrinsic forces for God realization. His experience teaches us an important lesson on the nature of the integrative mind and the power of history to transcend religious, ethnic, racial, political, cultural, and other social boundaries in order to locate unity in diversity. A SEARCH FOR INTEGRATION In the final analysis, this book presents a triangulated framework of history, geography and philosophy to better understand the changing nature of the Sino-American relationship. In his book Archeology of Knowledge, French philosopher Michel Foucault convincingly explained that we need to compare and contrast several periods of history, different forms of connections, various level of hierarchies, numerous networks of determination, and altering levels of teleology (the study of causes in nature) to fully understand events and interpret evolving relationships.15 For me, history is the archaeology of the present and future because, as Foucault wrote, historically interpretive analysis gives meaning to the present state of knowledge of public policy and integrative thinking (from various disciplines) to create a more peaceful future.

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The prism through which I analyzed the Sino-American bilateral relationship in the book emerged from the worldview of an islander, who is himself a very product of two seemingly opposed cultures, religious convictions, and political persuasions. I have felt not unlike Robinson Crusoe on a shipwrecked desert island, however; the writing of this book has always been a challenging, sleepless, and often lonely task for me (except on the occasions of my loving wife’s interruptions with green tea, sweet delights, and other enchantments). In the process, I have tried to bring a wideangled look at history into the present policy dialogue in order to make sense out of the foreign policy decisions of our leaders and their strategies on both sides of the Pacific. I hope this worldview lights a candle for illuminated understanding of the world’s most important bilateral relationship. In the initial draft of this book, I had purposefully selected nine quotations from among the fourteen inscribed on the National Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., as epigraph at the beginning of each chapter. The prevailing copyright issues, however, prevented me from using them in the final manuscript. The twenty-eight feet (nine meters) high national monument is geometrically positioned on a four-acre (two hectares) site near the Tidal Basin between the Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson memorials. Facing the Jefferson memorial, the centerpiece of the tribute to the Civil Rights leader is nine feet taller (three meters) than the sculpture of Jefferson himself. The figure of Dr. King looks decisively back at Civil War President Lincoln’s monument, the site of the Baptist preacher’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. In the midst of all of this lies a powerful but subtle message on American history and national identity as Dr. King stands at a mid-way point, looking ahead into a world of Jeffersonian ideas and ideals. Jefferson, who kept African-American slaves and fathered children with Sally Heming (a slave), was a complex Founding Father who lived a life of contradictions.16 President George Washington’s namesake capital, once a marketplace for slave auctions, is now synonymous with democracy and freedom; so is the iconic Jefferson, who wanted to build an “Empire of Liberty” for the world.

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The statue of Dr. King’s upright figure faces the dome of the Jefferson memorial as if the Nobel Peace Laureate were still inspired by the author who defined the essence of “American Dream” as emanating from “life, liberty, and the pursuit of [spiritual] happiness.”17 Believing in this Jeffersonian vision, King advanced American ideals in practice and asked for human judgment to fall on individual character—not race, color, or background. The selection of a mainland Chinese artist named Lei Yixin (as opposed to an African-American) to carve the granite sculpture of the Civil Rights leader further reaffirmed what America represents as a global nation. Born to a family of scholars in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, Lei was one of millions of “educated youth” sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution; after designing giant monuments of Chairman Mao, a leader who wanted to create a country of free from the “bourgeoisie” classes to achieve a socialist dream of equality and prosperity for the “proletariat” class, the artist then received the commission to sculpt the American messenger of peace and mutual respect.18 Like many of the other national monument projects—such as the Vietnam veterans memorial designed by Chinese-American Maya Lin and the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor gifted by French Freemasons—King’s memorial foundation also attracted opposition, particularly after “the Chinese government [decided] to give $25 million to the King memorial fund.”19 In the end, China’s economic diplomacy prevailed and the project went forward. Chinese involvement in an American project that championed the indomitable human spirit recalled the Civil Rights leader himself, who was essentially protesting human rights violations within the United States. The message—just like in my book—is that Jeffersonian democratic ends will only be achieved through Hamiltonian economic means (similar to that of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs). While China focuses on accomplishing the latter, King’s words still resonate with Chinese citizens and their government as they were playing Barack Obama’s 2008 “Yes, We Can” speech everywhere. Lei, who met the memorial foundation president in charge of the King’s project at a sculpting workshop in

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St. Paul, Minnesota, said, “Dr. King’s vision is still living, in our minds; we still miss him, we still need him.”20 The master artist may not share the same sentiments toward his most famous countryman from Hunan province, as it was Chinese economic reformer Deng Xiaoping—not Chairman Mao—who took China down the American pathway of Hamiltonian means to pursue Jeffersonian ends.21 As Dr. King’s posterity is carried forward through a mainland Chinese artist, the United States is reasserting its founding vision (i.e., the “American Dream”) as a force for good and unity; the coining of the phrase “Chinese dream” by President Xi Jinping is just a beginning for “One World, One Dream,” the triumphant 2008 Olympic slogan in Beijing. WELCOME NOTES TO READERS Finally, I would like to note that the years before and after the Christian era are denoted AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ); whenever the years are not explicitly identified, they refer to AD. There is another minor note that the native English readers may already know: the generally accepted standard that the year 2 AD, for example, is actually 1 year after Jesus Christ was born; therefore, when I write the “twentieth century” phrase, for instance, I am referring to the years from 1900 to 1999. Chinese words and names like Mao Tse-tung and Fa-hsien are spelled according to the pinyin system of modern China (Mao Zedong and Faxian). Linguistic scholars often agree that the pronunciation is closer to actual native speakers of Chinese. To avoid confusion, I have used the pinyin system throughout the book, except in certain occasions when deemed proper to be pedantically precise for clarity. Other words are spelled in a way that associates them more to the general usage of Confucian Chinese mainlanders than to Hong Kong islanders and the English-speaking world; for example, the word like “Taoism” seems dated, so I have employed “Daoism” (except in direct quotations) to reflect the preferences closely connected with Beijing. In conclusion, as a life-long learner and a visitor to over onehundred and five countries, I would like to invite you to share your

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reflections and worldviews to help me understand alternative perspectives to see the world differently. It is expected and even welcome to encounter a wide range of responses; if my village in Polonnaruwa has 10 readers, there will be 100 interpretations!

PART ONE

Pacific Renaissance

Figure 1.1: Birth of a New Friendship

Both Presidents Xi Jinping (left) and Barack Obama represent a new generation of reflective leaders—a departure from the past.

1 The American Dream in China By the Chinese dream, we seek to have economic prosperity, national renewal, and people’s well-being. The Chinese dream is about cooperation, development, peace and win-win, and it is connected to the American Dream and the beautiful dreams people in other countries may have.1 President Xi Jinping

Americans consider the United States an exceptional nation; so do the Chinese people think of their Middle Kingdom. Chinese “exceptionalism,” however, diverges from the American concept. The political orientation of the United States resonates with the enlightenment values of democracy, freedom, and individual rights. These values seem universal, permeating through every aspect of human endeavor. Meanwhile, China strives to “preserve and perfect” its exceptional nature based on the Confucian model of virtues.2 Two parallel leadership transitions in Beijing and

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Washington have demonstrated the differences between American and Chinese exceptionalism, which is grounded in two very distinct and contrary philosophical traditions. In his re-election night speech of November 2012, President Barack Obama said, Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. . . . These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty, and we can never forget that as we speak, people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter—the chance to cast their ballots like we did today.3 Soon after the American election and on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, China experienced a very different transfer of political power as current Chinese President Xi Jinping replaced former President Hu Jintao in an orderly, stable, and Confucian manner in Beijing—the seat of the Communist Party of China (CPC). For ardent believers in Chinese exceptionalism, the Confucian tradition of political stability and centralized state power is the critical factor in the realization of a “harmonious society.” It was with this “harmony” concept that Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping each exemplified the Confucian motto: “It takes but one word, it takes but one man to settle the fate of an empire.”4 Reformer Deng single-handedly broke away from the era of Chairman Mao, the instigator of the tumultuous Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). In the late 1970s, “reform and opening up” trade liberalization policies initiated by Deng brought China into rapid market-oriented economic prosperity within a generation. To grapple with the growing feelings of injustice and uncertainty among restless middle-class Chinese (especially educated youth looking for financial opportunity and social mobility), newly installed Chinese President Xi Jinping, in turn, must take the “one word” of Deng’s “reform” and expand the meaning to include political restructuring for grassroots democracy and economic development.

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Recognizing the unfinished agenda of Deng’s reform policies, outgoing President Hu reminded 2,268 almost uniformly-dressed delegates in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People that the CPC is “creating a beautiful China.”5 He then added that the Communist Party must continue to make both active and prudent efforts to carry out reforms of the political structure and make people’s democracy more extensive, fuller in scope, and sounder in practice. . . . We will never copy a Western political system. We should attach greater importance to improving the system of democracy and diversifying the forms of democracy to ensure that the people conduct democratic elections, decision-making, administration and oversight in accordance with the law. [The Party is] firmly marching on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.6 This style of socialism will preserve a millennia-old Confucian union within a democratic system. Altogether, the departing leader’s remarks emphasized the legitimacy of the Communist Party and its authority to govern people’s affairs without sacrificing individual rights to preserve the collective political order. Under the new leadership, however, affable Xi warned against “excessive formalism and bureaucratism” among Communist Party cadres.7 Introducing his fellow Standing Committee members of the Politburo (the party’s seven-member supreme authority) as “my colleagues,” General Secretary Xi signaled a departure from Hu, who had used the old revolutionary word “comrades” when he took the top position in 2002.8 The congenial leader’s refreshing tone contrasts sharply with that of his wooden predecessor, who had monotonously read a lengthy and ideological statement. Likewise, the newly-minted president’s first official trip to the southern city of Shenzhen—the birthplace of policy reform and an economic laboratory—is strikingly different to Hu’s visit to the historic village of Xibaipo, the revolutionary command center of Chairman Mao Zedong in 1948-1949.

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As part of his first official act, Xi Jinping accompanied his sixmember Central Politburo Committee to “The Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition at the National Museum of China in Beijing. At this landmark November 29, 2012 tour, Xi spoke about a “Chinese dream” (evoking its American equivalent) that belonged to “all the people,” and his plan to continue the nation’s strategy for “revival” or rejuvenation (fuxing).9 Placing blame for past failures on “empty talk” among Chinese leaders, Xi attributed China’s post-Soviet era successes to their willingness to “calmly observe the situation, secure our footing, cope with changes with confidence, skillfully keep a low profile,” and set about “reviv[ing] the nation.”10 Referencing the tenets of the Peaceful Rise foreign policy strategy that guided China through explosive growth in the 1990s and 2000s, Xi’s speech also heralded a new era in “realizing the great renewal of the Chinese nation” from its glorious past as the Middle Kingdom.11 This, he said, was “the Chinese nation’s greatest dream in modern history.”12 His proclamation of a Chinese dream is shrewdly embedded in the party’s grand strategy for a Chinese Renaissance.13 BEIJING’S GRAND VISION MIRRORS WASHINGTON At the same time, the phrase “Chinese dream” sparked the first scandal of 2013 when a New Year’s Day editorial to readers of the well-regarded Southern Weekend newspaper published from Guangdong was subjected to less-than-artful censorship. The action irritated many writers and readers, including those in neighboring Hong Kong; demonstrations launched by editorial staff quickly spread to wider protests and public demands for greater press freedoms. The original text—reportedly titled “China’s Dream: the Dream of Constitutionalism”—was revised to read: “We are Closer Than Ever To Our Dreams.”14 Instead of calling for constitutionalism to protect individual rights, the heavily revised editorial praised CPC policies. As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing reaffirmed to international press that “there is no so-called news censorship in China,” the Chinese language edition of the party-proximate Global Times responded with its own edito-

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rial stating, “It is impossible to have the kind of ‘free media’ [protestors] dream of under China’s social and political reality today.”15 For the first time, the revolt among Chinese journalists began to echo the 1989 democratic struggle by students in Tiananmen Square. Mounting public anger over heavy-handed government censorship later subsided as the journalists amicably resolved the issue. The basic questions, however, remained: What was wrong with the Chinese dream? And, what is the Chinese dream? Is it the government’s interpretation of moderate prosperity for all, or is it the middle class imaginings of greater civil rights and protected freedoms? Stepping into the fray, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted a Chinese newspaper that failed to follow self-review orders. The paper continued to cover the event and called it a “test of the [new] leadership’s ability to govern and heed public concerns.”16 Determining whether the government can achieve these dual objectives will require a frank look at China’s past; the permanent exhibits at the National Museum depict an idealized view of ancient history, showing Chinese ethnic groups pulling together to create “brilliant achievements” (a narrative for the nation’s contemporary rejuvenation) but overlooking the tragic policies of the early period of state socialism under communist rule.17 In order for these new helmsmen to advance Beijing’s foreign policy of “Peaceful Rise” and the associated policy reforms, they must confront a series of challenges primarily in economic development and national unity. In this regard, both Chinese history and its people matter most: history is anchored in the Confucian civilization, while the people are inspired by the prospects of better living conditions envisioned as part of the “Chinese dream.” For the leadership, the Chinese dream involves a socialist utopian vision in which only the CPC can meet the ever-growing material and cultural needs of its people. The overarching strategy is all about economic development for a “Harmonious Society” at present and in the future.

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Employing the past to shape the present, the Museum and its implicitly ideological content are as much political instruments as historical record. In fact, the theme of a Harmonious Society is an appeal to nationalism, a Communist Party strategy for unity. Both of these ideological instruments—the National Museum exhibits and the Harmonious Society theme—selectively invoke China’s glorious past and Confucian civilization to convey the idea that China is an exceptional nation. While every nation is unique, China is constantly reinventing itself and so is the United States. These two nations in particular are exceptionally distinctive in contrasting but parallel ways. Both nations have an idea of Manifest Destiny and a concept of the Monroe Doctrine in their ideological arsenal, and both are continental powers with political and cultural influence that extends far beyond their national borders. For example, the United States doubled its size with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and then annexed the Republic of Texas, staging a westward expansion to connect the original colonies on the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. Washington also warned European powers that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open for colonization with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. While the doctrine laid out restrictions for European colonists, U.S. expansion westward (and naval development) was needed to enforce this American notion with the facts on the ground.18 Similarly, China’s westward expansion has been realized by way of a commercial Silk Road tracing the historical path that stretches from the ancient capital of Xi’an through the Xinjiang, Tibet, and Yunnan regions (i.e., China’s Manifest Destiny). Geographically and ideologically “westward-oriented” trade deals and infrastructure investment were carried out even as Beijing increasingly engaged in a Chinese-style Monroe Doctrine through naval advances that could challenge or enforce historical claims over disputed territories in the East China Sea (e.g., Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands with Japan) and the U-shaped “nine-dashed line” claim in the South China Sea. With these seemingly interrelated historical analogies in mind, the new Beijing leadership has now consciously borrowed another concept from the United States by purposefully repositioning the

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“American Dream” as the “Chinese dream”—but with Partycentric connotations.19 The Politburo’s reformulation of the “American dream” is essentially grounded in the idea of a Harmonious Society with Confucian (or authoritarian) characteristics. CONFUCIAN REVIVAL FOR A CHINESE RENAISSANCE In the process of creating this society, the Politburo has already faced down a series of challenges, including threats to national unity and social order. The thirty-year state socialist program under Chairman Mao Zedong focused on ideology, issuing pronouncements to encourage widespread public conformity. This included a calculated attack on traditional Confucian culture, which was viewed by Mao and other May Fourth Movement (1915-1921) intellectuals as responsible for China’s “backwardness.” These counter-cultural attacks (occurring at the same time but very different from the American cultural revolutions during the Woodstock Nation and the Anti-War movements of the 1960s) were most notable during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. These two momentous events fundamentally clashed with traditional Confucian principles, demonstrating the strength of the regime in opposition to the forces of history, and ruptured the social and moral fabric of Chinese society. This thirty-year time period (from roughly 1949-1979) was the height of state socialism, an era during which social and familial relationships were replaced by an extension of the Party’s cadre-led internal structure. The next thirty-year period eventually saw history and the Chinese people resurface, culminating with the 2008 Beijing Olympics and its “one world, one dream” motto. One-party rule allowed for fast-track development that empowered some even as it disenfranchised others. The public provisions of the iron rice bowl were cycled away from the state and into the private sector. Periodically, the government embarked on efforts to piece together a social welfare apparatus that might meet the rising expectations of a newly entrepreneurial public. By the end of the era, however, the global financial crisis highlighted the complexity of China’s political and economic relations with the United States. The Chinese economy

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faltered domestically and, at the end of Hu Jintao’s decade-long rule, a series of public corruption scandals, overseas condemnations of factory conditions, mass protests in China’s distant regions (Tibet and Xinjiang), and widespread skepticism about the Party’s ability to move the country forward resulted in a renewed commitment to meeting public needs and maintaining unity. Cultural and economic progress—the twin pillars of basic human needs—is driving the CPC’s overarching strategy of development for a Harmonious Society. While China’s Peaceful Rise became an outward-oriented strategy to meet economic needs at home through (resource) import and (product) export policies, the inspiration for cultural development draws from Confucius (551–479 BC), the venerated Spring-Autumn period scholar whose ideas forged the unity that preserved social order. The Confucian idea of authority is vested in government and the family structure, both of which are responsible for guiding and protecting the people under their direction, collectively ensuring a harmonious society. Former President Hu Jintao, who called for the creation of such a society in 2006, intended to address worsening social tensions, growing corruption, and widening income inequality. Invoking the socialist ideal of a “classless society” as envisioned by Chairman Mao, Hu’s sixteenth CPC Congress announced: “China is a harmonious society in general, but there are many conflicts and problems affecting social harmony. We must always remain clearheaded and be vigilant even in tranquil times” while promoting an all-out economic growth strategy.20 This “Road to Revival” development path essentially embraces both Confucian and Communist thought, and could be collectively credited with creating a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.21 To advance China’s national approach to socialism (away from Soviet-style stagnation and American-style democracy), Beijing has a new plan for rejuvenation. This calculus has Confucian harmony as a common denominator. The remnants of Chinese culture that survived the twentieth century are an amalgam of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions filtered over the centuries into a single “secular religion.” An old Chinese adage states: “The three teachings flow into one.”22 Without labeling the way of Confucian

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life as such, Chinese culture broadly constitutes ethnicity, language, and religion as a unifying whole. Religion has been a potent force in the formulation of Chinese culture throughout the ages; it is one of the most important components for national unity. According to a popular saying, “Every Chinese wears a Confucian cap, a Taoist robe, and Buddhist sandals.”23 Another axiom elaborates on how a Chinese “man could be a Confucian in his active life . . . a philosophical Taoist in his leisure hours . . . and frequent the Buddhist temple to offer prayers for special intentions.”24 This religio-cultural DNA (not unlike that of America’s Judeo-Christian narrative) is at the forefront of the nationalistic sentiments emphasized by new leader Xi Jinping in his vision for “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation to show a bright future.”25 The strong role of the state in continuing to direct national development also affirms Confucian precepts. Heralding a shift from the development era that ushered in China’s spectacular economic rise on the world’s stage within a generation, Xi is also signaling his intent for Deng’s reforms to win the hearts and minds of the Chinese populace. In the New York Times, Xi reaffirmed: “Reform and opening up is a guiding policy that the Communist Party must stick to” and “we must keep to this correct path. We must stay unwavering on the road to a prosperous country and people, and there must be new pioneering.”26 In addition to taking on publicly vilified state corruption, this new pioneering strategy will require the CPC to thoughtfully rally Chinese people of all ethnic groups with a sense of nationalism. As a national conduit for unity within diversity, today’s new path to socialism with Confucian characteristics is grounded decisively in Chinese history. This two-track plan of nationalism and development is a historically powerful weapon. Upon visiting Beijing’s permanent exhibition, Xi announced, “After the 170 or more years of constant struggle since the Opium Wars [in 1839-1842 and 1856-1860], the great revival of the Chinese nation enjoys glorious prospects.”27 If the state socialist legacy and the later reform period serve as a guide, the CPC has the ability to rally all ethnic groups, as well as urban and rural poor, with the commitment to lead them into an

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increasingly prosperous and powerful Confucian state. Xi asked new Party members to always harbor the spirit of “cutting a road when (they) come to the hill, and building a bridge when (they) come across a river” and urged them to “forge ahead and explore boldly” along the path—the path of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” which “is the only route that must be taken to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, advance the socialist modernization and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”28 With such a vision for the great restoration of Confucian unity, the new Politburo has already laid out Beijing’s strategic plan for a revival of a celebrated past: a “Chinese Renaissance.”29 To symbolize this revival, a gigantic statue of Confucius was placed in front of the National Museum of China in January 2011 directly across from the iconic portrait of Chairman Mao at the entrance to the Forbidden City. Four months later, the pedestal seemed to vanish overnight when it was discretely removed to a less visible location inside the museum.30 A Chinese blogger provided an explanation: “According to his nephew Mao Yuanxin, Mao once famously said: If the Communist Party has a day when it cannot rule or has met difficulty and needs to invite Confucius back, it means it is coming to an end.’ That’s why erecting the statue of Confucius on Tiananmen Square was extremely odd and ironic, considering Mao’s embalmed body lies right at its center inside a mausoleum.31 Disliked by Mao, whose cadre destroyed even the grave of Confucius during the Cultural Revolution, the universallyrespected sage is back in vogue. For the younger generation, a Chinese Renaissance resounds more meaningfully with the ancient philosopher than with the brief history of Mao. Over roughly the next thirty years, a nationalistic vision of a Chinese Renaissance could indeed become a reality by the time the CPC celebrates its centennial in 2049, when it also formally reincorporates the autonomous one-time colonies of Western powers—

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Hong Kong and Macau—under Beijing’s rule. In official Xinhua newspaper commentary, Beijing summarized its vision: China is set to build itself into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious when the New China marks its centennial. With arduous efforts of the Chinese people, the dream of the Chinese nation’s great renewal will surely be realized.32 Former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew (an ardent defender of Confucian values in political governance and economic development) confirms: “It is China’s intention to become the greatest power in the world.”33 This power will not be in the likeness of the former British colony or the Portuguese enclave; however, Singapore’s growing stature on the world’s stage as a Confucian city-state may offer a window into an emerging Confucian civilization-state. Whether it is Beijing’s brilliant strategy for self-preservation or for national unity (or both), the new policy pronouncements concerning the Chinese dream point to an unprecedentedly universal message: the Party is overtly entertaining the notion of American dream with Confucian features. In rapid topdown fashion, the term has been ordered into school textbooks by the CPC’s propaganda chief Liu Yunshan to ensure the concept “enters students’ brains.”34 Can China succeed in this endeavor through economic development strategies alone? THE ARDUOUS JOURNEY OF THE AMERICAN DREAM The idea of the American dream, rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence, proclaims that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights.”35 In his tripartite national motto, Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and the third U.S. president, promoted “unalienable rights” as the “fundamental natural rights” of mankind to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”36 Here, the word sequence indicates the Jeffersonian belief that the material and cultural needs of the people must be satisfied first before con-

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sidering political liberty and spiritual happiness. The natural ordering of life first and then liberty in the basic hierarchy of human needs (like Abraham Maslow’s pyramid of needs) was carefully situated within this philosophic configuration for realization of the American dream. In his famous speech, “Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!” Patrick Henry contradicted Jefferson’s rationale but galvanized national sentiments for freedom, implying that King George was “a tyrant” through an appeal to popular emotions.37 Immediately after Henry’s hypnotic oration, Jefferson remarked: When he had spoken in opposition to my opinion, had produced a great effect, and I myself had been highly delighted and moved, I have asked myself, when he ceased: ‘what the devil has he said?’ I could never answer the inquiry.38 In the end, Henry’s rhetoric convinced the Virginia House of Burgesses to pass a resolution to dispatch troops to the Revolutionary War. His political oratory achieved only immediate legislative objectives; Jefferson’s enduring philosophy has inspired a nation— and the world. In the United States, democratic and Jeffersonian ideals of equality actually took more than a century to be realized through franchise for former slaves and women. The evolution of national unity and equal rights is all about what America represents as a nation today: a manifestation of the historical episodes of Jefferson and Henry as well as the Civil War, the Women’s Suffrage movement, and the Civil Rights struggles. America’s Manifest Destiny, which in practice meant wresting lands from Native Americans alongside “systematic acts of ethnic cleansing” (the famous Trail of Tears repeated over and over), is also a part of the nation’s heritage of “social ills,” as Professor Randall Kennedy at the Harvard Law School correctly described.39 While these “dark veins of intolerance” infected American exceptionalism, the nation has collectively advanced along a difficult journey toward the realization of Jeffersonian freedoms.40 In a way, the unity in diversity that resulted is itself a testament to American exceptionalism.

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Inspired by Jefferson’s iconic passage, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called upon national conscience when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” in August 1963. Given America’s less than immaculate history—a history with almost eighty years of “Jim Crow” laws enforced on African-Americans punctuated by upswings of white supremacy, nativism, and Ku Klux Klan activities—the rise of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency is a powerful validation of the founding creed. Jeffersonian freedoms have ensured King’s visualization of American dream where the content of character trumps the color of skin. In his second Inaugural Address on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January 2013, a solemn Obama affirmed, “What makes us exceptional, what makes us America, is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago.”41 He then linked the struggles for civil rights and women’s suffrage to America’s arduous journey and added, “We hold these truths to be self-evident [in the Declaration], that all men are created equal” by defending the “most ancient values and enduring ideas” of the Founding Fathers.42 To achieve these Jeffersonian ends, Alexander Hamilton— Jefferson’s philosophical rival—devised an ingenious strategy that entailed a strong manufacturing base, a national banking system, a centralized federal government, and an export-led economic scheme protected by the U.S. Navy. Bridging the two competing camps, James Madison invented a system of checks-and-balances among the three independent branches of government. This project was driven in part to mitigate human ambitions that might otherwise be destructive to the American system of self-governance. In the Federalist Papers, Madison wrote, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”43 With such logic, he hoped Americans could achieve Jefferson’s democratic freedoms through Hamilton’s economic development strategies and trade policies. HAMILTONIAN MEANS TO JEFFERSONIAN ENDS

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This is part of the philosophical difference between China and America: for the latter, a political “process” matters more in democratically promoting Jeffersonian worldviews. For Confucian China, political “outcomes” have greater significance—just as Hamilton argued in Federalist Papers. But democratically-oriented Jeffersonian inspiration has prevailed throughout history and certainly been more admired than capitalistic Hamiltonian-style motivations of greed and power. For China, the traditional Confucian structure that invoked ideals of perfect human virtue for harmony must incorporate the rule of law for the modern era. This is an inherently two-part process that begins with building marketoriented institutions (Hamiltonian means) that eventually lead to democratic ones (Jeffersonian ends) for social stability and harmony. The latter is an ongoing and dynamic process of “perfection.” The Hamiltonian vision has already been endorsed by China as a prescription for economic reform policies to achieve Beijing’s development and foreign policy goals. As Deng Xiaoping famously said, “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mouse.”44 Outcome-oriented China has enjoyed the fruits of Hamiltonian prosperity; nevertheless, it also endured great human sacrifice and personal agonies along the way to affluence. The Chinese government displaced millions of its people to build the gigantic Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric project on the Yangtze River; regularly resettles millions of urban dwellers for renewal projects; and uproots millions of families from the construction areas of transport networks and other massive development programs. In the United States, the government has a consultative process that involves all branches of government and stakeholders openly under the rules of law when embarking on such colossal initiatives. For instance, the decision to store nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has taken years of public discourse. The controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada through the American mid-western states to the Gulf Coast is another ecologically sensitive project that is still being debated by many stakeholders. At the eighteenth CPC Congress, outgoing President Hu noted fallacies in the outcome-driven “reform and opening” strategy that

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minimized human aspirations, especially in the area of democratic participation. Along with his repeated emphasis on “Mao Zedong thought” and “the scientific outlook on development” (i.e., ecofriendly and environmentally-balanced), Hu cautioned that, “If we fail to handle this issue [corruption] well, it could prove fatal to the party and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state.”45 Hu established the platform and set the tone for President Xi, but the departing president repeated the idea of “grassroots democracy” to ensure that the Chinese people will “enjoy democratic rights in a more extensive and practical way.”46 His gradual extension of “intra-party democracy” policy at the Politburo to the grassroots level is more than “a powerful theoretical weapon.”47 It is his “democratic” legacy. It is also widely recognized that after having their material needs fulfilled by Deng’s Hamiltonian-like approach to economic prosperity, the attention of the Chinese people will naturally turn to non-material aspirations. Jefferson explained it this way: “Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic [and the Pacific] and will be alike influenced by the same causes.”48 Sooner or later, if left unaddressed, this natural human tendency will undermine the entire CPC pyramid like a chamber of magma lying beneath a mammoth volcano. The reform period was tolerated by most Chinese even though it was undemocratic, repressive, and disempowering because it delivered an empowering narrative. But that storyline is being chipped away as the Chinese people grow to expect more from their institutions of governance and political leaders—particularly as legal institutions become increasingly refined to service a vibrant market. The Confucian notion of governance is rule by virtues (rather than laws); this is the preferred way for Chinese to govern the human desires that drive capitalism. Confucius said: Lead the people with governmental measures and regulate them by law and punishment, and they will avoid wrongdoing but will have no sense of honor and shame. Lead them with virtue and regulate them by the rules of propriety, and

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they will have a sense of shame and, moreover, set themselves right.49 When both the Chinese people and their rulers have cultivated virtue, society will be in harmonious. Richard Nisbett writes, Chinese social life was interdependent and it was not liberty but harmony that was the watchword—the harmony of humans and nature for the Taoists and the harmony of humans with other humans for the Confucians.50 The philosophic goal in China was a search for harmony and perfection, not the discovery of truth by reasoning. In China’s Confucian society, the best pathway to perfection was the development of a virtuous life. Confucius held distaste for the rule of law as it removed incentives for individual pursuit of virtue. But when Confucian virtues fail to guide the actions of rulers, the fate of a nation cannot rest on broad commitment to virtuous behavior—particularly not in a country newly defined by its capitalist endeavors. Although the rule of law has been codified in the Chinese constitution, a Confucian DNA is pervasively rooted in traditional mindsets as a superior system. For many people, natural law is superior as it allows for the pursuit of virtue genuinely initiated from within and themselves. Chinese leaders have often referred to the process of reform as “perfecting,” a notion of improvement closely associated with virtue. But China’s reform will stagnate without a “moral virtue” encoded in law—in other words, without the rule of law. Such rule involves both consideration for others through the protection of individual rights and the moderation of human passions through a mechanism of checks-and-balances to the power of both government and people. In practice, this alone will yield harmony between those who govern and the governed. In Confucian thought, individuals practice moral virtue both by restraining themselves and pursuing their own interests. This is a dual push-and-pull process. In today’s China, the latter is taken care of by capitalism and commerce. The former, however, needs

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to be taken care of by the rule of law. Otherwise, the system of governance is corrupted by unrestrained individual desires and selective enforcement of “virtue” or law. To resolve the mantle of widespread corruption, accountability and transparency issues, there needs to be a fundamental shift in the location of virtuous self from the individual to the rule of law implemented by government. This will allow all Chinese—regardless of religion, ethnicity, or the social status—to see the government as the enabler of their own pursuit of virtue and liberty. It will also forge a national unity that is stronger than one grounded in the Confucian culture of natural law for harmony. In a recent interview with National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, independent Chinese commentator Zhao Chu elaborated this very same analysis.51 Unlike the American dream, which “focuses on the power of individual,” Zhao criticized the “topdown nature of the Chinese dream” because it “deprives ordinary people of the right to dream their own dreams.”52 The concept of a Chinese dream seems paternalistic as “the power of defining this dream is in the hands of the government, the rulers,” explained Zhao, “So this dream itself is a very extreme form of nationalism or statism.”53 If the Chinese dream is defined in service of an ethnic identity, for example, Tibetans, Uighurs, Hui and other minority groups within this former Middle Kingdom will be left out in the cold. Aware of the potential for ethnic and religious unrest, the official slogan has deliberately been left ambiguous. When PLA National Defense University professor Colonel Liu Mingfu first made this nebulous phrase famous in his 2010 book, China Dream: The Great Power Thinking and Strategic Positioning of China in the Post-American Age, he essentially argued that Beijing needed to return to its former glory as the “most powerful country in the world.”54 President Xi Jinping has approvingly referred to the rejuvenation of China’s golden age through defense modernization and “military rise” (junshi jueqi).55 In his widelyread tome On China, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger observes that Liu’s triumphalist views reflect “at least some portion of China’s institutional structure”56 protecting the CPC’s political authority. Striking a balance between pressures from with-

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in and below, President Xi has seemingly decided to tolerate greater space for public debate, allowing the Chinese dream to become “a handy feel-good slogan”57 to invigorate national pride among his people. To minimize the danger of inadvertently letting “the genie out of the bottle,” Beijing enforces Internet censorship by erasing public records of debate on even the meaning of the term among ordinary Chinese citizens that ventures off into territory deemed unacceptable to the central authority. These actions are counterproductive to the very message of a Chinese dream, and risk suffocating innovations that might actually generate ideas for a meaningful indigenous concept. In a telling contrast, the origins of the American dream are not obscure. James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution, felt that “devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government” for accountability and transparency.58 This would give individuals the needed public space to pursue their personalized dreams. Contrary to the Confucian ideology, Madison asked, What is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.59 Unlike Confucius, Madison maintained that people have a limited capacity to control their passions themselves and act virtuously when their individual interests conflict with others. When individual virtues are inherently different and not compatible with others, competition can neutralize or modify opposing forces. Or, it can bring about social disorder and disharmony. To moderate individual disputes among factions, Madison used the concept of checksand-balances as a second-best alternative to virtuous superiority and confirmed, “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause.”60 Madison then argued in favor of an impartial judiciary and envisioned a system of legislative and judiciary branches that would work separately and competitively within an overarching legal

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framework. To achieve the ultimate Confucian objective—a virtuous society—America has favored the rule of laws over Confucian-style virtues. In the preamble to the U.S. Constitution (1787), the American identity and unity is similarly embedded in the phrase of “A More Perfect Union:” a process of building a utopian charter for virtuous governance. In fact, America acknowledged the greatness of Confucius through a trio of ancient lawgivers—Moses flanked by Confucius to his right and Solon on his left—on the monument to “Justice, the Guardian of Liberty” displayed on the eastern pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.61 Establishing the proper rule of law is a challenging feat for China. The Middle Kingdom’s long-standing philosophical framework for human perfection seems to prefer conformity for the sake of harmony unlike the case of imperfect but evolving rules in the United States. As China’s more recent history has demonstrated (through the Great Famine of 1958-1961 or the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution), the conformist mindset is associated with a high cost to human dignity. Yet it is the purported defense of this very same self-worth (humiliatingly compromised by the cruelty of the Japanese in the Nanjing massacre or the imperialism of the British during the Opium Wars) that legitimizes the rule of the CPC. This contradiction will only be resolved through the elevation of a rule of law that values human dignity. Such rule is not simply an American innovation of political governance; it lies at the heart of what regulates human behavior to facilitate a virtuous life for greater public good. Forward movement on the political reform agenda without the advance of the rule of law will simply further undermine Party legitimacy and Confucian ideology. The ultimate question is this: Will China eventually evolve into a democratic nation by rewriting the American dream in Chinese characters? Despite the introduction of a political reform policy, neither the old guard Communist Party leaders nor the so-called “princeling” class of the Mao Zedong era offspring seek to turn China into a practicing Western-style democracy anytime soon.62 Regardless, the democratic ideas of the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founding fa-

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ther of modern China (himself inspired by Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln) have been elevating the consciousness of freedom and democracy among the post-Deng generations coming of age since the 1980s. PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THIS BOOK Using the above proposition “Hamiltonian means to Jeffersonian ends” to capture the American experiment, this book explores the creative tensions within and between both Chinese and U.S. history to demonstrate how Beijing might realize a Chinese dream that satisfies all. This quest for human excellence will draw from Chinese and American philosophical perspectives to inspire innovative policy approaches. In this context, I argue that China has no choice but to emulate the power of America’s founding ideas and its journey through the universal values of democratic freedom and individual rights. At its core, the Chinese dream is an American dream embedded in a Confucian cocoon. By the centennial in 2049, there will be an inevitable springtime for millions of butterflies (i.e., Chinese tourists, overseas Chinese students, and Chinese workers abroad returning home) not unlike the time of Confucius during the Spring and Autumn Period (722-403 BC) of ancient China. This prospect alone may undermine the centralized power of the Politburo and the Chinese model of exceptionalism. Just as Deng unleashed Hamiltonian instruments for rapid economic growth, President Xi must therefore begin to allow the Jeffersonian instincts of the Chinese people to reign. If American misjudgments and actions that evolved into human tragedies—i.e., racism, sexism, and other bigotries—are guiding lights, the Chinese leadership must ultimately yield its power to the sovereignty of its people (“by the people, for the people,” an American gift to the world celebrated by Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address). Observing the American experience, the CPC leaders have indeed realized the possibilities of an eventual endgame. Unlike America’s long journey, a Confucian China could certainly accelerate the “process” for the desired “outcome” faster than in the United States.

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While the book examines a range of contemporary SinoAmerican policy issues, it also provides a broader cultural and philosophic framework to better understand and appreciate similarities and differences. Chapter Two explores the evolving One Vision, Two Philosophies concept. It includes an ideological narrative—both esoteric and metaphorical—to understand the soul of American identity and China’s Confucian character. A convergence exists in the search for human excellence on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Part of the analysis includes how individual identities and national destines were shaped by the tripod of history, geography, and philosophy. To set the spiritual and religio-cultural framework, Chapter Three, From the Forbidden City to the Federal Triangle, outlines the seemingly parallel origins of Nature’s God in America and China’s Mandate of Heaven. These twin concepts created sociopolitical forces for public good and orderly governance, and a unique cultural ethos (related to the Creator of the Universe in America and the Son of Heaven in China) is deeply rooted in both societies. This chapter explains how each concept is physically yet stealthily manifested in the architectural designs of the two capital cities, Beijing and Washington. Different interpretations expose the reader to a universal worldview that binds the psychology of both cities together in shared conviction. In Chapter Four, China’s Manifest Destiny in the Indian Ocean uncovers the hidden motivation that underlies China’s “New Silk Road” strategy through the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Long before Christopher Columbus, the celebrated Chinese navigator Zheng He travelled through the south and westward maritime routes in the Indian Ocean and established relations with more than thirty countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Admiral Zheng’s legendary seven voyages seem to depict the very nature of a Peaceful Rise and China’s assertive maritime activities, which are part of a geoeconomic foreign policy strategy that has influenced nations in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere. At the center of Beijing’s east-west Indian Ocean maritime trade route is Sri Lanka (in addition to Pakistan and Myanmar); the two nations have engaged in Buddhist diplomacy

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and trade for centuries. The Chinese construction of South Asia’s tallest edifice, the Lotus (a Lotus Sutra in Buddhism) Tower, both points to Beijing’s Peaceful Rise and unsettles some onlookers. For the nervous India and the United States, the cleverly designed and highly sophisticated rising communications tower is more than a Buddhist symbol of Peaceful Rise. Chapter Five reviews The “Ménluó” Doctrine and the Asia Pivot Policy as the United States increases its engagement with the region through the Asia pivot strategy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), acting as a rebalancing force in support of the Philippines and Vietnam against the self-assured China. A discussion follows on whether the restructuring of the American military posture in the Pacific is part of this broader pivot strategy as China begins to increase its strategic presence in the Caribbean and the Western Hemisphere—an area associated with the American Monroe Doctrine since President James Monroe (1809-1817). China’s growing influence in the Caribbean through massive development and infrastructure projects is of concern to the United States, especially as it deals with Cuba and other less friendly nations in the region. For now, China seems to have skillfully adapted a Monroe Doctrine, or “Ménluó” (a transliteration of the word “Monroe”) Doctrine, in America’s backyard. Chapter Six explores the limits of Chinese and American exceptionalism, both of which have been translated into distinctive policy orientations: the Beijing Consensus and the Washington Consensus. Policies associated with each have transformed some countries through structural adjustment programs and attracted others through financial concessions. This chapter on the String of Pearls and the Colombo Consensus outlines a number of countries allied with the United States and subscribed to the Washington Consensus, and others like Sri Lanka that have been enticed by the Beijing Consensus. Based on their respective political and economic ideologies, leaders in Washington and Beijing have discovered a new set of converging interests and potential conflicts among various global actors, including states and non-states engaged in terrorism and piracy.

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In Chapter Seven, the impact of China’s geoeconomic plan and America’s geopolitical strategy (as if promoted respectively by Republicans and Democrats in a polarized United States) has begun to create new dynamics. As Pacific Ocean nations, competition and cooperation between the two nations will create a new atmosphere—leading to the Birth of a “Pacific” New World Order—that is more engaging and less confrontational; this can be characterized by the presence of force without war.63 SEARCH FOR A PACIFIC NEW WORLD ORDER With their fresh and still-unfolding strategies of an expanding New Silk Road and the Asia pivot, both Pacific nations are in uncharted waters. The fundamentals of these plans will produce creative tensions for a “Peaceful War” of ideas: the Chinese dream, Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine. Given China’s domestic challenges and growing uncertainty among the restless middleclass and educated youth (a “social cliff”) on one hand, and America’s budget deficit and mounting debt crisis (a “fiscal cliff”) on the other, the best option is to engage and cooperate while channeling the competitive spirit for greater dynamism into the IndoPacific region for a win-win situation. The idea of a Peaceful War (unlike the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States or a clash of civilizations) raises a decisive question for the two Pacific nations: if the United States was an idea of spreading republican democracy and freedom, will there be an endgame for the Chinese dream—one that might realize Jefferson’s “Empire of Liberty” for all stakeholders? After all, the United States is the result of an enlightened philosophy; China is the outcome of traditions and history. Will this then be the end of Chinese history—a history of Confucian culture and the pyramid-like structure of the CPC’s authority? Unlike any other superpower relations, Chimerican (Chinese and American) dealings have historically been associated mostly with optimistic visions of their roles in world affairs. The central reason for this assertion goes back to the long-held convictions of the Chinese and American people, both of whom entertain ideas of

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divinely-sanctioned exceptionalism. Nonetheless, today’s connoisseurs of Sino-American relations seem to view the relationship through a dystopian prism; their gloomy commentaries are largely an assemblage of snapshots on contemporary interactions or dayto-day developments without a historical context. The currency of sensationalism in the Western media and increasingly in the Chinese media partially explains the negative tone of contemporary cultural and political viewpoints. Figure 1.2: The “Pacific” Effect

The United States and China are separated but united by the Pacific Ocean A counterpoint to these pessimistic worldviews comes from the two leaders themselves. Unlike the earlier generations, these two relatively young leaders seemed to exercise what Professor Joseph Nye at Harvard University called “soft power”—the exercise of “attraction rather than coercion” by the use of “hard” military and economic power—to achieve what they wanted in the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world.64 The aforementioned “one man” view of leadership is increasingly outdated in the in-

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formation age as networks replace hierarchies. Even with hierarchical and formal structures, a complex global web of “government networks” has changed traditional modes of global governance and international politics.65 Chinese leadership especially seems to understand the importance of being “in the center of a circle rather than at the top of a hierarchical mountain,” as Nye has argued on effective presidential leadership.66 Just as the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. . . . When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”67 The information age is certainly well suited for the collective leadership style of the People’s Congress in particular and the Politburo in general. Building the foundation for what could be an enduring legacy of “smart power” leadership, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping are increasingly combining the “soft power” talents of emotional intelligence, vision, and communication with the “hard power” skills of organizational (military and bureaucratic) hierarchy and Machiavellian political maneuverings.68 Together, these yield the smart power skills of contextual intelligence in the IndoPacific strategies. Both seem to share a no-drama-Obama gene, which was also constituted in the natural ease of Lao Tzu’s prescription for leadership: “Among creatures some lead and some follow,” the philosopher observed. “Some blow hot and some blow cold. . . . Therefore, the sage discards the extreme, the extravagant, and excessive.”69 Such leadership skills were on display when Washington and Beijing responded calmly and jointly to Pyongyang’s bellicose rhetoric and threats of impending nuclear war on the Korean peninsula as North Korea prepared to celebrate the 101st anniversary of the birth of its founding father Kim Il-sung in April 2013. Both Obama and Xi have apparently adapted Lao’s precept of being the model for the world as their enduring legacy—a possible Pacific dream. Each knows the desire to “take over the empire and act on it” would compromise their Chimerican legacy; thus, according to Lao Tzu’s wise advice, neither will “dominate the world with force.”70 In his Tokyo speech in November 2009, President Obama promoted himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” promising

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Japan and other nations of Asia “a new era of engagement with the world based on mutual interests and mutual respect.”71 There are two reasons behind this stance. First, the future of American prosperity is linked to the Indo-Pacific nations. Second, the president’s formative years and family history is tied to Asia through his American mother’s connection to Indonesia and his African grandfather’s links to Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) during World War II, as Obama proudly wrote in his Dreams from My Father.72 In his first overseas trip soon after reelection in 2012, Obama—again calling himself America’s first Pacific president—declared a “moment of renewal” that would build bridges over the Pacific Ocean through his Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) initiative by promoting international trade and commerce.73 As the “one man” leader, Chinese President Xi has begun to guide a revival not only for China but for the fate of a Confucian union. Unlike previous leaders, Xi is the first leader born after the birth of Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic of China (PRC). He has an easygoing personality and better connections with the United States (his daughter attends Harvard). While visiting the White House in February 2012, Xi told Obama that he returned to see his “old friends” in Iowa (as governor of Guangdong province, his father Xi Zhongxun had also visited Iowa).74 At a reunion with his Iowan friends, Xi said: “My impression of the country came from you. For me, you are America.”75 Unlike Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev who visited Iowa in 1959, the Chinese leader was sending a message of unprecedented amity from Beijing to Washington.76 For its part, the United States seems open to the Chinese dream. President Obama said that the United States has “always emphasized that we welcome China’s peaceful rise … A strong and prosperous China” will help to “bring stability and prosperity to the region and to the world.”77 Advocating a similar bipartisan American position, President George W. Bush’s Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said in 2005 that America would like to see China as a “responsible stakeholder” in the collective stewardship of the international system.78 The United States needs to

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continue to accommodate and welcome the long-lasting ancient civilization-state and its unyielding influence in every corner of the world. It is difficult and even dangerous to make predictions— especially about the future—of the bilateral relationship. Gazing into the crystal ball of the relatively short history of the United States for guidance is a one-sided exercise; former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill offered a practical advice when he said, “The longer you can look back, the further you can look forward.”79 Today’s China is an artifact of an extended and contentious history while the relatively young American Republic is a daring project informed by the enlightenment philosophy espoused by the Founding Fathers. The former offers the wisdom of longevity while the latter looks forward toward posterity for inspiration. That inspiration is coded in American “software:” life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and respect for the rule of law. Within this historic and optimistic future in mind, I have made no value judgment of the destiny bestowed on each nation. For all this, however, leadership matters; so do the institutional structures and the system of political governance. If the Peaceful Rise philosophy continues to hold in Beijing, Chinese leaders might avoid catastrophic failure even as the United States might moderate growing power rivalries in the East and South China Seas. Unlike the Roman, Spanish, and British Empires, China is a civilizationstate imbued with a belief in the Mandate of Heaven for a “Celestial Empire.” This is not unlike the American vision of the Empire of Liberty. Informed, wise leadership in both capital cities must reflect on past convergences and divergences to stay on their chosen paths for a win-win future. To illuminate our understanding of the new team of rivals in world affairs, I have juxtaposed America’s Manifest Destiny and the Chinese dream within the stated framework of “Hamiltonian means to Jeffersonian ends.” The historically known but underappreciated “love affair” between the two countries is examined in the next chapter to further explain the nature of human behavior echoed in this complex yet simple Sino-American relationship.

PART TWO

Nature’s God and the Mandate of Heaven

Figure 2.1: The Celestial Connection of Eagle and Dragon

The United States is linked to the tradition of the Greek god of Zeus (Jupiter) in the occidental civilization (symbolized as a bald eagle); the Chinese sage Confucius is a central figure in oriental civilization and an imperial dragon connects Heaven to the Middle Kingdom. To the ancient Greeks, the celestial eagle (Aquila) was one of the three constellations in the Summer Triangle; Aquila was the servant of Zeus, giving fire to punish humans. According to ancient Chinese cosmology, the celestial dragon (known as the Azure Dragon) represents the direction of east and spring, marking the beginning of the four seasons and one of the four quadrants of the universe. The Azure Dragon safeguards the places of the gods and the ruler of all other dragons and humans.

2 One Vision, Two Philosophies The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right.1 Alexander Hamilton

British colonists long wanted to find their way to China through America. A trade relationship with “China had been a major objective of English adventure” since the middle of the sixteenth century when the Muscovy (or Russian) Company attempted to find a northeast passage around the Scandinavian peninsula to trade with Cathay—Marco Polo’s fabulous Middle Kingdom or the Celestial Empire in the orient.2 Under strict orders from the Virginia Company of London, a group of colonists led by Admiral Sir John Smith arrived at the James River delta in 1607 to seek “a shortcut to China.”3 The Virginia charter provided explicit instructions to navigate through the

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river “toward the North-West” so that the colonists “shall soonest find the other sea [the Pacific]” in “the hope that a successful search for a passage to China might be based” in the Jamestown settlement.4 The 340-mile James River was the navigational “holy grail” for British colonialists in search of gold, silver, and other minerals to trade with China.5 In his refreshing book The River Where America Began, Bob Deans writes that the nation’s “vast inland waterway” would provide “the elusive northwest passage to China . . . [as] the longsought shortcut to Asian wealth.”6 By traversing upstream to the source of river, the colonists hoped to reach the Middle Kingdom. The corporate mission was clear—even with his “decisive and stern leadership” in the New World, the admiral “lacked the authority to override the Virginia Company’s incessant press” to find a shortcut.7 Yet, not so surprisingly, the “misguided belief that the James River could lead the colonists” to China eventually landed them in Powhatan’s Indian kingdom.8 Instead of finding China across the Pacific, the failed mission left America with the heroic and partly mythical tale of Pocahontas and John Smith—as well as thirteen colonies on the Atlantic seaboard. In the ensuing colonial years up until the American Revolution, America was fascinated by China’s wealth and attracted to its ancient history of legendary emperors, concubines, and foreign way of life. Much of Europe and North America had been informed of China through the popular narratives of Venetian traveler Marco Polo’s epic joinery to meet with the Emperor Kublai Khan (12151294) of the Yuan dynasty, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci’s historic work with the Wanli Emperor (1563-1620) of the Ming Dynasty, and a French Jesuit historian, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde. In his book General History of China (1741), the historian characterized China as “the largest and most beautiful Kingdom yet known . . . compared with our own civilized Nations” among all countries.9 The Middle Kingdom’s influence was so remarkable that American colonial life was saturated with Chinese teas, silks, porcelains, wallpapers, Chinese Chippendale furniture, and other products—an attempt to emulate Chinese affluence.

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Noting “modern America’s cultural debts to China,” Martin Wilbur confirms that Chinese goods certainly enriched “American life in many, many ways.”10 The influence of Chinese culture in Puritan society was so enormous that tea drinking became a wellestablished colonial custom for social and political intercourse. A tea drinker and a Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin estimated at the second half of the eighteen century that “a Million of Americans drink Tea twice a Day” either in the morning at home, socially in the afternoon, or in the evening after dinner.11 By the early 1770s, Americans consumed more than one billion cups of tea annually—close to two cups per person each day.12 Like Franklin, George Washington held affection for Chinese tea as well as porcelain, importing a number of collections of the latter.13 To overcome dependence on British imports, Dr. Benjamin Rush, another Founding Father, attempted to set up “a china manufactory” for “the service of America” in Philadelphia.14 Expressing his happiness on the “good progress made” in the new American China Manufactory, Benjamin Franklin wrote from London that he was “pleased” and wished its “success most heartily.”15 At the same time, Washington—a farmer and surveyor in his pastime— was keeping detailed records of his efforts to grow flowers from “Chinese seeds” that were given to him at his Mount Vernon estate.16 Gardening interests combined with entrepreneurial activities and drinking habits made America one of the largest consumers and biggest importers of Chinese goods. During these years, Americans were tantalized by anything Chinese. From the midseventeenth century until the eve of the Boston Tea Party, the British East India Company supplied nearly all of these Chinese products (mostly tea) to the colonists. A TRADE-FOR-PEACE STRATEGY While serving as aide-de-camp to General George Washington in 1777, Alexander Hamilton reflected on the “enticing suite of goods” coming from China; the future secretary of the Treasury then strategized a trade and manufacturing plan for the new nation that took advantage of Chinese commercial enterprises in addition

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to European trade links.17 In general, the open-minded Founding Fathers were relentlessly curious about other cultures as well as innovative ideas for human progress. Thomas Jefferson, for example, was evidently inspired by the illuminating trade objective of the Virginia Company (and its quest for a shortcut to China), later launching the Lewis and Clark Expedition that similarly aimed to find a direct waterway to the West coast and the Pacific Ocean “for the purpose of commerce” in the area of the Louisiana Purchase and the Pacific Northwest.18 Navigating through the tributary systems of Ohio, Missouri, Columbia and other rivers, the explorers reached the Pacific Ocean. The flourishing trans-Atlantic trade of the eastern seaboard was poised to expand westward into the Pacific. Hamilton’s commercial and trade strategy for the development of the young nation was then complemented by Jefferson’s vision of westward expansion to make America an “Empire of Liberty:” idealist Jefferson and realist Hamilton envisioned a uniquely American strategy for reaching out to the Middle Kingdom just as the nascent United States was severing its symbiotic relationship with the United Kingdom. Their joint efforts to establish a trade-for-peace plan was anchored on the trade foundations of the Sino-American experience—an experience that benefitted both the ancient nation and colonial America. Among the founding generation, “Thomas Jefferson was an expert on China and its classical literature.”19 When Jefferson was the American envoy to France, James Madison wrote to his trusted friend for the latest publications on China.20 The European-minded Jefferson was also an admirer of porcelain and even imported the Chippendale furniture that was so fashionable in colonial America.21 A lover of earthly landscape, the famous Virginian also studied Chinese gardening and architectural design for use at his Monticello home.22 Surveying his plot, he admired a garden “where objects are intended only to adorn;”23 even the railings below the dome of his house and surrounding walkways were a blend of Roman and Chinese design.24 For worldly Jefferson, it was natural to combine the best of both occidental and oriental civilizations to help create a new culture for Americans.

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In his book The Dragon and Eagle: The Presence of China in the American Enlightenment, Owen Aldridge uncovers other examples of this extraordinary influence in the new republic.25 Apart from the Chinese culture of opulence, colonists were also influenced by the Celestial Empire’s “soft-power” of Confucian moral philosophy. Thomas Paine, a man of words and the author of Common Sense, informed colonial America that the Chinese were “a people of mild manners and of good morals.”26 Benjamin Franklin commented that the “Chinese are regarded as an ancient and highly civilized nation” from which Americans might learn in the formation of their own civilization.27 The founding generation was obviously attracted to the useful economic, social and moral attributes of Confucian China, which offered up a sense of personal happiness and societal peace as they set about the development of the young nation and its culture. POPULATING THE CHINESE ETHOS IN AMERICA More than any other Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin left an enduring imprint on American culture. This imprint emanated from Confucius (551-479 BC), whose moral philosophy was the guiding principle of Franklin’s life. In a society of largely Protestants, where God’s grace counted supreme, Franklin’s idea of “moral perfection” had “nothing to do with Christianity.”28 In his letter to Reverend George Whitefield on July 6, 1749, Franklin—a well-known deist—wrote: I am glad to hear that you have frequent opportunities of preaching among the great. If you can gain them to a good and exemplary life, changes will follow in the manners of the lower ranks; . . . On this principle Confucius, the famous eastern reformer, proceeded. When he saw his country [China] sunk in vice, and wickedness of all kinds triumphant, he applied himself first to the grandees; and having by his doctrine won them to the cause of virtue, the commons followed in multitudes. The mode has a wonderful influence on mankind.29

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The American disciple promoted Chinese moral philosophy in his own weekly newspaper, Pennsylvania Gazette. In 1737, Franklin explained to readers “what Confucius proposed to the princes:” moral governance “according to this [Confucian] model” for a “happy and flourishing empire.”30 To cultivate industriousness in America, Franklin vigorously promoted awareness of morality, especially among younger colonists, and published Confucian virtues in his widely-read Poor Richard Almanak. In his classic essay The Way to Wealth, Franklin advised tradesmen and colonial planters that they should further improve their industrious life with frugality as the means of creating wealth and keeping it.31 Among his many proverbial statements, Dr. Dave Wang, an American scholar on Sino-U.S. relations at St. Johns University in New York, identified Franklin’s thirteen virtues as deriving from “The Morals of Confucius,” the first English-language translation of The Analects by Confucius.32 On industry, Franklin wrote, “Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”33 On frugality, he offered a more philosophical but practical maxim: “For age and want, save while you may; no morning sun lasts a whole day.”34 This “systematic approach to virtue that emphasized a gradual, bit-by-bit approach toward perfection” was, as Franklin explained later in life, the cause for his happy and lengthy livelihood.35 Franklin’s biographer Walter Isaacson concluded that “Franklin’s unwavering faith in the wisdom of the common citizen and his instinctive appreciation for the possibilities of democracy helped to forge an American national identity based on the virtues and values of its middle-class” rather than the elitist values pushed by Jefferson and Adams.36 It was natural for Franklin, who had arrived in Philadelphia as the penniless teenager, to introduce Confucian ethics to his many readers. This same pragmatism was on display when Franklin famously questioned the selection of a bald eagle as the national symbol: I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly; you may have seen him perched on some dead trees, where, too lazy to fish for

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himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk . . . The turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and a true original native of America . . . He is a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards.37 In his essay Information to Those Who Would Remove to America, Franklin further expressed his keen preference for hardworking middle-class values that would yield “a general happy mediocrity” in America’s national character.38 His egalitarian conviction for greater societal happiness could not have resulted without the knowledge of Confucian morality—for him, a source of inspiration and innovation. Fascinated by the transformative power of ancient philosophy, Franklin further demonstrated the relevance of—and his admiration for—China through his American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Its secretary Charles Thomson (later secretary of the Continental Congress) linked the two countries, noting that Philadelphia “lies in the 40th degree of north latitude of very same as Pekin [Beijing] in China,” and that the comparable “soil and climate” would help the city to “thrive in a degree equal to our warmest expectations.”39 Thomson went on to say, “This country may be improved beyond” what “might have been expected” if we could be so fortunate as to introduce the industry of the Chinese, their arts of living and improvements in husbandry, as well as their native plants, America might in time become as populous as China, which is allow to contain more inhabitants than any other country, of the same extent, in the world.40 At that time, the Chinese population was approximately 300 million; the American colonies had only slightly more than two million. America’s confidence in materializing Chinese standards was clearly reflected in the philosophical society’s observations summarizing the industrial zeal of Chinese people, the high stand-

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ard of living, the sophistication of agriculture, and the copious population. During the same time period, the Jesuit priest’s book General History of China was popular among literary circles as both Franklin and Jefferson had personal copies. The author, who had spent thirty-two years in China (ten of which in Beijing where he was superior of the Jesuits House), began his preface with “China is the most remarkable of all countries yet known.”41 The credibility and authenticity infusing this volume were key to the influence it had in colonial society. This was no surprise as even readers in Europe were influenced by the work. Voltaire, Franklin’s contemporary in France, wrote in his Philosophical Dictionary (1764) that China “had invented nearly all the arts almost before we were in possession even of any of them . . . in our pretended universal histories.”42 Acting more like a Confucian visionary in America, Franklin considered China a role model and hoped that “America would in time come to possess much likeness in the wealth of its industries to China.”43 Likewise, the American Philosophical Society members also expected that an industrious America would eventually develop a civilization with comparable skills for personal improvements and strategies for wealth creation. A “REVOLUTIONARY” TEA CULTURE As in ancient China, tea culture advanced American civilization. Silversmiths—like famous Paul Revere—worked extra hours to provide tea-crazed colonials with teaspoons, teapots, and other silverware. Demand for Chinese products created greater competition between Europe and the New World and the British Empire in general was greatly affected by Chinese goods, primarily tea. The popular drink not only connected with colonial people and calmed American culture, but also served as “the stage for revolution” and the new nation’s “first commercial venture with the Middle Kingdom” (as the Empress of China left New York harbor on George Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1874, for Guangzhou, formerly Canton).44 The desire for Chinese goods and the associated cultural ethos of ancient Confucian society undoubtedly influenced

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“the budding development of a uniquely American identity” although “the average American colonist knew almost nothing about China itself—an imperial, exotic empire that remained shrouded in myth.”45 Only a few intellectuals (like Franklin and Jefferson) and wealthy merchants (like the Revolutionary War financier Robert Morris and John Hancock) had a general understanding of the fascinating distant empire and its linkages to the Boston Tea Party. Chinese tea was the brewing element of the American Revolutionary War. When the powerful British East India Company, which monopolized international trade, finally began to decline as tea sales (almost 90 percent of the company’s profit) plummeted in the 1760s, the company turned to London to minimize the losses. Parliament’s response was to impose taxes on the colonies by passing the Townshend Acts (1767) and the Tea Act (1773), which outraged America. Realizing that America was just a wheel in the ruthless corporate monopoly of the British mercantile empire, liberty-seeking Patriots responded angrily by destroying tea—the Boston Tea Party. To teach “the British tyrants, plunders, and oppressors” of America, the actions of Patriots clearly stated that “their love of liberty exceeded their love of tea.”46 This statement was not directed at the Chinese, whose demand for silver in exchange for tea and other imports had adversely impacted the East India Company. In fact, the lack of silver in company reserves and the widening trade deficit between China and Britain was the underlying cause for the American Revolution. Initially, one possible solution was to get “the Chinese more interested in accepting British manufactures in place of silver.”47 Since there was no central banking system, merchants used silver in business transactions. The Chinese were adamant about silver, however. When the British government dispatched Lord George Macartney to China to negotiate a trading arrangement with the Emperor Qianlong in 1793, his message to King George III was clear and direct: Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own boarders. There

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was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce.48 With the Chinese declining to accept alternative means of payment, the East India Company had little choice; British Parliament imposed those taxes on the colonies—and the stage was set for the Revolutionary War as well as increased volumes of opium export to China (to reverse the flow of silver). The former ended up with independence and freedom; the latter succumbed to two Opium Wars and humiliation. COOPERATION TURNED TO COMPETITION Today, those same forces of human nature—cooperative spirit and competitive drive—are still present in the same relationships. As winner of the most gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, for instance, China sent a subtle but powerful message to the United States and the Great Britain. The economic powerhouse (which surpassed Japan in 2010) not only challenged the preeminence of American athletes but also pulled off the unmatched drama of the opening ceremonies. Unlike the British showmanship of the 2012 London Olympics, the Beijing ceremony merged aspects of Chinese culture with pageantry, design, and ingenuity. Attended by heads of state including American President George W. Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Beijing event quickly gathered the largest audience in Olympic history. The moment heralded China’s coming of age in the new century, and also signaled Beijing’s strategic advances in global competition. The Olympics perfectly captures the unique duality of human experience—a dualism that is often at play between the two established economic and political powerhouses. When the ancient Olympic Games were first hosted by the Greeks in honor of Zeus, they were intended to celebrate the human excellence he embodied. The ancient Greeks hoped to channel the energies of rival citystates (which were like modern sovereign nation-states) into competitive Olympic events that offered a way to prove national supremacy without resorting to war. Athletes were required to

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compete in the nude to prevent them from concealing any weapons that might be used to settle personal grudges or to invoke jealousy and hatred. This competitive spirit continues in today’s Chinese and American gymnasiums and schools where athletes and students alike—with clothes on—push human boundaries for greater physical limits and intellectual rewards. While competition fosters human excellence, the Olympic tradition also promotes cooperation and celebrates inclusiveness, fair play, and the human spirit of oneness. These cooperative virtues enshrined in the idea of worldwide sportsmanship are illustrated by the joyful celebration of the Olympic spirit within a global community led by a vision of common humanity and universal ideals. At the start of the opening ceremony, everyone—whether dancer, athlete, or spectator—takes pride in the harmonious display of good conduct, friendship, and peace. When the ceremony ends, however, the celebration shifts toward the competitive virtues of discipline, courage, and supremacy that are the hallmark of the actual games. In Greco-Roman mythology, a group of twelve deities known as the Olympians lived atop their namesake mountain ruled by Zeus (Jupiter)—father of the gods, men, and women. Jupiter’s daughter Venus takes the form of Aphrodite in Greek literature— the goddess of love, tenderness, and collaboration; Venus is thus the classical iconic figure of femininity. Jupiter’s son Mars is a more complex figure; his Greek counterpart, Ares, represents destructive brute force, while Mars, the Roman figure, used military might to secure peace and stability. With the exception of Venus, all the gods disliked Mars. Together, the mythical pair captured the human impulse toward both war and peace; the best aspects of Venus and Mars illustrate a win-win proposition but Ares, the Greek counterpart to Mars, dictates a win-lose outcome. Accordingly, Venus-like cooperation opens the Olympics and the Mars-like competition that follows in the games manifests the competition towards human perfection; the Olympics themselves avert the destructive Ares-type competition that arises among city-states. The ancient message of the Olympics is more than mythical; it demonstrates the reality of human nature. Today, the interplay be-

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tween these intrinsic tendencies of human nature still governs our interactions with each other, within nations, and among nationstates. In fact, even the biological systems of our individual human bodies are regulated by these cooperative and competitive impulses to create a natural balance for sustenance and continuity. This immutable thrust toward balance underlies human behavior; it also helps us better understand the ways we manage national and international affairs. DUALISTIC UNION IN DRAGON TAIL AND HEAD Just as individuals—whether dancers, athletes, or spectators— manage their innate impulses between the extremes of war and peace, nations such as China and America must search for human excellence within their respective belief systems. As the nearuniversal acceptance of Greek archetypes adapted from Western antiquity demonstrates, both oriental and occidental cultures implicitly acknowledge the duality of human nature. The Founding Fathers of the United States also recognized this duality and captured it in the national symbol: a bald eagle clutching in its talons both a bundle of arrows and an olive branch denoting the power of war and peace. This power is exclusively vested in Congress under the banner of E Pluribus Unum (“out of many, one”), an ideal of national unity and harmony. The Great Seal of the United States shows the bald eagle facing the olive branch on the right side to show America’s preference for the cooperative power of Venusian peace. The reverse side of the Great Seal—visible on the American dollar bill—has an all-seeing eye (“God’s eye” or “the Eye of Providence”) atop a pyramid under the words Annuit Coeptis (“God has favored our undertaking”) to signify a United States imbued with the benevolence of an allpowerful Creator: the American Zeus. In Chinese culture, on the other hand, the multifaceted metaphor of the dragon (with male connotations) symbolizes an entire civilization. Historically, the dragon represented Imperial China and became an icon on the national flag of the Qing dynasty—the last feudal empire. This emblem symbolizes the natural world,

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adaptability, and transformation. When paired with the female connotations of the phoenix, the bird reborn from the ashes of change, the two collectively epitomize powerful union and cosmic balance. As John Fairbank and Merle Goldman relate, Ancient China had viewed the world as the product of two interacting complementary elements, yin and yang. Yin was the attribute of all things female . . . Yang was the attribute of all things male . . . While male and female were both necessary and complementary (italics original).49 As the Chinese people considered themselves the descendants of the dragon, the emblem of the legend permeates Chinese civilization and Confucian culture. It also resembles the offspring of Jupiter in Greco-Roman mythology; the Dragon’s Head (similar to Mars) points to imperial power, authority, and stability while the Dragon’s Tail (like Venus) represents compassion, blessings, and happiness. Thus, the dragon signifies stability, harmony, and tranquility in individual relationships, human dealings with the natural world, and matters between earthly rule and heavenly power. Everything is all about balance for unity, and vice versa. In eighteenth century America, Benjamin Franklin—the oldest and wisest Founding Father—used a symbolic drawing of a serpent (or dragon; the word “dragon” derives from the Greek word “drakon,” which means a serpent of huge size or a water snake) to focus attention to the power of unity when he published the nowfamous political cartoon of the fragmented American colonies in his Pennsylvania Gazette. The cartoon showed a dragon divided into eight segments, each portion labeled with the initials of the existing colonial governments, and the caption: “Join, or Die.” For Franklin, the colonial mindset and traditional feudal system inherited from the Old World had to be destroyed so that a “philosophic empire” might take root—a process that recalled the mythological quests in which ancient Roman and Greek heroes took on dragons to secure peace and unity, and realize their eventual destiny.

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Figure 2.2: The First American Cartoon: “Join, or Die”

The inventor and publisher Benjamin Franklin printed this cartoon in his Philadelpian-based newspaper, Pennsylvania Gazette, on May 9, 1754. The initials stand for South Carolina (SC), North Carolina (NC), Virginia (VA), Massachusetts (MA), Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (RI), New Jersey (NJ), New York (NY), and New England (NE). This drawing is considered to be the first political cartoon in America. In drawing the serpent with a head, Franklin was alluding to the idea of the celestial Dragon’s Head, Caput Draconis in Latin. The other end is the celestial Dragon’s Tail (Cauda Draconis); both were names for meaningful astronomical events in astrology. These so-called Dragon’s Head and Tail were employed in all of Franklin’s immensely popular Poor Richard’s Almanacs, which regularly included astrological information (the field was considered something of a science in that era).50 There prevailed a popular belief at the time that the divided dragon pieces would come to life if they were put back together before sunset. Exploiting that widespread superstition, Franklin cleverly used an image of a dragon to illustrate his proposed Albany Plan of Union (1754). The divided dragon and “Join or Die” logo dramatized the ticking time bomb of disunity and conflict brewing in the would-be Union. The Albany Plan itself was simply a system of checks-andbalances within the American federal system—a virtual mirror of the Freemasonry framework for governance (Franklin was an illustrious Freemason and the Provincial Grandmaster of

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Pennsylvania).51 Twenty-two years before the American Revolution, the Philadelphian publisher was hoping to peacefully cobble together a nation through consensus and power sharing. Franklin also understood that the failure of his proposed plan for national unity and political modernity would haunt the nation if the colonies did not join together in 1754. With the proposal, the Masonic leader was asserting that the colonial infrastructure was an impediment to peace, stability, and unity—and needed to be transcended. His plan was an “orderly, balanced, and enlightened” mechanism that would “eventually form the basis for a unified American nation” among thirteen colonies within a federal system.52 When the cooperative nature of Franklin’s Albany Plan failed to convince the colonial delegates, the sagacious visionary foresaw that a revolution might indeed be necessary to bring a sense a collective destiny to the fragmented country. Accordingly, with the failure of the plan, the prophecy of “die” was realized through the bloody American Revolution. But even nearing the end of his life, Franklin remained convinced that early approval of his plan for confederation could have prevented the Revolutionary War and created “a harmonious empire.”53 In his own Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which he began writing in 1771, the Albany planner noted: The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan makes me suspect that it was really the true medium; and I am still of opinion it would have been happy for both sides the water [Atlantic] if it had been adopted. The colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves; there would then have been no need of troops from England; of course, the subsequent pretense for taxing America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided. But such mistakes are not new; history is full of errors of states and princes.54 During the Revolutionary War, Franklin reintroduced the ideas of the Albany Plan again in a proposed draft for the Articles of Confederation in 1775. Franklin’s biographer, Walter Isaacson,

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writes that the draft “contained the seeds of the conceptual breakthrough that would eventually define America’s federal system: a division of powers between a central government and those of the states.”55 Historian Thomas Burke at the New York State Commission notes that “some of the basic concepts of the Albany Plan were attained at the [Philadelphia] Constitution Convention” in 1787—which became an extension of Franklin’s struggles against the feudal and colonial systems for self-determination and national unity.56 Throughout much of his efforts to establish a new nation, the human instinct for competition dominated colonial behavior. Still, in the end, cooperation was the most pragmatic solution for nation building. By that point, however, freedom was hardly free of cost when one thinks about the material and human lives sacrificed for the Revolutionary War. DEMOCRATIC UNION IN CONFUCIAN CHINA In a similar fashion, various Chinese leaders sought after revolution to unite a divided feudal society, which lasted from ancient times until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912. The Mandate of Heaven—symbolized by the cosmic dragon on the national flag— provided a rationale for the balancing act of dynastic rule and change in governance. Like Franklin, Chinese revolutionaries foresaw the need to dismantle this Mandate for feudal mindsets—a belief that was reinforced by Confucian teachings of obedience and harmony that legitimated feudal authority by invoking a cosmic mandate. One ardent advocate of democratic transformation in China was Dr. Liang Qichao (1873-1929). A public intellectual and political activist, Liang was interested in European enlightenment ideas. He translated a number of philosophic works by Aristotle, Bacon, Bentham, Darwin, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Kant, Rousseau, Spinoza, and other Western philosophers into Chinese with his own remarks for local adaptation.57 Liang was an early champion of democracy; however, the word “democracy” itself—translated into Chinese as minzhu or “people as masters”—is an alien political concept in Chinese history and Confucian civilization. Almost a

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century before the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre that galvanized the world in favor of Beijing’s pro-democracy movement, Liang had already laid down the seeds for a Chinese democratic union when he was involved in Beijing’s protests against Qing rulers in 1895. When the revolutionaries and intellectuals initially introduced Liang’s “One-Hundred-Day Reform” agenda, Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) opposed them as being too radical.58 Six of the intellectual leaders were arrested and then executed. Liang escaped to Japan where he met Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a medical doctor by training. This foremost scholar also met with other Chinese intellectuals and reform-minded revolutionaries in Canada and Hawaii (before Hawaii became an American state in 1898). By the time Liang embarked on his eight-month study tour throughout the United States, meeting with financier J. P. Morgan and President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, his reform and democratic ideas had already influenced Dr. Sun and his revolutionary brethren in exile. During these years, revolts against the Qing dynasty were quelled by brutal suppressions; however in 1912, the Wuchang Uprising succeeded in overthrowing the dynasty. With the historic defeat of the imperial system, Liang returned to the Republic of China established under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China and founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party. With his illustrious career as an educator at Tsinghua University and a prolific writer, Liang’s ideas of participatory democracy helped shape nationalist Dr. Sun’s Three People’s Principles as a uniquely Chinese ideology for a democratic nation. In his earlier writings, Liang invoked nationalism and promoted the superiority of Confucianism. In 1899, he wrote: The Westerners, such as Grotius and Hobbes, who were all ordinary people, have written the universal laws of all nations (wangguo gongfa), and the whole world obeys them. The Chunqiu written by Confucius was also the universal laws of all ages. How ridiculous for anyone to say that Confucius must not be as intelligent as Grotius and Hobbes!59

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In the ensuing years, his admiration for Confucian ideals waned; nationalism remained his dominant interest as he studied more about world history. In 1902, he wrote: That Europe has arisen, and the world has progressed since the sixteenth century was all because of the rising power of ‘nationalism.’ . . . Those people from different places, who are of the same race, language, religion and custom, see each other as fellows, seek independent self-rule and organize a government in order to seek the common good and to conquer other races.60 His advocacy for nationalism began with modern China’s relations with other nations. But while nationalism is common to all nations, the process by which it is achieved differentiates its outcomes. In 1922, Liang argued that the progress China had made in the last fifty years was due to awareness of two principles. The first one was: “Anyone who is not Chinese has no right to govern Chinese affairs;” and the second was: “Anyone who is Chinese has the right to govern Chinese affairs.”61 He called the first principle “the spirit of nation-building;” the second, “the spirit of democracy.”62 To avoid any conflicts with ethnic minorities and religious groups, he called this political innovation “civic nationalism” that applied to all people as one nation.63 For him, the rights and power generated from ordinary people comprised the power of state. To promote the power of the people, state power needed to increase so that citizens might have the “will to self-mastery.”64 With this philosophical configuration, however, Liang overlooked possible friction between the state and the principles of human rights. The primordial concept of self-mastery was at the heart of Liang’s Confucian idea of “Renewing the People.” In a Confucian world, the right to self-mastery is a universal right that is part of the five basic human relationships: husband–wife, parent–child, teacher–disciple, elder brother–younger brother, and emperor– subject. Each person has rights of autonomy for self-cultivation; however, the authority of hierarchy supersedes everything else in relationships. This hierarchy begins with individual self in relation

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to the family, then to the state. These ethical relations were formulated in the Great Learning (one of four books of the Confucian canon) for the governance of state and the maintenance of universal peace; the latter was a responsibility of the empire as the Mandate of Heaven. Since there was no empire after the establishment of the Republic of China, Liang reasoned that the missing links between the family and the state were civic organizations and associations, which he had observed during his study tour in America.65 His notion of civil nationalism was a device to connect people’s rights with state rights. For him, both rights emanated from the principles of self-mastery, liberty, and independence. Liang wrote, Nationalism is the most just and grandest doctrine in the world: no nations should violate my nation’s liberty, and my nation should not violate other nations’ liberty. When this doctrine is applied to my nation, it means the independence of human beings (ren); when the doctrine was applied to the world, it means the independence of nations.66 When Liang introduced civic nationalism to China, he essentially presented the sovereignty of people: “When the rights of the people arise, national rights are established. When people’s rights or powers (quan) vanish, national rights or powers vanish.”67 This implied that the power of people was supreme and independent. That power must then come from freedom. To transform traditional China into a modern nation, Liang promoted civil nationalism as a political philosophy that combined several elements of Confucian self-cultivation and the European Enlightenment together for a hybrid concept of new Chinese people.68 As a constitutionalist, Liang also supported the concepts of liberty and equality, asking: “Everyone has liberty protected by the law; everyone is equal before the law—are not these two principles those on which people’s lives rely?”69 Liang was then critical of the new republican government and raised the question:

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In the last two years, the government has arbitrarily invented all kinds of taxes to exploit people, which has deprived people of the liberty of property; the government has put people under surveillance and spied on people’s speeches in the streets, which has deprived people of the freedom of speech and association; the government has fabricated evidence to trap people and put people to death without trial, which has deprived people of the liberty of life; the government has used coercive force to manipulate people’s will, which has deprived people of the freedom of conscience. How can anyone have a meaningful life under such a political system?70 This line of critical thinking more closely resembles the writings of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Federalist Papers than those of Confucian antiquity. Indeed, the Republic of China seemed more like the American Republic—which was not conceived as a democracy but as a republic—than an entirely new creation. THE EVOLUTION OF TWO PHILOSOPHIES Aside from nationalist Dr. Sun Yat-sen, communist Mao Zedong was also an ardent admirer of Liang’s writings. Influenced particularly by the ideas of civic nationalism and constitutionalism, the young Mao wrote a famous note on the margin of Liang’s essay “On National Consciousness” in 1910: When the country is legitimately founded, it is a constitutional nation: the constitution is made by the people and the crown is appointed by the people. When it is not legitimately founded, it is a totalitarian nation: the laws are made by the emperor who is not respected by the people. Today, Britain and Japan fall into the former category, while the dynasties in the long history of China fall into the latter.71

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Not surprisingly, Mao and his communist comrades embraced democracy as they declared the May Fourth Movement of 1919 the beginning of the “New Democratic Revolution” and the Chinese Communist Party. Both Dr. Sun and Chairman Mao agreed with Liang, who had essentially battled against a corrupt feudalistic system and sought political transformation through renewed national unity. In an ironic twist of fate, Mao disregarded his populist vision for China when the communists came into power in 1949 after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists (who withdrew to Taiwan to form the Republic of China in Taipei). Communists believe in state power (authorized by the people, not the Mandate of Heaven) that services the interests of a working class led by the proletariat and its allied masses under the Communist Party of China (CPC). For Party leadership, the state is a political instrument of governance that includes broader forces beyond the CPC and its corps of organizations, such as youth brigades. The state—by definition a manifestation of class relations—must harness the energies and interests of people to make government stronger as a collective entity that serves the population. Unlike American democracy where individuals have “inalienable” rights, CPC members maintain that individual citizens are granted collective rights; therefore, citizens are not obligated to serve the people—the Party fulfills that responsibility. In other words, America protects individuals from the state whereas China protects the state from individuals. This fundamental and philosophic difference must be understood within a broader context of idealism and realism. Liang was well-versed in European Enlightenment literature, which he critiqued with commentary. His enlightened vision of America evidently changed after his trip to the United States. The primary purpose of the visit was to find American models to make China a strong and modern nation. Unlike the famous French traveler, Alexis de Tocqueville who admiringly wrote Democracy in America decades earlier, the infamous Chinese traveler was “disillusioned with American democracy. He had found it shot through with mediocre politicians, corruption, disorder, racism, imperialism, and other warts. In short, he got our number, and it

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turned him off,” wrote Harvard historian John Fairbank.72 In fact, Liang combined his interpretation of European Enlightenment ideas with observations of American democracy, Confucian convicconvictions, and admiration for Buddhism. The ConfucianBuddhist finally “concluded that the Chinese people should not imitate” America and instead “aim [for] the transformation of the Chinese people to become active and responsible citizens” through a long period of education.73 Chairman Mao exercised the power of education through rural development projects by sending educators to work in the countryside, for example, and re-education through labor camps for dissenters and defectors (a practice continuing to this day) during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. These two radical plans failed to achieve his stated vision of “great democracy.”74 Mao almost undermined the power concentrated in the highest echelons of the CPC leadership itself. Deng Xiaoping—a creature of the privileged strata of the Party—opposed Mao’s experiments in mass participatory democracy (i.e., the Cultural Revolution) and began to move away from efforts to remold Chinese culture after Mao’s death. In its place, he introduced a series of economic reform policies alongside gradual public education campaigns to modernize China. In this regard, the power of the state and education expounded by Liang Qichao (in his Discourses on the New Citizen, 1902) was particularly influential in shaping China’s modernity.75 His wellknown manifesto argues: Freedom means freedom for the group, not freedom for the individual. In the age of barbarism, individual freedom prevails and no collective freedom develops. In the civilized age, the freedom of the group develops while individual freedom decreases.76 Accordingly, his ideas have been selectively applied throughout the last century; the CPC has also promoted his civil nationalism and democracy with Chinese characteristics, which states that “freedom without control is the robber of the people. Freedom with

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control is the people’s treasure.”77 Having retained the influence of European Enlightenment philosophy despite his disappointment with American democracy, Liang still distinguished individual rights from those of the state. For China today, individuals have interests (not rights); the state has the right to protect and defend their citizens’ interests for the greater good of social welfare and natural harmony. This entire Chinese intellectual tradition, which has a long and torturous past, is akin to shooting a squirt gun into a waterfall of human behavior. Even with a Confucian past that illuminates the nature of human desires, the recent Chinese experience with internecine warfare and costly social experiments contributed little to advance the expressed goals of mass democracy and individual rights. Nonetheless, these experiments did liberate ordinary people from feudal bondage and transform the countryside in ways that were similar to the creative destruction unleashed by the French Revolution. The failure of the French Revolution was reflected in some ways with the ensuing dictatorship of Napoleon and the reinstitution of the monarchy; yet French society was forever transformed by the event. The period of Mao’s socialist state was like that of the French Jacobins (a political club of the French Revolution formed in 1789) sweeping away the past to start afresh with the people at the forefront of the sociopolitical leadership. THE RETURN OF OLYMPIAN NATURE Whether sanctioned by way of the Mandate of Heaven or Annuit Coeptis (“God or Providence has favored our undertaking”), what happens on earth belongs to the people. Explorations of human nature and the quest for human excellence—and subsequently, the manner of revolutions—take place in terrestrial life; at the same time, these endeavors are often carried out in honor of a god, or a celestial power, associated with faith, hope, and love—as both the American and Chinese ethos demonstrate. The coexistence of the human and the divine within nature was understood well by the ancient Greeks and embedded in the Olympic mythos. The games appeal to contradictory feelings at both the in-

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dividual and the collective scales, expressing desire for personal achievement, friendship, social status, and supremacy. In ancient times, the spirit of cooperation was accomplished despite the overt martial competition between participating city-states; participants and spectators gathered under a truce enacted specifically for the event. As a whole, the Olympic tradition captured the nature of the relationships among city-states competing for limited resources but at the same time seeking advantages through cooperative alliances.78 The emotional components of competition and cooperation often defy rational thinking and logical reasoning, and frequently lead to internal and external conflicts that are difficult to reconcile peacefully. Like individuals with certain religious and spiritual convictions, the ethos of culture and history influence the way in which nations seek to reconcile the duality of human nature in governing national affairs. The Chinese, who arguably produced more literary works on the theory and practice of governance than most other civilizations, believed that Confucius had developed “the perfect” political and social system in which man could (should) be civilized by education and discipline to pursue a life path that was “truly virtuous.”79 For the Chinese, virtue was the driving force of a healthy society; thus, the cornerstone of the entire system of governance was the virtuous ruler. When Confucius was asked about such government, for example, the sage replied, To govern means to rectify. If you [the ruler] lead on the people with correctness, who will dare not to be correct? . . . Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it.80 Although this and other lofty Confucian passages have certainly influenced Chinese culture, they were less powerful and practical than the teachings of the Catholic Church; for example, a cornerstone institution of Western civilization still preaches ineffectively

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to Christian followers about birth-control practices and natural family planning. Moreover, Confucius overestimated the human strength that might emerge from self-discipline absent external assistance, and hardly recognized the duality of various elements in the constitution of man (and woman). In all reality, virtue does not naturally come to rulers at will; hence, the philosopher essentially legitimized instances in which corrupted virtue and disinterested (or “benevolent”) rule might lead to “despotism.”81 The innate human passions inherited by the rulers and subjects alike were secondary to Confucius as Heaven, protecting the inferior people, has constituted for them rulers and teachers, who should be able to be assisting to God, extending favor and producing tranquility throughout all parts of the kingdom.82 Such traditional wisdom has been weakened by myriad historical examples of supreme—yet corrupt and oppressive—leaders. To some extent, this Confucian order was valid for ancient times when so-called virtuous rulers failed to minister the Mandate of Heaven (God) and overlooked the people’s welfare; such emperors would cede the title of the Son of Heaven, resulting inevitably (and justly) in overthrow. The maintenance of “respect” for and from the people—an outcome of a virtuous life—has been political currency throughout the history of the Chinese system of governance.83 At the founding of the new nation, James Madison—father of the United States Constitution—proposed a scheme to contain human passions while protecting unity from divisive interests. Madison’s idea of the separation of powers by function and personnel resulted in three institutions and services of government: Congress passes, the president enforces, and the courts interpret the laws that govern all. Commenting on his proposal for a republican structure where the majority rules while protecting the rights of the minority, Madison famously reminded his compatriots in the Federalist Papers, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor inter-

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nal controls on government would be necessary.”84 The Madisonian notion has always been more realistic and practical in governance than the flawed Confucian proposition of virtuous rulers. Alongside the other founding visionaries, Madison (acting like an ancient Greek philosopher-in-practice) laid out the intellectual rationale for competitive governing structures, such as the checksand-balances among the three equal branches of government, saying, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”85 Ambition, the lower common denominator of human nature (expressed in Hamiltonian commercial instincts), acts as the ordering agent of America’s republican governance; yet the most aspirational human quality is still represented by Jeffersonian inspirations of freedom and democracy. As in the Olympic Games, civilized competition emerging from ambition must be governed by rules that are established through more “virtuous” cooperation. Such a mechanism must be devised to find Ordo ad Chaos (“order out of chaos”) and direct competition towards Mars-like ends tempered by Venus-like cooperation. This was envisioned as an ideal government, best suited to human nature in preventing tyranny and safeguarding individual liberty, as French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu outlined in his famous book The Spirit of the Laws (1748).86 The alternative—uncontrolled Ares-type competition without rules—leads to uncivilized warlike behavior within and among people, institutions, and nations. For the United States, this moment was realized in the staggeringly destructive Civil War between the southern Confederate and the northern Union states (a war that remains the deadliest conflict in American history).87 On the eve of this defining national episode, Abraham Lincoln famously remarked on the incongruity of wholly competitive elements, saying, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He continued, “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free” (italics original).88 For some white southerners even today, the Civil War was about the right to cede from the Union to preserve slavery (not nationalize it). Many white southerners from former Confederate states have historically characterized the Civil War as “The War for Southern Independence”

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or “the War of Northern Aggression.”89 But apart from southern or northern viewpoints, a fact remained clear on the eve of the war: one competitor would subsume the other in the conflict, and the nation would either perish entirely or become all free—“Join, or Die.” Memories of war and the aftermath of defeat still endure in the subconscious of southerners—both African-American and white— as cultural sensibilities hinge on the experience of slavery, war, emancipation, and reconstruction. Through destructive forces, a perverse cooperation (i.e., the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution granting citizenship and protection to freed slaves) emerged in an illustration of the less perfect attributes of human nature. This has, for example, been shown in the perceived excesses of both the Reconstruction years and the Jim Crow era that followed. The cooperative and competitive dynamism of the Civil Rights era and Supreme Court rulings eventually established a new national unity, one that better accorded with the enduring vision of the Founding Fathers in the American house of democracy. Inspired by President Abraham Lincoln’s quest to unite a divided nation, the founding father of the modern China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, based his founding principles for the new Chinese government on the concept presented in the U.S. president’s Gettysburg Address. Dr. Sun credited Lincoln for his “Three Principles of the People,” drawn from the American Civil War’s most famous speech: “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”90 This political ideology was developed during his experience in the United States, of which Dr. Sun wrote, The U.S.’s wealth and power have not come only from the independence and self-government of the original states, but rather from the progress in unified government which followed the federation of the states.91 Dr. Sun—who became the president of the provisional government of the Republic of China in Nanjing (“Southern capital”) as opposed to the other provisional government in Beijing (“Northern

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capital”)—had become convinced that a unified China would come about through a military conquest from his base in the south. The revolt against Beijing’s Yuan Shikai, who proclaimed himself “Emperor of China,” failed.92 Dr. Sun began a policy of vigorous cooperation with the CPC but competitive impulses among factious groups, including the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT), drove China into a civil war of its own. As President Lincoln understood, Dr. Sun also realized that the power of cooperation exemplified in the American experience is vital in preserving national unity. In a world of international affairs, the balance between cooperative and competitive instincts has established creative tensions between the poles of human nature. These tensions are illustrated in the histories of America and China, and England’s involvement with each. When every nation develops “an overriding loyalty to mankind,” as Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, it is easier to “preserve the best in their individual societies.”93 When such human energy is channeled toward higher aspirations—to honor a deity, or to bring people in closer proximity to the divine by overcoming human flaws through exercising the virtues of cooperation and the spirits of competition—the result is often innovative, as early Sino-American trade-for-peace relations demonstrated. The ancient Greek Olympic Games only dramatized the reality of human duality that must be overcome by competitive virtues to arrive at human perfection. In Beijing, this process was directed by the Mandate of Heaven; in Washington, by the favor of Providence. As President George Washington once asked, “Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?”94 The idea of a virtuous society was often cross-referenced by the other founding visionaries because “only a virtuous people are capable of freedom,”95 as Benjamin Franklin, the American apostle of Confucian virtues, observed in his efforts to adapt the knowledge and wisdom imparted by the longest civilization to the youngest.

3 From the Forbidden City to the Federal City Thus among the Chinese [are] the most ancient, and from long experience the wisest of nations.1 Benjamin Franklin

The oldest and youngest civilizations are located at diametrically opposite points on the globe, each lying at the heart of what it means to be “western” and “eastern” or “occidental” and “oriental” nations. Both countries have seemingly incompatible cultures and political systems. But the origins of both the American Republic and the Middle Kingdom are associated with the conviction that their respective nations are destined to be a symbol of hope to the

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world, however defined in regionally (China) or globally (the United States); each is marked for greatness in one way or another. In fact, the two countries have much more in common than is often perceived. Attempts to reconcile the obvious differences between the eastern and western perspectives that underpin Chinese and American practices have been problematic since the very beginnings of relations between China and the Western world. The first Western inroads to the Imperial Court were made in the late sixteenth century by the Jesuit China Mission, which employed the first Christian missionary to speak Chinese. As a mediator spanning both worlds, Matteo Ricci (1552-1620), an Italian Jesuit priest and the first Westerner permitted entry into Forbidden City at the invitation of the Wanli Emperor in 1601, envisioned a marriage between the powers of the East and West. This would prove an elusive task. Before setting out for the East, the Christian missionary studied astronomy, cosmology, mathematics, philosophy, and theology. When he landed in Macao in 1580, the scholar-priest took an intensive language course “mastering Chinese to perfection,” according to the present-day Society of Jesus (Jesuits).2 When Ricci finally arrived on the Chinese mainland three years later to serve in the Ming court, he brought an assortment of mechanical objects and other forms of Western knowledge including clocks, musical instruments, mathematical and astronomical instruments, maps and diagrams. With his breadth of learning and “phenomenal memory,” the Jesuit hoped to attract the attention of Mandarins versed in such disciplines—and he did.3 For nearly a decade, other parties of Jesuits led by Ricci conversed with Chinese intelligentsia; the missionary’s goal, as evidenced in his communications with Rome, was to build a Christian-Chinese civilization.4 He believed this was possible after studying Confucian classics and developing them to show complementarity—not contradiction—between Christian and Confucian belief systems. After his death, Ricci’s writings in The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (the Chinese term for God) faced criticism for acceptance of the Chinese practice of ancestor veneration, which he

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cited as a “non-theological memorial” that newly-converted Chinese Catholics could continue to practice. Missionaries less familiar with Chinese culture found this difficult to accept and sought recourse from the Vatican; after years of discussion, the Vatican finally forbade the practice in 1705. This angered the emperor, who then banned Christian missions from China in 1721— an early indication, perhaps, of centuries of discord between the center of Roman Catholicism and representatives of the faith and the Chinese government. Figure 3.1: Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi

Father Ricci, the first Westerner in the Forbidden City, with his faithful Christian patron Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) in Ming China. Xu, who adopted the name Paul Siu, helped Ricci to translate several scientific, religious, and Confucian texts into Latin and other European languages.

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Ricci first laid eyes on the Ming dynasty’s star maps when he arrived in the Forbidden City. The Jesuit noted that the Chinese had four hundred more stars than what appeared on Western maps because they had included the fainter ones: And yet with all this, the Chinese astronomers take no pains whatever to reduce the phenomena of celestial bodies to the discipline of mathematics. . . . They center their whole attention on that phase of astronomy which our scientists term astrology, which may be accounted for by the fact that they believe that everything happening on this terrestrial globe of ours depends upon the stars.5 This was a testament to the brilliance of Chinese stargazers as they preserved historical records of celestial events that covered large blocks of time and space. Yet Chinese astrology was often overlooked in the West due to the distinct methods and applications of practitioners who preferred to focus on detail and precision but never refined the practice of mapping the heavens to the hard science of astronomy. The missionaries were fascinated by the Chinese perspective of the Heavens, which did not take the form of bears, dragons, or other constellations of animals as in the West. Instead, the Chinese interpreted celestial patterns to determine the fate of the earthly empire that lay below. Chinese astrologers noted, for example, “When Mercury appears in company with Venus to the east, and when they are both red and shoot forth rays, the foreign kingdoms will be vanquished and the soldiers of China will be victorious.”6 For Jesuits who believed in God and all His creation, the Chinese technique for understanding the mind of God was highly insightful; it demonstrated that the Chinese conceived of the universe as a mirror of earthly affairs—not independent of humans. The human connection with nature was enshrined in a political philosophy that dominated Chinese civilization for millennia and directed dynastic succession through the celestial sanction of justice mandated by Heaven. The force of this heavenly mandate was so impressive that Matteo Ricci wrote,

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The founder of the family which at present regulates the study of astrology prohibited anyone from indulging in the study of this science unless he were chosen for it by hereditary right. The prohibition was founded upon fear, lest he who should acquire a knowledge of the stars might become capable of disrupting the order of the empire and seek an opportunity to do so.7 The predominant Chinese ethical concepts of unity, stability, and harmony are thus contained within the vehicles of astrology and morality. Despite historical interruptions and national reorganization under Mao’s socialism, this cultural ethos and attendant astrological practices still permeate Chinese daily life in one form or another. While Ricci failed to achieve his vision of a Chinese-Christian civilization, he accurately observed the possibility of complementarity between East and West. A physical reminder of this lies in the architecture and design of the two capital cities, Beijing and Washington, D.C. Both were planned according to an esoteric philosophy that connects the vision of greatness shared by each nation—a philosophy derived from alignment with the stars. As with the ancient cities and monuments of the Aztecs, Stonehenge, and the Pyramids of Giza (as well as modern cities like London), capital architects intended to bring the sky down to the earth in order to harness the power and blessings of nature over the affairs of men and women; linking heaven and earth would create a “perfect union” between the Creator and the created. City planners of both capitals turned to the use of symbolism and other architectural features to express their beliefs—a universal language, so to speak, which held important meaning for a select few educated in such arcane iconography but also no doubt to the population at large. In America, this esoteric knowledge was prolific among high-ranking Freemasons such as George Washington and his fellow architects of the new republic. To a lesser extent, it was also more widely recognized due to publications like Benjamin Franklin’s widely popular Poor Richard’s Almanack, which disseminated astronomical and astrological information to

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an interested and educated public. In China, references to traditional astrology, Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist customs were employed specifically to link the Ming dynasty and the emperor to all the signs of good fortune and heavenly favor—a demonstration to Chinese people that the rulers within the new capital were worthy of the Mandate of Heaven. A perennial belief in divination saturated the cultures of the two nations: in Chinese agrarian civilization, this took the form of Yijing (or I-Ching, “Classic of Changes”), an ancient symbolheavy wisdom tradition (whose iconography is visible on the South Korean flag today) adapted by Confucius into a philosophy for daily life. In a nascent American civilization born of Enlightenment philosophy, this took the form of another ancient symbol-heavy wisdom tradition: Freemasonry, and the concept of Providence or Nature’s God. Both countries sought divine endorsement and inspiration from the stars for their global undertakings. Today, these shared beliefs take a different, more modern shape—yet nonetheless remain at the heart of American and Chinese foreign policy. The human experience unfolding on both sides of the Pacific Ocean has certainly taken different paths. Driven by faith in national destiny, however, both civilizations are heading toward a common end: a peaceful and prosperous world. A “PURPOSE-GIVEN” CELESTIAL EMPIRE The study of the stars—both astronomy and astrology— originated in China as a unified discipline more than five centuries ago. Renowned Chinese astrologers kept meticulous records of planetary movements and other celestial phenomena long before other cultures followed in kind; an attempt was even made to chart every single star visible in the night sky. Employing their knowledge to design remarkably accurate calendars, predict lunar eclipses, plot the length of the meridian line and navigate across ocean waters, the Chinese often looked to the heavens for guidance in their daily lives. Confucius said, “I study what is below in order to comprehend what is above. If there is anyone who could understand me, perhaps it is Heaven.”8

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Since ancient times, Chinese believed in a close relationship between heaven (tian), earth (di), and man (ren); together, these three domains formed the totality of creation. Not unlike the pope in the Vatican, the emperor was regarded as the exclusive representative of heaven on earth. The imperial court looked to the stars of the north to divine their hold on the Middle Kingdom, and used Yijing to decipher the heavens and illuminate human affairs. As the Son of Heaven, the emperor ruled over all on the earth beneath the starry kingdom above. His actions were uniquely linked to celestial phenomena, and the emperor’s personal fate would shape the fate of the kingdom. To develop a system for interpreting the interaction between the emperor and the heavens, Chinese astrologers divided the sky into three visible groupings: the Purple Forbidden Enclosure (ziwei yuan) in the northernmost area of the night sky, the Supreme Palace Enclosure (taiwei yuan) in the northeast, and the Heavenly Market Enclosure (tianshi yuan) in the southwest.9 After lengthy observation of the cosmos, ancient sky-watchers noted that the largest Purple Forbidden Enclosure was stationary and always surrounded by two other enclosures; this indicated the supremacy of the location, marking the largest enclosure as the region where a sovereign power (God) would reside in a “celestial kingdom.” The Polar Star (Polaris, the North Star, or ziwei xing in Chinese), constantly pointing to the stationary northern light, is the center of the Purple Forbidden Enclosure. Astronomer and anthropologist Anthony Aveni writes, Like the power invested in royalty, [the North Star and asterisms] were eternally visible, never obscured by the horizon. Indeed in temperate latitudes the stars that turn about the pole are raised quite high in the sky. The fixity of the polar axis is a cosmic metaphor for the constant power of the state.10 As the sons of God or Heaven (tianzi), Chinese emperors wanted their palaces directly aligned with the North Star. “He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn to-

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wards it,” Confucius said.11 With this cosmological connection, ancient China advanced a rationale for the rule of nature—a Celestial Empire. Its purpose was given through the notion of order, uniunity, and interdependence among all things between heavenly and terrestrial matters. The “purpose-given” empire underpinned the Chinese dynastic ideology known as the Mandate of Heaven: the government of earthly affairs in accordance with the kingdom of the stars above. This belief was perpetuated in cultural arts, mathematics, and geometry, among other disciplines. The opening chapter of the Yijing states, “Heaven is high, the earth is low; thus the Creative and the Receptive are determined. In correspondence with this difference between low and high, inferior and superior places are established.”12 The art of feng shui (wind and water) incorporated Daoist and other esoteric religious views alongside arrays of symbols and meaningful alignments to harmonize the royal capital (Receptive or inferior/low) with the Yin and Yang energies of the cosmos (Creative or superior/high).13 Rulers were expected to grasp the meaning of these symbols and arrangements—in other words, understand the Heavens—in order to rule well. Chinese culture thus placed great emphasis on knowing and expressing the duality that emerges from two poles of existence: yin and yang. Yin is associated with earth—a calm, feminine, dark, and receptive force. Yang is linked to heaven—an active, hot, light, and creative force. These forces are expressed by simple symbols and geometrical shapes; the earth, for example, is linked to the shape of the square while the heavens are represented by the circle. The sun and moon are also major celestial deities, celebrated during various festivals like the Lunar New Year. The sun is preeminently yang and the moon is the very essence yin. Likewise, all the planets are connected with yin-yang composites to forge equilibrium across the universe. This cosmic balance infiltrates Chinese religion—an amalgamation of Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist beliefs, practices, and philosophies. The practical meaning of the symbolism of squares and circles traces back to Mencius (391-308 BC), a Chinese philosopher of the late Zhou dynasty and a powerful figure in the

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spread of Confucian tradition.14 Known as “Master Meng,” the moral theorist on human nature and government behavior said, “The highest good is to manifesting character and loving people as the carpenter’s square and compass are to the square and the circle, or rule and measure to length, or balances and scales to weight.”15 The Confucian Analects also referenced the “square” to describe relationships for virtuous life and governance; buildings, geometry, human behavior, and virtuous rule were thus intertwined.16 Mencius elaborated this when he said, “The compass and square are the ultimate standards of the circle and the square. The sage is the ultimate standard of human relations. To be a ruler, one should carry out to the limit the way of the ruler.”17 Otherwise, natural consequences would follow. According to Mencius, Confucius said, ‘There are but two ways to follow, that of humanity and that of inhumanity. A ruler who oppresses his people to the extreme will himself be slain and his kingdom will perish. If he oppresses not to the extreme, even then his life will be in danger and his kingdom will be weakened.’18 At the height of Chinese power, the Ming dynasty determined to advance this principle to the highest level in artistic expression. This meant harmonizing heaven and earth through the force of cosmic energy—a feat achieved in the construction of the Forbidden City, a magnificent walled imperial metropolis rising out of the dusty and windy North China Plain. THE FORBIDDEN CITY When the Yongle Emperor built the Forbidden City (from 1406-1420), he did so after relocating his southern capital of Nanjing on the Yangtze River to Beijing—even though the northern capital situated over 550 miles north was (and is) a water-hungry piece of real estate vulnerable to sand storms from the nearby Gobi desert.

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The less hospitable barren Beijing—compared to the salubrious southern capital—was chosen because it was closer to Heaven (tianzi) and the North Star. (Today, however, Chinese school children are taught that the new capital was chosen for its close proximity to the invading Mongols of the north and distance from tribal warlords in the south). A fervent believer in the Celestial Empire, the emperor invested his wealth, time, and energy to showcase the grandeur and mighty dynastic power of the Middle Kingdom with the Forbidden City, which remained in use for almost five hundred years from early in the Ming dynasty until the fall of the Qing in 1912.19 The City itself was designed by the Yongle Emperor’s brilliant minister Liu Po-wen, an astrologer and geomancer.20 Geomancy was a process of divination involved in astrology, celestial alignments, terrestrial magnetism, dowsing, topographical symbolism, and other magical techniques. The Chinese form of geomancy, which was integrated into the art of feng shui, was instrumental in producing a city plan to harmonize the human presence with the natural environment—and to bring national rule closer to the Purple Forbidden Enclosure (ziwei yuan). The Forbidden City is a massive complex surrounded by Taiyi Lake and a fifty-two-meter (fifty-seven yards) wide moat called the Jade River. The city covers an area of 72,000 square meters (86,000 square yards) and contained more than 9,000 rooms; one million workers and 100,000 craftsmen took fourteen years to complete construction.21 The traditional name for the Forbidden City is zijin cheng, which literally means Purple Forbidden City (zi is purple and ziwei xing refers to the North Star); thus, the city complex is the North Star on earth. The concept behind such elaborate city planning also reflects one of Confucius’ most famous pronouncements on virtue: “One who rules through the power of Virtue is analogous to the Pole Star: it simply remains in its place and receives the homage of the myriad lesser stars.”22 Essentially, the philosopher endorsed the natural harmony of the fixed Polaris and provided a celestial metaphor for the emperor to emulate this orderliness as the model for virtuous governance in the terrestrial world; thus, invisible power would emanate from the emperor just as lesser stars circled around the North Star.

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Figure 3.2: The Forbidden City and the North Star

The North Star-oriented Forbidden City, which stands in central Beijing, forms the northern border of Tiananmen Square; this large open square (Gate of “Heavenly Peace”) was the entrance to the Imperial City and the Dragon Throne. Chang’an (“Perpetual Peace”) Avenue runs east-west between the City and the Square.

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Within the Forbidden City, the Yongle Emperor built six major palaces along a north-south axis that aligns with the Polar Star. Flanked by courtyards of various shapes and sizes, these elaborate structures served as residential quarters for the feudal emperor and his family, as well as libraries, temples, gardens, and a park. In Chinese legend, the stars around Polaris that make up the Little Dipper comprise the “Purple Palace;” the Forbidden City below houses their terrestrial counterparts. Fixed along the same longitudinal pathway as Tiananmen Square (the “Gate of Heavenly Peace”) in the south and the Drum and Bell Towers—the musical timepieces that were in use up until 1924—in the north, the imperial city marks a central north-south axis. (Later additions to Tiananmen Square, like the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao and the Monument to the People’s Heroes, further emphasize the linearity of the median pathway to the Polar Star). Chinese people traditionally believed that the earth was the shape of a square (and were likely introduced to the round earth concept by Matteo Ricci). At the four cardinal directions just beyond the walls of the Forbidden City lay four temples: the Temple of the Sun (in Ritan Park) in the east, the Temple of the Moon (in Yuetan Park) in the west, the square Temple of Earth (in Ditan Park) on the northern compass point, and the circular Temple of Heaven (in Tiantan Park) at the southern compass point of the city (the first three temples were built by Jiajing, another Ming emperor, 1521-1567). This architectural design creates a rotated square connecting the four cardinal directions; the sun rises over the Temple of the Sun to energize the city and sets over the Temple of the Moon, where Ming rulers made sacrifices to the gods of the moon and stars. Within each of these Daoist altars, the shape of the circle is often juxtaposed with the shape of the square to signify harmony between heaven and earth. It was only natural, then, that the Forbidden City in the center of Beijing would also be square-shaped to reflect the governance of earthly affairs.23 But the “ideal square shape of the outer city wall [gave] way to a rectangular configuration, usually longer in the north-south than in the east-west dimension.”24 The north-south meridian that aligned with the North Star runs down the center of

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the rectangular layout, which includes the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The circular altar in The Hall of Supreme Harmony, which lies along the ecliptic path of the sun, housed the emperor’s Dragon Throne at the northern terminus of the walled city to symbolize “the circumpolar region where the earth meets the sky.”25 This was the hall within which the emperor received his mandate from the blue sky and then acted accordingly to preserve order in terrestrial affairs. In the early Chinese practice of feng shui, an imaginary star Taisui was created to track the planet Jupiter—considered the head of all stars—more easily. In the Daoist system for marking time, the twelve zodiac signs, months of the year, and blocks of time all derive from Jupiter’s orbit. The emperors of the Ming dynasty treated the imaginary star as a real life deity with absolute authority over worldly affairs; accordingly, they set up alters to pay tribute to Taisui near the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Agriculture in Beijing. While the Forbidden City lay directly on the north-south axis, the Temple of Heaven (constructed by Yongle) and the Temple of Agriculture (built by Jiajing) were located on the east-west alignment. Jupiter, for Chinese, was an ordering agent of affairs below (agriculture) and above (heaven). Over the next five hundred years, the Forbidden City was home to “twenty-three successive emperors of China—thirteen . . . from the Ming dynasty [1368-1644] and ten from the Qing [16441911].”26 The city itself is an illustration of the over-five thousand year old history of the Middle Kingdom: a majestic court filled with numerous other palaces, gardens, statues, icons, and mandalas that spoke to the combination of Confucian culture alongside Daoist and Buddhist ritualistic arrangements through the harmony of feng shui.27 These ancient symbols are meticulously positioned to reflect unity, stability, and harmony with the power of the heavens. The architectural marvel itself is an iconic symbol of China’s glorious past; however, the philosophy behind the “purpose-given” Celestial Empire continues to define the significance of Beijing as the sole representative of power for the maintenance of earthly order and harmonious society.

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THE “PURPOSE-DRIVEN” EMPIRE OF LIBERTY Several hundred years after the construction of the Forbidden City, philosophical exploration was finally taking off in Europe due in no small part to the exchange of ideas facilitated by developments in the Industrial Revolution. The eighteenth century was known as the Age of Reason, and the philosophies of the cultural movement were commonly known among British and American intellectuals. One of the movement’s main aims was to break the bonds of religion and science—to look to the natural world for empirical rationale to explain phenomena rather than the intolerance of superstition or faith in officially-sanctioned Church doctrines that were demonstrably incorrect. The works of Isaac Newton, Immanuel Kant, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, and many others had spread rapidly throughout Europe, eventually traversing the Atlantic Ocean to inspire the American Revolution. Discussion of religion, government, economics, social order, and human nature also took on a new rational tone. The idea of Deism—a religious philosophy that a higher, creative power (a “Supreme Architect”) set natural laws in motion but declines to suspend them or otherwise intervene in human affairs, making scientific natural observation over faith in God key to understanding the universe—gained in popularity among colonists. In 1822, Thomas Paine published an aptly-titled bestselling pamphlet Age of Reason that challenged institutionalized religion along with the otherworldly elements of the Christian Bible. Thomas Jefferson became known for the Jefferson Bible, an attempt to excise the supernatural from the New Testament Gospels and establish a moral philosophy based on the non-miraculous works and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. At one point or another, the persons or beliefs of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and John Adams could all be described as Deist due to their Universalist characteristics and degrees of doubt as to the divinity of Christ. Deist terminology included titles like Nature’s God, a reference to a universalized version of the force that created the

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natural world. Thomas Jefferson alluded to the “Laws of Nature” and “Nature’s God” in the opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Another Deist title, “Father of Lights,” was used by Benjamin Franklin to move for opening prayer at meetings of the Constitutional Convention. Eighteenth-century Deists were known to employ the term “Providence” as well. The universality of Deism was present in Freemasonry, which throughout history had retained no particular denominational identity. Like Deists, Freemasons expressed their vision of a supreme being through colorful and broadly-applicable titles, including Great Architect, Great Judge, Supreme Deity, Divine Nature, and Divine Intelligence. British-born American Civil War general and eminent Freemason Albert Pike discoursed that Freemasonry was “the universal religion taught by Nature and Reason.”28 Affirming its universalistic character, Pike wrote: [Freemasonry] invites to enter there and live in peace and harmony, the Protestant, the Catholic, the Jew, the Moslem; every man who will lead a truly virtuous and moral life . . . The practical object of Masonry is the physical and moral amelioration and the intellectual and spiritual improvement of individuals and society.29 Throughout the 1700s, Freemasonry gained in popularity in North America and became one of the key organizations responsible for spreading the Enlightenment ideals espoused by the Founding Fathers. This was not least due to Masonic traditions of establishing homes for orphans, widows, and the elderly, all of which served a highly appreciated social function that had not yet been established by government. By 1827, the Grand Lodge of New York had 227 lodges under its jurisdiction. Only eight years later, however, this number dropped drastically after a political scandal involving Freemasons.30 American Freemasonry never recovered from the 1826 Morgan Affair, which seemed to point to judicial corruption aided by Freemasons in positions of influence. Organized Deism, which was never really able to challenge the mainstream Protestantism of the early Republic, also waned in the

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face of an evangelical revival that swept the nation around the same time. The square and compass are easily the best-known symbols of Freemasons, often found inscribed on foundation stones laid by this ancient fraternal order of stonemasons, as well as on the gravestones of men with memberships in Masonic lodges. The tools themselves represent the ideas of judgment and discernment, skills that served both individual and social cultivation. Well-versed in geometry—the science believed to link the macrocosm (the universe) with the microcosm (human life)—Freemasonry preserved the idea of an earth-heaven connection through the influence of Pythagorean notions, which derived from the religio-mathematical philosophy of Greek mathematician Pythagoras (of Pythagorean Theorem repute). The most famous Mason and Founding Father, George Washington, used the symbols of the square and compass (circle) to express the philosophy that he hoped would guide the governance of the new nation.31 Almost four centuries after the construction of the Forbidden City, President Washington ultimately settled on the malaria-ridden, ten-mile square marshland on the Potomac Delta as the location for the Federal City. Bypassing the more suitable and established cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, and Charleston for the foggy bottoms of an uninhabitable swamp, Washington selected the delta for its political and celestial significance; the arcane symbolism of the topographical layout of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers would have thoroughly intrigued his Chinese counterparts, who similarly moved the established southern capital of Nanjing to inhospitable, pollution-aggravating, and drought-prone Beijing. Just as the Chinese people have learned about the political intentions behind the relocation of their capital city, Americans have largely been informed that the move of their capital (from New York to Philadelphia and finally to a new city, Washington, D.C.) was a result of the north-south economic compromise over Revolutionary War debt as negotiated by Alexander Hamilton in New York and Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. The layout would, George Washington hoped, direct the function of the Federal City—a “purpose-driven” endeavor for the new

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seat of American governance. The two rivers naturally formed a Pythagorean Y on the Potomac delta, an archetype that represented a choice between the difficult path of virtue and the easier path of vice. For Washington this represented the duality of human nature and the challenges of governing this nature, which the nascent nation would assume responsibility for when making political decisions about the future direction of the Republic. Measuring a perfect ten miles on each side, the city was plotted as a square rotated forty-five degrees so that “each of its corners pointed in one of the cardinal directions. It looked like a diamond balanced on its southern tip. . . . The bottom half of the diamond framed the two rivers” of Potomac and Anacostia.32 In his book Washington from the Ground Up, James McGregor describes how “the points of the diamond formed a skeletal compass,” which explains “the rationale for its choice.”33 In other words, the one hundred square miles of real estate resembles, from above, a square and compass within a Y-shaped delta. THE FEDERAL CITY Benjamin Banneker, an astronomer and mathematician of free African-American ancestry, worked closely with George Washington and other city planners.34 These architects, like those of old, accepted the notion that the movement and positions of stars and planets had influence over the public affairs of the new nation— and therefore over American destiny. Banneker himself regularly observed the positions of stars from Jones Point in Alexandria, Virginia, where he maintained a clock to monitor when heavenly bodies appeared over the Federal City.35 “Based on celestial calculations,” Banneker helped fellow planners Pierre-Charles L’Enfant and Andrew Ellicott place forty stone markers at one-mile intervals.36 The men then drafted a blueprint for their ideal capital city that aligned with their perception of favorable astrological conditions; this design was intended to symbolize not only America’s national unity but also a harmonious connection to the divine powers positioned above the city.

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Figure 3.3: A Celestial-Terrestial Connection of Washington

The concept of “As Above, So Below”—a founding principle of the Hermetic tradition and a norm of the ancient art of sacred geometry—was employed in the architectural design of Washington, District of Columbia.

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The lead architect of the city, L’Enfant, had devised a grand plan that went beyond that of the other men involved in construction oversight (including Thomas Jefferson). Instead of just locating the capital, L’Enfant submitted a city layout that included designs for buildings; he envisioned wide avenues and esplanades that could compete in splendor with European capitals like Paris. The layout and facades of carefully plotted streets and monuments reflected Washington’s beliefs and desires (no doubt understood by L’Enfant) for the new nation through arcane symbolism. For example, both the Ming Dynasty and Masonic architects of Beijing and Washington used an ancient technique of drawing an imaginary line from “the median position of Polaris perpendicular to the sun’s daily path” to determine the location of an east-west running thoroughfare that would orient the cities. In Beijing, this street is Chang’an Avenue (Eternal Peace Street), which bifurcates Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. In Washington, it is Constitution Avenue, which joins the paths of virtue and vice on the Y-shaped Potomac delta. In his book The Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s Capital, David Ovason observes that the edifices on either end of the Avenue are inscribed with zodiac signs; the street acts as an ecliptic—the path of the sun as it passes through the constellations of stars. This heavenly path would be America’s natural path, adhering to a constitution rather than celestiallyappointed rulers (or a divine right of kings-style philosophy like that employed in the Old World). The Avenue marks the base of the Federal Triangle (the shape outlined by the locations of the White House, Capitol and the Washington Monument), physically delineating the choice that government must make between the two paths.37 Each of these two prominent avenues is positioned to receive sunlight on a daily basis, a metaphorical source of energy reviving peace in Beijing and illuminating the daily challenge of government in Washington. For the eighteenth-century founding generation, the careful layout of the city communicated their belief that the American Republic was an undertaking blessed by Providence or the Heavens (which were literally joined to the earth by the obelisk-shaped Washington Monument), and their hope that American leaders in the adjoining

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Capitol and White House buildings would manage earthly affairs in a straightforward, fair and “square” manner. On the north side of Constitution Avenue, the eastern half of the Federal Triangle (located in closer proximity to the path of virtue) supports the Capitol, the White House, and the Washington Monument triangle (the shape of the Masonic square) in a mirror image of the star pattern that surrounds the Virgo constellation and connects it to the Bootes and Leo constellations. While the Freemason architect would have been tempted to situate the Washington Monument so that it formed a right triangle (again, a perfect Masonic square), L’Enfant instead situated it slightly off point to align precisely with the stars.38 This two-degree geometrical flaw is a hallmark of celestial alignment; the same seeming lack of precision marks the alignment of Beijing’s Forbidden City, which is slightly tilted northwest to align directly with the fixed North Star (Polaris). The Dog Star Sirius (Spica), the brightest star in the Virgo constellation positioned directly overhead the Washington Monument, is visible from all inhabited regions of the world and orients the Dragon Throne.39 Known in astrological circles for its ability to offer renewal, future growth and wealth, Spica connects the tall monument to the power of the heavens and expresses Washington’s hopes for the new seat of government. Within the Leo Constellation directly above the Capitol, where America’s legislature would be housed, the appropriately-named Regulus (“Little King”) star reminded all that the people behind their Congressional representatives would truly rule the new nation. Above the White House, Arcturus in the Bootes Constellation represents the guardian who protects and assures posterity.40 Connecting the White House to Congress is Pennsylvania Avenue (named after the freethinking, tolerant, and literary colony), which later became the largest, most resplendent street in the Federal City. In ancient and astrological traditions, Virgo is ruled by Mercury—the Roman God of commerce, communication, and innovation. By carefully orienting the heart of the Federal City underneath the Virgo constellation, the Founding Fathers expressed their belief that Nature’s God held a “Special Providence” for

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America. This would be realized through the Mercurial tools of commerce, communication, and innovation: the very same qualities that shaped national character and empowered Washington to project American ideals abroad. The language of trade and commerce joined America’s diverse population—from Native Americans to European immigrants, settlers and (in a perversion of commerce that pointed to the path of vice over virtue) slaves— together under the twin banners of freedom and the rule of law. Both were vital to exchanging goods and ideas, developing trust and ensuring future prosperity. This, the founders believed, was the key to realizing a New World Order: an “Empire of Liberty.” In enshrining the metaphorical purpose of the capital city in Masonic (and astrological) symbolism, the architects ensured that it would speak to future generations of Masonic presidents such as James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Warren Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Gerald Ford. Other presidents—such as Abraham Lincoln, Lynden Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton—either never achieved formal membership or the highest ranks of Freemasonry but demonstrated varying degrees of interest in the order nonetheless. Many diverse Americans in leadership positions, such as Paul Revere and John Paul Jones, Chief Justice John Marshall (who shaped the Supreme Court), Booker T. Washington, John J. Pershing, Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, and General Douglas MacArthur, also played key roles in directing America’s path as a nation. For all of these men—but particularly those that led from the White House—Freemasonry provided a link to the past through a sort of modern dynastic succession directed under a unifying philosophy: that of a nation driven by divine purpose. Like Beijing, Washington, D.C., presents itself as a “center of power, a junction-point of sacred and secular space.”41 But Washington’s access to power does not pass through a Dragon Throne. Conceived in the Age of Enlightenment and grounded in the rights of man, the Federal City “imitates the geometry of the universe and the harmony of the worlds” to join a common people to their providential destiny through democratic governance and commerce.42

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The most telling symbol of the philosophical origins of the American nation was the placement of the Capitol building on Jenkins Hill. The elevated location near the Potomac River was considered the meridian of the United States—the point where American power would radiate outward from the seat of the people. Whereas the Dragon Throne channeled the power of the cosmos down to earthly affairs in Ming China, the American Capitol channeled the power of the people upward, to the stars, to receive the blessings of Nature’s God. Among all these celestial bodies, reverence for Jupiter was not limited to the Chinese. In Washington, D.C., the symbol of Virgo is ubiquitous; the cornerstone of the Federal City was laid at precisely 3:30 p.m. on April 15, 1791 when Jupiter “began to rise over the horizon” and “the zodiacal Virgo was exerting an especially strong and beneficial influence.”43 As the planet of prosperity and jubilance, rising Jupiter was considered of paramount “importance to the symbolism of American independence,” while Virgo was purposefully linked “with the building of Washington, DC.”44 The five-pointed star (a symbol of Virgo), which graces the national flag, is literally impressed into the city grid by Washington’s diagonal streets.45 (The shape of a pentagram, or star, is also reflected in the Pentagon, the U.S. military headquarters). While the arcane symbolism in the Federal City has spawned conspiracy theories of dark ritual antithetical to the Christian faith, their Masonic meaning does not preclude Christian notions. In fact, the practice of reading the skies for signs of providential benevolence is sanctioned in Christian texts. In Genesis, for example, Moses records that God created the stars for “signs and seasons;” the books of Psalms and Isaiah assert that God even gave them their names; and Jesus Christ himself prophesied that the coming of the “Son of Man” would be signaled in signs in the sun, moon, and stars.46 Freemasonry literature notes that “religions seem to be written in heaven and in all nature; that ought to be so, for the work of God is the book of God.”47 Despite being forbidden by the Vatican to even discuss Copernicus’ heretical heliocentric theory in China, Matteo Ricci did not shy away from Chinese religiosity and obsession with the stars;

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instead, he examined them closely in order to translate the tenets of Catholicism into language that resonated with Chinese beliefs and practices. In doing so, he bridged the gulf of culture and embodied the spirit of the founder of the Jesuit order, St. Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish nobleman who believed in scrupulous self-discipline and education as tools for converting non-Christians. To this day, Ricci remains a figure held in high regard by Chinese and Westerners alike. CREATING HEAVEN ON EARTH Even with differences of interpretation, the endeavor to recreate heaven on earth joins the twin poles of power both physically and philosophically. Offering his cross-cultural commentary several millennia ago, Mencius said, “The compass and square are the ultimate standards of the circle and the square. The sage is the ultimate standard of human relations.”48 Duncan’s Masonic Monitor of 1866 explains them as: “The square, to square our actions; The compasses, to circumscribe and keep us within bounds with all mankind.”49 The notion of “squaring” human behavior is distinctly Chinese: on the flat plane of earth, men converge according to culture, language, values and norms. As they do, society advances. Beyond the boundaries of the square of civilization lie the barbarian lands of cultureless people. The spatial activity of civilized life is housed under the rounded heavens, which modulate goings-on through the passage of time and seasons. Squaring the earth—the virtuous pursuit of cultivating knowledge and understanding—brings one closer to the heavens. “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the sun,” wrote the unknown author of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament.50 Confucius agreed, writing, The seasons go round, the myriad creatures are born and grow to maturity, and all these phenomena find their source in Heaven. . . . In the ideal state of harmony between Heaven and humans that prevailed in ancient times, the ruler had

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no need to act or speak. He simply rectified his person and took up the ritual position fitting for a ruler, and the world became ordered of its own accord.51 With this common foundation, it is not surprising that both nations built physical monuments to the divine at the center of their human activity—both believed this effort would yield the blessings of Heaven. In his 1789 inaugural speech, George Washington stated, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.”52 When designing the Great Seal of the United States, Charles Thomson explained the motto Annuit Coeptus (“He [God] has favored our undertakings”) saying, “The Eye over [the pyramid] and the motto . . . allude to the many signal interpositions of providence in favor of the American cause.”53 Providence, or the Invisible Hand, influenced what happened on earth to bring about the opportunity to build a nation that could inspire the world—an opportunity that would remain as long as the nation proved deserving. In the same speech, America’s first president noted, There is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.54 The American nation would be blessed as long as government acted virtuously to preserve orderly behavior and harmony among the thirteen colonies and in affairs with other nations—earthly actions that reflected the balance of nature captured by the architecture and layout of Washington, D.C. This is not unlike the Mandate of Heaven, which permitted the emperor to continue to rule as long as he earned the benevolence of the God of Heaven through virtuous behavior. Natural disasters and social disorder were indications of the loss of God’s favor and

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the cession of the Mandate to a more deserving sovereign—a sort of universal justice that ensured poor rule and vice would not go unpunished. George Washington could have just as easily been describing the Chinese Mandate when he remarked, “We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”55 Several millennia beforehand, Confucius agreed: “He who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray.”56 Chinese rulers, too, were bound to seek Heaven’s favor for their undertakings. Despite changes in both American and Chinese cultures that saw recognition of these customs fade over time, these beliefs have manifested themselves in other ways. In America, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, noted, “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”57 That vision of justice and fairness is implanted in SinoAmerican thought: the harmonious recreation of heaven on earth to capture the blessings of Nature’s God is neither an oriental nor occidental idea but a human one that reflects our instincts for order, for inspiration, and for meaning. This idea lies at the heart of both the American and Chinese national ethos, joining the two countries together across the Pacific Ocean. A SHANGRI-LA MOMENT FOR REFLECTION Why do the origins of Chinese cosmology matter? Today, the post-Maoist government has moved progressively toward encouraging traditional learning; the temporarily out-of-favor sage now bedecks state-backed Confucius classrooms to disseminate Chinese language and culture beyond China’s borders, including in the United States and Europe. According to the headquarters in Beijing, there were 353 Confucius Institutes and 473 Confucius Classrooms in 104 countries by the end of August 2011, and more institutions are planned for the future.58 In a similar fashion, Beijing’s evolving political economy is no less disconnected from China’s cosmological roots and ancient traditions. Within the cosmic and religious framework of culture, China is focused on the

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present harmonization of earthly and heavenly life—not on future salvation of the religious kind. Long-cherished Confucian virtues and history are part of China’s national pride; the first sage king, Zhou Wen of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC), was believed to have established morality and ethical governance at the center of his Celestial Empire. Interestingly, the Zhou dynasty also marks the use of the “supreme philosophy” of the Mandate to not simply rationalize the rise and fall of dynasties, but also to justify the expansion of territory.59 The founder of the dynasty, King Wu, acquired regions west and northwest of the Shang kingdom (1600-1046 BC) and eventually defeated the Shang in a surprise attack, defending his actions as the “Mandate of Heaven” to conquer the corrupt regime.60 The thirst for westward territorial expansion also led Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Di (604-618 AD) to send his army to invade the Tibetan-Xianbei state in northern Tibet. In the south, the Sui controlled territory all the way down to northern Vietnam and in 612 AD, the emperor dispatched a large army of a million men to conquer Korea. In 615 AD, however, his army was badly defeated in the west by the Turks. Three years later, the empire disintegrated when Emperor Yang Di was assassinated. A series of similar historical events and foreign invasions changed the ethos of China’s national ambition; the vision of this supreme philosophy was expressed by other means in ensuing dynasties through exertion of Confucian authority, formality, and recognition of natural order. The key to the Mandate is the link between continued rule and excellence—family excellence, to be precise. This stands in contrast to the divine rights of emperors (or kings and queens as in Europe), in which dynastic bloodlines legitimize authority. In Imperial China, the legitimacy of the Forbidden City lay in its ability to provide a model of appropriate behavior and virtues earned from celestial power. The Son of Heaven does not have “a right to make laws and punish people; it is a command to educate and shape people’s character.”61 This tradition was illustrated in the Chinese tributary system as Ming Admiral Zheng He launched his voyages through the Indian Ocean to solicit tributes from “barbarian” rulers in Asia and Africa. Confucian thought enshrined in

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social hierarchy was a representation of natural order, and the Mandate of Heaven was a means to preserve that order. Order meant not simply domestic stability under law, but the projection of the superiority of virtue for a harmonious world under the Celestial Empire. This was the purpose given to the Middle Kingdom. Territorial expansion, therefore, was not essential to the creation of a Celestial Empire; order could be established through recognition of the superiority of virtuous rule. Neither is it essential to the American notion of an Empire of Liberty. But as in China, the United States also attempted westward expansion to create the Jeffersonian vision. The expansion was guided by Manifest Destiny, a political belief that was not explicitly territorial; however, the inventor of Manifest Destiny anticipated that the United States would become a “Union of many Republics” to establish the moral dignity and salvation of man on earth.62 This lead to the possession of Hawaii, Guam, and other Pacific islands; it also led to bloody battles in the Philippines and elsewhere. America’s imperial adventures contradicted the framework for its governance, which originated from John Winthrop, a Pilgrim settler and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed that America had not only been chosen by God to be “a City upon a Hill” but also “a providentially blessed entity charged to develop and maintain itself as the beacon of liberty and democracy to the world.”63 For a variety of complex reasons, much of America’s global involvement—from Theodore Roosevelt’s war in the Philippines to George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—originates from this religious and political philosophy. Historically, American power has been better projected through the founding notion of a philosophic empire with a Commercial Providence—through trade that allows the peoples of the world to join under the banner of shared values rooted in human nature.64 This is the idea captured in the symbols and design of the Federal City; having gleaned the favor of Providence, it is also the purpose that drives the American nation. Each time leaders in Washington depart from this founding vision, the United States is severed from its national conviction of Annuit Coeptis, “Providence (God) has

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favored our undertakings.” Without the favor of Providence, the costs of America’s undertakings are high in blood and treasure. The twin philosophies of these “purpose driven” and “purpose given” nations seemingly originate from a mythical Shangri-La world, a utopian earthly paradise. While their paths have diverged, they have important similarities: each believes it has been divinely sanctioned, and each uses secret architectural designs to call upon Providence or the Mandate of Heaven to direct the destinies of the more than half of the world’s population in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere. While the foreign policies and strategies of Beijing and Washington have evolved unconsciously, the conscious minds of leaders and policymakers have repeated history in innovative and creative ways; in fact, how we think about the world shapes how we act in the world. To understand the behavior of Washington and Beijing today, one must reflect on both physically and metaphysically built world in which leaders made their decisions historically.

PART THREE

The Great Drama in the IndoPacific Region

Figure 4.1: Admirals Christopher Columbus and Zheng He

These two explorers—with separate convictions of the “purpose-driven” and “purpose-given” philosophies—changed the ways America and China view the world and each other.

4 China’s Manifest Destiny in the Indian Ocean The object of your mission is to explore . . . the waters of the Pacific Ocean . . . [it] may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent for the purpose of commerce.1 Thomas Jefferson

Hoping

to reach Asia (the Indies), Admiral Christopher Columbus set sail westward over the Mediterranean Sea from Spain. The steady winds of the Atlantic Ocean pushed his ships toward the Caribbean instead. There, Columbus came across an archipelago, which he named the “West Indies” and proclaimed the discovery of the New World. A member of the Order of Jesus Christ, Columbus had a red cross on the sails of his ships to brand his voyage as a Christian mission; his objectives also included a

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search for riches of pearls, gold, silver, precious stones, and spices. Whether accidental or providential, however, the arrival of Columbus in the Americas opened the first chapter in a world chronicle of cultural encounters, conflict, and colonization. Figure 4.2: The Voyages of Discovery by Columbus

Admiral Christopher Columbus led four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean between 1492-1504 sponsored by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain Like his maritime sponsors, Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain (who had united the region under Christian leadership after the bloody ten-year battle with Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula), Columbus saw his voyages as a launching point for a series of ruthless confrontations in the Americas between diametrically opposed ways of life and belief systems. His actions led to the establishment of permanent European settlements in Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The European colonization that ensued with the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish and other colonial powers transformed the indigenous cultures

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of the Caribbean and the American continents. European colonialism was associated with impressing Christian faith on “uncivilized” natives; similarly, the American civilization that evolved from European settlers in the United States was also an enterprise superimposed on the first peoples of the Americas. Almost a century before Admiral Columbus discovered America in 1492, another legendary admiral set sail westward from China across the South China Sea and through the Indian Ocean to Africa and the Middle East. But Admiral Zheng He of the Middle Kingdom had a purpose that differed from the four Columbian voyages blessed by the Order of Jesus Christ. Prince Zhu Di, who seized power during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), was the underwriter of Zheng’s expeditions to proclaim the emperor the “Son of Heaven” and elicit obedience and respect from distant rulers. Revival of the tributary system—a type of “soft power” diplomatic instrument—employed by earlier dynasties was part of a Confucian tradition to formalize the recognition and rightfulness of the “celestial” ruler. Rebellious Zhu Di, known as the Yongle (“Perpetual Happiness”) Emperor, had usurped the throne and faced questions of legitimacy at home; relocation and construction of the imperial capital (from Nanjing to Beijing) were among his early attempts to strengthen his claim to the throne and quell dissent. While partial to Confucianism, the Ming Emperor treated Daoism and Buddhism with equal respect—a clever approach that earned him popular support and stabilized his territorial rule. Zhu hoped that the seafaring voyages and maritime diplomacy would carry the Chinese influence emanating from the new capital even further to distant foreign lands. From 1405-1433, the Ming admiral—a devout Muslim of Mongolian descent from Yunnan province—logged more than 100,000 kilometers (or some 54,000 nautical miles) during his seven legendary expeditions reaching to the shores of East Africa and the Middle East (including the holy Muslim city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia) through Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean.2 The strategy behind the mighty expeditions has been characterized as an attempt to “shock and awe” distant cultures with Chinese splendor in order to indicate the Mandate of Heaven. This followed the years of pac-

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ification campaigns that not surprisingly coincided with famine, disease, and tribal conflicts, devastating the Chinese population and fracturing the imperial economy. In Before European Hegemony, American sociologist Janet Abu-Lughod described, The impressive show of force that paraded around the Indian Ocean during the first three decades of the fifteenth century was intended to signal to the ‘barbarian nations’ that China had reassumed her rightful place in the firmament of nations—had once again become the ‘Middle Kingdom’ of the world.3 Like Columbus, the admiral was naturally inclined to claim knowledge and foreign treasures for the Middle Kingdom; unlike the enduring Columbian influence on indigenous cultures, however, the peaceful Ming voyages were neither consequential nor transformative in the end. At the time of their undertaking, the voyages demonstrated the heights of Chinese civilization—a revival of the glory of the Han and Song dynasties. The Ming dynasty’s maritime innovations and navigational technology have been celebrated as historic, entrepreneurial, and superior to the West. In fact, the Chinese flotilla of mammoth “treasure ships” (or baochuan) was considerably more impressive than the relatively tiny fleet led by Columbus.4 The famous Genovese explorer and his ninety sailors were housed on three ships; the longest, Santa Maria, was a mere ninety-by-thirty feet.5 By contrast, the Chinese admiral had 28,000 seamen on 300 ships, the largest of which was 400-by-150 feet (120-by-45 meters) wide.6 The epic missions, which remained an unprecedented triumph in world navigational history until World War I, were highly effective. The distance traveled was close to two-and-half times longer than the circumference of the globe at the equator, and the armada not only included “hard power” tools such as supply ships to carry horses and fresh water, troop transports, warships, and patrol boats, but also “soft power” instruments like interpreters for Arabic and other languages, astrologers to forecast the weather and auspicious

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timing, scientists to collect flora and fauna, engineers to maintain and repair ships, doctors and health-care professionals, and even two protocol officers to help organize official receptions.7 Figure 4.3: The Size of Ships Used by Zheng and Columbus

Christopher Columbus used three small ships during his first of four voyages (1492-1504) across the Atlantic Ocean to discover the Americas. Almost 100 years earlier, the Ming envoy Zheng He employed 317 ships of different sizes—including sixty-two “treasure ships” during his seven expeditions to Asia, Africa, and beyond (1405-1433). The above comparison illustrates the size of the longest ship, Santa Maria, used by Columbus and one of the treasure ships of the Dragon Throne. According to National Geographic journalist Frank Viviano, some of the boats were the largest sail-powered boats in human history.8 Navigating with compasses and detailed star charts centuries before Renaissance Europe employed the same, Chinese sailors had long dominated the waters of the region and the Chinese maritime industry led advances in naval architecture, shipbuilding, and propulsion. “All the ships of Columbus and [Portuguese explorer Vasco] Da Gama combined,” writes Viviano, “could have been stored on a single deck of a single vessel in the

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fleet that set sail under Zheng He.”9 The prototypes of such massive vessels were already being built in Chinese shipyards by the eighth century.10 The proportions of the Ming ships were deliberately exaggerated—so staggeringly large that until a mammoth wooden steering column and rudder were dredged up from the depths of the Yangtze River in 1962, the voyages were believed to be only a legend.11 The National Geographic writer further explains that the scale and grandiosity of the exploration were in keeping with the emperor’s preference for challenging, monolithic projects like the Forbidden City and expansions to the Grand Canal and the Great Wall of China. The admiral himself was a reported “seven feet tall” and “five feet wide”—a large but surprisingly humble personality; Zheng erected a stone pillar on his father’s grave with an epitaph praising contentment, protection, and help to the less fortunate, and fondness for doing good.12 These were the “fundamental human values” most admired by the Muslim sailor. His appreciation was combined with an undeniable thirst for knowledge: the surviving account of an accompanying interpreter describes the admiral’s interest in and amazement at the cultural, culinary, ecological, political, intellectual, and social diversity of the region stretching from Nanjing to Mecca, all of which was recorded with encyclopedic detail.13 Until recently, however, the Ming eunuch’s voyages were hardly known outside China as the ensuing rulers suppressed the triumphs of Zheng’s extravagant accomplishments. In his controversial New York Times best seller 1421: The Year China Discovered America, retired British Royal Navy officer Gavin Menzies revisited the legendary voyages as well as the reasons behind the concealment of the grandiose achievements of a Chinese navigator within a preeminent Confucian society of scholarofficials, who had little respect for merchants and disregarded the showmanship of eunuchs like Zheng.14 This veiled past has not only been discussed openly but even become en vogue more recently in mainland China.

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MING MANIFEST DESTINY ON THE MARCH While these two historical narratives—of both Columbus and Zheng—have long been largely dormant in public discussion of Sino-American relations, present-day geostrategists and policymakers make conscious decisions driven largely by the subconscious mindsets of the past. In retrospect, the Christian values imbuing American political discussions and the pride surfacing in Chinese nationalism are a clear manifestation of these psychological underpinnings and belief systems. More importantly, however, these maritime outreaches—whether in a form of colonialism and spreading the Christian faith in the New World or an installation of the Confucian tributary system to gain respect for the Son of Heaven among rulers in the Indian Ocean region—seem to be linked by a common thread interweaving their global adventures. Today, both are reflected in America’s Asia pivot to the Pacific region and China’s New Silk Road (i.e., the string of pearls strategy) in the Indian Ocean. Both nations share a historical drive for a westward terrestrial expansion: one is captured in the American concept of Manifest Destiny in the United States while the other is represented by the ancient Chinese reality of the Silk Road (a national enchantment described in one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West, which details the adventurous tales of the ever popular Monkey God).15 Even though the nature and origin of these land and sea route developments differed, the general motive for territorial expansion was mostly predicated on a national sense of exceptionalism or divine destiny. The phrase Manifest Destiny has been misinterpreted in the United States as American territorial expansionism, which has never been a true expression of the founding spirit. This watchword was used throughout the second half of the nineteenth century as political justification for the acquisition of territory from the Atlantic seaside all the way to the Pacific Ocean and beyond, including Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Philippine archipelago. The man who coined the most famous catchphrase of American history, John O’Sullivan, urged the United States to an-

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nex the Republic of Texas not only because the people of the Lone Star state desired the annexation but also it was “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”16 This statement certainly reflected the prevailing religious impulse and nationalistic mood, especially among political and religious elites. Historian Paul Johnson described an earlier O’Sullivan work, The Great Nation of Futurity (1839), as an ideological statement in which “God, the republic, and democracy alike demanded that Americans press on west, to settle and civilize, republicanize, and democratize.”17 The crystallized vision that emerged from political aspirations and territorial ambitions helped galvanize a nation that still had to work through the divisions of the Civil War, giving birth to a new outward-looking American movement. America’s founding values include the origins of the idea of providential destiny—a “divine destiny” for a future great nation “to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man,” wrote O’Sullivan.18 For him, Manifest Destiny really meant that the United States had a providential mandate to promote its systems of democracy, federalism, and personal freedom as well as to accommodate its growing population by expanding territorial possession of the entire North American continent. O’Sullivan exhorted the public, saying, We must onward to the fulfillment of our mission—to the entire development of the principle of our organization— freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom, and equality.19 The author did not initially intend to convey territorial expansion but predicted that the United States would be one of a “Union of many Republics” to smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and goodwill

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where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field.20 The evolution and application of Manifest Destiny indicate the selective use of ideas for political gamesmanship. Barack Obama called himself the “first Pacific president” as he promoted his Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Asia pivot strategy; President Xi Jinping made his inaugural overseas trip to Africa in late March 2013 after his visit to Moscow—the center of power for the Central Asian, former Soviet republics across which the ancient Silk Road extended. Obama’s policy initiatives illustrate how history has informed the way Americans visualize themselves, their eventual destinies, and what actions they will take to arrive there. This, in turn, has an impact on how China responds and adjusts its tactical calculus to realize a Chinese-style Manifest Destiny through maritime modernization and territorial expansion in the South China Sea, and the revival of dormant Buddhist and historic links by way of the strategic island of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. In hindsight, advancing Sino-American relations seem to mirror the historical narratives shaping present-day maritime postures in international and bilateral affairs. American and Chinese statecrafts are surprisingly repeating and reaffirming the power of history, while also creating a new world order in the Indo-Pacific region. At the center of this is Sri Lanka, whose relations with China date back for millennia (relations that saw European colonialism in America and Asia enlarge and then decline; the British Redcoats expelled from the United States would move on to colonize Sri Lanka in 1815, and later cause the Opium Wars in midnineteenth century China). As China began to revive its history— after incorporating the former colonies of Hong Kong and Macau—to recast the Middle Kingdom’s former glory, Beijing has focused on Sri Lanka: the preeminent center of Buddhism visited repeatedly by Zheng He and other Chinese emissaries throughout history. The related Sino-Sri Lanka history is a significant part of Beijing’s Manifest Destiny as the pathways of the ancient Silk Road have linked with the “Island of Pearls” to form a “crown jewel” of the so-called Chinese string of pearls maritime strate-

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gy—a modern day renewal of Admiral Zheng He’s expeditions to the Indian Ocean and beyond.21 THE FORGOTTEN LEGACY OF THE PRESENT: SRI LANKA The overriding purpose of the Chinese expeditions was complex and still debated by historians and strategists. With very few historical records surviving after archival purges and Ming infightings, the most convincing reason was the simple desire for order “after more than a century of almost unprecedented violence—a yearning for the assurances of fact and discovery set against a backdrop of worldwide chaos.”22 The dynastic name Ming (or “brightness”) reflected the intent to move on from the darkness and catastrophe of the past to “display the wealth and power” of the Ming dynasty and assert “the Chinese tributary system” on more than thirty countries in Asia and Africa.23 This cultural restoration and luminosity would be grounded in Confucian order. According to one sailor’s account, the treasure fleets would “bring [such] order ‘to the four quarters [of the Earth] . . . as far as ships and carts would go and power of men would reach.’”24 Despite his reputation for ruthlessness, the Yongle Emperor that built the square Forbidden City in Beijing (and whose present day tomb is bedecked with the “Square Tower”) used the “square” aspects of rules and regulations to revive classical culture and restore a civilization. As he did so, he brought to life the old adage, “No perfect squares or circles can be drawn without the use of compasses and rulers” [i.e., the Confucian notion of fa (law) should be enforced to standardize judgments just as compasses and rulers are used to draw squares and circles].25 Nevertheless, known both for his cruelty and dogmatic preservation of Chinese culture, the enigmatic Yongle Emperor would pit himself against the “cultureless” and barbarian Mongol nomad tribes in the north and west, which eventually led to his own demise in 1424. By the mid-1430s, Zhu Di’s grandson Zhu Zhanji (or the Xuande Emperor) was on the throne and issued the following edict announcing the seventh and final voyage of the eunuch admiral:

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The new reign of Xuande has commenced, and everything shall begin anew. [But] distant lands beyond the seas have not yet been informed. I send eunuchs Zheng He and Wang Jinghong with this imperial order to instruct these countries to follow the way of Heaven with reverence and to watch over their people so that all might enjoy the good fortune of lasting peace.26 Figure 4.4: The Voyages of Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty

Admiral Zheng He visted over thirty countries through the “Southern” (i.e., the South China Sea) and the “Western” (the Indian Ocean) waters of the Middle Kingdom. In her book When China Ruled the Seas, Ming historian Louise Levathes points to the names of ships (such as “Pure Harmony,” “Lasting Tranquillity” and “Kind Repose”) as a reflection of “their peacekeeping mission.”27 In a message to the King of Siam presented by Zheng He, the Xuande Emperor reprimanded the Siamese for harassing the Malaccans: Is this the way to protect your wealth and happiness? You, king, should follow my order and treat your neighbour well and instruct your officials not to invade and humiliate oth-

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ers without provocation. If you do this, we will regard you as one who respects Heaven and brings peace to people and makes friends with your neighbours. This is in accord with the benevolent principles I hold in my heart.28 Levathes further cites a stone tablet erected at Changle in Fujian province in 1432 as a record of Zheng He’s beliefs: In conferring presents on these distant peoples, Zheng He made it clear that he believed the expeditions also had an impact in spreading Chinese culture abroad, that is, in making ‘manifest the transforming power of imperial virtue.’29 These maritime missions were thus largely diplomatic— religiously and culturally tolerant—and relatively peaceful in spite of the fleet’s tendency to be “drawn into countless regional conflicts.”30 One such conflict was an encounter with the infamous Cantonese pirate Chen Zuyi, which occurred after his armed ships intercepted the Ming armada in the Malaccan Strait.31 In a demonstration of the emperor’s strategy of reward for service, a local informant who had proved critical to Ming triumph over the widely reviled pirate fleet was installed as [a] new ruler and incorporated into what would become a far-flung system of allies that acknowledged Ming supremacy in return for diplomatic recognition, military protection, and trading rights.32 By the end of the Yongle reign, “the kings or ambassadors from over thirty foreign states” had paid “official visits” to the emperor bearing tribute; they were ferried to China in luxurious staterooms on the baochuan.33 Another well-known episode—the “only significant overseas land battle” ever waged by Chinese imperial troops—unfolded in what was then the Kingdom of Kotte (Sri Lanka).34 Accounts of what occurred during the Ming-Kotte War were somewhat different; however, the earliest records, compiled by Sir James Emerson

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Tennent in his well-known tome Ceylon (1859), described an encyclopedic work of collating the research of many historians.35 Citing the Chinese Description of Western Countries, Sir Tennent wrote that in 1405 the reigning king Alakeshwara (Wejaya Bahu VI)—“a native of Chola” [in India]—was “an adherent of the heterodox faith, so far from honoring Buddha, tyrannized over his followers.”36 According to the History of the Ming Dynasty, Sir Tennent further explained that the king “maltreated strangers resorting to the island, and plundered their vessels, ‘so that the envoys from other lands, in passing to and fro, were much annoyed by him.’”37 The Ming record, according to the former colonial secretary of Ceylon, stated that the Emperor Ching-tsoo [Zhu Di], indignant at this outrage on his people, . . . sent Ching-Ho [Zheng He], a soldier of distinction, with a fleet of sixty-two ships and a large military escort, on an expedition to visit the western kingdoms, furnished with proper credentials and rich presents of silk and gold. Ching-Ho touched at Cochin-China, Sumatra, Java, Cambodia, Siam, and other places, ‘proclaiming at each the Imperial edict, and conferring Imperial gifts.’ If any of the princes refused submission, they were subdued by force; and the expedition returned to China in 1407 AD, accompanied by envoys from the several nations, who came to pay [tribute] to the Emperor.38 Before leaving Nanjing shipyards for Ceylon in 1408, Admiral Zheng had commissioned a commemorative stone slab with a diplomatic message for erection on the island in 1411, which was later known as the Galle Trilingual Stone. Transcribed in three languages and listing gifts of equal value offered to the deities of each culture represented, the carefully worded message praised Buddha (in Chinese), Allah (in Persian), and a local god (in Tamil).39 When the stele was discovered five hundred years later in the southern port city of Galle, the English translation was published a year later in 1912:

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Deeply do we reverence you, Merciful and Honored One, whose bright perfection is wide-embracing, and whose way of virtue passes all understanding, whose law enters into all human relations, and the years of whose great [era] are like the sands of the river in number, you whose controlling influence ennobles and converts, whose kindness quickens, and whose strength discerns, whose mysterious efficacy is beyond compare! Whereas Ceylon’s mountainous isle lies in the south of the ocean, and its Buddhist temples are sanctuaries of [your] gospel, where your miraculous responsive power imbues and enlightens. Of late, we have dispatched missions to announce our mandates to foreign nations, and during their journey over the ocean they have been favored with the blessing of [your] beneficent protection. They escaped disaster or misfortune, and journeyed in safety to and fro.40 With this demonstration of cultural reverence, the Muslim admiral clearly had a diplomatic mission in mind. But when Zheng He arrived, Ceylon was in upheaval; the Kotte king Alekeshwara viewed the tablet as a Chinese claim of sovereignty and refused to allow for its display. Instead, he decoyed [Zheng He’s] party into the interior, threw up stockades with a view to their capture, in the hope of a ransom, and ordered soldiers to the coast to plunder the Chinese junks. But Ching-Ho, by a dexterous movement, avoided the attack, and invested the capital, made a prisoner of the king, succeeded in conveying him on board his fleet, and carried him captive to China, together with his queen, his children, his officers of state, and his attendants. He brought away with him spoils . . . amongst the articles carried away was the sacred tooth of Buddha.41 [Other Chinese sources indicate that Zheng He had not purposed to “steal the Sinhalese tooth relic (dalada)” of the Buddha, but took

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advantage of the opportunity].42 According to the History of the Ming Dynasty, Sir Tennent described how in the sixth month of the year 1411 . . . the prisoners were presented at court. The Chinese ministers pressed for their execution, but the emperor, in pity for their ignorance [of the Mandate of Heaven], set them at liberty, but commanded them to select a virtuous man from the same family to occupy the throne.43 When the captors returned with the Yongle Emperor’s nominee to the island’s throne in 1414, a powerful new King Parakrama Bahu VI instated in their absence quickly eliminated the arriving Chinese emissary as a more nationalistic Sri Lanka became unified against foreign influence.44 The invasion of Sri Lanka’s royal city involving the capture of the Sinhalese king (an Indian Tamil by origin but married to a local royal family and converted to Buddhism) was “an exceptional event” of otherwise “a basically peaceful narrative of exploration and diplomacy” of Zheng He.45 The kings of Ceylon would offer tribute (sometimes in person) to the Dragon Throne for the next fifty years until 1459, when “the King of Ceylon for the last time sent an envoy with tribute, and after that none ever came again.”46 The unexpected death of the Xuande Emperor in 1435 had marked a turning point in dynastic history. Over the next several decades, the behavior of tributepaying foreign emissaries gradually deteriorated: the Javanese emissary drunkenly caused several deaths including his own; the Siamese envoy was robbed by corrupt officials in Guangdong and against all propriety appeared in court empty-handed.47 With a heightened sense of frugality, Zhu Zhanji’s successor, his son (the boy king Zhu Qizhen), was less interested in both giving and receiving gifts from foreign centers of power. Facing incidences of theft, piracy and hijacking, the emperor seemed unable to ensure the safety of tribute delivery and the court steadily lost its monopoly on foreign trade. Even official trade missions failed to receive adequate protection from the imperial navy; in order to reclaim waning power over trade relationships between

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various provinces and other foreign powers, the Confucians (always suspicious of commerce and the enterprising but often corrupt imperial eunuchs) eventually generated enough influence to convince the emperor to reaffirm China’s sovereignty by severing ties to the outside world—just as the Portuguese were beginning to cast a colonial eye toward Asia in the early sixteenth century. Tennent observed, In process of time, every trace disappeared of the former present of the Chinese in Ceylon—embassies ceased to arrive from the ‘Flowery Kingdom,’ Chinese vessels deserted the harbors of the island, pilgrims no longer repaired to the shrines of Buddha; and even the inscriptions became obliterated in which imperial offerings to the temples were recorded on the rocks.48 With the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505, Sri Lanka entered into a less peaceful period of almost 450 years of European colonialism (the Dutch and then the British) imposing Christian values on local culture and commercial interests, just as Christopher Columbus did in the Americas. CONFUCIAN POLITICS VERSUS COMMERCIAL INTERESTS The rise of Europe and expanding colonialism in the Americas and the Far East did not directly affect fifteenth century Chinese rulers and their declining power. But as European capitalist mercantilism gained momentum, the gravity of the Chinese economy shifted to the West for the first time in five hundred years. The later century (from 1820 to 1949) of China’s “economic decline and humiliations from abroad” can be attributed to this trend.49 Despite all this (or perhaps because of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and Beijing’s isolation during the Cold War), China’s gross domestic product tripled between 1952 and 1978.50 Overall, the return to the position of predominant economic and political power once occupied by the Middle Kingdom is associat-

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ed both with the revival of a splendid culture and Confucian pride—the work of the unconscious mind. For centuries, China was a powerful global nation. As early as the seventeenth century, the city of Guangzhou, for example, had 200,000 foreign nationals (including Africans, Arabs, Indians, Malays, Persians and Turks) living there. By comparison, Paris (probably the largest city in Europe in 1400) had a total population of slightly more than 100,000.51 British economic historian Angus Maddison calculated that China’s gross domestic product per capita in 1700 was $600 (in 1990 dollars), as compared to $570 in the American colonies and $910 in France.52 During the reign of the Yongle Emperor (1360–1424), China and India together accounted for more than half of the world’s gross national product, the majority of which was generated by China.53 Historically, the anatomy of China’s cycle of national decay and regeneration can be traced to political organization, which often associated with self-inflicted blow to internal governing mechanisms. During the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), the professional recruiting and meritocratic promotion of highly trained public servants were set up under the civil service examination system. Applicants were tested on vast quantities of knowledge including the fields of literature, philosophy, and history. With the highest levels of the exam administered by the central government, this system maintained the loyalty of power centers near and far as local elites were integrated into the state—particularly those in the disadvantaged provinces along border regions that might be entertaining rebellious thoughts. The exam itself, which required years of preparation and was delivered to isolated would-be civil servants over days at a time, shaped national identity by disseminating Confucian values and principles alongside respect for scholarship across a broad swathe of the population. Many would go on to occupy influential positions in their communities as educators or ambassadors of high culture (a number of China’s great literary and cultural achievements were, however, famously realized by failed imperial examinees). Nevertheless, the state always had to contend with the highest echelons of Confucian scholar-officials, known in the West as the

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Mandarins. These Mandarins often played a middleman role between the imperial ranks and the common people as a gentry class of tax collectors and landlords, or in other official capacities. While the Confucian bureaucrats and the emperor each needed the other to function within the administrative architecture, the relationship was characterized by tension and suspicion: the Mandarins feared the tyranny of the emperor, who in turn feared the bureaucrats would fall on the side of the people from whom they had risen to the corridors of power. Under this system the imperial class also remained indifferent and buffered from contact with ordinary people, often unresponsive to their needs. This internal conflict was exacerbated by tensions with the imperial eunuchs. The act of castration rendered eunuchs fit to serve an emperor surrounded by female consorts by physically guaranteeing the strict moral piety vaunted by Confucianism. At the same time, the physical deformity was abhorred in Chinese culture, which linked the entirety of the physical human body to suitability for the practice of ancestor worship and access to heaven in the incarnated life. Despite their presence in the imperial palace and the status afforded to the assignment of eunuchs, they occupied the lowest rungs of Confucian society.54 With a reputation for assassinations and other clever ploys for power, the eunuchs were difficult to dislodge (for example, the founding Ming Emperor, Hongwu, went so far as to threaten capital punishment for any eunuch involved in government affairs). The Yongle Emperor used the eunuchs to balance the power of the Mandarins, who, with the reinstatement of the civil service examination system (which went through periods of abolishment), reoccupied their position of prominence in Chinese society. This perhaps explains Zhu Di’s willingness to allow the expense of the treasure voyages, which rewarded the eunuch Zheng He for his role in aiding the usurper to seize the throne. “Seafaring and overseas trade were the traditional domains of the eunuchs,” writes Louise Levathes.55 Continuing his grandfather’s legacy, the Xuande Emperor strengthened the position of the eunuchs (even training them to handle court administration) and simultaneously elevated the position of Mandarins to an influential advisory com-

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mittee that essentially made policy decisions. Both rulers effectively controlled the competitive factions. This control did not last. After unexpectedly rising to the throne, the boy king Zhu Qizhen fell easily under the influence of a powerful eunuch that all but looted imperial coffers. In a dramatic scene following a humiliating loss to northern Mongol tribes, the Mandarins redressed the power imbalance by killing the powerful eunuch on the spot. Over the next few years, a power struggle ensued. In the end, the Mandarins triumphed; by “striking down those [seafaring and commercial] enterprises, the Confucians were eliminating a primary source of their rivals’ power and income.”56 As the power of a merchant class abetted by the eunuchs grew, the court increasingly sought to restrict trade and commerce. Domestic inflation further dimmed the allure of international trade and by the middle of the fifteenth century, facing natural disasters, Mongol attacks and a shrinking tax base, imperial advisors had “developed the point of view . . . that China would ‘conquer’ by the superiority of its civilization; the state should not be engaged in foreign commerce or foreign wars.”57 Confucius himself viewed “profits” as the inward passions of the “ignoble” and a concern of “a little man;” thus, the costly expense of trade embarked on by a “virtuous” society violated founding dynastic principles.58 A virtuous system of living was the foundation of social harmony; profit had demonstrably led to greater greed and dissonance. Records of the voyages were destroyed in the imperial archives, including even the memoirs of crewmen.59 To demonstrate the strength of imperial resolve in maintaining a blanket trade embargo, a 700-mile long, 30-mile wide strip of land along the southern coastline was burnt, rendering it uninhabitable.60 While China had 3,500 ships a century earlier (for reference, the U.S. Navy now has 324), the government made it a capital crime by 1500 to construct a boat with more than two masts, and ordered the destruction of all oceangoing ships in 1525.61 From 1600 and beyond, commerce became a mere extension of traditional practice among the Confucian elites who embraced all aspects of culture from art, literature, fashion, education, and entertainment. Over time, the anti-commercial ethos of the Ming

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dynasty became less intimidating as common people gradually and naturally engaged in trade. But the long-term consequences for denouncing China’s national achievements and elevating pride in Confucian heritage saw the Middle Kingdom’s power deteriorate over a series of subsequent foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and tribal warfare—along with national humiliations. The privileged class of Mandarins acted to preserve the status quo through heavy-handed rule and managed to not just bring the progress of a civilization to a halt but cause regression. Confucian distrust for trade, profit, and prosperity led to self-imposed isolation that contrasted sharply with the glorious period of maritime exploration and discovery that preceded it. The notion of trade as a harmful distraction from virtuous life prevented the Middle Kingdom from fully committing to European-style colonial schemes. On the other hand, the often bloodsoaked conquests of enterprising European colonial powers did not have an alternative or superior vision; while hierarchical and Sinocentric in nature, the imperial tribute system itself was not an attempt to superimpose Chinese culture on indigenous societies. Instead, the Chinese attempted to forge a harmonious regional order through a shared appreciation for the Chinese understanding of good governance and “soft power” diplomacy. This appreciation was expressed by the practice of rendering tribute—which was often reciprocated through gift-giving and rewarded with the privilege of access to Chinese trade. While influential in terms of shaping the behavior of foreign states, the ad hoc system (more a practice of what the Chinese perceived to be good manners and appropriate rituals between established kingdoms than a system in its own right) also required active imperial management and monopoly to offset potential challenges to central authority. Indeed, when the Qing court finally saw use for the consistent trade revenues of tribute-snubbing Europeans in the eighteenth century, it did so only at the most southern port of Guangzhou—as far away from Beijing as possible. This system was sustainable as long as China had something greater to offer the world beyond its borders than could be matched from the outside. Throughout the fifteenth century, countries in the

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South and East Asian regions of diverse ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic groups —especially in Sri Lanka with historical links to China—enjoyed relatively peaceful trade and goodwill. Once the Industrial Revolution shifted the weight of global economy in a European-centric direction and the regional hierarchy was challenged by the strengthened power of neighboring Asian states, the Chinese system lost its sway. Beijing was overwhelmed by the reality of a global order, rather than Sino-centric stability and harmony. As the Sri Lankan-born Rhodes scholar Lorna Dewaraja recounted, The Chinese trade was very peaceful [in the fifteenth century]. But . . . this age-old peaceful commercial intercourse was replaced in the sixteenth century by intolerance, violence and extermination of existing cultures with the arrival of the Europeans.62 Competitive Western powers had actively engaged in this global order not least through a modus operandi of mercantilism and slave trading that caused violence and conflict around the world, but also by way of imposing their Christian morality on indigenous and Buddhist cultures. BUDDHIST DIPLOMACY FOR PAX SINICA Unlike either of these two scenarios (a faltering tribute system and colonialism), the combination of Zheng He’s exploits in Sri Lanka and the Ming dynasty’s overall tolerance for religious plurality points to an earlier tradition that perhaps better reconciles the competing interests of trade and virtue. This was a natural reconciliation that emphasized cordial (though not necessarily noncompetitive) relationships between cooperative states. As a whole, the voyages appeared to constitute an effort—whether conscious or unconscious—to establish a “pax Ming” across the known-world through the clever use of a naval fleet of unprecedented proportions united with careful governing statecraft. This Ming polity involved Buddhist diplomacy, which had already been

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practiced along the footpaths of the ancient Silk Road in both terrestrial and maritime networks. The grand strategy allowed China to maintain multiple periods of a dominant Pax Sinica, or “Chinese Peace,” in Asia. Long before Zheng He’s legendary voyages, the Chinese were already involved in ambitious commercial exploits and religious quests across Asia by way of the Silk Road. After prospering in its native India and then Sri Lanka, Buddhism began to spread along these ancient transport paths to China through travelers and traders arriving from Central Asia. Early itinerant preachers and missionaries journeyed by horseback to promote the noble teachings and practices of Buddha and his followers in the Middle Kingdom.63 Buddhist culture formally arrived to the kingdom around 68 AD when, according to legend, Han ruler Ming Di (“Enlightened Emperor”) dreamed of a dragon; his ministers interpreted it as a possible incarnation of Buddha (then hardly known to China) originating from India.64 After an eighteen member high-level delegation was dispatched to South Asia to learn more about Buddhist teachings, two eminent Buddhist monks arrived on “a white horse” from India carrying “statues of Buddha and volumes of Buddhist scriptures.”65 The emperor then built the White Horse Temple in the Han capital of Luoyang in Henan province to commemorate the event. Linked to both Buddhist and Confucian traditions, the Han city is widely regarded as the birthplace of Chinese civilization.66 Although the Han dynasty declined in the last half of the second century, the popularity of Buddhism waxed throughout China. Various foreign visitors and local monks contributed to a growing number of Chinese translations of Buddhist texts. Theological advances in Buddha’s sermons and increased spiritual contacts led to the widespread acceptance of Buddhism. This was promoted as Pure Land Buddhism, a branch of the Mahayana or “greater vehicle” tradition (as opposed to the elders’ Theravada or “lesser vehicle” Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka). Elements of Buddhist rituals were creatively adapted to accommodate the popular interests of their Chinese sponsors, and new patterns of Pure Land Buddhist worship began to take root within expanding local

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markets along the Silk Road networks. The search for precious stones, Buddhist relics, and other commodities like pearls were popular in these markets, which helped launch a cosmopolitan era in China. These Buddhism-driven developments eventually merged with the rituals and teachings of Daoism and Confucianism; as a whole, Buddhist culture flourished through the attraction it held for ambitious emperors and spiritual seekers alike. The utility of this religious, intellectual, and commercial amalgamation was perhaps best illustrated during the Tang dynasty (618-907)—a period of Pax Sinica. The monopolized fields of learning and knowledge were long restricted to worthy scholarofficials. Considered the inferior sex, women were forbidden by The Analects of Confucius to engage with religious or commercial enterprises. The very existence of powerful Empress Wu Zetian (624-705)—China’s only female leader who ruled in her own name—challenged Confucian principles as she worked hard to elevate the role of women in Chinese society during her dynastic reign.67 That period also saw Chinese Buddhism reaching the heights of influence through design and promotion; Wu used Buddhism to usurp Daoism and Confucianism (the natural aspects of the former were combined with the social aspects of the latter to form a state religio-philosophy), to advance her popular appeal, and to legitimize her expansive territorial rule as Korea was annexed.68 Many of the large-scale religious projects and giant statues of Buddha, such as those destroyed by the Taliban at the Silk Roadadjacent town of Bamiyan in Afghanistan in 2001, were erected throughout the region during the time of Empress Wu. Her sponsorship of this belief system—combined with the cosmopolitan culture and domination of the Silk Road characteristic of the Tang dynasty—brought Chinese Buddhism to the peak of its development (attracting many women converts as well). A combination of faith, commerce, and culture enabled her reign, which Wu then used to consolidate China’s power over territories in the east and west.

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RENDEZVOUS WITH THE BUDDHIST ISLAND This same Buddhist diplomacy has been at work in China’s foreign relations for nearly two millennia, with the commercial Silk Road acting as a sociocultural conduit for religious engagement. For example, a 100-foot tall Tang-era Buddha housed at Bingling temple in China’s Gansu province (among a series of grottoes that began construction starting in the early fifth century AD) was built in the Afghan Bamiyan style. The famous Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang (602–664), a contemporary of the reign of Empress Wu, visited the Bamiyan site at the age of twentyseven while construction was likely underway (if not complete). The town of Bamiyan itself was a commercial and religious hub, and Xuanzang described “‘several tens’ of monasteries with ‘several thousand monks.’”69 Historian Llewelyn Morgan explained how the town’s monks . . . shrewdly charged visitors to see their relics, and their monasteries functioned as dormitories, bazaars and banks for merchants. Out of such unexpectedly mercantile zeal were Bamiyan’s great Buddha’s funded.70 Upon hearing the news of the 2001 Taliban-led destruction, a Sri Lankan monk commissioned a historic replica of the Bamiyan Buddha to be carved out of a mountainside near a village.71 The project marked yet another example of how Buddhism has been forging organic connections between China and Sri Lanka since ancient times. The renowned Indian Emperor Ashoka (204-232 BC) believed that Buddhism was “a doctrine that could serve as a cultural foundation for political unity.”72 When Buddhism declined in India, Sri Lanka emerged as the new epicenter for the faith alongside its status as an island nation of international trade and a transit seaport, particularly for Arab and Chinese merchants. In his book The Buddhist Conquest of China, Erik Zürcher writes that when “the king of Ceylon” (Upatissa I, 370-412 AD) learned about the Chinese emperor’s religious zeal around the year 395, he dispatched a monk “to the Chinese court with a valuable Buddha-

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statue of jade . . . to be presented to Emperor Hsiao-wu [Xiaowu Di, 362-396] as a token of his cordial feelings.”73 The Dutch historian concluded that the Buddhist mission marked “the beginning of Sino-Sinhalese relations.”74 More significantly, the king sent “a replica of the Temple of the Tooth”—one of the mutually revered artifacts in both countries—and two female Buddhist monk missionaries to establish the Bhikkhuni (Buddhist nuns) order in the Middle Kingdom.75 Religious and diplomatic relations between China and Sri Lanka were strengthened when King Upatissa’s successor, Mahanama (412-434), dispatched “envoys to offer tribute, and this homage was repeated . . . by three other Sinhalese kings” until 529.76 The Buddhist ties between China and Sri Lanka were really cemented after the celebrated Chinese monk Faxian (or Fa-hsien, 337–422) entered northern India in 399 for the purpose of learning about Buddhist traditions and collecting sacred Buddhist texts.77 The Buddhist scholar stayed in India for thirteen years, spending the last two in Sri Lanka.78 In his splendid Memoirs of the Buddhist Realms (399–414) etched on bamboo tablets and silk, Faxian documented his travels in great detail, noting religious places, ancient customs, Buddhist teachings and national treasures in Sri Lanka.79 The Theravada Buddhist community on the island, considered the custodians of original teachings, was thriving as a paramount center for Buddhist studies that extended far beyond the maritime borders of Sri Lanka, connecting to the Silk Road on land. Here, Faxian observed over twenty-two residential monasteries, including the Abhayagiri monastery—an international institution that would become his home for at least part of his stay—with over “five thousand monks.”80 The traveling monk and his associates eventually arrived at the foothills of the holy mountain, Adam’s Peak. Faxian wrote, “The Hindus regard it [the legendary summit] as the footprint of Siva; the Mohameddans, as that of Adam; and the Buddhists, as in the text—as having been made by Buddha.”81 The Buddhist shrine at the top of the peak was the same place where, a thousand years later, Zheng He would arrive to make offerings to Allah and invoke the blessings of Hindu deities.

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While living in a cave (now popularly known as “Faxian Cave” in Sri Lanka), the Chinese monk described the opulence of a great monastery built by the king: There is in it a hall of Buddha, adorned with carved and inlaid works of gold and silver, and rich in the seven precious substances, in which there is an image (of Buddha) in green jade . . . glittering all over with those substances, and having an appearance of solemn dignity which words cannot express. In the palm of the right hand there is a priceless pearl [parenthesis original].82 Such a “virtuous” application of wealth—to the practice of faith and devotion—was surely most attractive to the Chinese visitors. Of the Perahera (pageantry procession) festivals at this highly regarded monastery of Buddhist studies where Buddha’s sacred tooth relic was displayed for the visitors, the Chinese monk wrote: Ten days beforehand the king grandly caparisons a large elephant, on which he mounts a man who can speak distinctly, and is dressed in royal robes, to beat a large drum, and make the following proclamation . . . Behold! ten days after this, Buddha’s tooth will be brought forth, and taken to the Abhayagiri-vihara. Let all and each, whether monks or laics, who wish to amass merit for themselves, make the roads smooth and in good condition, grandly adorn the lanes and by-ways, and provide abundant store of flowers and incense to be used as offerings to it.83 The celebration thus served to rally both religious servants and commoners to public service. Faxian also noted that the holy city of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka had “many Vaishya elders” who engaged in trading activities with the “Sabaean [Arab] merchants.”84 The monk once remarked that he saw “a merchant presenting as his offering a fan of white silk”85 in the hall of the Jade Buddha at Abhayagiri Monastery—a familiar ritual in China where religion and commerce also interacted for mutual gain.

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Two centuries after Faxian’s visit to the island, the aforementioned Chinese Bamiyan-visitor Xuanzang recorded that there was an arrow surmounted by a stone of great value called “Padmaraga”—a ruby—at the top of the pagoda of the Sacred Tooth of the Buddha, which constantly radiated “a brilliant flashing light.”86 To Chinese, Sri Lanka was known as “the island of jewels” for its precious stones and pearls, and was considered the sanctified land of a Buddhist sovereign.87 According to Sir James Tennent, an “ambassador arrived from Ceylon” in 670 and another emissary carried pearls, golden flowers, precious stones, ivory, and pieces of fine cotton cloth to present to “the Emperor of China” in 742.88 For much of the first millennia, “mutual intercourse became frequent between the two countries,” compiled Sir Tennent; and “some of the Chinese travelers who resorted to Ceylon have left valuable records as to the state of the island.”89 The heavenly reputation of the sacred tooth and the brilliant ruby sparked a period of unusual interest from Chinese rulers toward the Buddhist nation; Venetian explorer Marco Polo’s travelogue described how in 1284, Yuan dynasty Mongol emperor Kublai Khan (1214-1294) was interested in Buddhism and “demanded the king of Lanka one of Buddha’s teeth.”90 The Venetian traveler, after serving seventeen years at the Yuan court, wrote that the emperor “sent ambassadors to Lanka with a request that the king would yield to him possession of ‘the great ruby’” and the king of Ceylon must yield “the alms-dish of Buddha . . . as a gift to Kublai Khan” to show “signal honor to China.”91 Frustrated emissaries, however, returned to China without securing Buddha’s tooth or “the bowl and hair relics.”92 This was the same relic that Zheng He would—two centuries later—attempt to secure during his repeated visits to the island. Even as historians and strategists speculated as to whether the admiral was a Ming “ambassador of peace” or a “military envoy” intending to dominate the maritime Silk Route in the Indian Ocean, the goodwill between Sri Lanka and China has generally been celebrated as an element of Pax Sinica.

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REVIVING CHINA’S MANIFEST DESTINY The Chinese construction of the over $100-million Lotus Tower in Sri Lanka is a classic Buddhist-inspired (through the Lotus Sutra) sky-high telecommunications tower, intended to send a strategically inoculate message that intertwines with the historical bonds between the two nations. The architectural marvel, which resembles a lotus flower rising from Beira Lake in the heart of the largest city of Colombo, is the highest edifice in South Asia and the nineteenth tallest building in the world; once construction is finished, it will reportedly be seen from New Delhi, India. Nervous India and apprehensive America have viewed the Colombo-centric New Silk Road as a projection of rising maritime and technological power in the Indian Ocean region.93 For Beijing, it is a symbol of emerging modern China’s “Peaceful Rise.” With China’s defense modernization, the Lotus Tower represents the ancient power that once radiated from the former Middle Kingdom as Admiral Zheng left his glorious footprints in South and Southeast Asia. The Ming voyages in the “south and western seas” (i.e., the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean) have demonstrated that the notion of a “maritime empire” has never been absent from China’s national core interest.94 Not unlike the Ming efforts, modern China’s strategic and commercial supply lines extend over the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean to include the focal transit port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka—a Chinese-built, billion-dollar facility. Today, over eightyfive percent of China’s energy imports from the Middle East and mineral resources from Africa transit through Sri Lanka and other so-called “string of pearls” ports that Beijing has built or under construction. To realize “national revival,” China has clearly looked to its own Manifest Destiny, partially reflected by the glorious years of Zheng He’s virtual floating city-like voyages. The integration of Buddhism, Confucian and Daoist heritage created a Chinese civilization-state, which Beijing leaders have used advantageously as a cultural instrument for political governance. When President Xi Jinping paid homage to a massive bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping at Lotus Hill Park in Shenzhen (near

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Hong Kong) as his first out-of-Beijing official visit in December 2012, he reaffirmed the importance of naval power. At the nearby military base in the coastal city of Huizhou, Xi emphasized the military aspects of his Chinese dream: This dream can be said to be the dream of a strong nation; and for the military, it is the dream of a strong military. We must achieve the great revival of the Chinese nation, and we must ensure there is unison between a prosperous country and a strong military.95 The chosen “southern tour” locations—a Buddhist theme park on a hill and a PLA base near the South China Sea—were purposeful and symbolic; Xi’s centerpiece for the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation is certainly a manifestation of the past. In retrospect, the history of Sino-American relations presents a rearview mirror image that pervades the cultural and political underpinnings of past and present mindsets within each nation. Leaders and events associated with these notions have certainly changed the course of history. Some historic narratives connect us while others simply inform us, yet the choices that nations and individual leaders have made will always stay with us. As such, both nations express and interpret Manifest Destiny differently; thus, consciousness of history is more important and relevant than ever before. Sino-American diplomacy and maritime affairs need to be understood not solely by official reports generated by Beijing and Washington analysts devoting their energies mostly to numbers and matrices alone. In its annual report on The Military Power of the People’s Republic of China to U.S. Congress, for example, the Pentagon acknowledged that “direct insights into China’s national strategies are difficult to acquire” by simply assessing “China’s intent, analysis of official Chinese strategy documents, and White Papers” only.96 History does matter; so do creative ideas. The realization of a nation’s Manifest Destiny requires an enforcement mechanism. For the United States, this was provided by the Monroe Doctrine; the latter was needed for the credibility of the former. Today, given China’s demonstrated

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commitment to a strong military posture in the East and South China seas, Beijing may indeed be seeking out a Chinese-style Monroe Doctrine to accompany its version of Manifest Destiny.

5 The Ménluó Doctrine and the Asia Pivot Policy Ruling a large kingdom is like cooking small fish; the less stirring up the better.1 Lao Tzu

China’s relationship with international law has long been complex. This is largely due to Beijing’s location at the nucleus of a Sino-centric order based on the ancient vision of a Celestial Empire. As earthly rulers over the civilized world under heaven, at least from their perspective, the Qing dynasty declined to recognize (much less conform to) a body of laws established by external authorities; the imperial court was thus slow to send permanent representatives abroad in implicit acknowledgement of the equality of foreign powers with which the Qing might need to engage in negotiations in perpetuity.2 In Restless Empire: China and the

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World Since 1750, Norwegian historian Odd Westad details how the European imperialist powers had used the concept of international law to justify their subjugation of the Qing state, [whereby] there was little reason for Chinese to believe that any state of theirs would be fully accepted within the Western-based system of major countries.3 For Beijing, foreign laws were largely used by China’s enemies to exact concessions from the imperial court—not to advance China’s national interests. At the same time, the Qing demonstrated a keen interest in foreign laws dating to the time of the first Sino-British Opium War (1839–1842).4 Subsequent encounters with various intervening powers caused imperial advisors to encourage Chinese leaders to study foreign laws in order to make use of them. Despite unease over the possibility of the cession of legal authority to foreign courts, Qing ministers astutely noted the voluntary acceptance of international jurisdiction. “Although the Collected Laws of the Qing Dynasty has been translated in foreign countries,” the ministers pointed out to the emperor, China has never attempted to coerce these foreign countries to follow them. It cannot be that just because a foreign book [has been translated into Chinese] China will be forced to follow its customs.5 By the turn of the nineteenth century, more Chinese leaders began to see the utility of international law. The well-known and adept late Qing diplomat Li Hongzhang, for example, argued, “International law belongs to all the nations of the globe. If they observe it, they may dwell in quiet; if they neglect it, they are sure to have trouble.”6 This recognition may have developed from witnessing foreign diplomats repeatedly employing international law to carve out extraterritorial concessions for overseas nationals living in urban settlements (such as the Italians in Tianjin, the

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Germans in Qingdao, the French in Shanghai, the Portuguese in Macao, and the British in Hong Kong). A greater understanding of the laws that governed those countries (or communities) would allow China to better manage the perceptions, arguments, and behavior of foreign residents as well as to facilitate external commercial transactions with Chinese national entities. Complexities of both the interpretation of Chinese system of law as equal plane with (or superior to) foreign laws and the selection of international laws to national advantage are clearly evident in Beijing’s South China Sea strategy. Whether it is purposeful or not, the Communist Party is actively pursuing a grand strategy in the East and South China Seas. Hence, a useful point of contrast lies with the American foreign policy exercise of the Monroe Doctrine. In fact, Washington also has a lengthy history of reluctance to subject its courts and legal codes to foreign influence— especially when the United States began to assume a high profile role in the southern regions of the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean. Two policy perspectives—the Monroe Doctrine and the concept of Manifest Destiny—can together easily account for American behavior in world affairs at various stages over the past two centuries. Likewise, China’s policy announcements in territorial disputes at sea and recent maritime advancements have increasingly resonated with the very same concepts, pointing to Beijing’s possibly unconscious adaptation of a Chinese-style Monroe, or “Ménluó” Doctrine (a transliteration of the word Monroe) in the “Chinese Caribbean” waters in the South China Sea in particular and the western Pacific Ocean in general.7 In reality, however, Beijing is not employing a Ménluó Doctrine—at least not in the sense that it was first practiced by the United States. Instead, Chinese behavior in the East and South China Seas accords more with the use of a Monroe Doctrine-type strategy as a foundation to defend a more uniformly aggressive course of action. This is not wholly unlike the policy evolution that occurred when the United States used various interpretations of Monroe principles and Manifest Destiny to justify a number of “imperial” exercises and entanglements abroad during the previous centuries. A side-by-side comparison of the historical emergence

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Figure 5.1: The Ménluó Doctrine in the South China Sea Disputes

The Chinese claim for the sovereignty of the South China Sea is shown by a dashed-mark contour line, known as the “nine-dotted” line. The contested body of water in mare sinicum (Chinese Sea) occupies about ninety percent of the 3.5 million square kilometer (approximately 1.5 million square mile) South China Sea on Chinese maps. The potential flashpoints include but are not limited to Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island in Chinese), the Paracel (Xisha) Islands, and the Spratly (Nansha) islands in the resourcerich maritime region. China has engaged bilaterally with a number of the disputing countries such as Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The United States and other stakeholders expressed their interest in multilateral diplomacy within the UN Convention on the Law of Sea.

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and use of the twin policy concepts by American policymakers—in light of the unfolding events in the East and South China Seas— could provide insights into what a genuine Ménluó Doctrine might look like and where it might lead. As a classic case study involving the nineteenth-century annexation of the independent Republic of Texas by the United States demonstrates, the early Monroe Doctrine was employed as a tool of liberty—neither an instrument of oppression nor aggression. In later evolutions, however, the United States was not destined to a noble path of securing freedom. In its place, Washington made deliberate policy choices that led to intensely tragic outcomes (in the Philippines, for example), unsettled neighboring states (such as Mexico and even Canada), and later also caused stakeholders like China to decry the imperial behavior exhibited by American leaders in the western Pacific Ocean. Embarking on a similar path, CPC policymakers might learn from the American experience so as to circumvent costly entanglements while securing peaceful dividends for both China and the other Pacific Rim nations. POLICY FOUNDATIONS: MONROE VERSUS MÉNLUÓ The overlap between Chinese and American policy pronouncements derives from the commonalities of human nature. Convergence between the practices of the emperors of East and West dates back at least as early as the first-to-fifth century Roman rulers, who labeled the Mediterranean Sea as mare nostrum (our sea) or even mare internum (internal sea) on their maps.8 Similarly, Chinese maps from the Ming or Qing dynasties identify most of the present day South and East China Seas as a mare sinicum (Chinese Sea), a body of water dominated by the then-Middle Kingdom for centuries.9 Over the past half century, China has successfully consolidated and secured land borders with India (1962), Vietnam (1979), and the former Soviet Union (1989). In terms of maritime borders, however, a host of countries like Japan, the Koreas, the Philippines, Vietnam, and several other ASEAN member nations have made varying degrees of what are essentially competing mare nostrum claims to both the East and South China Seas. While Chi-

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na’s territorial integrity is roughly fixed on land, its sovereignty over maritime spaces remains in flux. The Chinese mare sinicum claims contest the guidelines for the sovereignty rights of littoral states that are laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The code of maritime rules established over roughly a ten-year period in the 1970s was intended to update and clarify the customs of the seventeenth century “freedom of the seas” (mare liberum) practice of international law. By that practice, the waters roughly three miles off the coastline of any littoral state fall under national law while the waters beyond lie within the jurisdiction of international law. The UN Convention expanded territorial claims to twelve nautical miles, and, among other criteria, delineated the boundaries of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) that granted the nearest littoral state the right to manage and develop natural resources falling within those zones. Ever cautious of supranational influence over American legal code, particularly as the world’s preeminent maritime power, the United States has not ratified the Law of the Sea Convention but generally adheres to all of the treaty’s provisions. China ratified UNCLOS in 1996, but has yet to fully clarify the basis of its claims to various mineral-rich but tiny island groups, reefs, shoals, and atolls in the East and South China Seas that overlap with those of other littoral states. In 1947, two years prior to the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by the Communist Party, the Kuomintang government sketched a “U-shaped dotted line” on a map to outline Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea (a Western designation for the body of water, which is called South Sea in Chinese and East Sea in Vietnamese). Yet the specificity of the “nine-dotted line” remains murky: it is unclear whether some islands fall within or without the dashed domain; the line was inexplicably adjusted in the Gulf of Tonkin by Beijing under Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai; and the line was neither widely known within the CPC government before disputes intensified nor underpinned by geographical coordinates. In 2009, China submitted a similar map to the United Nations and shortly thereafter, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam protested the Chinese territorial interpretation

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as contravening UNCLOS by claiming the “high seas,” or international waters, as China’s own and by failing to clearly define fixed national maritime boundaries. The “nine-dotted line” claim thus has yet to receive recognition from other countries. China’s neighboring states are direct stakeholders in rights of access issues and international maritime matters; so is the U.S. Navy, which routinely patrols the high seas of the region as part of the American postWorld War II security umbrella. Nonetheless, the map is a primary basis for Beijing’s claims to Chinese sovereignty over the whole of the South China Sea—a politically and economically valuable zone for geostrategic purposes that also proffers much-needed natural resources. Beijing has ambiguously approached this claim, invoking suspicion among rival claimants regarding Chinese intentions on two fronts by: a) occasionally affirming a commitment to freedom of navigation concurrent with sovereignty claims, and b) frequently asserting rights to the entire body of water while policing international waters nearby contested islands. The Chinese citation of history in the South China Sea disputes (also employed in East China Sea claims, particularly over the Diaoyu or Senkaku islands dispute with Japan) recalls a sense of grievance that occasionally boils over into unbridled nationalism. In the late nineteenth-century, for instance, the Japanese claim over the uninhabited islands was acquiesced to at a time when the Qing dynasty was embattled with onslaughts from foreign powers, including Tokyo. This fact quickly becomes an extension of twentieth-century grievances over Japan’s wartime behavior in China and continued insensitivity over past war crimes—and cues resentment toward the American military presence that appears to protect the interests of their Japanese “little brother” under the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty of 1960. Reaffirming China’s ancient territorial claims, President Xi Jinping extended the term “core national interests” to cover sovereignty claims to the whole of the China Sea (the east and the south) as recently as January 2013.10 As China has risen in political stature and economic might in the region, Beijing sees the revision of past encroachments as a key measure of power. The more authority Beijing can exercise in its

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own “Chinese Caribbean”—particularly against old adversaries— the more power China projects. Yet this definition of power remains uncomfortably tied to imperial China rather than a modern vision of statecraft. Still, proponents assert that China is simply doing what the United States did within its own Western Hemisphere in the nineteenth century: claiming the right to exert power in its own region, unimpeded by extra-regional nations. The South China Sea in particular has emerged as the theater upon which this Ménluó Doctrine will play out. Beijing’s sovereignty claims generally recall the American experience of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the United States was increasing its contacts with Caribbean and Latin American countries through maritime trade relations and projecting its power outwards to wrest commercial sea lanes from the control of European hegemons. But while evidence of a Ménluó Doctrine is culled from isolated words and deeds, there is no direct strategic parallel with the American invention within the context of the politics of its time. THE EARLY MONROE DOCTRINE, 1823-1890 Not so long after the American colonies shed the constraints of colonialism and established themselves as a modern nation, the United States began to seek out a place in the emerging postcolonial regional order. Suspicious of European countries moving back in to assert control over other newly-established states in the Americas, the United States declared that any action by Old World powers to further colonize or otherwise interfere in lands in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as an act of aggression. In his 1823 State of the Union address, namesake President James Monroe announced that “The American continents [note plural] . . . are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future Colonization by any European Powers.”11 Authored by then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the Monroe Doctrine carved out a sphere for American influence by delineating the Old World from the New. The United States and its neighbors were only recently

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sovereign, and a clear break from the great games of imperial powers in Europe and Britain was needed. Yet the United States had no credible military or naval power to enforce the doctrine. For this reason, the American pronouncement was largely and unsurprisingly discounted in the international arena. Having no ships to compete with European vessels, how could the United States possibly defend its claim? Still, Washington’s demand received tacit support from British Royal Navy, which hoped to undermine Spanish influence over Latin American markets through free trade—as opposed to mercantilist Spanish policies that compelled her colonies to trade only with Spain and on terms that favored Spanish merchants—and maintain the budding Pax Brittanica that secured the neutrality of the seas. In fact, the British foreign secretary had already proposed that Washington and London issue a joint declaration to warn off other powers from seeking to reassert imperial control in Latin America—a sort of partnership between one-time enemies. Washington declined the proposal for the sake of appearances (John Quincy Adams opposed the idea on the grounds that American foreign policy would trail in the wake of British interests). For their part, Latin American countries received the Monroe Doctrine positively as it paved the way for British backing for their independence from Spain and, importantly, the United States posed no real threat to Latin American sovereignty. The doctrine thus became a tool for neighboring countries to draw support from a powerful but relatively benign Britain in order to realize their own interests. The historic context for the origin of the foreign policy positioning of the United States as a regional balancer against more experienced and established powers was the rivalry between Britain and France in the American backyard. In the early years of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States even demanded that the British Royal Navy discontinue operating in the Western Hemisphere. The mandate was promptly ignored as Britain (and other European powers such as the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish) maintained enduring linkages with a number of colonized island nations in the Caribbean and the still-disputed (between Argentina and the United Kingdom) Falkland Islands. The United States had little choice

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but to accept the status quo, which served American trade interests alongside British ones and helped the promising U.S. and Latin American economies find their footing. Despite the policy pronouncement, Washington notably failed to respond to subsequent requests for support from Latin American countries facing foreign invasions. The evolving U.S. relations with Central and South American countries were thus defined primarily in commercial terms. THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS AND MANIFEST DESTINY IN ACTION The United States, however, objected more resolutely to British involvement with the newly-created Republic of Texas. Abolitionist London hoped the independent republic would free its slaves and trade with the wealthy United Kingdom in order to seriously challenge the robust cotton industry of the American south—a possibility feared by Southern planters, who led the drive to incorporate Texas into the Union and strengthen the slave-backed southern economy. In order to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, the United States expanded westward, linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to “manifest” America’s “destiny” by claiming lands on the continent that remained under British control. A general idea rather than a specific strategy, Manifest Destiny was short lived as a launching pad for domestic policy due to the expansion of slavery among other issues, such as the logistical and social difficulties of incorporating the Native American tribal lands of the west into American society. Despite all this, the idea would have an enduring impact on American foreign policy; the United States accordingly warned the British away from Hawaii, in the western Pacific, before beginning the process of Texan annexation as part of the Monroe Doctrine. The presence of the Texas Republic—as a sovereign nation lying at the center of the United States—invited intervention from Britain and France. When both countries volunteered to help negotiate a peace treaty between Texas and Mexico, which had lost a war over Texan independence in 1836, the United States sprang

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into action by beginning the process of annexation in 1845. Washington had attempted to negotiate the purchase of the disputed territory between the two countries but failed. Shortly after Texas was admitted to the Union as a slave state only days before the New Year of 1845, the United States declared war on Mexico. Following the capture of Mexico City hardly sixteen months later, in 1848, Washington negotiated for additional territory—which stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean and included much of today’s western United States—that then became part of a new dispute between Texas, the federal government, and New Mexico territory. The compromise of 1850 provided the lands to become federal territories in return for Washington’s assumption of the debt incurred by the Texas Republic. The annexation of the Texas Republic (1836-1850) was overwhelmingly favored by Texans who already identified as Americans despite a lack of familiarity with diplomatic affairs or the workings of Washington. Since the early nineteenth century, the Mexican government had encouraged immigration from the southern United States to populate the sparse area, creating a buffer zone between central Mexico and the Great Comanche Empire that abutted and controlled the vast plains area of the American frontier. But the Spanish extension of equal rights, subsequently upheld by Mexico, fomented dissent among the often slaveholding immigrants (when Texans formally declared independence from Mexico in 1836, the Texas Constitution expressly permitted slavery).12 Carefully-selected Anglo-American empresarios— business entrepreneurs or those otherwise attracted to the area by land grants—had been charged by Mexico with heading small colonies to make poor immigrants adapt to Mexican laws, convert to Roman Catholicism, and learn Spanish. Instead, these settlers stubbornly continued to practice the cultural norms they had observed since birth. Under Mexican policies to “invite and call” foreigners, the population of Texas had grown to about 25,000 people by 1830— the same sort of hardnosed frontier people that had settled in Kentucky and Tennessee.13 In the years that followed, Mexico profited from trade along the Texan coastline while attempting to end

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American immigration as tensions increased between the new arrivals and their hosts. By 1836, Texans were openly in revolt. The first president of the Texas Republic, Sam Houston, advocated annexation to the United States but also kept his options open by exploring the possibility of a Texan British protectorate. Washington was not amendable to the idea of annexation, believing (accurately) that the act would draw the United States into war with Mexico. After Britain declined to establish diplomatic relations with Texas over its refusal to give up slavery, the republic teetered on the brink of losing its independence altogether as Mexican troops led by Santa Anna invaded the territory. As bankrupt Texas appealed for military aid from Washington, abolitionist John Quincy Adams was firmly opposed to both aid and annexation for the slave republic. Texas, said Adams, legally belonged to Mexico and American involvement would lead to an unjust war with Mexico and energize the issues of slavery in the United States.14 Stonewalled by Washington, Texan President Houston begged Britain to intervene in late 1842. In a savvy turn of events, Santa Anna directed a proposal to Houston suggesting Texas’ recognition of Mexican sovereignty in exchange for autonomy. The Mexican general knew the offer would be shared with British diplomats in an attempt to broker a peace agreement; the idea of two republics helmed by one government would almost certainly be supported by a British Empire looking to extend its influence in Central and South America. But the Texas public was not ready to settle with Mexico and the proposal was scuttled. Still, demonstrating the lengths of his frustration with the lack of American support, Houston was publicly referring to the United States as an “enemy” and Britain as a “friend” in 1843.15 As news of Texan dealings with London drifted northward, Washington finally took notice. President John Tyler—hoping to restore economic and political balance between the northern states and the lagging yet fiery south—viewed Texan annexation as key to reviving his flagging political career. The Texas public had resented the idea of ceding sovereignty to Britain (with whom they felt no affiliation) and forced Houston to reengage with Washington, which still dragged its feet at extending the status of full

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statehood. The issue finally exploded on the national scene during the election year of 1844; leading politicians took up the cause, advocating Southern secession from the Union to join with Texas and form an independent cotton republic. Suddenly, the annexation of Texas appeared to threaten the Union itself—a precursor to the Civil War. When Santa Anna formally declared war on Texas that same year, British diplomats cited the costs too great and washed their hands of the messy affair.16 In the meantime, James Polk won the U.S. presidential election on a pro-annexation platform. Eight years after the Texan Republic’s first proposal, Congress went ahead and approved a bill for annexation that passed in the Senate by just one vote. The Texas Congress then enthusiastically embraced its own bill for annexation in mid-1845, and Texas was formally integrated into the United States as a state by the end of the year. Ironically, this outcome was perhaps most disappointing to the Monroe Doctrine’s author, abolitionist John Quincy Adams. When the Texas annexation document was submitted to the Senate for ratification, Adams morosely observed that “with it went the freedom of the human race.”17 This historical episode is meant to demonstrate the Monroe Doctrine in operation across the broader regional context. At the level of neighboring states, the annexation of Texas was not a matter of the United States exercising authority over a disputed territory. Instead, it was a domestic Texas-Mexico issue in which Anglo-Americans in Texas saw their political future intrinsically linked to that of the United States. Washington was reluctant to act and be drawn into war with Mexico (or risk a civil war over slavery) until the greater American public favored the political gains of doing so. Annexation occurred as a treaty between equals— approved by consensus on both sides—despite the ostensibly weaker position of Texas. Finally, the federal government compromised with the State of Texas over territory gained from the Mexican-American in reaffirmation of relative equality rather than as an imperial power dictating colonial terms. In the Western Hemisphere, it was widely understood that the Texas annexation manifested the full extent of Monroe rhetoric. While the doctrine generally stated that America would act unilat-

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erally to prevent the intervention of extra-regional powers in the Western Hemisphere, the United States was incapable of executing this threat alone: the annexation had been a bilateral act between two willing parties (Texas and Washington); the would-be powerful meddler (Britain) had been self-effacing; and Washington had demonstrably lacked the political will to antagonize a neighboring state (Mexico) until domestic public sentiment all but forced movement. The real limits of the doctrine were the reason behind its popularity among the Latin American countries, which recognized that they were hardly substituting one aggressor (the United States) for another (European powers).18 But as time progressed, the doctrine was combined with a new notion that would alter its evolution alongside its perception in Latin America. This concept gave rise to a period of American imperialism that saw notions of historical exceptionalism and destiny, cultural superiority, and the rise of the United States to regional and global supremacy combine to mark an embarrassing and bloody era of American history. IMPERIAL TEMPTATIONS, 1890-1913 In 1845, following the election of James Polk to the presidency for his expansionist vision, the phrase “Manifest Destiny” was introduced by John O’Sullivan in his Annexation editorial promoting the takeover of Texas and Oregon Country (jointly occupied by American settlers and British traders) to the United States.19 The quasi-religious philosophical concept had clear Puritanical roots that tended to articulate the virtues of the American experiment and the ethos of American exceptionalism, which included a mission to extend these values to other countries by way of American foreign policy and commerce (liberal democratization) and a God-appointed destiny to do His work as a tool of the hand of Providence.20 As highlighted elsewhere, these ideas elicited less-than-flattering behavior from the federal government, such as President Andrew Jackson’s treatment of the Native American tribes in the infamous Trail of Tears episode of 1838–1839. Senator Albert Beveridge explicitly connected white Americans to a sense of divine predestination in a self-congratulatory

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1900 speech to the United States Senate titled “The Philippine Question,” saying, God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Tectonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns . . . the Anglo-Saxon [Americans] was destined to rule the world . . . the superiority of the ‘white race’ is the foundation on which the Anti-Indian Movement organizers and right-wing helpers rest their efforts to dismember Indian tribes.21 This famous yet uncomfortable and historically documented speech expanded these principles to U.S. foreign policy as the vociferous senator referenced the Philippine-American War, elaborating, The Philippines are ours forever . . . and just beyond the Philippines lie China’s illimitable markets. . . . We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee under God, of the civilization of the world. . . . China is our natural customer. The Philippines give us a base at the door of the East. . . . It has been charged that our conduct of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse. Senators, remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals.22 Such sentiments partly backed the relatively less controversial annexations of the other Spanish territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, and Cuba (as well as the origins of the Hawaiian annexation), all of which coincided with the late nineteenth century period of imperialism. In his article “China’s Monroe Doctrine” for The Diplomat, Professor James Holmes explicitly connects the American “rise to hemispheric supremacy” at the end of the nineteenth century with temptations of political overreach.23 This was true to the extent that the professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College writes,

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In 1895, the Grover Cleveland administration involved itself in a border dispute along the Venezuelan frontier. In one tart diplomatic note, Secretary of State Richard Olney informed the British government—one of the disputants— that the United States’ ‘fiat’ was ‘law’ throughout the Western Hemisphere.24 Such declarative language did not go over well with the other inhabitants of the hemisphere. But an America enamored with hegemonic power carried it even further, exacting painful costs in blood and treasure. Nowhere was this more clear than in the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, whose sovereignty was in dispute following American purchase of the island chain from Spain, which lasted from 1899-1902 (although resistance to occupation continued until 1914) and resulted in widespread destruction, famine, and death from disease and violence. A quarter of a million lives were lost and reports of terror tactics and torture on both sides—in addition to concentration camps—began to surface in Western media.25 Famous American author Mark Twain, in particular, vocally opposed the invasive action on the grounds that it denied Filipinos the right to choose their own destiny.26 In the end, it was the American employment of a “policy of attraction” proffering substantial self-government alongside programs for social and economic development that aided U.S. military efforts most in ending the war.27 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR: CUBA AND THE PHILIPPINES While the annexation of Texas demonstrated how the fates of nearby realms can be voluntarily merged to that of a philosophic empire—ideally rendering the use of force obsolete—the United States’ later annexation of the Philippines demonstrates the opposite. Shortly after the American Civil War, the nearby colony of Cuba fell at odds with her imperial ruler, Spain. For ten years, Cuban Nationalists waged a revolutionary war against a corrupt,

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unyielding regime. Few gains were made by the revolutionaries in the end, and grievances remained unresolved. When war broke out again in 1895, Spain reacted decisively and sent troops to the island. By 1896, Cubans were dying in droves under concentrationlike conditions imposed by Spanish forces. As reports of the atrocities reached the American public, large segments began to identify Cuban revolutionaries as waging their own War of Independence and supported American intervention on the behalf of Cuban nationalists.28 Yet President Grover Cleveland, who occupied the White House until 1897, categorically refused to involve the United States in Cuba’s internal affairs—so much so that he stated he would veto any Congressional declaration of war. In an attempt to stave off the American press, Spain backed away from its brutal Cuban crackdown by recalling the cruel General Valeriano Weyler in 1897 (his principle supporter Prime Minister Antonio Canovas of Spain was assassinated in the same year).29 As Spanish settlers rioted in Cuba over the looming possibility of Cuban independence, the United States dispatched a warship to the area to provide reconnaissance as well as aid Americans on the island who might need to quickly evacuate. The sight of a powerful American boat, the USS Maine, pulling into Havana was not welcomed by the Spanish who immediately believed that Washington was attempting to intervene in the situation. As one of the ships turned around the harbor in the days that followed, it suddenly exploded and three quarters of the 350 American sailors onboard were killed.30 While the cause of the explosion was undetermined, U.S. newspapers quickly alleged that Spain had deliberately mined the ship. In short notice, the American public was ready to go to war. When the dust of the Spanish-American War settled three months later, the United States was the new holder of territories in Guam. President William McKinley had not wanted to engage Spain but had faced public criticism from the bellicose Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, with enhanced public pressure. Within ten days of the USS Maine explosion, Roosevelt issued orders to a U.S. naval squadron docked in Hong Kong to

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immediately attack Manila—the capital of the Spanish Philippines—should the United States declare war on Spain. When the United States did go to war in late April of 1898 (one day after Spain declared war on the United States), the unkempt and illprepared Spanish armada was caught by surprise and all but annihilated by the U.S. naval fleet.31 The United States wanted to portray its intervention in Cuba as the rescue of a downtrodden people fighting for freedom from tyranny. But in doing so, the United States simply appeared to be replacing the Spanish as a colonial overlord in Cuba. To counter this impression, Congress passed an amendment that stated the United States would not attempt to annex Cuba. The simultaneous attack on the Philippines as well as the U.S. Army invasion of Puerto Rico, however, did little to uphold the claim that the United States was not pursuing an imperial agenda. When American ground troops commanded by Brigadier General Arthur MacArthur (his son General Douglas MacArthur was also prominently associated with the Philippines with his “I Shall Return” speech in 1954) led an attack at the Battle of Manila in 1898, Spanish soldiers quickly gave way.32 By the end of the year, the United States had negotiated the purchase of the Philippine archipelago for $20 million from Spain.33 Unlike the annexation of Texas, the news of impending American citizenship did not go over well with Filipino insurgents who quickly and angrily revolted. Ironically, the “Philippine War of Independence” (1899-1902) would not be fought against Spain but against the United States.34 Conditions in civilian internment camps erected apparently for protection against guerilla groups who could not have been dissimilar to those of the Spanish camps in Cuba. The rate of death was high due to disease, proffering up propaganda materials for American media battles of so-called “yellow journalism.”35 Casualty estimates from the war range from the tens of thousands to one million, and the Philippines did not gain independence from the United States until after World War II.36 General Arthur MacArthur, who had led the ground invasion of Manila, offered a telling statement in 1902 testimony before the United States Senate that illuminated American interests in the dis-

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tant territory: “The archipelago affords an ideal strategic position. It is the stepping stone to commanding influence—political, commercial and military supremacy in the East.”37 But while the advance of westward expansion yielded clear advantages for achieving an “Imperial Dream,” America’s involvement on the archipelago had not been sought out or welcomed; the inhumane conditions of camps and the use of scorched earth campaigns exacted a heavy toll on civilians who, if not succumbing to disease, were often killed without regard for gender or age.38 If anything, this episode demonstrated that the benefits of Manifest Destiny of the United States were limited to those Anglo-Saxons within the North American continent. Despite employing a “Big Stick” policy that aggressively reinterpreted the Monroe Doctrine for a modern era, the Theodore Roosevelt administration handled 1904 interventions in small Caribbean and Latin American countries that owed debts to European collectors with more skill: the White House intervened only in Santo Domingo; “went out of its way to acknowledge Latin American countries as equals” by inviting them to the 1907 Hague Peace Conference; and offered repeated assurances to Argentina, Brazil and Chile that they were “co-guarantors of the Monroe Doctrine.”39 Professor Holmes quotes Argentina’s Foreign Minister Luis Drago (in 1902) describing the Monroe Doctrine as the traditional policy [by which] the United States without accentuating superiority or seeking preponderance condemned the oppression of the nations of this part of the world and the control of their destinies by the great Powers of Europe.40 Later instances used the doctrine to legitimize American intrusion in Latin American affairs in contexts that warranted little or no real threat from European powers. The exploitation of these opportunities—unlike in the Philippines—quickly and rightfully turned American neighbors to the south away from tolerating any forceful intervention from the United States.

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CULTURAL DESTINY IN THE FAR EAST Across the Pacific Ocean in Qing dynasty, many Chinese observed the disappointing realization of the American outreach of Manifest Destiny in foreign lands. Japan’s entanglements in the region—involving its own sort of westward-looking Manifest Destiny—contain similarities with the more aggressive corollaries of the Monroe Doctrine and indirectly contributed to the disastrous Boxer Rebellion. The 1899-1901 revolutionary movement—led by the anti-foreign, pro-nationalist Righteous and Harmonious Society (or the Yihetuan Movement)—proved disastrous for the Qing. The Boxers were a centuries-old secret society whose members practiced a form of shadow boxing and believed in supernatural powers to bring about the end of the privileges enjoyed by foreigners— related to the Opium Wars, territorial concessions, and the influence of evangelical missionaries—extended by the Qing court. The incursions of bloody peasant rebels grew into widespread attacks against foreigners, westernized Chinese, and especially Chinese Christians; the violent confrontations soon inflicted collateral damage among the thousands upon Chinese and foreign troops as well as non-Christian Chinese.41 Despite the losses, the de facto Qing ruler, Empress Dowager Cixi, was initially reluctant to act. Foreign encroachment by Western powers, Russia and Japan on Chinese territory had long been troublesome; Christian proselytizing that was often protected under treaties written to the advantage of overseas powers had shaken the social order within village communities. In Restless Empire, Odd Westad recounts in detail the years leading up to and surpassing the Boxer Rebellion and notes how Japan drastically reshaped Chinese self-perceptions. The SinoJapanese War of 1894-1895 provided an example of a former Chinese tributary defeating the finest of the Qing empire’s “bestsupplied and best-trained Western-style troops, augmented by traditional Manchu cavalry, fighting with swords and lances” on the Korean peninsula humiliatingly, and in short order.42 Japan’s Meiji Restoration had given rise to vast changes in Japanese political and social structure; Western concepts of the modern state, citizenship

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and individual rights emerged (and later made their way into the works and dialogue of Chinese intelligentsia in a reversal of historical influence). The increasing Western profile in the Far East region seemed to focus squarely on China just as the empire’s political situation grew progressively chaotic and disorderly under the Qing. Facing down a series of internal rebellions over a period of decades, the distracted Cixi court was ceding ever more territorial control to Western powers. For many Japanese onlookers, China was “an empire in name only.”43 Japan thus aimed to expand its commercial, political, and military power in the region to stem the onslaught of Western interests. At the same time, some Chinese observed the changes taking place in Japanese society and its increasingly industrial landscape, and noticed Japan as “the example . . . of an Asian society transforming itself into something stronger and better” by making quick use of Western knowledge and technology.44 In foreign affairs, describes Westad, Japan’s main aim in the Meiji era was to abolish the unequal treaties that Western countries had imposed on it in the decade before the Restoration. But the Meiji leaders thought that in order to do so, Japan had to engage itself more fully on the Asian mainland, showing that it could conduct new forms of diplomacy with its neighbors. While building its new, centralized, and Western-trained army and navy, the Meiji oligarchs began collecting information on how they could restructure international affairs in East Asia to strengthen Japan in its bid for autonomy vis-à-vis the Western powers.45 Eying to the westward enlargement through Chinese mainland, Japan shrewdly envisioned a Manifest Destiny-style expansion of power to achieve the American-like means to a Monroe Doctrinetype endgame. Disregarding their own experience with unequal treaties, Japan attempted to impose the same conditions on China while increasing its position along the Chinese coast. Like Western powers,

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Japanese scholars concluded that “China was not a possible partner in international affairs because of its lack of a reliable legal system.”46 These tensions played out in China-leaning Korea, which was literally and figuratively caught in the middle as a “key state in the Sino-centric international system in the region.”47 Japan’s better armed and organized forces cut down the waves of Qing troops, and its tactical strategies overwhelmed the superior Chinese navy: “what should not happen and therefore could not happen in a Confucian world—that a younger brother beat and denigrated his older brother—happened nonetheless.”48 The Sino-centric order of the region had been upended. But Meiji leaders were disappointed to learn that China’s defeat was not necessarily Japan’s gain. European countries worked alongside the United States to prevent “domination of a region by one power, and an Asian power at that.”49 Japan had failed to realize that Western powers could join forces against it, just as they had done and would do again with China. Further resolving to wrest regional predominance back to its rightful and deserving cultural center, Japanese scholar Tokutomi Soho touted with eerie accuracy the precepts of American Manifest Destiny in 1896: The countries of the Far East falling prey to the great powers of Europe is something that our nation will not stand for. . . . We have a duty to radiate the bright light of civilization beyond our shores and bring the benefits of civilization to our neighbors. We have a duty to guide backward countries [China] to the point of being able to govern themselves. We have a duty to maintain peace in East Asia for this purpose. As a man has his calling, so too does a nation have its mission.50 By the time of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, the reform-averse Qing court felt that China had already conceded too much to her enemies to great harm. The empress needed to resurrect and strengthen her Confucian character to quiet rebellions from within and stave off Tokyo and the West. In response to the Boxer attacks, foreign troops comprising what may have been the world’s

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first “coalition of the willing” (identified by Westad as “an alliance of the main Western countries and Japan directed against Chinese barbarity and against the Qing state’s unwillingness to uphold civilized norms of government and public behavior”)51 landed on Chinese soil ostensibly to protect foreign residents in Beijing, where Boxers had burnt foreign churches, schools, hospitals and homes. When the Eight Nation Alliance consisting of AustriaHungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States invaded China in August 1900, Empress Dowager Cixi appealed to patriotism as the Chinese identity was in question—and declared war in defense of the Middle Kingdom. The arrival of Allied troops in Beijing marked a massacre of civilians under the notion that anyone could be a Boxer in disguise. Participating countries were scandalized back home when reports of the behavior of commanders and soldiers were leaked. After the imperial court fled to Xi’an (the ancient capital) through the unknown interior over impenetrable mountainous terrain buffered by Chinese Muslims, vast looting occurred under the auspices of collecting compensation mainly on behalf of slaughtered Christians. Following the taking over of the capital, the Allied forces looted the city and ransacked the imperial Forbidden City; the accumulated riches found their way back to Europe.52 Of the wide-spread violence, robbery and rape, one British journalist, George Lynch, is widely quoted as having said, “There are things that I must not write, and that may not be printed in England, which would seem to show that this Western civilization of ours is merely a veneer over savagery.”53 Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy criticized the “Christian brutality” of the atrocities committed by Russians and Germans as an unjust and cruel “slaughter.”54 His American counterpart Mark Twain publicly mocked the morality of Christian missionaries in a 1901 anti-imperialism essay prompted by the Boxers titled “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.”55 As a defeated nation, China agreed to pay reparations totaling around what would be roughly US$61 billion today.56 The United States feared that the other imperial powers would marginalize American companies in Chinese markets. Eschewing

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formalized areas of control—an act too distasteful for the former British colony and perhaps too daunting for a not-yet global power—the United States instead used an Open Door Policy to uphold free trade principles in order to secure American participation in the competition for Chinese markets. In theory, trade from all countries would pass freely through the spheres of influence of all Western powers in China (through a sort of free-trade zone) and the great powers would uphold China’s “territorial and administrative integrity.”57 In practice, the American policy was largely ignored. Still, the United States refused to be pushed out of China completely, and the waning Chinese empire became an “object of the American desire for reform and modernization.”58 This was particularly true after China became a republic in 1912, which made it an attractive common ground for Americans who went onto establish or lead some of China’s top institutions today, including Peking University (formerly Beijing’s Yanjing University), Nanjing University (Nanjing’s Jinling University), the University of Shanghai (Kujiang University), and Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou’s Lingnan University).59 Yet these admirable initiatives contrasted with the reality of American race-based immigration restrictions. Chinese labor had been recruited to build American railroads in the 1860s and a large number of Chinese immigrants had arrived in the United States during the California Gold Rush; once the gold dried up and the railways were built, growing anti-Chinese sentiment inspired a series of exclusionary immigration acts. Chinese immigrants both within and without the United States came up against increasingly tough restrictions, which were not imposed on migrants from other countries. With the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, a cartoon with the subheading “The Only One Barred Act: ‘We must draw the line somewhere, you know’” captured the political emotions of the moment just as the first great upsurge in commercial human smuggling took swing as a result.60 As Westad puts it, Ordinary Chinese could not understand why European colonialists, having taken control of whole continents, would not even admit Chinese immigrants into these territories . . .

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they realized that . . . China was open to U.S. capital, but the United States was closed to the Chinese people.61 While the United States continued to preach the gospel of free trade and human dignity, many Chinese held a cynical view toward true American intentions—a first impression that reverberated for generations. By 1912, the Qing could no longer stave off revolutionary forces and uprisings at home. In an imperial edict that sounded not entirely unlike the Declaration of Independence in its recognition of popular sovereignty, the would-be child Emperor Puyi ceded the Mandate of Heaven through the striking words of the Empress Dowager Cixi: It is now evident that the hearts of the majority of the people are in favor of a republican form of government . . . from the preference of the people’s hearts, the will of heaven can be discerned. . . . We and His Majesty the Emperor hereby vest sovereignty in the people and decide in favor of a republican form of constitutional government. Let Yuan Shikai organize with full powers a provisional republican government and confer with the Republican Army as to the methods of union, thus assuring peace to the people and tranquility to the empire, and forming to one Great Republic of China by union heretofore, of the five peoples, namely Manchus, Chinese Mongols, Mohammedans [Muslims], and Tibetans together with their territory in its integrity.62 The words of Cixi identified a problem that would plague China throughout most of the twentieth century: What would modern China look like if there were to be an empire of diverse peoples coupled together by geography and shared traditions? The sociopolitical order that had underpinned the Chinese imperial rule at home and within the region for millennia was at least nominally removed. At the same time, Japan had provisionally been kept at bay with its foiled experience of “Manifest Destiny” to achieve

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imperial aspirations. However, the fate of China and its people was far from certain as it entered an era of republicanism. THE GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY AND BEYOND Back in the United States, the aggressive Theodore Roosevelt corollary of the Monroe Doctrine (more accurately described as a departure from the Monroe tradition) was eventually replaced by a Good Neighbor policy under Franklin D. Roosevelt that “served the U.S. and common interests far better.”63 Initiated in 1933, the Good Neighbor policy emphasized cooperation and trade as the basis on relations between the United States and Latin America in order to maintain stability within the hemisphere. In his Inaugural Address, President Roosevelt stated: “In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.”64 During the same year, American diplomats reiterated support for policies of non-intervention (in which no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another) and opposition to armed interventions of any kind. These statements complemented feelings of isolationism at home, where Americans felt that the United States had paid too dearly for its involvement in World War I and happily rejected American membership in the League of Nations immediately following the war. In 1934, the Roosevelt administration set up the Export-Import Bank, which signaled American economic reengagement with the world following the Great Depression and focused particularly on Latin America as part of the Good Neighbor policy. Mutually beneficial Reciprocal Trade Agreements (RTAs)—trade liberalization instruments whose processes provided a model for later WTO rounds of trade negotiations—were struck with a number of Latin American countries. The most obvious marker of a change in American foreign policy was the absence of trade agreements with Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay—all of which were important markets for U.S. trade. Since the U.S. defense of Latin American countries was intended to secure American commercial

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interests in those markets, this was a demonstration of the retaliation-free autonomy of those states. When American oil companies were nationalized in Mexico and Bolivia in the late 1930s, Washington negotiated diplomatic solutions. In both efforts, the threat of the use of force was not employed. While the United States remained the most powerful country in the Western Hemisphere, the newly tolerant Latin America yielded to American interests. During the years leading up to World War II, the United States sought to limit the influence of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy over Latin America by propagating a common Pan-American identity that differentiated the Western Hemisphere from Europe (an idea which took much firmer hold in the 1980s). This signaled a departure from traditional and prior iterations of the Monroe Doctrine. As World War II loomed, the need for a multilateral instrument—an international institution—to mediate disputes became inescapably clear. This time, the American public was willing to not just support but found the United Nations. As a result of “Good Neighbor” actions that renounced the American right to intervene in Cuban affairs, in addition to the 1934 recall of U.S. Marines from Haiti and Nicaragua, Latin America was widely supportive of American foreign policy by the end of World War II. In the wake of war, the United States added, for the first time, economic instruments as a key part of its foreign policy aims in the hopes of avoiding a third global conflict and prevented a return to pre-war economic turmoil at home by ensuring the existence of markets for trade. With a seemingly endless array of global interests, the United States returned to a more traditional policy stance and practice. In Latin America, American reluctance to use force to defend democracy under Roosevelt had seen a string of dictatorships arise; as the Cold War gained traction, the United States felt it could no longer afford a passive, non-interventionist approach to regional and world affairs and quickly ushered in a new era of American intervention. Manifest Destiny principles were revived in the portrayal of the Cold War as a battle between good and evil. Subsequently, the United States was drawn into two major conflicts in the Korean Peninsula and the Southeast Asia as the spread of communism continued in the Far East. The founding conviction

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of an “Empire of Liberty” was in the consciousness of political leaders as they endeavored to reshape the world with Jeffersonian aspirations. These efforts harkened back to the words of Senator William Seward—a diehard believer in Manifest Destiny and the secretary of state under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson—who explained, The Atlantic States, through their commercial, social, and political affinities and sympathies, are steadily renovating the Governments and the social constitutions of Europe and of Africa. The Pacific States must necessarily perform the same sublime and beneficent functions in Asia. If, then, the American people shall remain an undivided nation, the ripening civilization of the West, after a separation growing wider and wider for four thousand years, will, in its circuit of the world, meet again and mingle with the declining civilization of the East on our own free soil, and a new and more perfect civilization will arise to bless the earth, under the sway of our own cherished and beneficent democratic institutions.65 The power of such belief largely drove the mindsets of several White House leaders, more recently both Bush administrations in the two Gulf Wars. In his second Inaugural Address on January 20, 2005, President George W. Bush defended his decisions within a broader framework of democracy promotion in the Middle East; he had acted on the founding conviction of “a new order of the ages,” the president explained, and the promise of “an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled” in the world.66 In 2005, American author and journalist Tom Wolfe censured the then-president’s second inaugural speech for laying out an updated version of the Theodore Roosevelt corollary. This time, he wrote, the Western hemisphere had been replaced with the entire world, and President Bush was declaring that “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.”67 This Messiah complex, said Wolfe, was manifesting as “America’s destiny and duty to bring . . . salvation to all mankind.”68

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All in all, the ideas of Manifest Destiny are firmly imbedded in the American ethos. A strong sense of purpose-driving nation can act (and has acted) as a unifying force for good. When practiced as a reciprocal moral philosophy in the absence of threat, the Monroe Doctrine can yield mutually beneficial results. When practiced as a unilateral religious, racial or cultural calling, it can combine with the use of coercive force to become an excuse for imperialism. Historically, the ideas of exceptionalism imbedded in these concepts became a tool that allowed American leaders to justify wielding the prejudices of their times as fulfillment of a divine mission that demonstrated superiority over other peoples. While political rhetoric changed as these prejudices became socially unacceptable, it is only natural that countries such as China would decry the imperial, patronizing tone that has at times infused American foreign policy. Still, the Annexation of Texas demonstrates that a Monroe Doctrine can be employed without the distasteful elements of Manifest Destiny. The Good Neighbor policy highlights a time period in which American policy was applauded rather than resented within its nearest region of influence; it also marked a period when the United States engaged politically with multilateral institutions and economically with in a more robust yet restrained way, recognizing the utility of legally-binding, power-constraining multinational frameworks to act as an agent of American values over threatening behavior in bilateral relations. At times, the United States even set aside its immediate commercial or political interests to acknowledge the autonomy and rights of weaker states. THE CASE FOR A CHINESE MÉNLUÓ DOCTRINE The above conclusions provide a framework for a course of action for China—a country that is also increasing in stature within its hemisphere while facing its own domestic economic issues and political challenges. The emotions elicited by Chinese claims over a number of disputed territories and the associated behavior within the East and South China Seas recall elements of a Monroe-style doctrine backed by a westward, Manifest Destiny-sort drive. As in

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America, Chinese history attests to a strong sense of cultural, ethnic, and even quasi-religious superiority; and just as nineteenth century United States, China is the would-be regional hegemon that might balance world powers. But China’s hemispheric rise has not been unaccompanied by the perception of a “China threat,” and the opacity of Beijing’s perplexing intentions in regional forums stokes the fires of mistrust among neighboring states. While large swathes of the Far East are still emerging from colonial rule, they are doing so under the memory of the grievances of World War II; China is itself seemingly acting with the remembrance of regional Sino-centric order—an inherently imperial one. This does not square with China’s appeal for more “democracy” in global affairs—the same kind of hypocrisy for which Beijing has often (and not unjustly) criticized Washington. French author Jean-François Susbielle identifies an opportunity for Beijing to establish a Pax Sinica (Chinese Peace) by adopting a positivesum Monroe Doctrine—a departure from Pax Americana or Britannica—that will see “peaceful [Chinese] hegemony” in the South China Sea.69 This Ménluó Doctrine, one that is true to its traditional Monroe counterpart, would rely on careful diplomacy and tact to exploit opportunities to its advantage. Countries such as Japan and South Korea, says Susbielle, welcome American troops only as long as they serve national interests—interests that are often shaped by China’s behavior and tacit support for an increasingly belligerent North Korea, which justifies the U.S. military presence in the region. When both China and North Korea kept lower profiles, Japanese and Korean populations were far less welcoming of American armed forces. The populations of both Japan and South Korea are sensitive to the imperial aspects of American presence, but both prefer more benevolent American influence to what looks like an increasingly aggressive wielding of power by China. Susbielle cites “tact and subtlety” as “precisely [what’s] missing in China’s dealing with its U-shaped territorial claim in the South China Sea” and what has made an American presence welcome—just as Latin American countries once welcomed the more benign British over the Spanish and accordingly supported the early Monroe Doctrine.70

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A genuine Ménluó Doctrine might find acquiescing to status quo interpretations of international law better serves China’s presumable aim of limiting—rather than increasing—America’s presence in the region just as the Monroe Doctrine sought to check European influence in the Western Hemisphere. Such a doctrine would help bring Chinese statecraft into a stage that better reflects its increasing status in global affairs, strategically incorporating elements of a Good Neighbor policy that might otherwise engender goodwill and support for Chinese policies in the region. The logistical feasibility of a Pax Sinica is a long way off, but a Chinese Ménluó Doctrine might channel the efforts of today into the aims of tomorrow. In this scenario, the United States would occupy the role formerly played by Britain—the underwriter and physical guarantor of free trade policies and shipping routes between the Western and the Far East. This parallel would see Washington—rather than London—implicitly backing Beijing’s Ménluó Doctrine until such time as it can be enforced by Beijing itself. Instead of newly sovereign Latin American countries, today’s former colonies belong to South East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam) and welcome Washington’s interest as a buffer against Beijing’s imperial impulses. The continued American security presence allows Beijing the time and space to develop the statecraft, internal stability and naval power to sustain a future regional leadership role without upsetting the current balance of power. All in all, a Chinese “good neighbor” policy of ruling out the threat of force; of tolerating resistance from weaker states to acquiesce to Chinese requests; of promoting a common Pan-Asian identity to stave off nationalism and war grievances; and of engaging more broadly in multilateral terms through regional and international forums would go a long way toward reassuring the region of Beijing’s intentions for benign hegemony over a return to Sino-centric order. Perhaps most importantly for national identity, this would allow China to avoid taking the same road it has long decried the United States for, bringing coherency to Chinese policy and establishing the sort of political credibility within the region that might result in the sort of benign, de facto hegemony the United States

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maintained in its own hemisphere before the Cold War. This would also add a much-needed political tool (alliances and partnerships) to the Chinese geostrategic toolbox that Beijing could later adjust to its advantage in future situations—just as the United States did with its Asian-Pacific security umbrella. There is one other interesting aspect to this Sino-American parallel. When the United States made the leap from regional power to global power after World War II, it surmounted a threshold that subsequently required greater geostrategic maturity. Washington began to complement what had always been a geopoliticallydriven foreign policy agenda (beginning with the Declaration of Independence, which was defined in political terms despite the economic grievances that ignited the American Revolution) with geo-economic tools exercised partly through international institutions. As a regional power, Washington had neither the means nor the political will to exercise such a grand strategy despite limited forays into geo-economic territory. Instead, it relied—at least for a period of time—on a blunt “big stick” instrument of small-scale military intervention. But the realities of global leadership required a different, more complex set of tools. Similarly, Chinese foreign policy is dominated by a geoeconomic approach that suits the political realities within China. Beijing diplomats have long employed non-interventionist rhetoric, but as Chinese interests have broadened to places such as Sudan (which split Chinese investment into two countries) the limits of this norm have been challenged. Sooner or later, China’s economic integration with the global economy will demand greater political engagement and commitment—and China will have to resolve its own domestic political issues in order to establish a (noncontrarian) geopolitical agenda to develop its foreign policy strategy. This will mark the threshold that will, if surmounted, see a China able to enforce a Pax Sinica and realize the aims of a Ménluó doctrine.

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A PACIFIC ORDER OF LIBERTY AND COMMERCE Unlike the Mediterranean Sea under the scope of the Roman Empire, the East China Sea is part of a larger body of water: the Pacific Ocean. In this sense, America’s westward expansion drive of Manifest Destiny naturally extends all the way to China— perhaps, when grounded in traditional Monroe Doctrine principles, a harbinger of a future, mutually beneficial Sino-American partnership. The idea of spreading the American gospel of freedom and liberty by way of American institutions—the democratic institutions of trade like the World Trade Organization (WTO)—took root at the very founding of the United States. Expressed through the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution, which assigns Congress with the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the states and with the Indian tribes, this was a demonstration of the insightful unity of America’s grand design.71 Broadly interpreted, the word “commerce” in the eighteenth century covered “all forms of intercourse [social, economic, financial, cultural, and political aspects as well as diplomatic and trade relations with other nations], whether or not narrowly economic or mediated by explicit markets.72 The clause itself outlines the balance of powers between the federal government and the states, and also foreshadows the Constitution’s eventual influence on regulating the commercial behavior of the American people—and the world through WTO. This instance of a national power—which granted the federal government the authority to coin money, institute uniform laws of bankruptcy, establish post offices and postal roads, regulate weights and measures, control patents and copyrights, and manage taxation—was exercised when the United States was in its infancy. Its effect elicited the emergence of an American commercial republic; through trade and commerce, the United States modified human behavior at home and abroad. The founding American strategy (E Pluribus Unum or “out of many, one”), too, was meant not just for national purposes but for global ones. For Americans, a world unified by trade would be freer, more peaceful, and more just than ever before.73 A different

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reading of Senator Albert Beveridge’s 1898 remarks (one that overlooks the “Orientalist” hallmarks of his times) sees not a vision of empire but a metaphor for global unity. As a Pacific power, only the United States could forge this unity—one that would enjoin Far East with West by way of Sino-American trade. The incorrigible senator said, Our trade henceforth must be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean. China is our natural customer. The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East. The power that rules the Pacific, therefore, is the power that rules the world. . . . [t]hat power is and will forever be the American Republic.74 In the same year, Senator Beveridge declared to the Middlesex Club of Massachusetts in Boston: Fate has written our policy for us; the trade of the world must and shall be ours. . . . Our institutions will follow our flag on the wings of our commerce. And American law, American order, American civilization, and the American flag will plant themselves on shores hitherto bloody and benighted, but by those agencies of God henceforth to be made beautiful and bright.75 As a melting-pot nation that binds people and countries together through commerce rather than shared heritage, language, religion, culture or creed, the United States—with its diverse people, technological innovations, and democratic values—will always be globally oriented.76 American “rule” is a global order grounded in the inclusive nature of commercial institutions that forge mutually beneficial relationships between producers and consumers alike. This is the extension of American civilization—not the forceful invasion of a usurper, at least in the enlightened minds of the Founding Fathers. A century ago, as the United States was embroiled in a series of imperial-minded entanglements in China, it received a $30 mil-

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lion plus Boxer indemnity—an excess of over $10 million— payment from the Qing dynasty. While the Qing minister to the United States preferred the simple return of funds to China, President Theodore Roosevelt obtained congressional approval to use the surplus funds to start a scholarship scheme for Chinese students to attend American universities instead. The U.S. terms also shaped the settlement, which included the use of the remission to establish Tsinghua College—later known as the premier Tsinghua University—on the site of a former royal garden.77 A cohort of notable Chinese scholars emerged from the scholarship program and generations of Chinese leaders (including President Xi Jinping) have since passed through the gates of Beijing’s top-ranked university. The scholarship was later used as a model for the prestigious Fulbright exchange program to further understanding between the United States and other countries through academic partnerships. American values are most successful when they are expressed by way of trade—not simply commercial trade, but trade of ideas, of knowledge and skills. One hundred years later, these sentiments were echoed across the waters of the Pacific Ocean—this time from Beijing, host of the 2008 Olympic Games, where the words “One World, One Dream” were splashed across the facades of world-class monuments in a city that seemed ready to newly embrace the outside world. For China, the global event marking three decades of unparalleled economic transformation was driven partly by American consumption habits and investment. In this interconnected world, proximity between the two Pacific powers seems closer than ever; in the early decades of a new century, the time seems right for a fresh approach to America’s relationships across the Pacific Ocean. The allure of commerce has been the glue that not only kept the United States together but also benignly reworked the world in its image, later driving Chinese development. If history repeats itself, as it generally does, a new commercial strategy could do the same in the Asian Pacific.

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THE ASIA PIVOT: MUTUALLY-ASSURED PROSPERITY (MAP) THROUGH THE TPP This new approach was signaled by the Obama administration through what would become known as the “Asia pivot.” At a press conference in Hawaii during his 2011 tour, President Obama set the stage for a sea change in U.S. policy, noting: No region will do more to shape our long-term economic future than the Asia-Pacific region. The United States is, and always will be, a Pacific nation. Many of our top trading partners are in this region . . . [which is] is absolutely critical to America’s economic growth. We consider it a top priority . . . because we are not going to be able to put our folks back to work and grow our economy and expand opportunity, unless the Asia-Pacific region is also successful.78 The commercial cornerstone of this new Asia pivot strategy is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a network of expansive, “high quality” trade agreements in industries as diverse as healthcare, insurance and labor—that would create a tariff-eliminating, free trade zone between eligible Pacific Rim economies.79 Launched in 2006 as a free trade pact between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore, the TPP has expanded to include negotiations with Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, and Vietnam.80 Until 2011, the potential agreement seemed halfhearted, facing a lack of commitment from major potential trade partners that would need to implement market and trade reforms. South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines have all expressed interest in joining negotiations and, in the wake of President Obama’s visit, Thailand and a tentative Japan did as well. Noticeably absent from the list of qualifying invitees was China, the world’s secondlargest and Asia’s dominant economic power, which has outshined Japan and other Asian Tigers like South Korea. Overseas, Obama’s Asia policy played out as a clear attempt to “comprehensively [contain] China”81 and to counterbalance a per-

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ceived China threat according to state-run Chinese Xinhua news, which observed ongoing “provocative moves” such as American intervention in the South China Sea disputes under the guise of freedom of navigation.82 (Secretary Hillary Clinton underscored this policy position in Manila and elsewhere during her Asian tours).83 The timely revival of the U.S. Marine presence in Australia (not seen since the Vietnam War) combined with strengthened ties and an increased presence or military aid proffered to Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—all reinforced an implicit balance-of-power motif to Washington’s re-engagement with the Asia-Pacific. Media watchers could hardly be faulted for seeing the president’s trip as further constriction of the noose of containment around China. Figure 5.2: The TPP Pacific Rim Countries

The nine TPP countres are Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia,New Zeland, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and United States;Japan and South Korea expressed interest in TPP negotiation as of July 2013.

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Yet such behavior on the part of the United States would not only prove reductive, but hardly supportive of American interests. Washington’s “Asia pivot” must instead be understood within a new Pacific century framework—an ironic twist on the Cold War containment practices backed by a doctrine of Mutually-assured Destruction (MaD). It is within this architecture that the TPP may offer Mutually-assured Prosperity (MaP) instead—an invitation to join all stakeholders in the Pacific Rim region. There are three dimensions to the new MaP framework: geo-security, geoeconomics, and geopolitics. All of these interplay and overlap to the extent that the lines of distinction between each are blurred. More importantly, Washington’s re-engagement with the AsiaPacific region after a decade of distraction is not so much a paradigm shift but a revival of a traditional and historic role. A. Geosecurity: Responding, Not Reacting The geopolitical landscape that shapes the relationships and alliances formed in the 1950s has changed dramatically from when they were intended to contain the spread of communism. Throughout, the United States has underwritten and even subsidized regional security and military spending through bilateral ties of one form or another with Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand—all of which have proved dynamic in the sense that they have adjusted to new strategic priorities as needed. This suggests U.S. strategy is driven by responsiveness rather than the more reactionary character of Cold War containment. For example, the American troop presence in both Japan and South Korea sunk in terms of political viability particularly over the past two decades following a spate of criminal scandals involving American service members and local communities (e.g., Okinawa), policy differences, and the noise and disruption of extensive military base operations. In June 2012, the Obama administration announced it would redeploy 9,000 marines now stationed in Okinawa to other locales in the Pacific (including Australia where the United States is establishing a rotational presence in Darwin) as Washington continued lengthy and politically sensi-

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tive negotiations over the relocation of the Okinawa airbase to another part of the island chain. This allows Washington to move past a roadblock in the U.S.-Japan security alliance (one that already saw Yukio Hatoyoma, Japanese Prime Minister in 2009, lose office over his inability to meet a campaign promise of moving the American military forces out of Okinawa), and points to a new American commitment to redress sticking points for forward momentum in Asia. Anti-American sentiment in South Korea has also steadily risen since the mid-1990s. Today, however, political opposition has been substantially reduced following a resurgence of North Korean belligerence against its southern neighbor. After the Obama administration firmly backed South Korean former President Lee Myung-bak and current President Park Geun-hye’s positions on North Korean provocation, relations warmed to levels not seen in decades. Skirmishes with China over several islands in the East China Sea and Beijing’s penchant for using China’s export and tourism industries as leverage alongside South China Sea claims further invited Washington’s presence: it was only when Washington stepped into defend U.S.-Japan security treaties following a naval confrontation between Japan and China that Beijing fell silent. The value of the American-backed security threat system set in place after World War II became reminiscently clear to stakeholders feeling overwhelmed in bilateral trade relations with China, in the Korean peninsula geopolitics of a China-backed north and U.S.-backed south, and in maritime disputes over China’s territorial claims to the entire oil and gas-rich South China Sea. Further nodding to changes in the itinerary of ritual U.S. naval deployments, Seoul began constructing a new $975 million naval base in January 2011 on Jeju Island, to the south of the peninsula, which will reportedly serve as an outpost for American naval ships.84 Elsewhere, the Philippines has engaged in negotiation with Washington over increasing American troops on the island archipelago as well; Singapore has agreed to host U.S. naval ships; and Vietnam has steadily welcomed cooperation with the U.S. Navy over the past several years.

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One year after the 2011 Asian tour, Air Force One made a historic landing in Yangon (Rangoon), Burma—the first by a sitting U.S. president—to promise American support if the long isolated country continues the democratic transition it began tentatively in 2010 (sandwiched between northeast India and the southwest Yunnan border of China, the country has also been the recipient of massive energy and infrastructure investment from Beijing). According to The Globe and Mail, this comes after Wikileaksexposed diplomatic cables “revealed that Myanmarese officials secretly chafed under China’s influence and hoped that closer ties with the U.S. might serve as a buffer against Beijing.”85 Residents in Rangoon were permitted by the ruling military junta on a rare occasion to protest Chinese investment in the Myitsone hydropower dam in northern Kachin state. Recalling the Three Gorges Dam project, the world’s largest hydropower project that controversially displaced record numbers of nearby Chinese residents and carried a profound environmental impact, the Myitsone project also threatened extensive flooding and ecological damage. Since most of the energy generated by the dam would be distributed to China—not Burma—the project was especially unpopular among locals. In September 2011, the Burmese president unexpectedly called a halt to the project, demonstrating a willingness to put Sino-Burmese relations on the line. For Washington, such responsiveness is a sign of progress—one initiated from within. Most significantly, as the Associated Press reported, the U.S. alliance with Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is at the core of Obama’s expanded engagement in Asia—a diplomatic thrust motivated in part by a desire to counter the growing economic and military clout of strategic rival China.86 At a White House meeting with President Obama in April 2012, new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reaffirmed Japan’s strong alliance with the United States and signaled Tokyo’s active interest in the TPP (despite its lack of popularity due to stipulations that

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would require Japan to open its agricultural markets, which Tokyo had declined to do during the slow-moving Doha Development Round of WTO talks) as part of supporting a rebalancing of American foreign policy priorities.87 By May 2013, Japan announced it would seek to formally join negotiations. Unlike the overarching political aims of Soviet containment, the overwhelming potential for economic opportunity is leading America’s diplomatic and trade re-engagement with the Asia-Pacific. This re-engagement has a military character not by America’s choice but due to regional realities and requests by other IndoPacific countries. The return of an American presence to the area explicitly reassures stakeholders that China will not overwhelm its neighbors, bringing stability to an increasingly militarized region. But today’s presence is not simply a revival of that of yesterday: instead, the United States is forming relations with one-time enemies, reworking stale partnerships, pursuing wide-ranging economic opportunities, and responding to local realities in a more rapid and flexible way. In the meantime, the Sino-American partnership through the Strategic and Economic Dialogue is deepening between Beijing and Washington. B. Geoeconomics: American Means Suit Chinese Ends As Chinese and American trade and commercial history suggests, convergence between the two largest economies can result in a symbiotic relationship that leads to mutually-assured (economic) prosperity. This convergence is not precluded by the TPP, despite the fact that China was not invited to pursue membership. On the contrary, it is intensified both indirectly and multilaterally. Multilateralism, in particular, is an important element that has so far been largely absent from Beijing’s preferred policy approach not least due to historical and political sensitivities. But an inability to leave history in the past is only causing political divides across the Asian region even as it becomes more economically integrated, leading to the tensions of today.88 Instead, the TPP presents an opportunity for religiously, culturally, and politically diverse countries to find common yet high

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standard economic ground with the potential to advance political cooperation across the region. The process could occur even as a balance-of-power (i.e., military) strategy remains intact as an insurance policy to minimize the risk of politically-driven security competition. This balancing strategy could be a stepping stone to a future, more fully integrated region both economically and politically. Chinese media group Caixin thinks China should “seek to join the free trade zone as it echoes the aims of China’s economic reform policy and should be seen as an opportunity for the Chinese government to liberalize the economy, to the nation’s benefit . . .” and “treat this trade pact as it did its [WTO accession],” which saw the last wave of major reform in China to great success.89 As pairs of exporters and importers, creditors and debtors, producers and consumers, and adopters and innovators, the Chinese and American people are organically employing Hamiltonian means to possible Jeffersonian ends—a strategy with the potential to transform Sino-U.S. relations for a new, mutually-enriching Pacific century. Rather than supplant Chinese ends, Washington’s strategy could provide the means for China to realize its own Jeffersonian vision. C. Geopolitics: Rebalance through Military Strategy For the most part, opposition to American presence in the region mainly in the 1990s and 2000s arose from the perception of U.S. disengagement from the Pacific Rim. A disengaged United States undermined the value of security guarantees and amplified the importance of Beijing as a trade partner. Beijing, too, is navigating newly-charted waters as a regional heavyweight, sometimes showing insensitivity toward how Chinese neighbors might perceive its activities. For instance, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was widely quoted at a 2010 ASEAN regional forum responding to concerns over the South China Sea, saying, “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact.”90 Beijing appeared unconcerned about how this factual power asymmetry implicitly threatens smaller, weaker neighbors that have focused on steadily upgrading their military capacities.

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Preferring bilateral relations and an opaque South China Sea policy agenda that allows China to dominate negotiations, the regional powerhouse has benefitted from Washington’s post-9/11 distractions. This may be precisely where Beijing has painted itself into a corner. China occupies the role of regional hegemon by virtue of the power asymmetry that it has channeled into bilateral trade relationships. In international relations theory, hegemony is agreed to by lesser powers that do so with the expectation that the hegemonic power will refrain from the indiscriminate use of force. Particularly as South China Sea tensions have intensified, Beijing’s perceived reluctance to take use of such force off the table in its own neighborhood causes weaker states to question the necessity of its hegemony and look for a balancer. Through trade engagement and transparency via the TPP, Washington affords smaller countries the opportunity to collectively balance asymmetries in bilateral trade with China without eliminating China as a valued and vital trade partner. This simultaneously marginalizes the need for naval competition and expansion, reducing the likelihood of hostile engagement in the East and South China Seas of the so-called “gunboat diplomacy” sort (a term often applied to Washington’s historically-preferred method of advancing foreign trade policy objectives in Asia).91 In general, a Pacific Rim free trade zone may indeed mitigate the perception of a supposed China threat. Meanwhile, China can continue to prosper from regional stability and ensure safe overland and maritime passage of the energy imports and commercial exports that fuel its national development. Furthermore, the expansion of Chinese military capabilities and the establishment of ports of call for PLA Navy ships (as well as the possibility of future overseas Chinese naval bases) will not seem as threatening if the U.S. Navy is engaged in the region in a cooperative, multilateral fashion, avoiding direct confrontation but implicitly projecting the power to restrain. This may give China the space to ease into its role as the dominant—but not domineering—power in a way that will best serve its own interests.

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Despite the fact that there have been intermittent disagreements and tensions within the Sino-American relationship, neither the United States nor China has ever been engaged in a direct conflict as adversaries of the other. More importantly, however, both countries have had a long legacy of mutually beneficial trade relations.92 The Chinese-American disputes that have emerged are in fact not unlike those that often characterized interstate commerce or trade with Native Americans within the United States—special trade relationships that are covered by the Commerce Clause. Consequently, the same means of resolving domestic interstate disputes involving water issues in Nevada and California, for example, could also be applied at an international level. President Harry Truman captured this fundamental vision of the United States when he said, “It will be just as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for us to get along in a republic of the United States.”93 While ordinarily a patchwork of bilateral and regional trade agreements (like NAFTA) tends to undermine the more desirable global framework instituted with the WTO, SinoAmerican engagement in trade-related conflict resolution within the established regime of global trade rules parallels the mechanism of the use of a federal government to mitigate the power asymmetries among states, and thus seems a progressive solution. The American vision is most vibrant within a system of symbiotic trade and economic relations, and Sino-American affairs lie at center stage of this international commercial diplomacy. As long as the consumer-producer relationship between the two countries is in place, the two countries are forced to exercise caution and resort to diplomacy—rather than retaliatory competition or military threat to resolve differences—within the WTO framework. This is the reassurance that the TPP, which advances the rule-based global trade regime, can offer China. It is plausible that someday the Chimerican (China plus America) trade relationship will dissipate. After all, it did not exist thirty years ago and China needs to move up the manufacturing value chain to stay competitive. The next phase of its national development strategy will see Chinese brands

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compete with American ones for the first time in the world’s largest market of new and eager consumers, infusing a more competitive tone to Sino-U.S. trade relations—similar to Korean and Japanese competition with American counterparts. But the TPP could provide a buffer in ensuring China broad access if Beijing then becomes a member (and guarantees common subordination to the larger institution as well as multilateral rule writing within the WTO legal framework). It could also diversify the risk of bilateral and regional instability linked to the New Silk Road strategy and inherent to the increasing power asymmetries that accompany China’s rise in the style of a financial portfolio, which sees Washington engaging more with other trading partners in the TPP network (both reassuring wary neighbors and reducing the likelihood of retaliatory policies through multilateralism) rather than competing directly with Chinese trade. CREATING A “PACIFIC” CENTURY In contrast to the early nineteenth century dynamics that shaped the Monroe Doctrine, the modern global economic order is highly interdependent. Sino-American commerce is intertwined with Asian regional powers like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India. With historical links and treaty obligations, the United States presence in the Pacific is not one that can be unwound without an inherently unstable transformation in the delicate economic and political balance of regional power relations. In February 2012, then-Vice President Xi told Washington, “China welcomes a constructive role by the United States in promoting peace” in the Pacific Rim, diplomatically adding that there is a need for the United States and China to “increase mutual understanding and strategic trust” and “we hope the United States respects the interests of China and other nations in this region.”94 While it would be a mistake to read Washington’s intentions as Cold War-era style containment of China, strands of realpolitik balance-of-power and containment policy are certainly not difficult to identify: Washington’s return to the Asia-Pacific region indeed constrains Beijing’s free rein and the White House will need to assuage China’s fears

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and historical insecurity over foreign encroachment through continued emphasis on partnership. One way may be to invest in the China-led ASEAN political institution so it might complement the TPP and reduce the likelihood of trade fragmentation along regional lines—leading to the sort of ad hoc agreements that undermine rather than reinforce the global trading system. The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies suggests a U.S.-ASEAN free trade agreement to accomplish these ends.95 Budget constraints serendipitously require the U.S. Department of Defense to innovate in order to maintain a light, low-cost, and flexible military footprint in the Pacific theater; after a decade of war, it is unlikely that future American lawmakers will look for reasons to drastically alter this approach. Instead of containing China, Washington can use these tools to contain not only the security competition that emerges between dominant and rising powers (i.e., the United States and China), but also between regional hegemonic powers and competitors (i.e., China and Japan). Some observers see a potential conflict between Washington and Beijing as inevitable, that a rising power must necessarily be aggressive as “established beneficiaries are reluctant to surrender some portion of their privileges to the newly arrived and arriving powers despite shifts in the relative positions of the great powers.”96 This view oversimplifies the complexity that the new Pacific century framework—through the TPP and the New Silk Road—embodies. Cooperation can occur (and indeed already has occurred) between these two politically-dissimilar states through the institutions and trade dynamics that bind them together, reducing dissatisfaction amongst all affected parties and increasing the likelihood of peaceful power transition under the umbrella of institutional management. Key to Washington’s success in Asia is recalling the commercial interplay within Sino-American relations. In a 2007 Congressional report on strategic and defense relationships in the Asia-Pacific region, former Chairman Jim Leach of the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific observed not only that the

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forward presence of the U.S. Navy promotes regional stability, but that it has [also] been maintained by successive American administrations, all of which have emphasized the linkage between our network of alliances and friendships to a regional environment in Asia conducive to confidence in economic growth.97 This growth is not merely limited to countries in Asia, but— critically—to the U.S. economy as a key plank in American trade strategy, which has recalibrated to promote exports in order to revive a fragile recovery from the domestic financial crisis and global economic slowdown.98 Trade for peace speaks loudest to China and a regional TPP-led free trade zone may be the best insurance mechanism for long-term stability. Outsourcing such tasks to Washington through a commercial vehicle such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership will deliver benefits for individual restraint between the two power centers and can advance regional development, encourage the integration of Chinese economy, and allow surrounding nations to hedge their bets on (and therefore contribute to) China’s “Peaceful Rise.” Using strategic and economic tools, China has also increasingly extended its statecraft in international affairs in the Caribbean Basin and the Latin America, particularly by investing in a wide range of infrastructure and development projects on the archipelagos of the West Indies. These strategic and mutual entanglements—in the South China Sea by the United States and in the Caribbean Sea by the Chinese—have now presented an opportunity for the leading superpower nations to consciously incorporate various elements of a Good Neighbor-like policy for greater welfare and strategic trust. A Chinese Ménluó Doctrine, one that prepares for a future in which Beijing’s status as a local hegemon serves the interests of the region rather than eclipses them, can complement rather than compete with regional economic integration. In the new “Pacific”

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century, alliances are complex, dynamics change rapidly, and multilateralism and flexibility are the new currency.

6 The String of Pearls and the Colombo Consensus All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.1 Sun Tzu

The Buddhist-inspired Lotus Tower in Sri Lanka is a physical manifestation at the fulcrum of China’s Peaceful Rise. Emerging from the waters of Beira Lake at the heart of Colombo, the Beijing-funded edifice punctuates the historic Buddhist ties that have linked this island with the Middle Kingdom for millennia. Located at the core of a strategic east-west maritime route across the Indian Ocean, the ancient “island of pearls” is the epicenter of China’s “string of pearls” naval strategy. For Communist Party leaders, this strategy is an unconscious reflection of the twin Manifest Destiny and Ménluó Doctrine concepts; the potential consequences and

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implications of China’s foreign policy will likely play out across a network of influential “places” cultivated by Beijing that stretch across both the waters of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean traversed by Admiral Zheng He and the footpaths traveled by Faxian, the famous Buddhist monk-scholar. The ancient Chinese footprints that encompassed the modernday string of pearls extend from the Pearl River delta in Guangzhou (Canton) or Hong Kong, to the Pearl Square of Qatar in the Arabian Peninsula. While China’s influence was not limited to neighboring coastal regions, these locales remain most proximate to Beijing’s national interests both geographically and economically. In the past, when Chinese notions inherent to the Ménluó Doctrine (freedom of trade and diplomatic contacts) were coupled with the positive or “virtuous” aspects of Manifest Destiny (the spread of enlightened relations and mutual respect), the outcome was generally peaceful relations—a Pax Sinica—across this maritime geography. A similar dynamic was reflected across the Pacific Ocean when the United States first announced the Monroe Doctrine and later, as the same concepts shaped various aspects of the post-World War II Pax Americana. But when trade on either side of the globe failed to incorporate those virtuous aspects, the outcomes were exploitation and imperialism—or worst of all, notions of racial or cultural supremacy that plunged countries, regions, and even the globe into conflict or economic recession, as both the Pacific and European theaters of World War II aptly demonstrated. The United States spent much of the twentieth century constructing a network of alliances with countries grounded in free trade within a liberal global order backed by notions of political and individual freedom. China has spent the twenty-first century using trade-backed diplomacy (driven largely by resource and energy needs) to establish new relationships and revive old ones, carving out a newly relevant geoeconomic realm of influence emanating from Beijing. Observers have concurrently agonized over Beijing’s less than transparent intentions, particularly as PLA (i.e., the People’s Liberation Army) military modernization has advanced. But as the experiences of American history demonstrate, it is premature to suggest a path dependency that cannot be adjusted

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or reshaped to suit the interests of China, the United States, and the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. BEIJING VERSUS WASHINGTON CONSENSUS IN THE “CROWN” PEARL The island of Sri Lanka and Colombo’s “family” of political leaders demonstrate precisely this dynamic in which, for the first time in history, both the interests of Washington and Beijing have converged at the same time upon the Buddhist nation. The unfolding of this junction ties in elements of U.S. history in Latin America, the exportation of American institutions, and Beijing’s heightened regional profile. What has emerged out of Sri Lanka could be a harbinger of things to come in other locales involving the crossover reach of China and the United States. The failure of American-backed institutions and free market mechanisms to deliver development by way of the Washington Consensus opened the door for the straightforward economic diplomacy out of Beijing—which may actually be better suited for a developing country under authoritarian rule than its politically-minded competitor. When the Sri Lankan government’s twenty five year Eelam War against the separatist Tamil Tigers came to a brutal end in May 2009, the war-shattered island nation needed foreign assistance to avoid further humanitarian crises, protect war refugees, support post-conflict reconstruction, and guarantee overall economic development for its highly literate and industrious people.2 Historically, Sri Lanka’s economic development policy has often been guided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two Washington-based international development and finance institutions undergirded by the forces of the American foreign policy apparatus.3 In order to receive funding from those institutions, petitioning countries had to accept a “standard” set of macroeconomic reforms known as the Washington Consensus, which over time grew increasingly dogmatic in toothy mission to disseminate widely accepted free market principles around the globe. Over the past three decades, the people of Sri Lanka thus endured the austerity measures and the conditionality of the two

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Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) meted out through painful structural adjustment programs. Despite this, Sri Lanka returned to its long-time backer, Washington, to borrow $2.6 billion from the IMF in July 2009.4 Several months later, the Sunday Times of Sri Lanka reported that China’s Export-Import Bank had in fact provided more than $6.1 billion loans to Colombo at the same time for post-war development projects.5 The sum was more than the total loans provided by traditional donors India, Japan, and the United States combined.6 Unlike the BWIs, Beijing had few to no conditions attached to their loans: no structural adjustments, policy reforms, competitive biddings, transparency, or accountability.7 For the current Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, there were plenty of reasons to look for alternatives to conditional Western aid and the nonconditionality of the Beijing Consensus was both an attractive and convenient option.8 This was a demonstration of an emergent Colombo Consensus: the willingness of states with autocratic but democratically-elected leaders like the Rajapaksa family (whose personal interests trump the needs of the people and national interests) to move between Washington and Beijing as needed. The Chinese policy strategy is an extension of China’s development model: incremental reforms, export-led growth, state capitalism, and Confucian authoritarianism. At the same time, the alternative source of funding is empowering weaker states with dictatorial political leaders.9 For some of these leaders, an alliance with Beijing backed by infrastructure-oriented funding creates long-desired political space from Washington. In the case of Sri Lanka, additional funds from China launched a wide range of massive development projects including a new port in Hambantota, an oil-storage facility, a new airport, a coal-fired power plant, a state-of-the-art performance center, an expressway, and diesel railway-engines. For Beijing, a friendly, well-equipped port with complementary transportation infrastructure at the heart of the Indian Ocean—and at the southern tip of China’s longtime regional rival and trade partner, India—is useful for commercial, strategic, and political purposes.

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At the same time, much of the Chinese investment has enriched the president’s family, especially his two brothers: Defense Secretary Gotabaya (who runs the Ministry of Urban Development projects) and other brother Basil (who manages the rest of the profitable ventures as the head of the Ministry of Economic Development).10 Under the president’s elder brother Chamal, speaker of the parliament, both men have enjoyed parliamentary rubber stamps—an automatic two-thirds approval—at will. In reference to this concentration of political and economic power, the Washington-based human rights monitor Freedom House reports, The president and his family consequently control approximately 70 percent of the national budget. Other trusted party stalwarts serve as implementers and advisers. The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the constitution in September 2010 effectively reversed efforts to depoliticize key institutions under the Seventeenth Amendment, placing a government-dominated parliamentary council in control of appointments to independent commissions that oversee the police, the judiciary, human rights, and civil servants.11 The amended constitution’s extraordinary power rests solely with the executive president; meanwhile, his 27-year-old son Namal, a member of parliament from the Chinese designed port city of Hambantota, is being groomed as his political successor. The memory of disappearances among journalists who had opposed the vindictive and threatening government has now become a psychological weapon of fear muting the once highly-vocal media.12 Mentor to Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga said that with “Rajapaksa’s abuse of power,” international relations “spiraled down reaching a new low in the country’s history.”13 The former president then added, “Rajapaksas are uneducated and uncultured rascals;”14 the corruption is “appallingly bad” and the political climate is “vindictive and threatening.”15 This powerful characterization further cemented the notoriety of the Rajapaksa family, which is now firmly synonymous with the

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Colombo Consensus.16 For the London-based Economist, the modus operandi of the Rajapaksa administration is “brotherly love, massive aid and no questions asked.”17 While the victorious president has “an earthly charm that appeals to rural Sinhalese” (the Buddhist majority), Gotabaya presides over both “army and police, 300,000 armed men in all,” with a defense budget of $2 billion (in 2012)—an “alarming share for a country now at peace.”18 The Economist further uncovers how the army moved “into hotels, farming, construction, golf courses, sports stadiums and even running roadside tea stalls,” giving the new Consensus a broader and more vibrant meaning.19 The Washington Consensus, however, has a deliberate and measured origin. After Latin American countries underwent a series of political and economic crises in the 1980s, an economist at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics named John Williamson coined the namesake term in 1989. He described the set of ten specific policy recommendations that were generally agreed on by relevant international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (i.e., the BWIs), as well as the U.S. Department of the Treasury. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the Reagan-Thatcher philosophy of trickle-down economics alongside the privatization of stateowned enterprises and expansion of free trade and foreign investment had reached a pinnacle; there appeared to be consensus among the world’s most powerful economies on precisely how to achieve economic growth. To extend this consensus further abroad, the Washington-based BWIs employed structural adjustment programs for greater openness, freer import and export regimes, and the unhindered flow of private investment. Foreign aid and financial assistance from Washington would thereafter be contingent to the willingness of the petitioning government to adopt economic and trade reforms as well as openness to freer market forces. The conditionality of World Bank and IMF loans contains free market ideology that includes:

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1. privatizing public sector enterprises; 2. removing tariff barriers within import and export regimes; 3. eliminating controls on capital flows; 4. curtailing social expenditures in education and healthcare; 5. lowering corporate taxation; 6. increasing interest rates to contract the money supply and to contain inflation; and 7. advocating a floating and open exchange rate mechanism, among others. As Latin American countries recovered in the first half of the 1990s, the set of policy prescriptions gained credibility and by default became the mode of treatment for developing states seeking international finance.20 The package promoted by the IMF, the World Bank, and the Treasury Department was as popular as their mantra to “stabilize, privatize, and liberalize” the developing world. National development of loan-recipient countries remained directly subject to these U.K. and U.S. Treasury-backed, Washington-based institutions often championed by the Financial Times and the Economist. Domestic development projects—the construction of highways, airports, harbors, and dams—launched prior to the 1980s became an integral part of later evolutions of an “improved” Washington Consensus “to overcome poverty, enhance growth with care for the environment, and create individual opportunity and hope,” according to World Bank President Robert Zoellick.21 Such evolutionary changes were widely viewed as a continuation of British-American economic thought and political ideology. The Washington Consensus is a de facto global strategy to reaffirm political freedoms and American power embedded in the free market, working in a seemingly benign way through the

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BWIs as a national development strategy to alleviate poverty, protect the environment, and fulfills individual human dignity. Within the decade, however, the Consensus was under pressure. As Columbia University economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz pointed out, the new status quo in the world political economy following the 1997-1999 global economic and financial crisis (in which many of the policy prescriptions were perceived to saddle countries with unfair debt packages, disproportionately impacting South East Asia in particular) was a “post Washington Consensus consensus.”22 Once embracing of Washington’s economic prescriptions, developing countries facing continuing economic struggles in Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, and Venezuela) were openly opposed to the set of failed policies that tended to overlook institutional capacities and other variables affecting outcomes. As the Nobel laureate noted, “There was a failure [of the Washington Consensus] in understanding economic structures in developing countries, in focusing on too narrow a set of objectives, and on too limited a set of instruments.”23 Instead, under the helm of more autocratic leadership, the successful countries of East Asia pursued a model “where the development state took a more active role” in a context of rapid technological change, adjustments in learning about markets, and other related externalities that carve out an important role for government—unlike the role prescribed by Washington.24 Many of the shortcomings of this role had to do with the evolution of the Washington Consensus itself. In large part, it attempted to “redress the failures of the state in attempting to correct those of the market.”25 But this redress, says the Colombia University professor, mistakenly superimposed a one-size-fits-all solution to the worst behaviors of government upon every petitioning country regardless of local conditions and cultures. This marginalized the very positive role that government can play—and does play, as in East Asia—in leading industry and developing and shaping markets, as well as the necessity of building effective institutions that might support this role. After all, remarked Stiglitz, “there is no theoretical underpinning to believe that in early stages of development, markets by themselves will lead to efficient outcomes

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[italics original].”26 Overly specific policies of industry liberalization, for example, ignored the need for complementary and functional market mechanisms; rudimentary markets thus were strained by reform demands exceeding regulatory capabilities. The unique historical, political, and economic nuances of each country were often obscured by external policies that essentially undermined the authority and ability of the nation-state. As time progressed, the global analysis of ongoing market failures in target states became even more politically—not economically—minded. The end result was that the Consensus at least in part ended up weakening the very public institutions it purported to build.27 This same dynamic played out in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia as well as in newly capitalist states, where ineffective structural adjustment programs and politically-qualified foreign aid caused chafing under Washington’s realm of influence. For many, Chinese investment outflows that picked up in the 1990s and gained pace in the first decade of the twenty-first century provided a welcome alternative to the stipulations of global financing. Replacing a one-size-fits-all package, Chinese investments side-stepped uncomfortable political or cultural differences but remained largely cognizant of local realities, and Beijing grounded its relations within an easy-to-accommodate bilateral economic framework. Emerging from a country in a state of economic and political transition, the Chinese model explicitly demanded little besides space to house Chinese laborers and build projects. In doing so, state-level relations were strengthened while the United States soon found its former scope of influence constrained by Beijing’s willingness to engage in contexts that American leaders often overlooked or shied away from for political reasons (such as human rights violations or corruption). With the global financial crisis of 2008, the Washington Consensus was further discredited as free market ideology, inadequate regulation, and poor market oversight were blamed for shaking the global economy to its core. For their part, Chinese investment practices demonstrated a new dynamism: the ability to learn from mistakes, a willingness to evolve, and a staunch commitment to economic—not political—dialogue. Again, this was a reflection of

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the Chinese experience whereby the Deng Xiaoping strategy of fulfilling basic human needs (as exemplified by Hamiltonian means to economic development before the achievement of natural desires of Jeffersonian ideals and ideas) proved successful for Beijing. SHORTAGE OF JEFFERSONIAN FREEDOMS With the emergence of a viable and thoroughly amoral (and therefore attractive) alternative to the Washington Consensus, American policymakers were forced to reevaluate their approach to Sri Lanka—and they did. A December 2009 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Report titled, Sri Lanka: Re-charting U.S. Strategy After the War (also known as The Kerry-Lugar Report), presented a complete review of the failures of Washington’s approach.28 It noted that while the United States shares with the Indians and the Chinese a common interest in securing maritime trade routes through the Indian Ocean, the U.S. Government has invested relatively little in the economy or the security sector in Sri Lanka, instead focusing more on IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons] and civil society. As a result, Sri Lanka has grown politically and economically isolated from the West.29 In prioritizing geopolitics over geoeconomics, Washington had opened the door for another actor to occupy that role. Recognizing that the United States needed to use the island to advance national security interests in the Indian Ocean, the White House, Pentagon, and State Department began to ‘reset’ the geopolitical priority button, saying: “We cannot afford to ‘lose’ Sri Lanka” in the Kerry-Lugar Report.30 Not even a year after the U.S. Senate report, Washington’s policy orientation and tone took a turn for the pragmatic; in May 2010, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton commented to visiting Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister Gamini Peiris, “I think that the steps that have been taken by the

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Sri Lankan government [to address human rights concerns] are commendable, and we are supporting that effort.”31 Secretary Clinton reminded the former Rhodes scholar, The United States has long been a friend of Sri Lanka. Our countries share a history of democratic institutions, and we have an active U.S. AID [Agency for International Development] program that has invested more than $1.9 billion in Sri Lanka since 1956.32 Still, this narrative could not compete with the volume of investment gleaned from relations with China. While the Beijing Consensus freed Colombo from the grip of Washington-style conditionality, Chinese-proffered economic independence has not come without human tragedies and missed opportunities. Barbara Crossette, a prominent journalist who covered South Asia for the New York Times for many years, wrote in The Nation (in New York) that since “its 62 years of independence, Sri Lanka has never had a better chance than it has now to stamp out the last fires of ethnic hatred, violence and mindless chauvinisms that have left more than 80,000 people dead in civil wars across one of the most physically beautiful countries in Asia” (italics added).33 The veteran reporter then warned: Tragically for all Sri Lankans, it looks as if its increasingly autocratic president, reelected in January [2010] on a surge of Sinhala triumphalism following the defeat of a Tamil rebel army, is determined to let this hopeful moment pass.34 In all this, the sentiments of Buddhist revival and Sinhalese nationalism have returned to center stage—a precursor to the violent conflicts of the past. In May 2013, for example, a Buddhist monk set himself on fire (a historical act in Sri Lanka, as compared to the frequent self-immolation of Tibetan monks opposing Chinese rule) to protest the slaughter of cattle by Muslims. The majority of Buddhists do eat meat, but most—including Hindu Tamils—avoid beef because they consider cows sacred. Having achieved victory over

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the Tamil minority, Buddhist nationalists are now focused on the Muslim minority and their religious livelihood. This included successful protests against the Halal system of meat certification in the country; in May 2012, the slaughtering of cattle within Colombo was legally prohibited. President Rajapaksa admirably remarked, “The solution is to live together in this country with equal rights for all communities.”35 The government voice, however, was contradicted by actions on ground as “Muslims have been subject to even more chilling acts of terror.”36 While many Sinhalese Buddhists are mortified by the events unfolding under the Rajapaksa administration, they—much like journalists, Tamils, and now Muslims—have “no voice” in today’s Sri Lanka.37 Where does that leave Sri Lanka? The Beijing Consensus allowed Sri Lankans to take control of their own fate: to bring a lengthy, destructive war to an end and move on with the task of national development through the unleashed forces of trade and commerce—an accomplishment Washington’s approach failed to realize. Such self-empowerment lends itself to greater human dignity through reduced suffering and enhanced possibility. Yet a Colombo Consensus that veers too closely to the economic determinism of Beijing becomes a self-defeating exercise if it serves the narrow political ends of a select few, disenfranchises minorities and tramples on basic human rights. Washington advocates democracy to mixed results while Beijing successfully enables authoritarianism. The fate of a developing nation—particularly a post-colonial one with limited institutional capacities—seems almost inevitably tied to the latter. The Colombo Consensus is about not just freedom of choice, but about leveraging the gains from each approach to yield better results for all. With careful maneuvering, the Colombo administration will find that it does not need to choose between Beijing and Washington. After all, the primary goal of the Washington Consensus is to integrate the global community of nations, including China, into “One World, One Dream”—the very same message illustrated by the Chinese Olympic slogan in 2008. The emblem captures the overlapping interests of Washington and Bei-

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jing as each nation adapts to their respective yet interrelated challenges in a new age of inevitable interdependence. For the United States, this means acknowledging that it took many years to achieve the ideals stated at its founding. For example, more than a century passed before political franchise was extended to women and almost two centuries elapsed before Civil Rights legislation was enacted to benefit mainly AfricanAmericans. The American experience also demonstrates the dynamic nature of global realities in which nations change their allies, friends, and “frenemies” (i.e., rival friends or ingratiating enemies). From America’s Revolutionary War to the Cold War period, geopolitics and geoeconomics have been at the core of almost all human conflicts. The engine of the New World continues in part due to the Jeffersonian and Madisonian wheels of popular government spinning alongside the Hamiltonian idea of greed for economic progress and global dominance. Despite the cycle of crises that see the popularity of the United States rise and fall around the globe, the confluence of universal values and human nature embedded in the Madisonian form of American governance remains a guiding light for the world. Given its foreign policy aspirations and economic accomplishments, China seems to understand the nature of human behavior. Accordingly, during a visit to the economically vibrant city of Shenzhen (near Hong Kong) in late August 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned: “Without the safeguard of political freedom, the fruits of economic reform would be lost and the goal of modernization would not materialize.”38 The democratic philosophy underlying the premier’s point was further revealed when he told Fareed Zakaria on his CNN program, “The wish and will of the people are not stoppable.”39 This fact remains at the crossroads of dynamic change, sending meaningful tremors through the political landscape in Beijing including the unyielding bureaucracy and political apparatus that resist political transformation. As Beijing continues its quest to balance the forces of capitalism with nascent democracy at home, the Colombo Consensus must capture the same. In a globalizing world, every nation strategically balances its national interest against a marketplace of

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confluences. For example, as Sri Lanka tried to delicately navigate the mutual interests of China and the United States, Secretary Clinton simultaneously called the Sino-U.S. relationship the “most imimportant bilateral relationship in the world.”40 This emphasizes the mutual interdependence for greater benefit between American and Chinese consumers and producers, as well as debtors and creditors; it is also an apt description for the microcosm of Sri Lankan politics and the country’s growing relations with the two most powerful nations. As a case study, Sri Lanka exemplifies the realist worldview of “asymmetric reciprocity” where domestic leadership matters the most in aligning and maximizing national interests with those of other powerful nations. But in the end, the success of Colombo Consensus will be defined by the price of freedom for its people—not the freedom of those and their families who govern the nation for personal aggrandizement.41 OCEAN FULL OF PEARLS The Colombo Consensus emanates from the heart of the socalled “string of pearls:” the Chinese maritime naval strategy that has emerged to encompass the primary shipping routes by which China accesses global trade. The term was first controversially coined by a classified Booz Allen report on Asian Energy Futures in 2004.42 Since then, debate has continued over China’s intentions for the “pearls” on its string with some asserting the inevitability of a security dilemma emerging between the United States and China. Each “pearl,” after all, is a point on a map that represents a nexus of Chinese geopolitical and geoeconomic influence or even some degree of military presence. The nucleus of power stretches from the mouth of Pearl River on the coast of mainland China downward to the southernmost territory of Hainan Island. Then, from the South China Sea, the influence extends westward to the Strait of Malacca, passing through the Indian Ocean to dot the coast of the Arabian Peninsula—home to the celebrated city of Mecca once visited by Muslim Admiral Zheng He of the Ming dynasty. As of 2010, China had either built or reportedly planned to construct vital facilities in

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Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.43 The facilities most commonly identified as China’s string of pearls are often the ones later popularized by Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Pehrson’s 2006 report on the String of Pearls for the U.S. Army War College,44 with the addition of several newer sites, including: 1. the upgraded military facilities at Hainan Island in the South China Sea; 2. a military airstrip on Woody Island, located in the disputed Paracel archipelago three hundred nautical miles east of Vietnam in the South China Sea; 3. a container shipping facility in Chittagong, Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal; 4. a deep-water port in Sittwe, Myanmar alongside other possible port projects in the Bay of Bengal; 5. construction of a nuclear and navy base in Gwadar, Pakistan in the Arabian Sea; 6. the reported building of a surveillance base on Marao Island in the Maldives, just north of the British military base leased to U.S. armed forces on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; 7. a possible Thai Canal (across the Kra Isthmus) between Thailand and Malaysia that connects the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand; and 8. maritime reconnaissance and electronic intelligence facilities on the Great Coco Island near the Strait of Malacca to monitor Indian activity on the Nicobar and Andaman islands.

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Figure 6.1: The Major String of Pearls Locations

Bangladesh CHINA Pakistan

Port Sudan

Burma

Kra

Hainan Island Woody Island

Sri Lanka Lamu

Maldives

INDIAN OCEAN

The string of pearls naval plan is associated with a chain of port facilities and potential locations to expand China’s transportation and communication networks for maritime services. The manner in which these alleged pearls have been established has been non-confrontational and under the radar. Beijing has gone to great pains to avoid the appearance of directly antagonizing regional powers. Despite this, strengthened ties between host nations and China have proffered new strategic alignments regardless of Beijing’s intentions, and the pearls have taken on varying degrees of significance to other power interests with stakes in the region. The Pentagon, for instance, views each site as a potential military base which, when considered as a whole, amounts to “offensive positioning” in order to serve “broad security interests,” namely, usurping American influence in the Greater Asian

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region and challenging the U.S. Navy’s ability to ensure safe passage for international shipping through the South China Sea.45 The United States sees China’s string of pearls naval strategy not only as a balance of power issue but also as a show of force in the Indian Ocean, like the technologically-sophisticated, impressive Lotus Tower rising above the lake in Colombo. Perceived threats make India and the United States equally nervous. In India, the media takes the development more personally: China is encircling the subcontinent with pressure points to capitalize on Indian vulnerability and wrest control over the Indian Ocean. Using ties (including nuclear deals) with Pakistan as a means to that end, China is intending to thwart India’s plans for regional hegemony. The hawkish Chinese PLA Navy (PLAN) does not help matters, often provoking unease in the South China Sea with regards to the opacity of its strategic intentions for the area and India fears spillover into the Indian Ocean. Hence, India seeks out more opportunities for naval cooperation such as participating in naval exercises with the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz and USS Chicago alongside Australian, Japanese, and Singaporean ships in the Bay of Bengal in 2007. New Delhi also demonstrates its strength by testing nuclear-capable missiles (such as the Agni V, last tested in 2012) that pointedly include Beijing within range—a weapons program almost certainly aided by the enhanced nuclear cooperation and high technology sharing agreements hammered out through the second Bush administration, which culminated in the landmark 2008 U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation deal.46 As Chinese missile capabilities far surpass those of India, the displays are an important deterrent. America’s involvement in Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics as well as security and military ties to South East Asian countries (such as Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam) and North East Asian countries (South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan), enhanced relations with India, and push for economic integration in the Asian Pacific is more than an emblematic challenge to China’s pronounced peaceful development. Beijing leaders—especially military cadre—typically feel that the United States has surrounded them with U.S. bases and is selling advanced weapons to countries

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like Taiwan, a runaway republic in the Chinese perspective. For many Chinese, Washington is pursuing a containment strategy like that successfully employed against the former Soviet Union. The construction of a supposedly “secret” nuclear submarine base at Sanya on Hainan Island was a tactical response intended to project China’s growing power and protect the South China Sea (specifically the resource-rich “nine-dotted line” marine region claimed by China but disputed by other stakeholders).47 So are deepening Sino-Pakistan ties; the “all-weather” partners agreed in May 2013 to advance “comprehensive strategic cooperation,” in terms of “interconnectivity, maritime cooperation, and aviation and aerospace [projects]” including a “long-term plan for [a] China-Pakistan economic corridor,” according to Xinhua.48 While each party—regional competitors China and India, as well as global heavyweight the United States—harbors varying levels of suspicion toward the other, circumstance and design have pushed all three into some measure of cooperation. Mutually beneficial trade relationships have inspired restraint, and each party exercises diplomatic caution when dealing with the other. China and the United States have an interdependent trade relationship, and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce observes complementarity in Sino-Indian trade markets—even noting that “in the future, the importance of Sino-Indian trade will be equal to that between the [United States] and the [European Union],” reports China Daily.49 Stable and ongoing trade relations are enabled by the fact that despite volatility in levels of political trust, a closer inspection of at least several of the more common allegations regarding Chinese pearls reveals a degree of overreach or conflation. A. Sittwe Port in Myanmar For one, the deep-water port at Sittwe in Myanmar was first contracted in 2009 with India as part of the Kaladan River transportation project and New Delhi’s “Look East” policy; it will form the apex of a triangle that connects the northeastern land-locked Indian region of Mizoram with the eastern Indian seaport of Mother Theresa’s infamous home, Kolkata.50 The port itself is a small

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facility and the project, expected to be completed by 2013, is wholly financed by Indian capital (with the Burmese share being covered by Indian loans). Where Beijing might exert geopolitical influence by way of this port is rather mysterious; nonetheless, it is commonly assigned to China as a “pearl.” This is perhaps due to confusion over a related project, a Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) pipeline from the port’s nearby offshore Schwe gas fields, which China secured over India in 2007.51 Nonetheless, the Indian government is also involved in developing the fields to the tune of $1 billion; South Korea’s Daewoo International and several Indian companies, among others, will operate the offshore component of the gas project while CNPC will operate the trans-national overland pipeline that terminates in China.52 B. Gwadar Port in Pakistan In another example, much has been made of the construction of a “naval base” at Gwadar, Pakistan. Presented as an alternative harbor to offset traffic at busy Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and busiest seaport by far, China funded the majority of the reported $1.2 billion project and provided the expertise of its engineers.53 Hyperbolically heralded as the “Chinese Gibraltar,”54 the port was deemed to have strategic value as a quasi-military listening post until China declined the Pakistani Defense Ministry’s official invitation to build an actual military base at the location. Google Earth satellite imagery reveals that the facilities look “rather unimpressive” compared to other port amenities.55 The base itself is located in an underdeveloped and poorly paved area; Chinese workers are endangered by instability in the region; and much of the illmaintained equipment has been reported as in dilapidated condition.56 In a May 2011 article in Foreign Policy, defense expert Robert Kaplan independently confirmed (during his visit to the port in 2008) that he was “struck by not only how isolated it was, between pounding sea and bleak desert, but how unstable was the region of Baluchistan, which lies immediately beyond the port in all landward directions.”57 For now at least, Gwadar appears a “road to nowhere,” reports the Asia Times.58

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Nonetheless, the Chinese Navy itself favors the neighboring Karachi port while on anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden. One reason for the obvious lack of Chinese interest in Gwadar is likely the fact that Iran—with Indian assistance—has built a modern port at nearby Chabahar. This port on the Gulf of Oman lies as close to Pakistan as Iran. Offering safer conditions and relatively easy transport north, an Indian-built road connects to the town of Zaranj in the southwestern Iran-Afghan border region. From there, goods can be transported through major Afghan cities and on into the Central Asian Republics; in terms of strategic importance, Gwadar has clearly been downgraded in favor of infrastructure partly provided by India. Still, Chinese interest and investment has not been without use to Pakistan, which has not hesitated to play China as a “powerful alternative ally” to the United States following the loss of millions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid in the wake of the controversial early May 2011 assassination of Osama bin Laden.59 Completed in 2007, the port was signed over to management by Singapore’s PSA International under a forty year contract; Pakistan’s defense minister announced following an immediately post-assassination visit to China that Beijing had quietly agreed to assume management operations and major news outlets picked up the story.60 China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson quickly responded, saying that the issue had not been discussed.61 When it was revealed that Pakistan had invited China to build a naval base at Gwadar to complement the port Chinese investment had constructed from scratch to the tune of a quarter billion dollars, Beijing moved to distance itself from notions of militarizing what to date have been arguably civilian pearls.62 Beijing’s caution against playing up military ties was further evident when, in June 2011, Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani appeared to confirm that no agreement had been reached with Beijing over port management.63 This suggests that China has yet to achieve the capability to turn these ports into naval bases. Converting the port facilities at Gwadar would require heavy investment in “air defenses, command and control and hardened structures” by either

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China or Pakistan to protect facilities and personnel in the event of an attack.64 Such investment would be difficult to carry out without heavy international scrutiny and criticism. The mere mention of permanent Chinese naval bases sets off controversy and ignites suspicions of subversive belligerence abroad. After Chinese Rear Admiral Yin Zhou wistfully floated the idea of “a relatively stable, fixed base for supplies and maintenance . . . to [ease the] hardships of Chinese patrol ships engaged in the anti-piracy effort” in the Gulf of Aden, hoping “[other] countries . . . could understand” the cost-cutting measure, international reaction was decisive.65 The BBC reported that “other countries have been closely monitoring China’s international deployments for signs of increasing assertiveness in its foreign defense policy,” and that the Chinese Navy “has not been in this part of the world (the Gulf of Aden) since the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).”66 The Associated Foreign Press noted that “[Admiral Yin’s proposal raises] the idea that China could build foreign bases elsewhere” in the American style,67 while an Asia Times account described Yin as calling for construction of a naval base in the Middle East.68 In prompt reply, the Defense Ministry quickly ruled out the admiral’s suggestion but was careful to leave future possibilities open, saying that China would “stick to its current supply regime” for now.69 For Beijing, basic logistics support is a more credible and strategically feasible option. In any case, the present facilities at Gwadar have a long way to go before they resemble a functional naval base or even a legitimate alternative to Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and busiest port by far. C. Thai Canal at Kra Isthmus Next, the never-realized project of the Thai canal is often referenced as a pearl as if the canal (through the Kra Isthmus) in fact exists. While China offered loans early on as the project appeared to be picking up momentum in Thai parliament, no deal had been struck as of 2012. Given the history of the proposed waterway, this is hardly surprising. The idea of excavating a canal that bisected the Malay Peninsula to link the Gulf of Thailand with the Anda-

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man Sea had been advanced many times by French traders who had maintained close diplomatic ties to the King of Siam since roughly the mid- to late-seventeenth century. Seeing commercial gains to be had from this shortcut around the Dutch and later British-controlled Strait of Malacca, initiative for the project dissipated when Franco-Siamese relations soured and the French were expelled from the area for roughly a century. The British would later take up the idea but, facing numerous challenges given the uneven terrain and mountain ranges that barred their path, had little incentive to persevere as they already controlled Singapore’s Malaccan Straits. The project was revisited at various times, but circumstances never seemed to align favorably. Finally, after the conclusion of World War II, Japanese-ally Siam was compelled to sign a peace agreement with Britain that specifically stated no canal could be built without British consent (in order to protect interests in its colony at Singapore). Once the treaty expired, circumstances intervened again and despite interest, Thailand had neither the means nor the political will to see the proposal through in parliament. In the end, facing what seemed like deep and long economic turmoil in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 that started with the collapse of the Thai baht after foreign debt drove the country into bankruptcy, the Thai government renewed its interest in excavating the canal to drum up a source of lasting revenue. A serious study on the feasibility of the canal was conducted in 2001, but the environmental, economic, and geopolitical complexities and scale, along with the astronomical costs of such a project (as reported by China’s willingness to underwrite with $20 billion) offered a strong deterrent.70 Nonetheless, the benefits of such a canal were clear: Thai Royal Navy ships could bypass 700 nautical miles of coastline to patrol both of the country’s coasts and respond to crises, while fishing boats could skirt the more dangerous waters of the Strait and avoid encounters in increasingly busy international waters.71 Favorable policies for sea craft registered to Thailand might promote the growth of a strong Thai shipping fleet and attract business to local commercial centers. For many similar reasons, China was also drawn to the project: a Thai canal would

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cut shipping costs and double access points for energy supplies traversing the Indian Ocean.72 When the Thai Senate tentatively approved a deal for the canal in 2005, neither Singapore nor the United States in particular were thrilled (long-standing rumors have swirled that Singapore and Malaysia actively bribed Thai officials to vote against the project in parliament for years, an explanation for at least part of the seemingly-endless political wrangling over the deal).73 Since the overwhelming majority of Chinese oil imports pass through Singapore’s neighboring strait, the U.S.-allied city-state would lose its regional dominance as the premier shipping hub as a result of a new Thai canal. Meanwhile, the Bush administration had already decided that the related port facilities and warehouses of the project were part the Chinese bid for string of pearls-related leverage over the greater Asian region.74 The logistics of the project were unnerving, too: at one point, plans for construction favored a series of “nuclear excavation techniques” that would “save several billion dollars.”75 It would also require major feats of engineering and labor heroism—enough to turn away all but the most ambitious of contractors. More to the point, Chinese interest may have dwindled in the project after the strategic context changed following Beijing’s initial investment offer of $20 billion. In the years since, the so-called Malaccan Dilemma—a transportation bottleneck for vital Chinese energy imports—has already been alleviated through the construction of pipelines that carry Middle Eastern oil directly to China from Kyaukphyu in Burma along with other overland infrastructure that bypasses the strait. According to The Irawaddy, the SinoMyanmar pipelines planned for completion in May 2013 are expected to have the capacity to transfer eighty percent of China’s Middle Eastern- and African-sourced oil all the way to Yunnan province.76 This further suggests that the Malaccan Strait is not so much a geographical dilemma as it is Chinese anxiety over US naval supremacy and ties to neighboring Singapore: as China’s navy has increasingly taken to the seas, the extent of this dominance has been driven home. Yet a Thai canal would not substantially alleviate this unease; U.S. naval power would remain a de facto reality at

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both ends of the waterway and in the event of a worst case scenario that saw direct military confrontation between the two powers (over an issue like Taiwan, for example), the flow of traffic through the alternative sea route could be interrupted as easily as the first. The ratio of the cost of investing in a Thai canal and the gains it would serve up in today’s strategic environment is substantially different than what it was seven or eight years ago. For example, Thailand’s Red and Yellow Shirt demonstrations in recent years, not unknown to involve bodily fluids of one kind or another, are just one aspect of a tide of political instability that has swept Thailand since a 2006 coup and taken a toll on the Thai economy and tourist industry.77 Chinese investment would clearly benefit Thailand, which could prove upsetting to Malays and sympathetic ethnic Malay Muslim separatists in Thailand’s restless southern regions. Vietnam would also be in the position to establish its own Singapore-type shipping hub, perhaps on its southern tip, to reap the benefits of increased sea lane traffic. Malaysia and Indonesia have both made huge economic investments in the traditional sea route via Singapore, and would almost certainly resent the shift in commercial gains to Thailand. Already wary of growing Chinese influence in the South China Sea, neighboring countries and Thailand itself might never generate the political will needed to get the project online. Such strategic complexities may simply prove unattractive to China given the cooperation entailed, the tensions arising from a dramatically heightened regional profile, the already-massive scale and the ten-year timeframe for a project that will yield less-than-transformative results. In other words, the Thai canal is hardly a foregone conclusion; its designation as a Chinese “pearl” is simply premature. ECONOMIC NECESSITIES; DIPLOMATIC REALITIES It also appears that the so-called secret nuclear submarine installation at Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan (the island province of China) is part of Beijing’s broader defense modernization plan. It does not necessarily follow the upgraded military facilities to indicate a “pearl” any more than modernization efforts

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to other naval facilities located in coastal areas of mainland China. The purpose of the island airstrip is unknown however; the reasons for any number of other Chinese defense infrastructure improvements are not openly confirmed by Beijing. Christian Le Miere, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Review, said that the complex underlined Beijing’s plan “to assert tighter control over this region.”78 The Sanya base would certainly appear to serve as a modernized naval operation facility—an increased footprint in the South China Sea—but not necessarily a power projection for an India-encircling string of pearls or beyond. Thus, a revised list of “pearls” might look something more like this: 1. a second Burmese port at Kyaukphyu, Beijing’s main focus, will have a Chinese-built highway, oil pipelines, and highspeed railway linking the port to Kunming, the capital of China’s southwestern Yunnan province; 2. a planned oil refinery terminal and container shipping facility at Chittagong in Bangladesh, the northern Bay of Bengal located just east of India. Lying on the border of Bangladesh and India (friendly nations) and Myanmar (whose border areas are not often described as peaceful), Chinese ability to influentially leverage the location is questionable; 3. construction of a billion dollar all-inclusive deep-water sea port at Hambantota in Sri Lanka;79 4. revival of the ailing Benguela and Tanzam railways to create a coast-to-coast railway network that bisects sub-Saharan Africa with an oceanic terminal at Angola’s soon-to-becompleted port modernization and expansion at Lobito with Chinese involvement; 5. Port Lamu in China’s largest African trading partner, Kenya, as well as a railway line linking to neighboring countries of Ethiopia, Southern Sudan, and Rwanda. After footing the bill for $22 billion-dollar Lamu port, China has since se-

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cured another contract over Japan for a second deep-water port project at the same site, with the intent of positioning Kenya as a major trans-shipment hub on the East African coast; 6. Sudanese oil infrastructure—such as terminals, refineries and pipelines, harbor modernization, and planned port developments—to transport oil to the deep water Port Sudan and Port Bashir in the northeast of the Red Sea-bordering country, between the Gulf of Aden and the Mediterranean Sea. Port Sudan is at a strategic location for servicing trade from many land-locked African countries such as Ethiopia, Chad, the Central African Republic and is linked to Kenya, Uganda, Congo as well as Egypt, which also lies on the Mediterranean; and 7. the Black Sea and Caspian region-servicing container Port of Piraeus at Athens, Greece, which China is upgrading, expanding, and managing. As a whole, this list points toward a vast transportation network that connects African and Middle Eastern energy and mineral resources to coastal shipping points and Chinese goods to European markets: a geoeconomic strategy to simultaneously create and integrate China’s national architecture with external infrastructure in order to move both goods and people to and from where Beijing needs them most. This drive emerged from geopolitical realities but—as has been repeatedly demonstrated by Beijing’s reluctance to assume an explicitly political stance vis-à-vis Washington in its bilateral trade relationships—it is not directed by purely political aims. Still, this is beside the point: by virtue of function, infrastructure drives the convergence of economic systems. This feature has already had transformative geopolitical implications for the IndoPacific rim region; littered with expansive, well-equipped airports and transportation hubs, the increasingly integrated region has also already been the subject of Washington’s well-publicized Asia pivot strategy.

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Figure 6. 2: Shared Geoeconomic and Geostrategic Interests

Greece Afghanistan Pakistan Oman India Djibouti East Africa

CHINA

Sri Lanka

Okinawa

Guam

Diego Garcia Darwin INDIAN OCEAN

The stars are an illustration of U.S. military bases; the italicized countries are a sample of Chinese “places” of geoeconomic interest (East Africa includes Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Tanzania). The United States and China do have intersecting mutual interests in maritime piracy issues (along with India) in countries such as the Maldives, Seychelles, Oman, and other nations in the Horn of Africa. Sri Lanka is the “crown jewel” of the Chinese “string of pearls” naval strategy China’s behavior in selectively modernizing its maritime capabilities and overland transportation infrastructure highlight the realities of investing in geopolitically sensitive and underdevel-

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oped areas. Pragmatic Beijing prioritizes access through diplomacy and economic incentives over potentially destabilizing coercive measures, and is willing to endure the costs that accompany routes overlooked or deemed too problematic by competing (particularly more experienced and influential Western) investors. After all, nations may establish networks through circumstance, opportunity, and coincidence as equally well as through deliberate policy choices. Conversion of these diplomatically secured access points to military facilities would require a sea change in Chinese foreign policy—which, to be sure, will happen eventually as Chinese foreign policy adapts to later stages of national development. Yet taken together, all of this suggests that a militarized “string of pearls” strategy is a long way off given the growing complexities and obligations that accompany each link made beyond Chinese borders. Chinese leadership does not likely know how they will develop these assets in the future as strategic alliances may possibly change (as with the somewhat American-leaning, increasingly pro-democratic Myanmar). In a 2010 report on Chinese Strategic Perspectives, the U.S. National Defense University noted that: a) China presently has no [official] networks of facilities and bases, and b) China’s possession or absence of such a network may ultimately be the best indication of judging its future intentions.80 Unlike the United States, China does not—as a selfimposed national policy—traditionally base military forces in foreign countries, for now.81 NAVAL NETWORK AS “PLACES, NOT BASES” With this in mind, Beijing may find the notion of a militarized “string of pearls” more trouble than its strategic value in the Indian Ocean. In an insightful article for the Naval War College Review, Daniel Kostecka, a senior U.S. Navy analyst at the Pentagon, writes that the utility of a network of bases may even be rendered obsolete; that is, China may discover it more politically costly to establish military bases where it already has civilian infrastructure that offers substantial returns.82 For example, a regional supply network around the Gulf of Aden has been used by the People’s

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Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) forces engaged in international antipiracy patrols since 2008.83 While this is often misread as Beijing’s attempts to establish a string of would-be future military bases to project power, the various regular PLAN supply points for anti-piracy missions are presently part of an ad hoc system of “calling in friendly ports when necessary . . . for the accomplishment of current and future missions.”84 As opposed to a coordinated effort, this string involves the opportune establishment of “places,” or ports of call, instead of military “bases.”85 These ports, where the PLAN has quietly and repeatedly visited, are an indicator of “not only where the PLAN prefers to replenish its ships and rest its crews but also of where it is likely to develop formal arrangements should it chose to do so” in the future.86 As of 2011, the Chinese Navy had established six informal ports of call; each carries often-political considerations that would arise should they become permanent military facilities in service of, say, a blue water Chinese navy (at present, the PLAN could be described as an emerging blue water navy—as are the Indian and Korean navies). Each “place” tends to be in host nations where China has already developed strong diplomatic ties and both parties are comfortable with the arrangement: A. The Arabian Sea Karachi, Pakistan: Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, also serves as its financial core, main seaport and center of higher education serving South Asia and the Muslim world. Alongside wellestablished British and American expatriate communities, opportunity-seeking migrant workers make up the vast majority of the urban population today. The Muslim city has been a sister city to Shanghai since 1984 and played host to PLAN ships annually for the past three years. China is currently embarking on a deal for civil nuclear cooperation with Pakistan (following up the United States’ own unprecedented deal with India in 2008) and the two countries are broadening their long-friendly diplomatic ties. But Karachi is too distant from the Gulf of Aden to emerge as a regular supply port, though Pakistan would likely offer China the use of

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the facilities if needed.87 To date, Beijing has avoided overt naval ties to Pakistan. Salalah, Oman: Ming Admiral Zheng He visited ancient city of Salalah, known as the perfume city of Arabia, which is surrounded by verdant Omani countryside and renowned for its frankincense trees.88 Today’s Danish-managed modern Port of Salalah is one of the largest on the Arabian Peninsula and provides a critical juncture for trade embarking from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. As of August 2010, PLAN ships pulled into the port no fewer than nineteen times since their initial 2008 deployment; Oman and China have a stable relationship that revolves around oil. Liquid natural gas (LNG) trade bound for China’s booming market is growing between the two countries, and disembarking Chinese sailors bring economic gains to the local service industry. The port is of high strategic value to the Chinese and it would not be surprising if the two countries formalized an agreement to host PLAN ships on a regular basis.89 However, the former British protectorate is a long-time U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf, and formal cooperation with China would require careful diplomacy. Aden, Yemen: As part of Suez Canal shipping route and a vital waterway for oil transiting from the Persian Gulf, the busy lanes of the Gulf of Aden—also known as “Pirate Alley” due to the nature of many of the activities conducted in its waters—connect the Red and Arabian Seas.90 Located to the west of the Gulf, the Yemeni port of Aden may serve PLAN operations both in the area and in the western Indian Ocean. (The port city also welcomed Admiral Zheng).91 Along with India, China is the main export market for Yemeni crude oil exports. This means Yemen, too, is likely to continue to support PLAN ships whether formally or informally— especially with its ancient diplomatic and trade history with the Ming dynasty. However, ongoing security issues and political instability in the country make the port a less likely main replenishment and repair point for China, although it is more politically accessible than Oman.

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Djibouti: Strategically positioned on the Horn of Africa at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, the tiny, semi-desert country of Djibouti was once a hub for the perfume and spice trade between the civilizations of ancient Egypt, India, and China. As a free trade zone in northeast Africa, the regional and international transit point has a number of advantages for Chinese naval replenishment, such as establishing proximity to Chinese peacekeepers in Sudan and laborers in Ethiopia, and enabling protection of the growing numbers of workers that accompany Chinese oil and gas investment in the region.92 Djibouti also serves as an important point of support for foreign military forces conducting missions in the Gulf and the Horn of Africa; American and British militaries already maintain facilities to complement their large presence in the country. The addition of a Chinese presence would thus not appear an overly aggressive reach into the Indian Ocean and the sum total of international forces not only enhances the security and stability of the port in general but also mitigates criticism toward Beijing. Still, China would risk being viewed in a similar light to NATO, which also takes up residence in the area. This would present difficulties for China in terms of reconciling its traditionally rigid principles of non-intervention and sovereignty with current realities, and establishing such a presence would require a substantial and committed change in policy perspective and diplomacy. B. The South China Sea Singapore: Singapore has long maintained friendly relations with Beijing and is perhaps the most likely ally in aiding China to expand its military footprint within and beyond the South China Sea. The island nation is located just off the coast the Thai-Malay Peninsula, which itself perimeters the Strait of Malacca. This “critical gateway to the Indian Ocean”93 is such a sensitive area that in 2003, Chinese companies were barred by India from bidding on offshore gas and exploration projects in the Indian-controlled Andaman and Nicobar Islands at the mouth of the Strait.94 Today, the same area is abuzz with military activity as India “bolsters its military defenses” on the islands that lie just south of the mainland of

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Chinese-allied Myanmar; every afternoon, the Indian Air Force takes over the capital airport and is “lengthening several [island] airstrips to handle night landings by fighter jets—a critical capability given that India has only one aging aircraft carrier in operation.”95 Regardless, Singapore has close defense ties to Washington and must balance those with offering increased access to PLAN vessels. This Asian Tiger is unlikely to formalize any agreement that secures base access with China, but goodwill visits and military exercises will probably continue at an “unobtrusive” level.96 C. The Indian Ocean Colombo, Sri Lanka: Chinese investment will be expanding the three terminals as part of the $330 million dollar Colombo port expansion project that will allow supertankers to deliver cargo for small ships to transport elsewhere. The port will be a crowning jewel for Sri Lanka as the southern tip of India does not have yet deep seaport capability; this will allow the island to monopolize the international shipping lane traffic for the area. Despite the unlikelihood of a Chinese naval presence due to Sri Lanka’s high profile nature in the region and the political waves this would cause, Colombo has become a popular refueling point for PLAN forces and friendly diplomatic relations between China and Sri Lanka ensure continued informal but welcome port visits. D. The Mediterranean and Elsewhere The PLAN has been making higher-profile port visits as well as planning others to more unexpected locations like Greece and Australia in an effort, perhaps, to acclimatize uneasy foreign counterparts to the sight of Chinese warships and further the ongoing blue water transition. These visits have been prompted by the dynamics of both trade and diplomatic relations. In Greece, for example, China had signed a $5.45 billion deal in 2008 to build a container terminal at the Piraeus port in Athens to triple its capacity and provide local jobs. Poor labor relations with the Port

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Authority, among other detractions, had made it difficult for Greece to draw foreign investment to the seaport that needed an upgrade to handle double digit growth rates over the past four years in trans-shipment cargo to the Black Sea. Despite cutbacks in investment amid the global financial crisis, China Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco) group president Wei Jiafu told the Financial Times, “We are in Greece for the long term.”97 This was good news for Greece, as a mass exodus of investors ensued when the country faced near-bankruptcy only two years later and Moody’s rating agency slashed Greece’s sovereign rating to “junk” status. Buckling down to take on powerful local labor unions, Greece is making good on its end of the bargain to ensure that the Chinese company can dramatically increase efficiency and productivity after assuming full control of the major container dock in the summer of 2010. Recognizing mutual gains, Athens is tapping China for a multitude of other projects and is betting on economic transformation rooted in shipping expertise.98 It was hardly unexpected, then, when Xinhua news reported that a Chinese naval flotilla had pulled into Greece in August 2010 following an anti-piracy mission for a five-day visit.99 In the preceding weeks, Beijing made it clear that it was willing to pursue military ties to the country on multiple levels, which opens up the possibility of adding another informal port of call for the PLAN although Greece’s ongoing (and seemingly tenuous) membership in the European Union makes it politically inaccessible for formal ties. Still, by early 2013, the Chinese had expanded their exposure in the region by adding the Moroccan port of Casablanca to the roster of its Mediterranean presence on the heels of first-time forays into the Black Sea. Sydney, Australia: The PLAN has been arranging more goodwill visits to Australia, stepping up diplomacy since a 2009 white paper from the parliament of Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd implicitly presented China as a military threat. The Chinese navy pulled into Sydney in September 2010 to conduct their first ever joint live-fire exercises with the Australian navy in the Yellow Sea. Current Prime Minister Julia Gillard appeared to

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be entertaining a longer-term relationship with the Chinese navy, commenting, “Just like the hundreds of thousands of dollars that come . . . every time an American ship comes to visit, our economy could get a serious lift if Chinese naval ships paid us a visit.”100 Engagement with the Chinese military also acts as a sort of confidence-building measure to improve trust that will underpin Australia’s lucrative trade with China. Tensions in the Sino-U.S. relations are clearly worrisome to Canberra, which is forced to balance competition between an enduring ally and a vital trade partner. In acting to diffuse competition by promoting more mature defense cooperation with China that somewhat more closely approximates relations with the U.S. Navy, Australia can create a meeting point of common ground for both parties. THE COMPLEXITIES OF SILKY RELATIONS All in all, the so-called Chinese “string of pearls” recalls many of the diplomatic relationships cemented (at least temporarily) during Zheng He’s exploratory travels across the South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean. Following the monsoon winds—the global forces of seafaring trade—the Ming armada hoped to enfold the faraway power centers of the known-world into the realm of influence of the Dragon Throne. This was accomplished sometimes through displays of force but more often accompanied by lucrative gifts, mutually beneficial trade opportunities, and an intellectual and spiritual curiosity. With warships alongside vessels supplied for anthropologic, astrologic, botanical, cartographic, cultural, diplomatic, medical, and scientific enterprises, the Chinese expedition can hardly be reduced to a single-minded military venture. Similarly, China’s “pearls” have emerged at natural points for Chinese trade and diplomacy. Though they have the potential to be defined in military terms, they are more likely to function as intersections at which the relevance of each partner state is necessarily enlarged by the Chinese expansion of interests and influence; this is a net positive for developing countries that have struggled for geographic, political, and domestic reasons. As in the Ming era,

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these relationships are knitting a fractured world economy back together and pulling the balance of global trade toward the IndoPacific region. Along Silk Road trade paths, politics, religion, commerce, culture, and economics have always intertwined. The eventual erasure of the Ming voyages from historical memory points to the need for strategic caution: just as foreign trade once challenged the power monopoly of Chinese elites, so might China’s new exposure to global market competition tip the power factions within Beijing or confound preferred political narratives. In regions of the world long enmeshed in complex relationships involving imperialism, war, colonialism, and authoritarianism, it is important for China to look for common ground with diplomatic partners beyond the basics of development status and economic incentives. For sometimes-troubled relationships with countries or areas like Burma, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Nepal—even Japan—Buddhist diplomacy could be a useful tool for overcoming differences and forging ties. But China’s interests are increasingly global; as the presence of Chinese companies and state-backed investment is felt abroad, Beijing must orient itself within the Washington politics that often shape the behavior of the world’s most powerful states. For that, an understanding of just where Chinese offerings might be best applied is critical. This involves recognizing the shortcomings of the consensus that backed a largely western world political economy and the opportunities offered by Beijing’s reach in a new, more multipolar global trade environment. As global trade forces wax and wane, the interconnectedness between Washington and Beijing will shift accordingly and new tertiary partnerships will emerge. The countries best positioned to benefit from this uncharted terrain are those that can act nimbly in both political and economic terms, as well as mitigate often-complex domestic politics by delivering real gains to local constituents—the people, not the ruling families and their inner circles. As both Washington and Beijing continue to shape their respective policy consensuses to address old failings and changing realities over the years ahead, the Co-

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lombo Consensus could be an important tool for meeting basic human needs and freeing up focus for the cultivation of the mind— forging the pathways to greater human equality and freedom.

PART FOUR

Chinese Destiny in America

Figure 7.1: The Chinese Statue of Liberty in Guangzhou

The historic Statue of Liberty at the Huanghuagang Martyr Memorial in Guangzhou was erected to commemorate the seventytwo martyrs who died in the 1911 Guangzhou uprising led by General Huang Xing (1874-1916), the first army commander-inchief of the Republic of China under Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Over the past 100 years, the memorial underwent a number of transformations and outlasted the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, signifying China’s genuine desire for Jeffersonian freedom and liberty. The Chinese characters pasted at the bottom of the statute state: “Guangzhou Blue Martyrs Park.”

7 Birth of a Pacific New World Order You’ve all heard of the American Dream. . . . Now Beijing’s new leader has introduced what he calls a “China Dream.” Today I’d like to speak with you about our opportunity in this increasingly global age to design and define our dream for the Pacific region, one in which nations and people forge a partnership that shapes our shared future. . . . Our Pacific Dream is to translate our strongest values into an unprecedented security, economic, and social cooperation.1 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

After gaining political independence by way of the American Revolution in 1776, the newly self-governing United States sent a distinct message of “trade-for-peace” out into the world. Its new global vision took the form of the Empress of China departing New York harbor with “over thirty tons of American ginseng roots” for Canton (now Guangzhou) on George Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1784.2 As the first U.S. ship established direct trade relations with China, this was considered a “good omen”

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for America’s future.3 Since the very beginning of the republic, the former thirteen colonies bound together by the Constitution’s Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3) were enamored with the Middle Kingdom and the trade it proffered. The maiden voyage was both a symbolic and substantive illustration of the new nation’s mission in the world—one that would be led by Congress through commercial relations with all. Signaling a departure from the colonial-centric European powers of the Atlantic, the United States purposefully turned to the Pacific to realize its eventual destiny. As the Empress set sail, the founding grand American strategy was launched. In his Ginseng, The Divine Root: The Curious History of the Plant That Captivated the World, David Taylor explains that the root had not only legendary curative powers but also the potential to forge peaceful trade relations.4 In the early years of SinoAmerican relations, ginseng was prized more than gold in the Qing dynasty and helped orchestrate the rise of economic power-centers both sides of the Pacific Ocean. American ginseng, which grew commonly in wooded areas from the Appalachian region of Pennsylvania and Virginia to the great plains of Minnesota and Wisconsin (the latter remains a key exporter to China), sparked a commercial boom in the new republic and inspired Thomas Jefferson to expand the land territory with the Louisiana Purchase to find a shortcut to China through the Pacific Northwest. The founding generation looked up to the ancient civilization as a model for the infant nation, which had already been flourishing with Chinese tea while creating a Puritan tea culture of literary intercourse. This was not limited to the high society of the coastal cities of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, but extended to the farming communities of small hamlets in the Appalachian mountain regions. Benjamin Franklin, a tea drinker, reported that millions of cups of tea were consumed twice a day during his time.5 In the 1770s, annual rates of tea consumption in America had actually exceeded more than one billion cups in a population of a little over two million people.6 Confucian ethics alongside tea

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drinking (which promoted the creation of wealth) also infused early America. Martin Wilbur, a China expert at Columbia University, writes about “modern America’s cultural debts to China.”7 Franklin himself—the American apostle of Confucian thoughts—borrowed the ideas of the Chinese sage to disseminate his famous aphorisms and wise observances throughout colonial America, which resonated as much today as when they were new. It is no accident that the figure of Confucius decorates the eastern pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., flanked by ancient lawgiver Moses and Athenian lawmaker Solon. The significance of Confucian moral teachings, heralded by Franklin, is part of the many Chinese footprints tracing their way across the American civilization. In his book The Dragon and Eagle: The Presence of China in the American Enlightenment, Owen Aldridge provides numerous examples of Chinese cultural imprints on the foundation of new republic.8 The culture-driven “Chinese tea for American ginseng” trade relationship between the two Pacific nations was a classic example for natural evidence to support the theory of comparative advantage postulated by English economist David Ricardo (1772– 1823). The theory posited that nations should specialize in the production of goods they could provide efficiently, and then sell these to other nations to generate income needed to buy the things they could not produce themselves. This simple notion of “specialization” has underpinned the trade and economic development policies of the United States and China (and elsewhere) ever since, along with scientific know-how and technology transfer to America. In his remarkable Science and Civilization in China series, Professor Joseph Needham unlocked the most closely held secrets of China—the world’s most technologically advanced country for centuries. The meticulous Cambridge University scientist described China’s millennia-old astonishing history of invention, science and technology; the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of most familiar innovations—including printing, the compass, ex-

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plosives, the suspension bridges, and even toilet papers—long before the rest of the world.9 Writing in regards to Chinese naval architecture and technology in 1787, Benjamin Franklin outlined his vision for the design of American mail-carrying boats to France: “As these vessels are not to be laden with goods, their holds may without inconvenience be divided into separate apartments, after the Chinese manner, and each of these apartments caulked tight so as to keep out water” (emphasis added).10 The American scientist, who foresaw modern aviation by imagining kites as vehicles to carry human beings into the air, also inherited his aeronautical know-how from China. Professor Needham wrote that there was nothing needed to be said here of that other great service which the Chinese kite performed for modern science in the hands of Benjamin Franklin when in 1752 he identified the electricity of the lightening flash with that of the Leiden jar.11 As a famous American newspaper publisher in Philadelphia, Benjamin observed the process of “making large sheets of paper in the Chinese manner, with one smooth surface” in his autobiography (emphasis added).12 In short, the legendary and wisest founding father concluded, The Chinese are an enlightened people, the most anciently civilized of any existing, and their arts are ancient . . . [but] their method of rowing their boats differs from ours. . . . They see our manner, and we theirs, but neither are disposed to learn or copy the other.13 Outside the field of political ideology, this distinctive characterization has evolved or at least become blurred in most aspects of human endeavors; for example, in present-day science and technology fields, it is the Chinese who are allegedly engaged in cyberespionage on American military and aviation technologies and designs.

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Although the divergences among the philosophies of social and political governance between the longest surviving civilizationstate and the young nation-state have always been more pronounced than in other realms of bilateral relations, the mindsets of long-held traditions and human convictions will subconsciously continue to transform the world into a new order. Unlike the postCold War years between the former Soviet Union and the United States, the re-emergence of the world’s most important bilateral relationship—between the two Pacific economic powers—will be decidedly different. The internal forces and foreign policies of China are reshaping the world just as external forces are reshaping China. The dynamics of these forces are on display as the new leaders, Presidents Obama and Xi, project their visions for a “pacific” world order on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean. In this new world order of “peaceful war” dynamics (i.e., more like Venusian competition over Martian-like bloody warfare) mutually reinforce the other’s economic prosperity, political stability, and peace. The potential for America’s “fiscal cliff” and China’s “social cliff” forces both nations to creatively navigate their bilateral relations as domestic pressures mount on political leaders in Beijing and Washington. GRAND STRATEGY FOR ALL BATTLES The architecture of America’s Asia pivot strategy has explicit economic, trade, and military components just as the premise of the Chinese dream contains economic development plans and military modernization. These are essentially Hamiltonian frameworks for economic prosperity and national development. The question is whether these strategies will lead to a world of Jeffersonian aspirations in mainland China. America’s grand vision has always been designed to battle for the creation of a Jeffersonian “Empire of Liberty.” That perennial conviction, which is part of American exceptionalism, is the driving force behind the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who facilitated the peaceful opening of China to the world, accurately observed,

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Both societies believe they represent unique values. American exceptionalism is missionary. It holds that the United States has an obligation to spread its values to every part of the world. China’s exceptionalism is cultural. China does not proselytize; it does not claim that its contemporary institutions are relevant outside China (italics added).14 Still, China has been rapidly developing an international soft power communication strategy by expanding the Xinhua news agency globally and installing Confucius Institutes around the world. For them, future battles will be fought not in traditional battlefields but in human minds, especially since China has neither its own contemporary institutions outside China (like the Washingtonbased, American-inspired World Bank and International Monetary Fund) nor a global network of military bases like that possessed by the United States. According to the 2009 Base Structure Report, the United States has a web of “more than 700 military bases overseas” with a presence of over “140,000 soldiers and an equal number of dependents, some 20,000 civilian employees, and more than 72,000 ‘other’ personnel.”15 On the top of this globally expansive military deployment, the best and brightest strategists in the Pentagon have “concluded that the time has come to prepare for war with China,” and to confront its peaceful economic rise and technological advances.16 Just as the unintended consequences of America’s wars with other cultures— like the ones experienced in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam—were difficult to foresee, the newly proposed and technologically sophisticated framework of the Pentagon’s AirSea Battle (ASB) Plan for the Pacific region to dominate the global commons—air, sea, and space—will be problematic.17 The ASB Plan recalls the mindset of the specialized groups in the Pentagon associated with President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (referred to as “Star Wars”) to defeat the Soviet empire. But China is no Soviet Union; the people in this ancient and thriving civilization have wisely realized that safety and security are important elements of justice and

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prosperity. This is the same enlightened notion that the Founding Fathers envisioned for the American project. Sadly, there are single-minded specialists in the so-called United States of Amnesia (i.e., another USA) that have pathologically forgotten about the debacles of Southeast Asia (in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) and more recently in Southwest Asia (Afghanistan and Iraq). These ambitious interest groups connected with the U.S. militaryindustrial complex naturally continue to sustain profit-making enterprises at the expense of human dignity. In his article “Who Authorized Preparations for War with China?” for the Yale Journal of International Affairs, Professor Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University questions the wisdom of promoting “peace through strength.”18 When Washington needs to borrow money from Beijing to pay for the American adventures and to secure resources (such as rare earth materials from China) for national defense systems, the strategic wisdom of a self-inflicting military plan is questionable (and even paradoxical) within a larger scheme of American grace and founding vision. Beijing’s masterful strategy, however, reflects Sun Tzu’s Art of War: “One hundred victories in one hundred battles [are] not the most skillful. Subduing the other’s military without battle is the most skillful.”19 In Chinese perspectives, Confucian values are categorically superior and universally admired for building a stable and peaceful social order; China’s ancient culture is destiny, as proven by their peaceful rise through economic achievements and feats such as winning the most Olympic gold medals, for example. In fact, for the Chinese people, the influence of a millennia-old cultural lineage—endorsed by belief in the Mandate of Heaven— of a “Celestial Empire” is divinely superior to the missionary-like strategy expounded on by America’s “Empire of Liberty” doctrine. The perennial Chinese vision has been in practice at least since the Middle Kingdom’s first notions of territorial expansion and certainly since Admiral Zheng He’s diplomatic voyages to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Given all this, Beijing is apprehensive of American intentions. This is partly a Chinese mindset haunted by the memories of its

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Boxer Rebellion, domestic turmoil, and national humiliations at the hands of foreign powers, as well as America’s Soviet containment policy during the Cold War era. The latter resonates more with President Barack Obama’s Asia pivot policy, which is viewed in China as a malignant plan to “concircle” (contain and encircle) the Middle Kingdom militarily and economically in order to contain its ascendency into the former glory and derail a Chinese Renaissance. For Beijing strategists, the Obama strategy echoes President Ronald Reagan’s ambitious former Soviet Union strategy, which brought down communism partly by convincing the Saudis and other oil exporters to flood the market to reduce Soviet oil revenues.20 Such tactical viewpoints have become necessary pieces of the foundation for thoughtful policy dialogue and leadership engagement in real world of politics between the two nations, where unfair trade practices (like intellectual property rights, cyberspying on technological designs, and currency manipulation) and human rights could be triggered as possible weapons of trade to undermine the perceived Chinese dominance. For the United States, it is indeed an illusion to attempt to remake China in the American image or to contest its domain of influence in the world, especially given the current limitations imposed by the U.S. national budget. Each nation continues to evolve differently; the Japanese and British parliamentary systems of democracy, for example, still have a “divine” (if not Mandate of Heaven) monarch. France enjoys its executive democracy; Switzerland has a uniquely democratic canton system. All democracies—like in India, Sri Lanka, or even Taiwan—share similar issues, like corruption and mistreatment of their own citizens. The United States has its own history of Chicago-style corruption and mistreatment of African Americans and Native Americans. It has more recently revealed an unmanned drone kill policy that allows the targeting of American citizens if allegedly involved with Al Qaeda and its allies, as determined by U.S. government agencies.21 Free election and public participation on their own merits (as in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Palestinian Authority, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) are important

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elements of democratic governance; however, limitations like Congressional deadlocks often lead to the employment of a range of independently appointed committees and commissions. These groups, tasked with finding solutions for challenging public and international policy issues, exist outside the elected, representative republican institutions like U.S. Congress. These characteristics are inherently common to both American democracy, which is driven partly by special interests and revolving doors between government and private sector, and the Confucian hierarchy of the Communist Party structure with vested privileges. Given these divergent but similar political milieus, potential partnership is an easier path for the two Pacific powers than a dystopian vision of continuous conflict. Creative vision is surely needed—even as historical parallels more often illustrate mutually beneficial SinoAmerican relations between the two republics. Despite ancestry as a civilization-state, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is younger than the American republic by 173 years. The United States took more than a century to realize Jeffersonian and democratic ideals of equality for slaves and women— two untouchable issues during the founding years of the American republic. The evolving nature of national unity, the social mosaic and equal rights is all about what America represents as a nation: a manifestation of historical episodes such as the “Trail of Tears” (for Native Americans), the Civil War, the Women’s Suffrage movement, and Civil Rights struggles. The American experience has advanced along difficult pathways toward the realization of Jeffersonian freedoms. Similarly, a reformed China has probably laid the inevitable preconditions that prefigure greater religious freedom for Tibetan Buddhists, democratic rights for Muslim Uighurs (in Xinjiang), and greater equality for women. In the United States, Jeffersonian ideals were eventually materialized by the women, Native Americans, and African-Americans themselves— partly by collectively pursuing justice through political means or judicial trials, and partly through individual awareness and education.

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FORCES OF SILENT REVOLUTION Education is the silent force multiplier behind societal transformation for greater public good and justice. Both the Chinese government and families place boundless emphasis on education, a prized Confucian value. With greater wealth and more education, a large number of Chinese are increasingly tasting freedom and personal liberty. In the last decade, mainland Chinese have become one of the largest international student bodies at U.S. colleges and universities, notably at Ivy League institutions. China surpassed traditional “study abroad” nations like Canada, India and South Korea to lead foreign student enrollment across American higher education during the 2009-2010 school year. The New York-based Institute of International Education’s most recent figures reveal that “mainland Chinese students increased twenty-three percent to more than 723,000 in the 2010-2011 academic year.”22 Study abroad is an increasingly lucrative industry in China; incidences of cheating on exams, faking personal achievements, and falsifying documents to get admission to American colleges and universities are widely reported even as financially-challenged U.S. institutions eagerly strive to attract foreign funds.23 The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times underscored the issue, noting that problems are largely “driven by hyper-competitive parents and aggressive [business] agents.’’24 While the pursuit of happiness through higher education in China’s Confucian culture triumphs over the rule of law (as previous chapters have detailed), the other implications of such educational and cultural exchanges are far-reaching: Westerneducated Chinese returning home will likely fuel a creative tension for greater democratic change. These returnees from America’s liberal institutions will become “democratic bees” pollinating millions of flowers for liberty. China will inevitably experience a tipping point for democratic reform—one that Confucian South Korea and Taiwan also experienced—faster than their Confucian neighbors; extensive business and travel opportunities have also allowed a far greater number of Chinese to visit many foreign

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countries. In 2012, the amount of outbound Chinese tourists exceeded 83 million; travelers spent over $102 billion overseas and the annual projected increase in coming years is almost twenty percent.25 In Confucian societies, values of friendship, loyalty and family matter. Xi Jinping’s return to visit the Iowan family that hosted him in 1985 clearly illustrated the character of the new leader and his affinity for the Heartland of America.26 People-to-people diplomacy and overseas travel have evidently formed a sense of oneness that blurs cultural divisions and lends credibility to the idea of common human aspirations. Regardless of China’s occasional anti-American rhetoric, Xi’s reunion with his American hosts represents a promise of a greater bond between the two economic superpowers. These kinds of educational exchanges and cultural tourism—cultivated over decades—have now been expanded upon to include military-to-military interactions, too. Recent news reports reveal a novel social development in which networks of factory workers and laborers working in urban renewal projects and industries have joined forces with young students and Chinese returnees from abroad. Yet another hazy force is emerging between Internet-based, educated youth and CPC young cadre with their own social networks of critique. Microbloggers have now become an unpredictable cohort of potential change agents for freedom. The freedom of expression to address grievances (especially those raised by farmers and factory workers) is already present: over 150,000 mass protests yearly are recorded by CPC officials and small-scale protests (usually over poorly compensated land seizures) have seen government cave to local demands on more than one occasion. Overall, the Chinese people want greater freedom and expect more justice; China is transforming profoundly, albeit at a snail’s pace. CHINESE “MISSILES” OF FREEDOM Unlike the older generation prior to Deng Xiaoping, the offspring of the latest generation is exposed to a networked world of

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relatively greater freedom than that of their parents, who experienced Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. These youngsters in their twenties are more vibrant and educated—and most importantly, these Chinese youth have already been exposed to the taste of liberty and the social networks of the twenty-first century, and are acting as a new sort of human “missiles of freedom.” They are better informed about the United States (and are even fully aware of the limits of freedom under the guise of America’s homeland security and the Patriot Act) than the previous generation, having learned about the U.S. cultural ethos not only through the World Wide Web but also through active engagement in a variety of academic exchanges, foreign visits, trade delegations, diplomatic encounters, scientific contacts, and other soft power instruments. Just as America progressed gradually toward Jeffersonian ideals of equality over the years, the next “fairness revolution” with Chinese characteristics will rise organically from within, particularly by way of young, restless cohorts. China does not need to worry about America “concircling” an enemy with its allies of Japan, South Korea, and India—or the Asia pivot strategy in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The intertwined Chimerican (China and American) economies must both generate wealth and jobs for mutual prosperity and social stability. Just as Hamiltonian Might and Jeffersonian Right once led America through creative tension and innovation to locate its American exceptionalism, China will soon enter into a similar journey. Under new CPC leadership, Beijing has in fact embarked on a balancing act of reviving historic China as both a Nation of Might (through ancient maritime claims) and a Nation of Right (defined by Confucian virtues and Asian values). Like the United States, China has its own struggles with history but the two nations also share a common vision: Hamiltonian economic development must precede the realization of Jeffersonian ideals. The American experience of the past two centuries is ironically guiding China’s evolution into “a more perfect” Confucian union itself, with the 60-plus year old People’s Republic of China (PRC) as an agent of change. The ancient civilization-state and the

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young American Republic need to foster greater patience and understanding of each other by reflecting more on history and less on rhetoric. A UNIFIED CONFUCIAN DEMOCRACY Beijing’s coming of age on the world’s stage at the 2008 Olympic games demonstrated the clearest expression of a Chinese global worldview through its “One World, One Dream” slogan. Even before the Olympics, a 2005 CPC White Paper on Political Democracy stated, “Democracy is an outcome of the development of political civilization of mankind. It is also the common desire of people all over the world.”27 In China, democracy will probably emerge gradually with Confucian characteristics. The civilizational social structure, an invisible pyramid that resembles the power structure of the CPC, will remain; the Confucian DNA of Chinese culture cannot be destroyed, as Mao Zedong’s two failed attempts during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution operations demonstrated. The invisible pyramid has now become a natural element of social and political authority behind the exercise of CPC power (as seen in restricting undesirable Internet dialogue, for example); the majority of Chinese people seem to tolerate this cultural relic partly due to a sense of national identity and partly attributed to passive respect for the Confucian power structure. The CPC hierarchical power structure resembles that of another age-old institution: the Vatican and the Catholic Pope in Rome. Maintaining the Catholic religious identity and respect for authority, over one billion faithful Christians would welcome a chance to visit the Vatican. Millions flock yearly to see “God’s representative” (similar to the Mandate of Heaven) on earth emerging from St Peter’s Basilica—despite the church’s history of non-Christian behaviors. These include popes violating celibacy vows and fathering children (Alexander VI, the Borgia pope, had ten children), alleged money laundering by the Vatican Bank (officially called the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR in Italian), and sexual impropriety by priests, bishops, and cardinals. Despite all this, the

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power of spiritual culture and faith exhibited in Christian civilization will continue with the Holy See at the center, just as the civilization-state exercises its Confucian power pyramid through the Communist Party in Beijing. The Church and the Party are coincidently (or not) represented by “cardinal” red (i.e., the Red Guards in China and the College of Cardinals with red hats in the Vatican), and the two civilizations have a lengthy history of interaction despite great geographical distance between them (see chapter three). Both conservative organizational hierarchies, which often operate behind the wall of secrecy, are governed by frail human beings; these human institutions are undeniably flawed, but the application of their respective cultures and traditions tends to continue on regardless of transparency. The CPC maintains its political power through modification and adaptation to changing cultural and social needs (just as today, the Catholic Church stays silent on birth control legislation in the Philippines and Ireland—or even in the United States). With this in mind, a possible future democratic China might look more like a Singaporean-style Confucian nation-state. After all, the vast landmass of China with over one billion people is the Confucian cradle of the “civilization-state”—as the experience of the tiny city-state of slightly over five million Singaporeans has demonstrated. Or, will democratic change arrive more dramatically, as when the Republic of China (RoC), Taiwan, separated from mainland Communist China after the Nationalists took refuge in Taipei? To counter any moves toward independence from mainland China, Beijing already maintains a “Confucian union” with the RoC under the “one country, two systems” model (also employed by the CPC in Hong Kong and Macau). Despite previous President Hu Jintao’s prescription for “greater political courage and vision,” changing the system of communist governance through “collective leadership”—with all of its rivalries and factions—is a monumental task. Collective oversight of the masses actually constitutes a social contract between government and the governed; therefore, a sense of legitimacy within the political culture does exist. Certainly, the post-Mao “princeling”

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strata of leadership in state-owned enterprises as well as the ruling cadre of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have vested interests in the status quo (similar to perennially elected “career” politicians in U.S. Congress, against whom Thomas Jefferson called for a revolution in every generation for the sake of “the tree of liberty” to “be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” in order to provide “natural manure” for the republic).28 While President Xi is the first leader born after the birth of the PRC, he is still a prince within this enduring civilization-state. Nonetheless, the millennia-old words of Confucius, “It takes but one man to settle the fate of an empire,” may still apply. A “PACIFIC” ORDER AS IF PEOPLE MATTERED The fate of this modern empire largely depends on President Xi and his leadership skills within the constraints of Beijing’s Politburo and its Standing Committee. While President Hu outlined “active and prudent efforts” to reform the political structure over the next ten year period, the Communist Party—the embodiment of the common people—is afraid of the restless middle class and the educated. Workers and peasants are more threatening since they have power at the points of industrial and agricultural production. In the United States, Alexander Hamilton—a plutocrat who, among all the Founding Fathers, liked centralized power the most—was similarly afraid of the people. Infamously warning against Jeffersonian enthusiasm for the glorious future of the nascent nation, Hamilton said, “Your people, Sir,—your people is a great beast.”29 Throughout a history of national flaws and erroneous leadership decisions, “the people” have always been at the pinnacle of the American experiment. On the eve of his re-election victory and just before the leadership transition in Beijing in November 2012, President Obama reaffirmed those Jeffersonian ideals when he said, “People in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter.”30 The people of China and elsewhere heard Obama’s pointed message.

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By the very nature of a purpose-given nation, however, Chinese leaders are still conditioned with a mindset that order and harmony (as in the heavens) must be kept for stable equilibrium. Just as faithful Christians have enormous respect and reverence for church leaders, Chinese people are culturally inclined to respect elders and leaders within their world of Confucian ethics and morality. This stands in contrast to the purpose-driven American system, which is governed to find “order out of chaos” (the motto of the 33rd degree of Freemasonry, “Ordo ab Chao” in Latin) for dynamic equilibrium in society. In the United States, logical reasoning in general is the driving force in governance; people may have faith in government, but they always look for verification and expect innovation—a constant rebirth of the dynamic system. That sort of renewal in a democratic system of two parties— with a varying degree of reasoning and faith in government among diverse constituents of the Republican and Democratic Parties—is associated with conflicts, tensions, and deadlocks. It is a sign of a healthy democracy where freedom reigns. However, the processes of American democracy are often messy; other democratic nations—like India and South Africa—are messier, louder, and even bloodier. For them, the price of democratic freedom has greater meaning than a stable social order at the expense of another group of people. The competition between the political ideologies of the Democratic and Republican Parties often illustrates a marketplace of ideas in every aspect of human behavior, from a world of moderate views to more extreme ones (e.g., the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements). Democrats have traditionally leaned more toward greater faith in the government apparatus while Republicans are generally inclined to trust the forces of free market to allocate resources and manage societal welfare. In China, the Communist Party has proprietorship over the marketplace of ideas and policy implementation; party politics and special interests within policy issues are resolved internally and in an orderly manner. When it comes to Sino-American relations, however, ideologies and foreign policies are tested on a global marketplace of ideas where culture, science, and technology inter-

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act with fairness, logics, and reasoning. The territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas are a recent example of complex interplay among these elements. A glimpse into the future of Pacific relations could possibly be seen through an American prism in terms of the Republican and Democratic Party politics of conflict resolution in an open marketplace of special interest media outlets (like the Fox and MSNBC television channels), issue-oriented policy campaigns (e.g., gun control), and highly-funded propaganda outreaches (similar to the swift boat political attack ads on presidential candidate John Kerry). A similar pattern has now begun to emerge in the mediadominated Sino-American politics of accusation and counteraccusation, including but not limited to cyber hacking and military espionage on the American patriot missile system, the F-35 joint strike fighter design, and the U.S. Navy’s new littoral combat ship plan.31 A PACIFIC DREAM With his consummate Sino-American experience, Henry Kissinger anticipates that “the crucial competition between the United States and China is more likely to be economic and social than military.”32 In other words, there will be trade and culture wars. But they will essentially be “peaceful wars” if managed wisely by creative—not dystopian—visions exercised by both nations. Kissinger explains, Historical parallels are by nature inexact. And even the most precise analogy does not oblige the present generation to repeat the mistakes of its predecessors. . . . A serious joint effort involving the continuous attention of top leaders is needed to develop a sense of genuine strategic trust and cooperation.33 Given the cultural and economic context of Sino-American relations (unlike the Sino-British example of Lord George Macartney’s

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1793 debacle with the Qianlong Emperor), the United States must not take the easier paths to conflict as the British empire did with the former American colonies and the two Opium Wars (18391842 and 1856-1860) in the Middle Kingdom. The former U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger concurred when he wrote that “consensus may prove difficult [with the Chinese], but confrontation on these issues is self-defeating”34 not only for the United States, but for China as well. The studious Chinese leadership may have now realized that the United States has undergone the American experience to strive toward Jeffersonian ideas and ideals. As a mature nation, the United States must bear global responsibility for its comparative advantage and invisible attraction (as the Jeffersonian land of freedom and the Hamiltonian world of opportunities for immigrants) in the competitive flow of human talents and skills. It is all about America’s “traditional convictions rather than as a contest with China,” Kissinger observed.35 If America is indeed a “shining City upon a Hill,” as its earliest Pilgrims believed, the Chinese people must now look to the eastern sunrise to begin the world anew at the dawn of the Pacific century. As a global nation, the United States must be humble in its philosophic mission to fulfill its founding vision—and be patient: China has already acted on Hamiltonian means to pursue Jeffersonian ends.36 The most likely endgame of democratic freedom ought to be the United States’ greatest gift to the Chinese people—an American pathway to a “Pacific dream.” It is a dream that entails the key elements of Jeffersonian freedom and liberty in a Pacific New World Order.

NOTES Foreword 1. The White House Press Release on “Remarks by President Obama and President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China after Bilateral Meeting,” Sunnylands Retreat Center at Rancho Mirage in California on June 8, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/08/remarks-presidentobama-and-president-xi-jinping-peoples-republic-china-, accessed August 28, 2013.

Prologue 1. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mahadev Desai (trans.), An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, e-book by MobileReference, no date of publication. 2. Michael Meagher and Larry Gragg, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 144. 3. Madam Bandaranaike became the prime minister of Ceylon/Sri Lanka three times: 1960-1965, 1970-1972 (Ceylon) and 1972-1977 (Sri Lanka), and 1994-2000. Known until 1972 as Ceylon, its name was changed to Sri Lanka under the new 1972 constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. 4. Confucius, James Legge (ed.), The Confucian Analects, the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean (New York: Cosimo Press, 2009), 105. 5. The people of Perham always remind me of Garrison Keillor’s mythical Lake Woebegone, where “all the women are strong, all the men are goodlooking, and all the children are above average,” as he announces weekly in his Prairie Home Companion show in the National Public Radio. I have always considered Perham my “birthplace” in America; I have annually visited my AFS family and friends when I travel to see my wife’s family in Willmar, Minnesota. My American wife of Scandinavian heritage was also a former AFS exchange student from Minnesota to Japan. We met at the University of Minnesota in 1986. 6. Kinsley M. De Silva, History of Sri Lanka (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 66. 7. Anuradha Seneviratna, Polonnaruva, Medieval Capital of Sri Lanka: An Illustrated Survey of Ancient Monuments (Colombo, Sri Lanka: Archaeological Survey Department, 1998), 215. 8. De Silva, 31.

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9. De Silva, 77. 10. Senake Bandaranayake, Sri Lanka and the Silk Road of the Sea (Colombo: Sri Lanka National Commission for UNESCO and the Central Cultural Fund, 1990), 225. 11. In his memoir, Dr. Gamini Goonetilleke, a surgeon at the General Hospital of Polonnaruwa, wrote that “Palugasdamana was another area [of Polonnaruwa] where there were many Catholics. Mendis [my grandfather], a Catholic from Jaela, was one of the old settlers . . . He had been there since the time of the late Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake,” the architect of the resettlement project. See Gamini Goonetilleke, In the Line of Duty: Life and Times of a Surgeon in War and Peace (Colombo, Sri Lanka: Unigraphics Limited, 2008), 36-39. Also see Asian American News, “Patrick Mendis Meets New Sri Lankan Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith,” Asian American Press, December 25, 2011, http://aapress.com/ethnicity/sri-lankan/patrick-mendis-meets-new-sri-lankancardinal-malcolm-ranjith/, accessed May 28, 2013. 12. Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1975), 211-246. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Michel Foucault (trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith), The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 3-15. 16. Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2008). 17. Charles Douglas, Rich Where It Counts: Creating Lasting Wealth by Cultivating Spiritual Capital (Garden City, NY: Morgan James Publishing, 2006). 18. Tan Yingzi, “Chinese Sculptor Remains Calm in MLK Statue Storm,” The China Daily, August 28, 2011, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sunday/201108/28/content_13204349.htm, accessed May 30, 2013. 19. Mike Xiong, The Stone of Hope: Martin Luther King Memorial and Master Sculptor Lei Yixin (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2011), 150. 20. Monitoring Desk, “U.S. Memorial to Martin Luther King Unveiled,” Pakistan Times, August 24, 2011, http://www.pakistantimes.net/pt/detail.php?newsId=24376, accessed May 30, 2013. 21. Patrick Mendis, “Birth of a Pacific Order,” Harvard International Review, Vol. 34, No. 4, Spring 2013, 22-27.

Chapter One 1. White House Press Release on “Remarks by President Obama and President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China after Bilateral Meeting,” Sunnylands Retreat Center at Rancho Mirage in California on June 8, 2013,

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/08/remarks-presidentobama-and-president-xi-jinping-peoples-republic-china-, accessed August 28, 2013. 2. See “Universalists v Exceptionalists: A Mighty Contest Whose Outcome Will Determine China’s Future,” The Economist, June 23, 2011, http://www.economist.com/node/18832024, accessed February 5, 2012. 3. Barack Obama, “Transcript of President Obama’s Election Night Speech, The New York Times, November 7, 2012. 4. The original translation, “Affairs may be ruined by a single sentence; a kingdom may be settled by its one man,” has been rephrased. See the original in James Legge, The Chinese Classics: Life and Teachings of Confucius (London: N. Trubner and Company, 1869), 274. 5. See BBC News, “China's Hu Jintao in Corruption Warning at Leadership Summit,” November 8, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china20233101, accessed November 22, 2012. 6. Ibid. 7. Peter Ford, “China’s Leadership Change is Disturbing the Corridors of Power,” The Christian Science Monitor, December 3, 2012, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2012/1203/China-s-leadershipchange-is-disturbing-the-corridors-of-power, accessed December 18, 2012. 8. Keith B. Richburg, “China’s Xi Jinping to Party Officials: Simplify,” The Washington Post, December 05, 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-05/world/35625791_1_weibo-likeqiang-new-rules, accessed December 12, 2012. 9. Yu Sui, “Turning Blueprints into Reality, China Daily, December 10, 2012, 8. 10. Ibid. 11. Yang Lina, “Xi Jinping Advocates Reform, China Dream,” The Xinhua News, December 23, 2012. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/201212/23/c_132058740.htm, accessed January 15, 2013. 12. Ibid. 13. Scholars consider that the May Fourth Movement (1915-21) after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1911 is the Chinese Renaissance because it was a period of intense focus on political change and scientific revival. See Hu Shi, “The Father of the Chinese Renaissance,” in The Chinese Renaissance: The Haskell Lectures, 1933 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934). 14. William Kazer and Olivia Geng, “Same Bed, Different Dreams for China’s Leaders, Critics,” The Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/01/16/same-bed-different-dreams-forchinas-leaders-critics/, accessed January 28, 2013. Also see Agence FrancePresse, “Protesters Demand Press Freedom over Censorship Row at Southern Weekly,” The South China Morning Post, January 7, 2013, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1122299/protesters-demand-pressfreedom-over-censorship-southern-weekend, accessed January 19, 2013.

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15. Jonathan Kaiman, “China Anti-censorship Protest Attracts Support Across Country,” The Guardian (London), January 7, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/07/china-anti-censorship-protestsupport, accessed January 28, 2013. Also see Associated Press, “Journalists Confront China Censors over Editorial,” The USA Today, January 4, 2013, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/04/china-mediacensorship/1808483/, accessed, January 28, 2013. 16. Didi Kirsten Tatlow,“Calls for Press Freedom in China’s South,” The New York Times, January 7, 2013, http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/calls-for-press-freedom-inchinas-south/, accessed January 27, 2013. 17. Ian Johnson, “At China’s New Museum, History Toes Party Line,” The New York Times, April 3, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/asia/04museum.html?pagewanted=a ll, accessed Dec 11, 2011. 18. See also Walter McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World since 1776 (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997). 19. Patrick Mendis, “What Does the ‘Chinese Dream’ Really Mean?” The South China Morning Post, March 14, 2013, http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1189936/what-doeschinese-dream-really-mean, accessed April 7, 2013. 20. Maureen Fan, “China’s Party Leadership Declares New Priority: ‘Harmonious Society,’” The Washington Post, October 12, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101610.html, accessed December 5, 2012. 21. John Garnaut, “National Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” Foreign Policy, November 15, 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/15/national_socialism_with_chi nese_characteristics, accessed December 12, 2012. 22. Philip Steele, The Chinese Empire (New York: Rosen Publishing, 2009), 12. 23. John James Clarke, The Tao of the West: Western Transformations of Taoist Thought (London: Routledge, 2000), 22. 24. Julia Ching, Chinese Religions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993), 223. 25. Huang Anwei (Edward Wong), “The Xi Jinping Shenzhen Line Release Reform Signal,” The New York Times, December 10, 2012, http://cn.nytimes.com/article/china/2012/12/10/c10leader/dual/, accessed December 12, 2012. 26. Edward Wong, “Signals of a More Open Economy in China,” The New York Times, December 9, 2012,

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/world/asia/chinese-leaders-visit-toshenzhen-hints-at-reform.html?ref=world, accessed Dec 10, 2012. 27. Ibid. 28. Editor, “Xi Reiterates Adherence to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” Xinhua News Agency, January 5, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-01/05/c_132082389.htmm, accessed January 7, 2013. 29. Patrick Mendis, “Chinese Renaissance Man is Touched by America’s Heartland, The Minnesota Post, November 8, 2012, http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2012/11/chinese-renaissance-mantouched-america-s-heartland, accessed December 8, 2012. 30. See Andrew Jacobs, “Confucius Stood Here, But Not for Very Long,” The New York Times, April 23, 2011, A4. During my two-month lecture tour in China, I visited the National Museum of China in Beijing on March 30, 2013 but the Confucius statue was no longer on public display; instead there was a collection of ancient philosophers and religious leaders along with Confucius inside the entrance of the museum. 31. Trésor Kibangula, “The Mystery of Tiananmen Square’s Disappearing Confucius Statue,” The Observer (France), April 22, 2011. http://observers.france24.com/content/20110422-mystery-tiananmen-squareconfucius-statue-china-beijing-national-museum-mao-disappeared, accessed February 7, 2013. 32. Zhang Jianfeng, “Commentary: New Leadership Shows Resolve to Realize ‘Chinese Dream,’” November 29, 2012, Xinhua, http://english.cntv.cn/20121130/100216.shtml, accessed December 10, 2012. 33. Graham Allison and Robert Blackwill, “Will China Ever Be No. 1? If You Want to Know the Answer, Ask Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew,” Foreign Policy, February 16, 2013, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/16/will_china_ever_be_no_1_le e_kuan_yew, see also the speech by Lee at the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council’s 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner in Washington, D.C., on October 27, 2009, http://www.usasean.org/multimedia/mm_speech.pdf , accessed February 18, 2013. 34. Briefing Xi Jinping’s Vision, “Chasing the Chinese Dream,” The Economist, May 4, 2013, 24-25. 35. For a review of American dream in light of the Declaration of Independence, see David Kamp, “Rethinking the American Dream,” Vanity Fair, April 2009, http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/04/americandream200904, accessed January 20, 2012. 36. See a global view of the Declaration in David Armitage, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 27 and passim. 37. The speech was first appeared as part of Virginia Attorney General William Wirt’s biography of Patrick Henry in William Wirt, Sketches of the Life

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and Character of Patrick Henry (Philadelphia, MD: James Webster, 1817), 142. The Port Folio first published the speech by itself in December 1816, according to Jay B. Hubbell, The South in American Literature, 1607-1900 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1954), 240. The reference to the king is cited in a letter that James Parker of Norfolk wrote to his friend Charles Steuart on April 6, 1775: “You never heard anything more famously insolent than P Henrys speech. He called the King a Tyrant, a fool . . . .” See this contemporary account in Ivor Noel Hume, 1775: Another Part of the Field (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1966), 119. 38. Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: 1816-1826 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899), 328. 39. Randall Kennedy, “The Limits of Exceptionalism,” Time Magazine, January 28, 2013, 22. 40. The phrase a “dark vein of intolerance” was first used by former Secretary of State General Colin Powell to describe the Republican Party when he discussed his recently published book, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012), at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., on November 7, 2012. In response to this author’s question, Powell also offered a lengthy answer to Sino-American relationship in a broader framework of American history and intolerance. See the exchange, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyUxgEg-kkk&feature=youtu.be, accessed February 6, 2013. 41. David A. Fahrenthold, “Obama Invokes the Words of the Founders,” The Washington Post, January 22, 2013, A1. 42. Fahrenthold, A1 and A21. 43. James Madison, “The Federalist Paper No. 51,” in The Federalist (New York: Modern Library, 1788), 337. 44. Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 164. 45. Tania Branigan, “China’s Hu Jintao Warns Congress Corruption Could Cause Aall of State,” The Guardian (London), November 8, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/08/china-hujintao-warningcongress-corruption, accessed February 4, 2013. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Thomas Jefferson, Series of Letters Addressed to Thomas Jefferson (Philadelphia, MD: E. Bronson, 1802), 98. 49. Wing-Tsit Chan (trans.), A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 22. 50. Richard E. Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 19. 51. Louisa Lim, “Chasing the Chinese Dream—If You Can Define It,” All Things Considered: NPR News, April 29, 2013,

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http://www.npr.org/2013/04/29/179838801/chasing-the-chinese-dream-if-youcan-define-it?sc=tw, accessed May 1, 2013. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Liu Mingfu, China Dream: The Great Power Thinking and Strategic Positioning of China in the Post-American Age (Beijing: China Friendship Press, 2010). 55. Ibid. 56. Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 504507. 57. Lim. 58. Madison, 337. 59. Ibid. 60. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, The Federalist on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788 (Washington, D.C.: Glazier and Company, 1831), 47. 61. Patrick Mendis, Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the American Empire (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010), 208-209. 62. Patrick Mendis, “China-bashing Rhetoric Like Romney’s is Counterproductive,” The Minnesota Post, October 23, 2012. http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2012/10/china-bashing-rhetoricromneys-counterproductive, accessed December 16, 2012. 63. The idea of a “Pacific world order” or a “Pacific dream” was first explored in Patrick Mendis, “Birth of a Pacific Order,” Harvard International Review, Vol. 34, No. 4, Spring 2013, 22-27. 64. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), x. 65. With hierarchical and formal structures, a complex global web of “government networks” has changed the traditional global governance and international politics. See Anne-Marie Slaughter, A New World Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). 66. This is a paraphrased version in light of Professor Joseph Nye’s lecture based on his upcoming book, Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013) and this author’s subsequent interview with his Harvard professor at a luncheon meeting at George Mason University on February 6, 2013. 67. The philosopher’s quote is from Mark Robert Polelle, Leadership: Fifty Great Leaders and the Worlds They Made (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008), xiv. 68. See the needed leadership skills elaborated by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. in his The Powers to Lead (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 69. Chan, 154. 70. Ibid.

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71. Helene Cooper and Martin Fackler, “Obama Says U.S. Seeks to Build Stronger Ties to China,” The New York Times, November 14, 2009, A6. Read the “Remarks by President Barack Obama at Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan, in the White House Press Release, November 14, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obamasuntory-hall, accessed December 14, 2012. 72. Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Random House, 1995), 408-409. 73. Patrick Mendis, “How Washington’s Asia Pivot and the TPP can Benefit Sino–American Relations,” The East Asia Forum, March 6, 2013, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/03/06/how-washingtons-asia-pivot-and-thetpp-can-benefit-sino-american-relations/, accessed March 8, 2013. 74. Jill Reilly, “Welcome Back! Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping Heads Back to His Favourite U.S. Town 27 Years After He First Stayed There,” The Daily Mail (London), February 16, 2012. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102001/Chinese-Vice-President-XiJinping-heads-Mississippi-town-27-years-1st-visit.html#axzz2KLqPjPCF, accessed January 20, 2013. 75. Ibid. 76. Patrick Mendis, “Will Xi’s Ascension Herald Political Reform?” South China Morning Post, November 9, 2012, http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1077966/will-xisascension-herald-political-reform, accessed January 20, 2013. 77. Xinhua, “Obama: U.S. Welcomes China’s Peaceful Rise,” Xinhua News, February 15, 2012, http://www.china.org.cn/world/Xijinping_visit/201202/15/content_24639966.htm, accessed February 3, 2013. 78. Robert B. Zoellick, “Whither China: From Membership to Responsibility?” Deputy Secretary of State’s remarks to the National Committee on U.S.China Relations, New York City, September 21, 2005. The archive of the U.S. Department of State http://20012009.state.gov/s/d/former/zoellick/rem/53682.htm, accessed February 7, 2013. 79. Chris Wrigley, Winston Churchill: A Biographical Companion (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO Inc., 2002), xxiv.

Chapter Two 1. Alexander Hamilton, Harold Syrett (ed.), The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Volumes 1-26 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 200. 2. Wesley F. Craven, The Virginia Company of London: 1606-1624 (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing, 2009), 9. 3. Bob Deans, The River Where America Began: A Journey Along the James (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007), 65. 4. Craven, 10.

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5. Ibid. 6. Deans, 39. 7. Deans, 94. 8. Ibid. 9. Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, General History of China: Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological and Physical Description of the Empire of China (London: J. Watts, 1741), 2. 10. C. Martin Wilbur, “Modern America’s Cultural Debts to China,” in Issues and Studies: A Journal of China Studies and International Affairs, Institute of International Relations, Republic of China, Vol. 22, No.1, January 1986, 127. 11. Benjamin Franklin, Preface to Declaration of the Boston Town Meeting, Printed in The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders and Other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston.(London, 1773), i-vi. See Franklin Papers, http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp, accessed February 12, 2013. 12. Eric Jay Dolin, When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012), 58. 13. Susan Gray Detweiler, George Washington's Chinaware (New York: Harry N. Abrams Publishers, 1982). 14. Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, American Porcelain, 1770-1920 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989), 8. Also see Benjamin Rush’s letter to Thomas Bradford on April 15, 1768, in L. H. Butterfield (ed.), Letters of Benjamin Rush, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), Vol. 1, 54. 15. Benjamin Franklin’s letter to Deborah Franklin on January 28 1772, in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, in Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks (ed.), Vol. 7, (London: Benjamin Franklin Stevens, 1882), 561. 16. John C. Fitzpatrick (ed.), The Diaries of George Washington, 17481799 (New York: Published for the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union by Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925), Vol. 4, 392-393. 17. Dolin, 64. 18. U.S. Congress, Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 105th Congress Second Session, Vol. 144, Part 15, September 22, 1998— September 26, 1998, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1998), 21534. 19. Dave Wang, “Thomas Jefferson’s Incorporating Positive Elements from Chinese Civilization,” Virginia Review of Asian Studies, 143. http://www.virginiareviewofasianstudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/8.wang-china-jefferson.doc, accessed January 26, 2013. 20. James Madison, Letters from Madison to Jefferson, April 27, 1785, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Philadelphia: 1867, I, 146. 21. Susan R. Stein, The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello (New York: Harry N. Abrams Publishers in association with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1993).

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22. Douglass Lea, “Thomas Jefferson: Master Gardener,” Mother Earth News, Feb-Mar 1999, Issue 172, 104. 23. Marie Kimball, Jefferson: The Road to Glory, 1743 to 1776 (New York: Coward-McCann, 1943), 164. 24. Wang. 25. Owen Aldridge, The Dragon and Eagle: The Presence of China in the American Enlightenment (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1993). 26. Thomas Paine, Philip S. Foner (ed.), Completed Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2 (New York: Garden City Press, 1945), 737. 27. Aldridge, 67. 28. Jay Tolson, “The Many Faces of Benjamin Franklin,” U.S. News and World Reports, June 23, 2003, Vol. 134, Issue 22, http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/030623/23ben.htm, accessed, February 5, 2013. 29. Peter Charles Hoffer, When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield: Enlightenment, Revival, and the Power of the Printed Word (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 97. 30. Benjamin Franklin, “The Morals of Confucius,” Pennsylvania Gazette, February 28 to March 7, 1737, 56. The Confucian philosophy was first introduced to the English-speaking world in 1706. Its complete title was The Morals of Confucius: A Chinese Philosopher, Who flourished above Five hundred years before the Coming of Our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ (London: South Entrance into the Royal Exchange, 1706). 31. Franklin did not cite the sources of his ideas but Confucian ideals were represented in Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth (Carlisle, MA: Applewood Books, 1986). This classic was originally published in 1758. 32. Dave Wang, “Thomas Jefferson’s Incorporating Positive Elements from Chinese Civilization,” Virginia Review of Asian Studies, 144. http://www.virginiareviewofasianstudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/8.wang-china-jefferson.doc, accessed January 25, 2013. 33. Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth (New York: Leavitt, Trow and company, 1848), 7. 34. Ibid. 35. J. A. Leo Lemay, The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Printer and Publisher, 1730-1747 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), Vol. 2, 207. 36. Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 596. 37. Benjamin Franklin, William Temple Franklin (ed.), The Works of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia, MD: William Duane, 1817), Vol. 6, 126-7. 38. Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks (ed.), The Works of Benjamin Franklin, (Boston: Whittemore, Niles, and Hall, 1856), Vol. 2, 467-468. 39. American Philosophical Society, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 1, (Philadelphia, PA: Aitken and Son, 1789), xix.

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40. Ibid. 41. Du Halde, Preface. 42. M. De Voltaire, A Philosophical Dictionary (London: W. Dugdale, 1843), Vol. 2, 12. 43. Dr. Ellis Paxson Oberholzer, the second-longest served president after Benjamin Franklin at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, wrote in “Franklin’s Philosophical Society,” The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 60, March 1902, 432. 44. Dolin, 55 45. Dolin, 61. 46. Dolin, 71. 47. Dolin, 117. 48. Quoting Grant Hardy, Anne Kinney, The Establishment of the Han Empire and Imperial China (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 2005), 99. 49. John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998), 19. 50. See Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard: The Almanacks for the Years 1733-1758 (New York: Limited Editions Club, 1964). 51. Patrick Mendis, “The Masonic Seeding of Our Commercial Republic,” The Scottish Rite Journal, November/December 2010, 5-7. 52. Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003). 53. Walter Isaacson, 161. 54. Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1757 (Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 2008), 201. 55. Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson (ed.), A Benjamin Franklin Reader (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 259-261. 56. Thomas E. Burke, “The Albany Plan of Union, 1754” in Stephen L. Schechter, ed., Roots of the Republic: American Founding Documents Interpreted (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1990), 112. 57. Chung-Ying Cheng and Nicholas Bunnin (eds.), Yang Xiao, “Liang Qichao’s Political and Social Philosophy,” in Contemporary Chinese Philosophy (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 15-36. 58. In addition to Liang Qichao (1873–1929), other intellectuals included Wang Guowei (1877–1927), Zhang Dongsun (1886–1973), Hu Shi (1891– 1958), and Jin Yuelin (1895–1984). 59. Liang Qichao, Ling Zhijung (ed.), The Collected Works of Liang Qichao (Beijing: Beijing Publishing House, 1999), Vol. 1, 154. 60. Liang, Vol. 2, 656. 61. Liang, Vol. 7, 4031 62. Ibid. 63. Liang, Vol. 1, 259. 64. Liang, Vol. 1, 334.

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65. See “Liang Qichao on His Trip to America” in Patricia Buckley Ebrey (ed.), Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), 335-40. 66. Liang, Vol. 1, 459. 67. Liang, Vol. 1, 273. 68. See “Liang Qichao” in Bo Mou (ed.), History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2008), 480-5. 69. Liang, Vol. 5, 2845. 70. Ibid. 71. Quoting Yang Xiao (2002), 30. Also see Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong’s Early Writings: 1912.6–1920.11 (Zhangsha, China: Hunan Press, 1990), 5. 72. John Fairbank, Great Chinese Revolution, 1800-1985 (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), 151. 73. Ibid. 74. See Mao Zedong, Michael Kau, John Leung (eds.), The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1949-1976: January 1956-December 1957 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1992), Vol. 2, 158-179. 75. Qian Suoqiao, Liberal Cosmopolitan: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill NV, 2011), 31-32. 76. Quoting Luo Xu, Searching for Life’s Meaning: Changes and Tensions in the Worldviews of Chinese Youth in 1980s (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 9. 77. James Reeve Pusey, China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 189. 78. For a socio-political analysis of the Olympics in Allen Guttmann, The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992). 79. Confucius used these words to describe the “perfect” and “virtuous” aspects of human nature that could (and should) be cultivated by moral education and ethical behavior. See Confucius, James Legge (trans.), The Confucian Analects: The Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean (New York: Cosimo Inc., 2009), passim. 80. Confucius, James Legge (trans.), 104-105. 81. This word is accurately used in his commentary by Dr. James Legge of Oxford University in Confucius, see James Legge (trans.), 105-106. 82. Quoting Shu-ching in Confucius, James Legge (trans.), 106. 83. Ibid. 84. James Madison, “The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances between the Different Departments” in Federalist Paper No. 51, Independent Journal, February 6, 1788. See http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm, accessed January 30, 2013. 85. Ibid. 86. James Madison and other Founding Fathers were influenced by French philosopher, Baron de Montesquieu, who wrote the famous book, The Spirit of

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the Laws (1748), which advocated the separation of power but the cooperation is needed to govern. See Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, Daniel Wallace Carrithers (ed.), The Spirit of the Laws (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977). 87. Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (New York: Random House, 2008). 88. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), 198. 89. Hugh Tulloch, The Debate on the American Civil War Era (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1999), 104. 90. Lyon Sharman, Sun Yat-sen: His Life and Its Meaning, A Critical Biography (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), 271. 91. Sun Yat-sen, Pasquale M. D’elia (trans.), The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen, (New York: The Franciscan press, 1931), 373. 92. Suisheng Zhao, Power by Design: Constitution-Making in Nationalist China (Honolulu, HI: Univeristy of Hawaii Press), 23. 93. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. 94. Washington Irving, The Life of George Washington (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1876), Vol. 2, 781. 95. Benjamin Franklin, Albert Henry Smyth (ed.), The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907), Vol. 9, 569.

Chapter Three 1. Benjamin Franklin, William Temple Franklin (ed.), The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume VI (Philadelphia, PA: William Duane, 1809), 123. 2. “Matteo Ricci, S.J. (1552-1610),” IgnatianSpirituality.com, from http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-voices/16th-and-17th-centuryignatian-voices/matteo-ricci-sj/, accessed February 23, 2013. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers (New York: Random House, 1985), 333. 6. Nicholas Campion, Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 106. 7. Boorstin, 333. 8. Confucius, Edward Gilman Slingerland (trans.), Confucius Analects: With Selection from Traditional Commentaries (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2003), 168. 9. Joseph Needham, “The Place of Astronomy in the Ancient World” in World Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 276, No. 1257, May 2, 1974, 67-82.

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10. Anthony F. Aveni, “Bringing the Sky Down to Earth,” History Today Vol. 58.6, 2008, available at http://www.historytoday.com/anthonyaveni/bringing-sky-down-earth, accessed February 10, 2013. 11. Confucius, James Legge (trans.), The Life and Teachings of Confucius (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1867), 121. 12. Hellmut Wilhelm (ed.), The I Ching or Book of Changes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 1. 13. Aveni. 14. Mencius, Irene Bloom (trans.), Mencius (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 15. Wing-Tsit Chan (trans.), A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 662. 16. Ray V. Denslow, Freemasonry in the Eastern Hemisphere (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2006), 312. 17. Chan, 73. 18. Ibid. 19. The Forbidden City was opened as a Palace Museum in 1925 after the eviction of China’s last emperor, the six-year old Manchu Puyi (reigned 19091912). The Manchu dynasty ended when the civil war broke out but Puyi had been permitted to live in the Palace during that intervening decade under an agreement by his imperial relatives and the newly formed Chinese Republic. See Caroline Courtauld and May Holdsworth, The Forbidden City: The Great Within (London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 1995), 17. 20. George William Skinner (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1977), 111. 21. Lisa Benton-Short and John R. Short, Cities and Nature (New York: Routledge, 2008), 22. 22. Confucius, Edward Slingerland (trans.), Confucius Analects with Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2003), 8. 23. Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Chinese Imperial City Planning (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 163. 24. Steinhardt, 92. 25. Aveni. 26. Shih-shan Henry Tsai, Perpetual happiness: the Ming emperor Yongle (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001), 128. 27. See Ole Bruun, Feng Shui in China: Geomantic Divination between State Orthodoxy and Popular Religion (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2003). 28. Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, prepared for the Supreme Council of the Thirty Third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States (Charleston, NC: Forgotten Books, 1871, reprinted 2008), 701. 29. Pike, 167.

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30. John K. Young and Barb Karg, The Everything Freemasons Book: Unlock the Secrets of this Ancient and Mysterious Society (Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2006), 122-125. 31. Patrick Mendis, Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the American Empire (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2010), 103-111. 32. James H. S. McGregor, Washington from the Ground Up (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 25. 33. Ibid. 34. For a complete biography, see Silvio A. Bedini, The Life of Benjamin Banneker: The First African-American Man of Science (Baltimore, MD: Maryland Historical Society, 1999). 35. Charles Cerami, Benjamin Banneker: Surveyor, Astronomer, Publisher, Patriot (New York: Wiley Press, 2002). 36. According to the U.S. National Park Service’s webpage, Banneker laid forty boundary stones at one-mile intervals to demarcate boundaries. See the U.S. National Park Service homepage. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/lenfant.htm accessed May 5, 37. Anthony F. Aveni, People and the Sky: Our Ancestors and the Cosmos (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008). 156. 38. David Ovason, The Secret Architecture of Our Nation’s Capital: The Masons and the Building of Washington, DC (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999), 4-5. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ovason, 49. 44. Ovason, 72. 45. Ovason, 386. 46. See Genesis 1:14; Psalms 147:4; Isaiah 40:26; Luke 12:21-27. 47. Charles T. McClenachan,The Book of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (New York: Masonic Publishing Co, 1884), 412. 48. Chan, 73. 49. Malcolm C. Duncan, Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004), 36. 50. Ecclesiastes 3:1. 51. Confucius, xxi. 52. See “Washington’s Inaugural Address of 1789,” transcript available from National Archives and Records Administration, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/inaugtxt.html, accessed February 18, 2013. 53. Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1912) 339.

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54. See “Washington’s Inaugural Address.” 55. Ibid. 56. James Legge (ed), The Chinese Classics: Confucian Analects, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893), 98. 57. Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on March 31, 1968 in Washington, D.C. 58. See the webpage of the Confucius Institute Headquarters in Beijing at http://english.hanban.org/node_7716.htm, accessed April 25, 2013. 59. John H. Berthrong, Expanding Process: Exploring Philosophical and Theological Transformations in China and the West (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008). 60. S. J. Marshall, The Mandate of Heaven: Hidden History in the Book of Changes (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). 61. Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 61. 62. John O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity,” The United States Democratic Review, Vol. 6, Issue 23, November 1839, 426-430. 63. Donald M Scott, “The Religious Origins of Manifest Destiny,” Divining America: Religion in American History, National Humanities Center, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/mandestiny.htm, accessed January 27, 2013. 64. Mendis.

Chapter Four 1. Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis on June 20, 1803. See Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 8 (New York: H. W. Derby, 1861), 486. 2. Ernst Faber, Chronological Handbook of the History of China (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1902), 196. 3. Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System AD 1250-1350 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 343. 4. Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 81. Also Bruce Swanson, Eighth Voyage of the Dragon: A History of China’s Quest for Sea Power (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1982), 33-34. 5. Ibid. The nationality of Columbus has often been disputed; however, the secret Vatican Archives confirmed of his Genovese origin. See Maria Luisa Ambrosini, The Secret Archives of the Vatican (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1996), 154-157. 6. Levathes, 155.

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7. Edward L. Dreyer, Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433 (New York: Pearson and Longman, 2007). 8. Frank Viviano, “China’s Great Armada, Admiral Zheng He,” National Geographic, Number 208, Vol. 1, July 2005, 28-53. 9. Ibid. 10. Sue Gronewald, The Ming Voyages, Columbia University: Asia for Educators., http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1000ce_mingvoyages.htm, accessed May 1, 2013. 11. Viviano. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Gavin Menzies, 1421: The Year China Discovered America (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002). 15. See Anthony C. Yu (trans.), The Journey to the West (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1983). The originally translated book, Monkey, was published by Sir Arthur Waley as Adventures of the Monkey God in 1942. The initial title was Xi you ji (Journey to the West) by Wu Cheng’en of the Ming dynasty. 16. John O’Sullivan, “Annexation,” United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Volume 17, Number 1, July-August 1845, 5-10. 17. Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), 371. 18. John O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity,” The United States Democratic Review, Volume 6, Issue 23, November 1839, 430. 19. Ibid. 20. O’Sullivan (1839), 427 and 430. 21. Patrick Mendis, “Destiny of the Pearl: How Sri Lanka’s Colombo Consensus Trumped Beijing and Washington in the Indian Ocean,” Yale Journal of International Affairs, September 2012, Volume 7, Issue 2, 68-76. 22. Viviano. 23. Dreyer, 1. 24. Ibid. 25. Xing Lu, Rhetoric in Ancient China, Fifth to Third Century B.C.E: A Comparison with Classical Greek Rhetoric (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1998), 265. 26. Pamela Crossley, Richard Bulliet, et al, The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 407. 27. Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne 1405-1433 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 155. 28. Ibid. 29. Levathes, 156. 30. Viviano, 36. 31. Viviano, 36-37; Levathes, 98-99, 102.

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32. Viviano, 41. 33. Viviano, 37. 34. Ibid. 35. James Emerson Tennent, Ceylon: An Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions (London: Spottiswoode and Company, 1859). 36. Tennent, 622. 37. Ibid. 38. Tennent, 623. 39. The Spolia Zeylanica editor in 1912 writes that “the Chinese, when they gained political ascendancy over Ceylon in 1409, with the eclecticism in religious matters characteristic of their race, made gifts of about equal value to the Buddha, to a deity who, whatever may have been his origin, was at the time, of Hindu character and to an Islamic saint or shrine.” See Sarath Paranavitana, “The Galle Trilingual Stone,” Epigraphia Zeylanica, Volume VIII, 1912, 335. 40. Translation provided by Edward Backhouse, “The Galle Trilingual Stone,” Spoila Zelanica, Volume VIII, 1912, 125. 41. Tennent, 624. 42. Dreyer, 68 and 70. 43. Tennent, 624. 44. K. M. De Silva, History of Sri Lanka (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 87. 45. Dreyer, 68. 46. Tennent, 625. 47. Levathes,82-86. 48. Tennent, 626. 49. Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2007), 49. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. Angus Maddison, 382, Table A7. The GDP for United States was $82,800; China was $570 in 1700 (in 1990 international dollars). See the statistical table online at http://www.theworldeconomy.org/MaddisonTables/MaddisontableB-18.pdf, accessed Dec 5, 2012. 53. Maddison, 379, table A4. 54. Mary M. Anderson, Hidden Power: The Palace Eunuchs of Imperial China, (Buffalo NY: Prometheus, 1990), 15-18 and 307-11. 55. Levathes, 161. 56. Ibid. 57. Levathes, 165. 58. James Legge (ed.), Prologomena [sic] to the Chinese Classics of Confucius and Mencius (London: The Oxford University Press, 1907), 61-63.

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59. Nicholas Kristof, “1492: The Prequel,” The New York Times, June 6, 1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/06/magazine/1492-theprequel.html?scp=1&sq=pate%20island%20china&st=cse, accessed Dec 12, 2012. 60. Menzies, 84. 61. Ibid. 62. Lorna Dewaraja, “Zheng He: A Peaceful Mariner and Diplomat,” Xinhua News, July 12, 2005, http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/zhenhe/134661.htm, accessed Dec 12, 2012. 63. Kenneth W. Morgan (ed.), The Path of the Buddha: Buddhism Interpreted by Buddhists (New Delhi: Motilal Publishers, 1997), 60-64. 64. See an update by Vidya Subrahmaniam, “Pratibha Gifts Indian-Style Temple to the People of China,” The Hindu, May 29, 2010, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article441547.ece accessed Dec 12, 2012. 65. Editorial Committee of the Chinese Civilization, China: Five Thousand Years of History and Civilization (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2007), 386. 66. The city had served as the capital during the late Neolithic Xia Dynasty as some scholars claimed 2100-1766 BC, but the existence is still debated among archeologist and historians. 67. John King Fairbank, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992). 68. Yong Yap Cotterell and Arthur Cotterell, The Early Civilization of China (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1975), 144. 69. Samanth Subramanian, “The Buddhas of Bamiyan by Llewelyn Morgan—review,” The Guardian, May 18, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/18/buddhas-bamiyan-llewelynmorgan-review, accessed October 20, 2012. 70. Ibid. 71. Abdul Sabahuddin, History of Afghanistan (New Delhi: Global Vision Publishers, 2008), 30. 72. Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 46. 73. Erik Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1959), 152. The author writes that the journey took “more than ten years” so that “the precious gift was eventually offered to emperor An (405418), several years after Hziao-wu’s death.” 74. Ibid. 75. Ann Heirman, “Vinaya: From India to China,” in Ann Heirman and Stephen Peter Bumbacher (eds.), The Spread of Buddhism (Leiden, Netherlands: Brills Publishing, 2011), 181-185.

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76. Tennent, 387. Professor Dharmadasa elaborates that the delegation carried two valuable pieces of muslin (a treasured gift at the time) to the Chinese emperor in 428. See K. N. O. Dharmadasa, “Fa-Hsien in Sri Lanka,” The Island, September 28, 2010, http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=articledetails&page=article-details&code_title=7716, accessed May 4, 2013. 77. Frances Wood, The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia (Berkley: University of California Press), 97 and passim. 78. Faxian called the island, “the country of Sinhala,” what was then described by traveling merchants as “the Kingdom of Lions.” See Fa-hsien, James Legge (translated), A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese monk Fa-hsien of His Travels in India and Ceylon, AD 399-414, in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1886), 100-101. 79. H. A. Giles (Translated), The Travels of Fa-hsien, 399–414 AD (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 80. Fa-hsien wrote, “The Hindus regard it as the footprint of Siva; the Mohameddans, as that of Adam; and the Buddhists, as in the text,—as having been made by Buddha.” See Fa-hsien, 100-101. 81. Fa-hsien, 100-101. 82. Fa-hsien, 102. 83. Fa-hsien, 105-106. 84. Fa-hsien, 104, fn 2. It seems that Faxian called “Vaishya” referring to the third of four castes in Indian Hindu society, mostly farmers, herders, merchants, and businessmen. 85. Fa-hsien, 103, fn 1. 86. Describing Marco Polo visit to Ceylon in Henry Hart, Venetian Adventurer: The Life and Times of Marco Polo (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), 147-148. 87. Tennent, 4 and passim. 88. Tennent, 387. 89. Ibid. 90. Henry H. Hart: Marco Polo, Venetian Adventurer (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967) and Henry Yule (ed.), The Travels of Marco Polo (New York: Dover Publications, 1983). See also Donald Obeyesekere, Outlines of Ceylon History (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1999), 191. 91. Marco Polo, Henry Yule and Henri Cordier (eds.), The Travels of Marco Polo: The Complete Yule-Cordier Edition (Mineola, NY: (Mineola: Dover Publications, 1992), 329-330. See also Donald Obeyesekere, 191 and James Emerson Tennent, Vol. 1, 622, footnote 1. 92. De Silva, 87 and fn. 10. 93. Patrick Mendis, “The Sri Lankan Silk Road: The Potential War between China and the United States,” Harvard International Review, Fall 2012, 54-58.

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94. See an official account of the seven voyages of Zheng He (between 1405 and 1433) in the Information Office of the People’s Government of Fujian Province, Zheng He’s Voyages Down the Western Seas (Beijing: China International Press, 2005). 95. Edward Wong, “China’s Communist Party Chief Acts to Bolster Military,” The New York Times, December 15, 2012, A9. 96. Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: The Military Power of the People’s Republic of China (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, July 2005), 9.

Chapter Five 1. Max Kaltenmark, Lao Tzu and Taoism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969), 54. 2. Odd Arne Westad, Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750 (New York: Basic Books, 2012). 3. Westad, 81. 4. Westad. 5. Rune Svarverud, International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China: Translation, Reception and Discourse, 1847-1911 (Leiden, Netherland: Brill, 2007), 90-91. 6. Svarverud, 136. 7. See the transliteration of the word “Monroe” in Jean-François Susbielle, “The China Sea and the ‘Mén luó’ Doctrine,” in China-USA Net, February 20, 2012, http://www.china-usa.net/2012/02/the-china-sea-and-the-men-luodoctrine/, accessed February 23, 2013. For the “Chinese Caribbean” phrase, see Tetsuo Kotani “Why China Wants South China Sea,” The Diplomat, July 18, 2011, http://thediplomat.com/2011/07/18/why-china-wants-the-south-china-sea/, accessed February 23, 2013. 8. Susbielle. 9. Ibid. 10. Chris Buckley, “China Leader Affirms Policy on Islands,” The New York Times, January 30, 2013, A6. 11. Gary Hart, James Monroe: President of the United States of America, 1817-1825 (New York: Times Books, 2005), 100. 12. Cal Jillson, Texas Politics: Governing the Lone Star State (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007), 19-34. 13. John A. Adams, Conflict and Commerce on the Rio Grande: Laredo, 1755-1955 (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2008), 52-53, passim. 14. William Earl Weeks, John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 195.

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15. Llerena Friend, Sam Houston, the Great Designer (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1954), 115-161. 16. John Walter, The Guns that Won the West: Firearms on the American Frontier, 1848-1898 (London: Greenhill Books, 2006), 13-16. 17. Robert V. Remini, John Quincy Adams (New York: Times Books, 2002), 151. 18. Alexander Francis Morrison, The Monroe Doctrine: An Essay (San Francisco, CA: C. A. Murdock and Company, 1896), 44-47. 19. See John O’Sullivan, “Annexation,” United States Magazine and Democratic Review Vol. 17, No.1, July-August 1845, 5-10. 20. William Earl Weeks, Building the Continental Empire: American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee Inc., 1996), 61. 21. United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge speaks on the Philippine Question, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., January 9, 1900, Congressional Record (56th Congress, 1st Session) Vol. XXXIII, 705, 711. 22. Ibid. 23. James Holmes, “China’s Monroe Doctrine,” The Diplomat, June 22, 2012; see http://thediplomat.com/2012/06/22/chinas-monroe-doctrine/, accessed August 25, 2012. 24. Ibid. 25. James Henderson Blount, The American Occupation of the Philippines: 1898-1912 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913). 26. Shelley Fisher Fishkin (ed.), A Historical Guide to Mark Twain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 227-248. 27. See the Philippine War, 1899-1902 in Andrew J. Birtle, United States Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1860-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998), 108-147. 28. See Jose M. Hernandez, Cuba and the United States Intervention: Intervention and Militarism, 1868-1933 (Austin, TX: University of Texas press, 1993). 29. Matthew Kachur and Jon Sterngass, Spanish Settlement in North America, 1822-1898 (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007), 91-12. 30. Tom Miller (ed.), Cuba: True Stories (Berkeley, CA: Publishers Group West, 2004), 181-190. 31. Ibid. 32. See “the Battle of Manila Bay” in Craig L Symonds, Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 139-196. 33. David F. Trask The War With Spain in 1898 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), 446. 34. David J. Silbe, A War of Frontier and Empire: The PhilippineAmerican War, 1899-1902 (New York: Farrar, Sttaus and Giroux, 2007). 35. Ibid.

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36. Ibid. 37. Kenneth R. Young, The General’s General: The Life and Times of Arthur Macarthur (New York: Westview Press, 1994), 302. 38. Angel Velasco Shaw and Luis H. Francia (eds.), Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream 1899-1999 (New York, NY: The New York University Press, 2002). 39. Holmes. 40. Ibid. 41. Westad, 221. 42. Westad, 101. 43. Westad, 88. 44. Westad, 89. 45. Westad, 90. 46. Westad, 94. 47. Westad, 95. 48. Westad, 101. 49. Westad, 109. 50. Sushila Narsimhan, Japanese Perceptions of China in the Nineteenth Century: Influence of Fukuzawa Yukichi (New Delhi: Phoenix Publishing House, 1999), 181. 51. Westad, 129. 52. Kenneth G. Clark, The Boxer Uprising 1899-1900, The Russo-Japanese War Research Society, February 1904—September 1905, http://www.russojapanesewar.com/boxers.html, accessed May 16, 2013. 53. Joanna Waley-Cohen. The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2000), 201. 54. Walter G. Moss, An Age of Progress? Clashing Twentieth-century Global Forces (New York: Anthem Press, 2008), 3. 55. See Stuart Hutchinson, Mark Twain, Humor on the Run (Amsterdam, Netherland: Rodopi B. V., 1994), 110-111. 56. Clark. 57. Westad, 131. 58. Westad, 132. 59. See other Christian missionaries sponsored institutions of higher studies in Ziming Wu and Peter Tze Ming Ng (ed.), Chinese Christianity: An Interplay Between Global and Local Perspectives (Leiden, The Netherlands, Brill, 2012), 91-110. 60. The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester Arthur on May 6, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. 61. Westad, 133. 62. B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1917), 229-230. 63. Ibid.

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64. Franklin D. Roosevelt and J. B. S. Hardman, Rendezvous With Destiny: Addresses and Opinions of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York: The Dryden Press, 2005), 139. 65. William H. Seward, George E. Baker (ed.), The Works of William H. Seward (Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1884), 58. 66. See the second Inaugural Address of President George W. Bush on January 20, 2005 in the White House webpage, http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/georgewbush, accessed February 24, 2013. 67. Tom Wolfe, “The Doctrine that Never Died,” The New York Times, January 30, 2005. 68. Ibid. 69. Susbielle. 70. Ibid. 71. See an extensive analysis of the Commerce Clause in Frederick Hale Cooke, The Commerce Clause of the Federal Constitution (New York: Baker, Voorhis and Company, 1908). 72. Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2005), 107. 73. Patrick Mendis, Commercial Providence: The Secret Destiny of the American Empire (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010). 74. Abraham Howry Espenshade (ed.), “Our Opportunity in the Orient” by Albert J. Beveridge, in Forensic Declamations for the Use of Schools and Colleges (New York: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1901), 198. 75. See Albert Beveridge, 43 and Albert Katz Weinberg, 274. 76. Mendis. 77. Su-Yan Pan, University Autonomy, the State, and Social Change in China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009). 78. “Obama at APEC,” Voice of America News, November 19, 2011, http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/asia/Obama-At-APEC-134154518.html, accessed April 2, 2012. 79. Remarks by the President Obama at a meeting on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Honolulu, Hawaii, Nov. 12, 2011, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/pressoffice/speeches/transcripts/2010/november/remarks-president-barack-obamameeting-tran, accessed October 19, 2012. 80. See an excellent analysis in Jeffrey Schott, Barbara Kotschwar, and Julia Muir, Understanding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute of International Economics, 2013). 81. See Jian Junbo, “Rivals Under the Same Heaven,” Asia Times Online, December 1, 2011. Accessed April 2, 2012, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ML01Ad04.html; see also Matt Spetalnick and Doug Palmer, “Obama to China: Behave Like a ‘Grown Up,’” Reuters, No-

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vember 14, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/14/us-apecidUSTRE7AB12920111114, accessed April 2, 2012. 82. See Zhi Linfei and Ran Wei, “Yearender: Obama Administration’s Asia Pivot Strategy Sows More Seeds of Suspicion than Cooperation,” Xinhua.net, December 23, 2011, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2011-12/23/c_131323762.htm, accessed April 2, 2012. 83. Eric Bellman and Cris Larano, “Clinton: South China Sea Dispute Must Be Resolved Peacefully,” The Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702041905045770412134825056 88.html, accessed May 4, 2012. 84. Choe Sang-hun, “Island’s Naval Base Stirs Opposition in South Korea,” The New York Times, August 18, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/world/asia/19base.html?pagewanted=all accessed April 2, 2012. 85. Hook, Leslie, “Myanmar Seeks to Repair China Ties.” The Globe and Mail, September 06, 2012, http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-onbusiness/international-business/myanmar-seeks-to-repair-chinaties/article4246968/?service=mobile, accessed November 28, 2012. 86. The Associated Press, “Obama Hosts Japan Prime Minister Who Leaves Woes at Home to Reaffirm Core Alliance with US,” The Washington Post, April 30, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-hostsjapan-prime-minister-who-leaves-woes-at-home-to-reaffirm-core-alliance-withus/2012/04/30/gIQA0h5xqT_story.html, accessed May 4, 2012. 87. Ibid. 88. Brahma Chellaney, Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India, and Japan (New York: HarperCollins Publisher, 2010). 89. “Reform Progress Puts China on Reform Track,” Caixin Online, November 25, 2011, http://english.caixin.com/2011-11-25/100331554.html. 90. John Pomfret, “U.S. Takes a Tougher Tone with China,” The Washington Post, July 30, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR2010072906416.html, accessed April 2, 2012. 91. Mark Landler, “A New Era of Gunboat Diplomacy,” The New York Times, November 12, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/sundayreview/a-new-era-of-gunboat-diplomacy.html?pagewanted=all, accessed April 2, 2012. 92. See Robert L. Beisner (ed.), American Foreign Relations Since 1600: A Guide to the Literature (Oxford, UK: ABC-CLIO, 2003) and P. J. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and America c.1750-1783 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 93. President Harry S. Truman spoke upon receiving an honorary law degree from the University of Kansas City on June 28, 1945. See the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara website

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http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=12190, accessed May 4, 2012. 94. Edward Wong, “Chinese Vice President Urges U.S. to Respect ‘Core Interests,’” The New York Times, February 16, 2012, A14. 95. See Ernie Bower, “Two Models for Integrating Asia: A Must Win for President Obama,” The Center for Strategic and International Studies Asia Policy Blog, November 11, 2011, http://cogitasia.com/two-models-for-integratingasia-a-must-win-for-president-obama/, accessed April 2, 2012. 96. William Thompson as cited by C. Rauch and I. Wurm, It’s the Hegemony, Stupid: Why a Sophisticated Power Transition Theory Needs Liberal Hegemony. Paper presented at the SGIR 7th Pan-European International Relations Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, September 9-11, 2010, http://www.stockholm.sgir.eu/uploads/SGIR2010_Rauch_Wurm.pdf, accessed April 2, 2012. 97. As cited by Bruce Vaughn, “U.S. Strategic and Defense Relationships in the Asia-Pacific Region,” Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., January 22, 2007, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33821.pdf, accessed April 2, 2012. 98. Patrick Mendis and Leah Green, “Government-wide Collaboration Boots National Trade,” The Public Manager, Vol. 39, Spring 2010, 43-47.

Chapter Six 1. David E. Hawkins and Shan Rajagopal, Sun Tzu and the Project Battleground: Creating Project Strategy from “the Art of War,” (New York: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2005), 99. 2. Patrick Mendis, “Destiny of the Pearl: How Sri Lanka’s Colombo Consensus Trumped Beijing and Washington in the Indian Ocean,” Yale Journal of International Affairs, September, 2012, Vol. 7, Issue 2, 68.76. A portion of this segment is adapted from the author’s article. 3. Claire Innes, “U.S. Rules Out IMF Loan Program for Sri Lanka as Humanitarian Crisis Deepens,” Global Insight, May 15, 2009. 4. IMF, “Sri Lanka to Use IMF Loan to Reform Economy after Conflict,” IMF Survey Magazine, July 29, 2009. See http://imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2009/int073009a.htm, accessed April 16, 2013. 5. Economic Affairs Correspondent, “China Gets Dragon’s Share of Postwar Projects in Lanka, The Sunday Times (Colombo), December 6, 2009. See http://sundaytimes.lk/091206/News/nws_02.html, accessed April 16, 2013. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. Chinese companies—including the China National Aero Technology Import and Export Corporation, China Harbor, China Railway No 5 Engineering Group, and Synohydro Corporation—employ Chinese workers.

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8. See an analysis of the Beijing Consensus in Stefan Halper, The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model will Dominate the Twenty-First Century (New York: Basic Books, 2010). 9. Patrick Mendis, “The Sri Lankan Silk Road, Harvard International Review, Fall 2012, Vol. 34, No. 2, 54-58. 10. Banyan, “My Brothers’ Keepers,” The Economist, February 11, 2013, http://www.economist.com/node/21547252, accessed May 26, 2013. 11. See Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2011: Sri Lanka, August 10, 2011, http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2011/sri-lanka, accessed April 12, 2013. 12. Ibid. 13. Colombo Telegraph, “WikiLeaks: ‘Rajapaksas Are Uneducated and Uncultured Rascals’ – CBK,” Colombo Telegraph, October 12, 2011, http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/wikileaks-rajapaksas-areuneducated-and-uncultured-rascals-cbk/, accessed May 12, 2013. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Mendis, Yale Journal of International Affairs. 17. See China and Sri Lanka, “The Colombo Consensus,” The Economist, July 8, 2010, http://www.economist.com/node/16542629, accessed May 26, 2013. 18. Banyan, “My Brothers’ Keepers,” The Economist, February 11, 2013. 19. Ibid. 20. John Williamson, “Latin American Readjustment: How Much has Happened?” in John Williamson (ed.), What Washington Means by Policy Reform (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1989). See http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/paper.cfm?researchid=486, accessed March 30, 2013. 21. Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, speaking on “An Inclusive and Sustainable Globalization” at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., on October 10, 2007. See http://digitalmedia.worldbank.org/slideshow/?slideshow_id=201, accessed March 30, 2013. 22. Joseph E. Stiglitz, “The Post Washington Consensus Consensus,” The Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) Working paper Series, Columbia University, 2004, presented at the From the Washington Consensus Towards a New Global Governance Forum, Barcelona, September 24-25, 2004. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid.

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28. United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Sri Lanka: Recharting U.S. Strategy after the War, December 7, 2009, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009). 29. United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 2-3. 30. United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 3. 31. Remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sri Lankan Minister of External Affairs G.L. Peiris on May 28, 2010. See Clinton and Sri Lankan Minister of External Affairs Peiris at the U.S. Department of State: http://www.america.gov/st/texttransenglish/2010/May/20100528153614ptellivremos0.5893976.html?CP.rss=true, accessed May 23, 2013. 32. Ibid. 33. Barbara Crossette, “Sri Lanka Wins a War and Diminishes Democracy,” The Nation, February 18, 2010. See http://www.thenation.com/article/srilanka-wins-war-and-diminishes-democracy, accessed May 26, 2013. 34. Ibid. 35. Kapil Komireddi, “What Intolerant Buddhist Monks are Doing to Sri Lanka,” The Daily Beast, April 12, 2013, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/12/what-intolerant-buddhistmonks-are-doing-to-sri-lanka.html, accessed May 26, 2013. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Keith B. Richburg, “In China, Silence Greets Talk of Reform,” The Washington Post, October 14, 2010, A8. 39. Interview with Wen Jiabao by Fareed Zakaria, CNN, October 3, 2010, http://transcripts.cnn.com/transcripts/1010/03/fzgps.01.html, accessed April 2, 2013. 40. Yan Xuetong, “What Ails Sino-U.S. Relations,” China Daily, August 3, 2010. See http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/201008/03/content_11084224.htm, accessed April 10, 2013. 41. Mendis, Harvard International Review. 42. Juli MacDonald, Amy Donahue, Bethany Danyluk, Energy Futures in Asia (report prepared by Booz Allen Hamilton for the Director, Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense 2004). See an analysis of “China Builds Up Strategic Sea Lanes,” The Washington Times, January 17, 2005. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/jan/17/20050117-1155501929r/?page=all, accessed March 12, 2013. 43. Michael Richardson, “Full Steam Ahead for Naval Might,” The Straits Times, January 15, 2009. See the reprint http://app.mfa.gov.sg/pr/read_content.asp?View,11921. Also see K. Alan Kronstadt and Bruce Vaughn, Sri Lanka: Background and U.S. Relations, U.S. Congressional Research Service, Washington, D.C., June 4, 2009 and Peter Lee, “Beijing broods over its arc of anxiety,” Asia Times, December 4, 2009.

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44. See the report on String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power Across the Asian Littoral at the Strategic Studies Institute in the United States Army War College, July 25, 2006, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=721, accessed May 3, 2013. 45. See “China Builds Up Strategic Sea Lanes,” The Washington Times. 46. See the report by Patrick Mendis and Leah Green, “Dealing with Emerging Powers: The U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement” (Chapter 4) in Richard Weitz (ed.), Project on National Security Reform. Washington, D.C.: National Security Reform Commission, 2008). 47. Thomas Harding, “Chinese Nuclear Submarine Base,” The Telegraph (London), May 1, 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1917167/Chinesenuclear-submarine-base.html, accessed May 15, 2013. 48. Zhang Lingling, Liu Hua, and Jia Hanlong, “Li’s Visit Opens New Chapter in China-Pakistan Relations,” Xinhua, May 24, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-05/24/c_132404787.htm accessed May 28, 2013. 49. Li Jiabao, “Sino-Indian trade imbalance to increase,” China Daily, May 21, 2013. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/201305/21/content_16513583.htm, accessed May 26, 2013. 50. Siddharth Srivastava, “India Lays Out a Red Carpet for Myanmar,” Asian Times, April 5, 2008, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JD05Df01.html, accessed May 12, 2013. 51. EarthRights International (ERI), “The Schwe Natural Gas Pipeline In Burma: Human Rights Violations Increase as Project Moves Forward,” EarthRights International, March 10, 2010, http://www.earthrights.org/campaigns/shwe-natural-gas-pipeline-burma-humanrights-violations-increase-project-moves-forward, accessed May 12, 2013. 52. Ibid. 53. Christopher J. Pehrson, String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2006). 54. See Jeremiah Jacques, “The Chinafication of Asia,” TheTrumpet.com, January 27, 2011, http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/7903.6505.0.0/asia/thechinafication-of-asia, accessed May 13, 2013. 55. Daniel Kostecka, “Places and Bases: The Chinese Navy’s Emerging Support Network in the Indian Ocean,” National War College Review, Winter 2011, Vol. 64, No 1, 72. 56. Ibid. 57. Robert D. Kaplan, “China’s Port in Pakistan?” Foreign Policy, May 27, 2011,

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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/27/chinas_port_in_pakistan, accessed May 13, 2013. 58. Vivian Yang, “China’s Pearls Unstrung—for Now,” Asia Times Online, July 20, 2011. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/MG20Ad01.html, accessed May 13, 2013. 59. Staff Reporter, “China to Assume Management of Pakistan Port of Gwadar,” WantChinaTimes.com, May 24, 2011. http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclasscnt.aspx?id=20110524000038&cid=1101, accessed May 13, 2013. 60. Ibid. 61. Ananth Krishnan, “No Deal on Gwadar Port, Says China,” The Hindu, May 24, 2011. http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/no-deal-on-gwadarport-says-china/article2045656.ece, accessed May 13, 2013. 62. See “In Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, Chinese Whispers Grow,” Reuters Afghan Journal, May 26, 2011. http://blogs.reuters.com/afghanistan/2011/05/26/in-pakistans-gwadar-portchinese-whispers-grow/, accessed May 14, 2013. 63. See “No Agreement Made With China Regarding Handing Over of Gwadar Port: PM,” Pakistan Today, June 6, 2011. http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/06/06/news/national/no-agreementmade-with-china-regarding-handing-over-of-gwadar-port-pm/, accessed May 14, 2013. 64. Kostecka, 72. 65. Lucy Hornby, “Chinese Admiral Floats Idea of Overseas Naval Bases,” Reuters, December 30, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/30/uschina-navy-idustre5bt0p020091230, accessed May 14, 2013. 66. The BBC report was quoted in Zhang Haizhou, “China Rules Out Overseas Naval Base Now,” China Daily, January 1, 2010. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-01/01/content_9254142.htm, accessed May 14, 2013. 67. Zhang Haizhou. 68. Peter J. Brown, “China’s PLA Raises Its Voice,” Asia Times, March 8, 2010. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/LC09Ad01.html, accessed May 14, 2013. 69. Zhang Haizhou. 70. The reported construction cost in “India Sees New Strategic Sea Lane in Andaman,” The Daily Times (Pakistan), September 30, 2005, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-9-2005_pg4_20, accessed May 14, 2013. 71. Ibid. 72. Rini Suryati Sulong, The Kra Canal and Southeast Asian Relations,” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2012, 109-125. 73. Connie Levett, “Thais Plan A Short Cut To West, The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), March 28, 2005,

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Thais-plan-a-short-cut-toWest/2005/03/27/1111862258592.html?from=moreStories, accessed May 15, 2013. 74. Florence Chong, “After Three Centuries, a Kra Canal?” Asia Today International, October 1, 2003, http://www.asiatoday.com.au/archive/feature_reports.php?id=34, accessed May 14, 2013. 75. Jozef Goldblat and David Cox (eds.), Nuclear Weapon Tests: Prohibition Or Limitation? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 65. 76. Wai Moe, “Thien Sien Tackles Chinese Navy Issue,” The Irawaddy, May 25, 2011. http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21361, accessed May 14, 2013. 77. CSIS Report on U.S. Alliances and Emerging Partnerships in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2009) 10-12. 78. Ibid. 79. China’s Export-Import Bank is financing 85 percent of the cost of the $1 billion project and China Harbor Engineering, part of a state-owned company, is building the port. Other arrangements have been made for an international airport near the port. Also see “Chinese Billions Helping Lanka Ward Off Western Peace Efforts, Fight LTTE,” China National News, May 2, 2009. See http://story.chinanationalnews.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/9366300fc9319e9b/id/49 6746/cs/1/, accessed May 14, 2013. 80. See Christopher D. Yung and Ross Rustici, China’s Out of Area Naval Operations: Case Studies, Trajectories, Obstacles and Potential Solutions, (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 2010). 81. Lieutenant General Li Jijun, Traditional Military Thinking and the Defensive Strategy of China: An Address at the United States War College (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Letort Paper 1, August 1997). 82. Kostecka, 59-78. 83. Kostecka, 60. 84. Kostecka, 61. 85. Kostecka, 74. 86. Kostecka, 65. 87. Kostecka, 71. 88. The Muslim envoy of the Ming dynasty visited the port city of Salalah in his fifth, sixth, and seventh voyages with treasures. Kostecka (67) writes, “historical accuracy aside, the official Chinese narrative of the [treasure fleet voyages] emphasizes their peaceful nature, their focus on trade and diplomacy, in contrast to European conquest and colonization.” This is likely to remain part of Beijing’s public relations strategy if PLAN presence in local waters were to become formalized. 89. Kostecka, 66.

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90. This includes terrorist activities, such as the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. 91. Kostecka, 67. 92. Kostecka 68-70, for a complete discussion. 93. Kostecka, 73. 94. Chietigj Bajpaee, “China-India Relations: Regional Rivalry Takes the World Stage,” China Security, World Security Institute, Issue 17, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2010, 3-20. 95. Amol Sharma, Jeremy Page, James Hookway, and Rachel Pannet, “Asia’s New Arms Race,” The Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2011. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487048813045760941732979951 98.html, accessed May 28, 2013. 96. Kostecka, 74. 97. Kevin Hope, “China in Deal To Build Piraeus Container Terminal,” FinancialTimes.com, November 26, 2008. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/be0da7dcbb5b-11dd-bc6c-0000779fd18c.html#axzz2VKDikM3Z, accessed May 28, 2013. 98. Anthony Faiola, “Greece is Tapping In to China’s Deep Pockets to Help Rebuild its Economy,” The Washington Post, June 9, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/06/08/AR2010060805312.html, accessed May 28, 2013. 99. Liu Chunhui, “Chinese Naval Warships Visit Greece,” Xinhua, August 9, 2010, http://english.sina.com/china/p/2010/0809/332909.html, accessed May 28, 2013. 100. Nathan Paull, “Bid to Attract Chinese Navy,” Townsville Bulletin, April 30, 2011. http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2011/04/30/227261_news.html, accessed May 28, 2013.

Chapter Seven 1. U.S. State Department, “Remarks on a 21st Century Pacific Partnership” by Secretary John Kerry at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Tokyo, Japan on April 15, 2013, http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/04/207487.htm, accessed August 28, 2013. 2. David A. Taylor, Ginseng, The Divine Root: The Curious History of the Plant That Captivated the World (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2006), no page numbers. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. See Benjamin Franklin, Preface to Declaration of the Boston Town Meeting, Printed in The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders and Other

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Inhabitants of the Town of Boston.(London, 1773), i-vi. See Franklin Papers, http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp, accessed February 12, 2013. 6. Eric Jay Dolin, When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012), 58. 7. Martin Wilbur, “Modern America’s Cultural Debts to China,” in Issues and Studies: A Journal of China Studies and International Affairs, Institute of International Relations, Republic of China, Vol. 22, No.1, January 1986, 127. 8. Owen Aldridge, The Dragon and Eagle: The Presence of China in the American Enlightenment (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1993). 9. Simon Winchester, The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008). 10. Benjamin Franklin, John Bigelow (ed.), The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Including the Private as Well as the Official and Scientific Correspondence Together with the Unmutilated and Correct Version of the Autobiography (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), 364. 11. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China: Physics and Physical Technology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963), Vol. 4, 590. 12. Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks (ed.), The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography (London: Benjamin Franklin Stevens, 1882), Vol. 6, 577. 13. Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks (ed.), 477. 14. Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin Press, 2011). 15. The United States commanded “more than 1.8 million military personnel while employing almost 500,000 civilians from the Department of Defense and 370,000 ‘other’ personnel” scattered around enormous number of military bases in the U.S. and around the world. See Maria Höhn, Seungsook Moon (eds.), Over There: Living with the U.S. Military Empire from World War Two to the Present (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 6. 16. Amitai Etzioni, “Who Authorized Preparations for War with China?” Yale Journal of International Affairs, June 12, 2013 http://yalejournal.org/2013/06/12/who-authorized-preparations-for-war-withchina/, accessed, June 14, 2013. 17. For an analysis of AirSea strategy, see Jeffrey Kline and Wayne Hughes, “Between Peace and Air-Sea Battle: A War at Sea Strategy.” Naval War College Review, Autumn 2012, Vol. 65, No. 4, 35-41 and a discussion of AirSea Battle concept in the U.S. Department of Defense, “Background Briefing on Air-Sea Battle by Defense Officials from the Pentagon.” November 9, 2011, http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4923, accessed June 3, 2013. 18. The quote is from Amitai Etzioni. See Jeff Nesbit, “China’s Continuing Monopoly Over Rare Earth Minerals,” U.S. News and World Report, April 2, 2013 http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/at-the-edge/2013/04/02/chinascontinuing-monopoly-over-rare-earth-minerals, accessed June 7, 2013.

270

Notes 19. Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2001),

viii. 20. This author interviewed a number of Chinese experts during his twomonth lecture tour at twelve universities and government institutions in eight cities in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. See “Professor Patrick Mendis Speaks on the ‘Chinese Dream’ and ‘American Destiny,’” The Financial Times, April 20, 2013, http://www.ft.lk/2013/04/20/professor-patrickmendis-speaks-on-the-chinese-dream-and-american-destiny/, accessed May 30, 2013. 21. Charlie Savage, “Obama, In a Shift, to Limit Targets of Drone Strikes,” The New York Times, May 23, 2013, A1. 22. Alexis Lai, “Chinese Flock to Elite U.S. Schools,” CNN, November 26, 2012, http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/25/world/asia/china-ivy-league-admission, accessed May 25, 2013. 23. Tom Bartlett and Karin Fischer, “The China Conundrum,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 3, 2011, http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/ and Mark McDonald, “Putting Chinese Students to the Test,” The New York Times, June 7, 2012, http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/putting-chinesestudents-to-the-test/, accessed May 31, 2013. 24. McDonald. 25. Zheng Xin and Wang Zhuoqiong, “More Chinese Travel Overseas, Study Reveals,” The China Daily, April 25, 2013, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-04/25/content_16447005.htm, accessed May 16, 2013. 26. Patrick Mendis, “Chinese Renaissance Man is Touched by America’s Heartland,” Minnesota Post November 8, 2012, http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2012/11/chinese-renaissance-mantouched-america-s-heartland, accessed May 30, 2013. 27. The Information Office of China’ s State Council issued the White Paper on Democracy in October 2005, see China View of Xinhua news agency http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/19/content_3648177.htm, accessed May 31, 2013. 28. Jefferson’s letter to William Stephens Smith dated November 13, 1787 in Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford (ed.), The Works of Thomas Jefferson (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), Vol. 5, 362. 29. Alexander Hamilton, Harold Coffin Syret (ed.), The Papers of Alexander Ham (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 13. 30. Barack Obama, “Transcript of President Obama’s Election Night Speech, The New York Times, November 7, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/06/us/politics/06-obama-electionnight-speech.html, accessed June 11, 2013. 31. Adam Segal, “Shaming Chinese Hackers Won’t Work Because Cyberespionage is Here to Stay,” The Guardian (London),

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/30/china-hacking-cyberespionage-obama, May 30, 2013, accessed June 2, 2013. 32. Kissinger. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. This portion of the conclusion is partially drawn from author’s article in Patrick Mendis, “Birth of a Pacific Order,” Harvard International Review, Vol. 34, No. 4, Spring 2013, 22-27.

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INDEX A Abraham Lincoln, 36, 37, 72-73, 96, 162 Abraham Maslow, 28 Afghanistan, 102, 128, 199, 225 African Americans, 227 Alakeshwara (Wejaya Bahu VI), 117 Albany Plan, 60-1 Albert Beveridge, 148, 168 Albert Pike, 90 Alexander Hamilton, 29, 49, 89, 91, 234 American Dream, 17, 23 American Revolution, 48, 54-55, 61, 89, 166, 221 Anacostia Rivers, 91 Analects, 52, 83, 127 Andrew Ellicott, 92 Andrew Jackson, 96, 148 Andrew Johnson, 96, 162 Annuit Coeptis, 58, 69, 99, 102 Arabian Peninsula, 183, 196, 212 Arabian Sea, 197, 211-12, 216 Army War College, 196 Asia pivot, 38-39, 111, 113, 170, 172, 208, 224, 227, 231 Asia Times, 201, 203 B Bamiyan, 128-29, 131 Barack Obama, 18, 29, 41, 113, 227 Baruch Spinoza, 89 Bay of Bengal, 197, 199, 207, 216 Beijing Consensus, 38, 186, 193, 194 Benjamin Banneker, 92

Benjamin Franklin, 48-51, 59-61, 74, 80, 89, 222-23 Bill Clinton, 96 Black Sea, 208, 215 Booker T. Washington, 96 Boston Tea Party, 49, 54-55 Boxer Rebellion, 154, 156, 227 Bretton Woods Institutions, 185 British East India Company, 49, 54 British Parliament, 55 British, 27, 35, 43, 47, 49, 52, 5456, 88, 90, 110, 113, 120-21, 136-37, 143-44, 146-48, 150, 157-58, 165, 189, 197, 204, 21113, 227, 236 Buddhist, 25, 38, 68, 80, 83, 88, 113, 118, 126-32, 134, 183-84, 187, 193, 217 Burma, 42, 174, 205, 217 C Cambodia, 117, 196, 217, 226 Canada, 31, 63, 139, 170, 229 Capitol, 94-6 Caribbean, 38, 105-6, 137, 142-43, 153, 181 Catholics, 77 Celestial Empire, 43, 47, 50, 55, 82, 84, 88, 101-2, 135, 226 Charles Thomson, 53, 99 Chiang Kai-shek, 67 Chief Justice John Marshall, 96 China Daily, 200 Chinese dream, 20-21, 23, 27, 3334, 36, 39, 42, 44, 133-34, 224 Chinese Renaissance, 20, 26-27, 227 Chittagong, Bangladesh, 197 Christianity, 51

Peaceful War

Christopher Columbus, 37, 105-6, 109, 120 Christopher Pehrson, 196 Civil Rights, 28-29, 73, 74, 194, 228 Civil War, 28, 72-73, 90, 112, 147, 150, 228 Civilization, 222 Colombo Consensus, 38, 183, 18687, 194-96, 218 Colombo, 38, 132, 183-87, 193-96, 199, 214, 218 Commerce Clause, 167, 178, 221 Common Sense, 50 Communist Party of China, 18, 67 Confucian, 1-27, 30, 32-37, 40, 42, 50-54, 59, 62, 64-72, 74, 77-78, 80, 83, 88, 101-2, 107, 110- 14, 121-22, 124, 127, 133, 156-57, 186, 222, 226, 228-233, 235 Confucianism, 63, 107, 122, 12728 Confucius, 24, 26, 32, 34-36, 5152, 63, 70-71, 80-85, 98, 100, 123, 127, 222, 225, 234 Constitution Avenue, 94, 95 Constitution, 34- 35, 62, 71, 73, 94,-95, 145, 167, 221 Constitutionalism, 20 Cultural Revolution, 18, 23, 26, 35, 68, 121, 230, 232 D Daoism, 107, 127-28 David Ricardo, 222 Declaration of Independence, 27, 89, 159, 166 Deism, 89-90 Democrats, 39, 235 Deng Xiaoping, 18, 30, 68, 133, 191, 230 Diego Garcia, 197

285

Dog Star Sirius (Spica), 95 Douglas MacArthur, 96, 152 Dragon Throne, 87, 95-96, 119, 216

E E Pluribus Unum, 58, 168 East China Sea, 22, 139, 141, 167, 173, 235 Emperor Ashoka, 129 Emperor Qianlong, 55 Emperor Yang Di, 101 Empire of Liberty, 39, 43, 50, 96, 102, 162, 224, 226 Empress Dowager Cixi, 63, 154, 157, 159 Empress of China, 54, 221 Empress Wu Zetian, 127 European Enlightenment, 65, 67-68 F Federal City, 75, 91-92, 95-97, 102 Federal Triangle, 37, 94-95 Federalist Papers, 29, 30, 66, 71 Feng shui, 83, 85, 87-88 Financial Times, 189, 215 Forbidden City, 26, 37, 75-76, 78, 84- 88, 91, 94, 95, 101, 110, 114, 157 Founding Fathers, 29, 43, 49, 58, 73, 90, 95, 169, 226, 234 France, 50, 53, 121, 143-44, 157, 223, 227 Franklin D. Roosevelt, 96 Freemasonry, 60, 80-81, 89-90, 96, 97, 235 French Revolution, 69 French, 48, 67, 69, 72, 106, 137, 164, 204

286

Index

G

I

George Macartney, 55, 236 George W. Bush, 43, 56, 102, 162 George Washington, 49, 54, 74, 80, 89-92, 99-100, 221, 226 Gerald Ford, 96 Gettysburg Address, 37, 73 Global Times, 21 God or Heaven (tianzi), 82 God, 37, 51, 58, 69, 71, 77, 79, 8182, 89, 95, 97, 99-100, 102, 112, 148-49, 168, 232 Good Neighbor policy, 160, 163, 165 Great Leap Forward, 18, 23, 68, 121, 232 Great Seal of the United States, 58, 99 Great Wall of China, 110 Greek, 57-59, 72, 74, 91 Guangzhou (Canton), 183 Gulf of Aden, 202-3, 208, 210-12 Gulf of Thailand, 197, 203, 216 Gwadar, 197, 201-3

Immanuel Kant, 89 India, 38, 55, 117, 121, 126, 129, 132, 139, 174, 179, 185-86, 199200, 202, 207, 209, 211-14, 217, 227, 229, 231, 235 Indian Ocean, 37, 101, 104, 107-8, 111, 113-15, 132-33, 183, 186, 192, 196-97, 199, 205, 210, 212214, 216, 231 Indonesia, 42, 140, 165, 171, 199, 206, 217 Industrial Revolution, 88, 125 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 185 Iowa, 42 Iran, 202, 227 Iraq, 102, 225 Isaac Newton, 89 Island of Pearl, 113

H Hainan Island, 196, 200 Hambantota, 133, 186-87, 207 Han dynasty, 121, 127 Harmonious Society, 22- 24, 154 Harry S. Truman, 96 Harvard Law School, 28 Harvard University, 41 Heavenly Market Enclosure (tianshi yuan), 82 Henry Kissinger, 34, 225, 236 Hong Kong, 20-21, 27, 113, 133, 137, 152, 183, 195, 233 Horn of Africa, 209, 213 Hu Jintao, 18, 24, 233

J Jade River, 85 James Madison, 29, 34, 50, 66, 71, 89 James McGregor, 92 James Monroe, 38, 96, 142 James River, 47-48, 147-48 Japan, 22, 42, 56, 63, 66, 139, 141, 154-57, 160, 164, 170-75, 17980, 185, 199, 208, 217, 231 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 89 Jenkins Hill, 97 Jesuit, 48, 53, 76-78, 98 Jesus Christ, 97, 105, 107 John Adams, 89 John Fairbank, 58, 67 John J. Pershing, 96 John Locke, 89 John Paul Jones, 96

Peaceful War

John Quincy Adams, 142-43, 14647 John Smith, 47-48 John Winthrop, 102 Joseph Needham, 222 Joseph Nye, 41 Joseph Stiglitz, 189 Judeo-Christian, 25 Jupiter, 57, 59, 87, 97

K Karachi, Pakistan, 201, 203, 211 Kerry-Lugar Report, 192 Korean peninsula, 41, 155, 173 Kra Isthmus, 197, 203 Ku Klux Klan, 29 Kuomintang (KMT), 67 L Lao Tzu, 41 Laos, 217, 226 Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 140 Lee Kuan Yew, 27 Leo Constellation, 95 Lewis and Clark Expedition, 49 Liang Qichao, 62, 68 Little Dipper, 86 Liu Mingfu, 33 Liu Po-wen, 84 Liu Yunshan, 27 Lotus Sutra, 38, 132 Lotus Tower, 132, 183, 199 Louisiana Purchase, 22, 49, 221 Lunar New Year, 83 Luoyang, 127 Lynden Johnson, 96 M

287

Macau, 27, 233 Mahinda Rajapaksa, 186-87 Mandarins, 122-24, 138, 140, 165, 170, 172, 197, 205-6, 217 Mandarins, 77 Mandate of Heaven, 37, 43, 62, 65, 67, 69, 71, 74, 80, 82, 99, 101-3, 107, 119, 159, 226-27, 232 Manifest Destiny, 22, 28, 37, 39, 44, 102, 104, 111-13, 133-34, 137, 144, 148, 153-56, 160, 16264, 167, 183-84 Mao Yuanxin, 26 Mao Zedong, 18, 20, 23, 31, 36, 42, 66, 230, 232 Mars, 57, 59, 72 Martin Luther King, Jr., 17, 29, 47, 74, 76, 100, 105, 135, 183, 220 Masonic, 61, 90, 94-98 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 102 Matteo Ricci, 48, 76- 77, 79, 87, 97 May Fourth Movement, 23, 66 Mecca, 107, 110, 196 Mencius, 83, 98 Ménluó Doctrine, 135, 137-39, 142, 164-65, 181, 183-84 Mercury, 79, 95 Middle Kingdom, 17, 20, 33, 35, 47, 48, 50, 54, 76, 81, 84, 88, 102, 107-8, 113, 115, 121, 124, 126, 129, 133, 139, 157, 183 Middle Kingdom, 221, 226-27, 236 Ming dynasty, 78, 80, 84, 88, 107, 108, 114, 124, 126, 196, 203, 212 Minnesota, 221 Mongols, 84, 159 Monkey God, 111 Monroe Doctrine, 22, 38-39, 134, 137, 139, 142-44, 147, 149, 15355, 160-65, 167, 179, 184 Montesquieu, 62, 72, 89 Morgan Affair, 90

288

Moses, 35, 97, 222 Moslem, 90 Mutually-assured Destruction (MaD), 172 Mutually-assured Prosperity (MaP), 172 N Nanjing, 35, 73, 84, 91, 107, 110, 117, 158 Nation of Might, 231 Nation of Right, 231 National Museum, 20-22, 26 Native Americans, 28, 96, 178, 227-28 Nepal, 217 New Silk Road, 37, 39, 111, 132, 179-80, 220, 237 New World Order, 39, 96 New York Times, 25, 110, 193, 229 North Korean, 173 O Occupy Wall Street, 235 Odd Westad, 136, 154 Olympics, 23, 56, 57, 232 Opium Wars, 25, 35, 55, 113, 154, 236 Ordo ad Chaos, 72 Oregon Country, 148 P Pacific dream, 42, 237 Pacific Northwest, 4, 221 Pacific Ocean, 18, 22, 37, 39, 40, 42, 49-50, 81, 100, 111, 137, 139, 145, 154, 167, 169, 184, 221, 224 Pakistan, 38, 196-97, 199, 200-2, 211, 228

Index

Paracel archipelago, 197 Patrick Henry, 28 Paul Revere, 54, 96 Pax Sinica (Chinese Peace), 164 Peaceful Rise, 20-21, 24, 38, 43, 133, 181, 183 Pearl River, 183, 196 Pearl Square, 183 Pennsylvania Gazette, 51, 59, 60 Pentagon, 97, 134, 192, 198, 210, 225 Philippine-American War, 149 Philippines, 38, 102, 138, 139-40, 149, 150, 152-53, 165, 168, 17073, 217, 233 Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, 92 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 183, 232, PLA Navy (PLAN), 175, 199, 209 Pocahontas, 48 Poor Richard Almanak, 51 Portuguese, 27, 106, 109, 120, 137, 143 Potomac, 91-92, 94, 97 Protestant, 90 Providence, 58, 60, 69, 74, 81, 89, 94-95, 99, 102-3, 112, 148 Pure Land Buddhism, 127 Purple Forbidden Enclosure (ziwei yuan), 82, 85 Q Qianlong Emperor, 236 Qing dynasty, 58, 62-63, 135, 141, 154, 169, 221 Qingdao, 137 R Red Sea, 208, 213 Rejuvenation, 20 Renaissance Europe, 109

Peaceful War

Republic of China (RoC), Taiwan, 233 Republic of Texas, 22, 111, 139, 144 Republicans, 39, 235 Restless Empire, 135, 154 Revolutionary War, 28, 54-55, 61, 91, 194 Richard Nisbett, 32 Road to Revival, 24 Robert Zoellick, 43, 189 Roman, 43, 50, 57, 59, 77, 95, 139, 145, 167 Ronald Reagan, 96, 225, 227 Russian, 157 Russian, 47, 56 S Salalah, Oman, 212 Sam Houston, 96, 146 Senkaku Islands, 22 Shanghai, 137, 158, 211 Silk Road, 22, 111, 113, 126-28, 130, 217 Singapore, 27, 165, 170-72, 174, 199, 202, 204-6, 213, 217 Sittwe, Myanmar, 197 Society of Jesus (Jesuits), 76 Son of Heaven, 37, 71, 81, 101, 107, 111 South China Morning Post, 21 South China Sea, 22, 37, 43, 107, 113, 115, 133, 134, 137, 142, 164-65, 171, 173, 176-77, 181, 183, 196-97, 199-200, 206-7, 213, 216 South Korea, 80, 164, 170-73, 179, 199, 201, 229, 231 Soviet Union, 39, 139, 200, 224-25, 227 Spain, 105-6, 143, 150-52

289

Spanish, 43, 98, 106, 143, 145, 149, 151-52, 165 Sri Lanka (Ceylon), 42 State Department, 192 Strait of Malacca, 196, 197, 204, 213 String of Pearls, 38, 183, 196-97 Suez Canal, 212 Sun Yat-sen, 36, 63, 66, 73, 158 Supreme Palace Enclosure (taiwei yuan), 82 T Taipei, 67, 233 Taiyi Lake, 85 Tea Act, 55 Tea Party, 235 Temple of Earth (in Ditan Park), 87 Temple of Heaven (in Tiantan Park), 87 Temple of the Moon (in Yuetan Park), 87 Temple of the Sun (in Ritan Park), 87 Theodore Roosevelt, 63, 96, 102, 151, 153, 160, 162, 169 Thomas Hobbes, 89 Thomas Jefferson, 27, 36, 49, 50, 66, 89, 91, 94, 221, 233 Thomas Paine, 50, 89 Three Gorges Dam, 30, 174 Tiananmen Square, 21, 26, 62, 8687, 94 Tianjin, 136 Tibet, 22, 24, 101, 217 Townshend Acts, 55 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 38, 42, 113, 170, 181 Tsinghua University, 63, 169 U

290

U.S. Navy, 29, 124, 141, 174, 177, 181, 198, 210, 216, 236

Index

Y-shaped delta, 92 Yuan Shikai, 74, 159 Yucca Mountain, 31

V Z Venus, 57, 59, 72, 79 Virginia Company, 47-49 Virginia, 28, 47-49, 60, 91-92, 221 Vladimir Putin, 56 Voltaire, 53 W Wanli Emperor, 48, 76 Warren Harding, 96 Washington Consensus, 38, 185, 188-91, 194 Washington Monument, 94,-95 Western Hemisphere, 22, 38, 137, 142-43, 147, 150, 161, 165 White Horse Temple, 127 White House, 42, 94, 95, 96, 151, 153, 162, 175, 180, 192 William Taft, 96 Winston Churchill, 43 World Bank, 185, 188-89, 225 WTO, 160, 167, 175-76, 178-79 Wuchang Uprising, 63 X Xi Jinping, 18, 20, 25, 34, 41, 113, 133, 141, 169, 230 Xi Zhongxun, 42 Xibaipo, 20 Xinhua, 27, 171, 200, 215, 225 Xinjiang, 22, 24, 228 Xuanzang, 128, 131 Y Yihetuan Movement, 154 Yin and Yang, 83

Zeus, 56, 57 Zheng He, 37, 101, 107, 109, 113, 115-19, 123, 126, 130, 132-33, 183, 196, 212, 216, 226 Zhou Enlai, 143

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Over the years, I have benefited from an assorted number of people on the both sides of the Pacific; they have continued to inspire me and contribute to my work by writing advanced endorsements, being involved in research projects, evaluating my papers, and providing valuable suggestions and comments. For writing endorsements and commentaries, I am grateful to each and every one of them: Dr. Shiro Armstrong (Australian National University), Editor Josh Barthel (Harvard International Review), Senator Thomas Daschle (Center for American Progress), Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala (United Nations), Professor Shen Dingli (Fudan University), Professor Wang Dong (Peking University), Ambassador Shaun Donnelly (United States State Department), Dr. Robert Hathaway (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), Dr. Wei Hongxia “Victoria” (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Professor Alexander Huang (Tamkang University in Taiwan), Dr. Parag Khanna (New America Foundation), CIA Director John McLaughlin (Johns Hopkins University), Professor Meili Niu (Sun-yat Sen University), Professor Edward Rhodes (George Mason University), Professor Eric Schwartz (Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs), Dr. Niklas Swanström (Institute for Security and Development Study, Stockholm), Colonel Larry Wilkerson (College of William and Mary), Professor Tang Xiaosong (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies), Professor Chuanji Zhang (Tsinghua University), and many more. Several have asked me not to identify them due to their work in respective government agencies and public research institutions. I sincerely thank my friends and colleagues at George Mason University (GMU), especially Professors Ann Baker, Sheryl Beach, John Paden, Eric Shiraev, and Roger Stough for their support, advice, and kindness. I also extend my very special thanks to my esteemed colleague and friend Professor Jack Goldstone at GMU School of Public Policy, who offered me insightful comments and counsel during the book project. I am grateful to Jack for writing a foreword to the book as well. I would also like to convey my thanks Chris Braun, Bill Coester, Shawn Dias, Na Liu, Frank Neville, Andrew Schappert, and David Zand at GMU for their valuable contribution and support.

292

Acknowledgements

During my research, I had numerous conversations with a wide range of distinguished foreign policy experts in the Washington, D.C., area: Ambassador Dr. Jeffery Bader (Brookings Institution), Keith Luse (U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee), Dr. Robert Litwak (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), Ambassador Stapleton Roy (Kissinger Institute for Chinese-U.S. Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center), and Ambassador Robert Zoellick at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. I thank each and every one for sharing their views on Sino-American relations and America’s role in the world. Over the past several years, I had the privilege to work with a number of outstanding colleagues while writing this book whether offering comments on journal articles or book chapters. I would like to thank Julie Chang, Michael Mitchell, Xinhe “Maria” Shen, Ivy Yan, and Karen Zhou at Harvard University; Magdalena “Maggie” Dewane and Eric Smyth at Columbia University; and Mark Redmond at Yale University. I am also grateful to Julie Kirsch, vice president and publisher, and my editorial and design team including Stella Donovan, Piper Owen, Elaine Schleiffer, and Beverly Shellem at the Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group for their assistance throughout the editorial, designing, and production process. Most importantly, Julie, Piper, and Stella have offered me valuable advice and guided me through the editorial process. I sincerely appreciate their contribution. This book would not have been possible without the help of two of my gifted former graduate students. Leah Green, a Canadian, has been my resident advisor in Beijing until a year ago; she then decided to pursue her PhD at Hong Kong University. Leah and I worked on a number of research projects over the years and jointly published a few of them. For this book, while working on her doctoral dissertation, she has been my research associate, editor, and mostly importantly a trusted colleague and friend. A perceptive observer of current events, Leah is an enormously brilliant and attentive writer as well. I have always benefited from her talents, skills, and insightful observations. Stephen McClure at Wuhan University in Hubei province is a versatile scholar in geography, history, and philosophy. He was one of the serious students in my graduate Seminar on Sino-American Relations at GMU; Steve has a special gift in synthesizing the history of human conflicts into contemporary public policy discussion. A thoughtful critic of some of my arguments in the book, he has raised a number of important questions that subsequently deepened my thinking and writing about foreign policy issues and Sino-American relations. My academic life has been enriched by these two delightful friends, to whom I sincerely extend my thanks.

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During my China lecture and study tour in the spring of 2013, I had the opportunity to visit with Leah (in Hong Kong) and Steve in mainland China. I appreciate them taking time and effort to share their views and allowing me to become immersed in their academic lives and research progress. Other friends and colleagues at twelve universities and institutions in eight cities in China facilitated my lectures when I was serving as a visiting professor at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. Among them, I am very grateful Professors Chris Janiec, Li Lian, Tong Xin, and Ma Xinyu at China Foreign Affairs University; colleague and friend Andy Lau at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies; Xiaoli (Angelica) Wu and Professor Jun Mar at Sun-yat Sen University; Professors Jean-Pierre Cabestan and Ting Wai at Hong Kong Baptist University; Chen Chenchen and Liu Zhun at Global Times; Steve Liu at Tsinghua University; and Dean Dai Changzheng and Professor Dong Qingling at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing; Ma Xiaochao and Professor Du Xiaocheng at Wuhan University; Dr. Junsheng Wang at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Paul Haenle at Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing; Shao Zheng at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Fu Ligang at China Trade News; Professor Joseph Chan at Hong Kong University; Professor Fu-Kuo Liu at the National Chengchi University; Captain Tiehlin Yen (Ret.), Taiwan Navy at the Center for Security Studies in Taiwan; Brother Martin Teng of the Masonic Grand Lodge of China in Taiwan: Otto Wenquan at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore; and Dr. David Mulrooney at the Institute for Security and Development Study in Beijing/Stockholm for their assistance, friendship, and hospitality. I acknowledge with thanks that I have used open sources and materials in the public domain for this book. Many of these materials are reproduced in academic publications, the World Wide Web, and newspapers around the world. I also want to thank the staff of the Fairfax County Public Library, the GMU Library, and the Library of Congress for their contribution. Last but not least, I wholeheartedly grateful to my wife Cheryl, son Gamini, and daughter Samantha for their understanding, numerous contributions, and loving partnership. Without them, I could not have finished this book. Patrick Mendis, PhD

George Mason University http://patrickmendis.gmu.edu August 2013

AUTHOR PATRICK MENDIS is a distinguished senior fellow and an affiliate professor of public and international affairs at the School of Public Policy in George Mason University. He is also an adjunct professor of geography and geoinformation science at GMU and a distinguished visiting professor of international relations at the Center for American Studies of the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guangzhou, China. An alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka, Dr. Mendis has worked for the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, and State. He has also served in the Minnesota House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, and the United Nations. Author of several acclaimed books and recipient of various public service and leadership awards, Dr. Mendis is a commissioner of the United States National Commission for UNESCO, an advisor to Harvard International Review, and a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. Proceeds from this book will be donated to the Edward Burdick Legislative Award at the University of Minnesota, which was established in honor and memory of his friend and mentor of more than a quarter-century. Dr. Mendis and his family live in the Washington, D.C., area.

PRAISE FOR PEACEFUL WAR “A naturalized U.S. citizen, Professor Patrick Mendis epitomizes the American Dream as he openly and critically writes about inconvenient truths of the American experience; he is himself an authentic American message to Asia. A friend of China, he is a perceptive scholar-diplomat uniquely qualified to write a historical analysis of Sino-American relations more objectively than most observers. I enthusiastically recommend this book to Chinese audience to learn more about our own history from insightful and independent lenses.” —Professor TANG XIAOSONG, President, Center for American Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China “Over the past three decades, China has experienced unprecedented economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty. Leaders of a more prosperous China are eager to expand the country’s regional and global influence, raising questions about the future of Chinese-American relations. Patrick Mendis presents a timely and valuable examination of historical and contemporary Sino-American relations that strengthens readers’ knowledge of Chinese and American history, culture, and politics. His innovative work sheds light on the lengthy relationship between these two countries, using the American experience to elucidate some of the compelling internal challenges that lie ahead for the government and the people of China.” —Professor ERIC SCHWARTZ, Dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration “No international strategic relationship is more important or more consequential than that between the United States and China—now and as far as we can reasonably see into the future. In Peaceful

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War, Patrick Mendis takes us well beyond the headlines we are all familiar with. All of that is here, but he also delves skillfully and artfully into the underlying cultural, historical, and social forces that will shape this relationship as both countries cope with their separate and very distinct challenges. Anyone seeking a holistic understanding of the Sino-U.S. relationship—and where it might be heading—should read this book.” —CIA Director JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and former Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency “Patrick Mendis has luminously situated President Obama’s Asia pivot and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a rich historical context of Sino-American relations that is often lost in geopolitical writing. It is an important contribution to improved understanding of both.” —Senator THOMAS DASCHLE, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and author of Like No Other Time: The Two Years That Changed America “Dr. Patrick Mendis’ unique strength in combining political economy and deep understanding of Asian civilizations has led him to present another landmark work comparing Chinese and American national discourses and the future of their relations. This book offers readers snapshots of transformations each country has undergone to illustrate their contemporary cooperation as well as destined competition. As China’s growth unfolds further, his book cautions Beijing and Washington to balance their dreams so as to assure a pacific world order.” —Professor SHEN DINGLI, Dean of the Institute of International Studies and Director of the Center for American Studies, Fudan University and author of What Kerry Should Tell China

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“Patrick Mendis achieves a creative blend of historical thought with modern conceptions of citizenry to illustrate what could be one of the most effective, powerful, and instructive parallels of world history: the adoption of the American Dream by China. The author’s central claim is that China will inevitably have to accept a fair number of U.S. values in order to make its own Dream come true. While not a clash of civilizations, Mendis illuminates a conflict what he calls a ‘silent revolution’ that will bring out the best and worst of traditional and progressive groups as the world’s oldest civilization revitalizes in a never before seen manner. Meticulously researched, this unprecedented study of the evolving Sino-American relations is timely, levelheaded, and fair above all else.” —Senior Editor JOSH BARTHEL, HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW “Dr. Patrick Mendis turns his sharp and creative mind to the U.S.China relationship, applying a rare ability to relate social, cultural, and economic issues to broader national interests and political interactions. A keen analyst, a creative thinker, and a precise writer, Mendis offers insightful observations and thought-provoking policy frameworks to guide the Sino-American relationship.” —Ambassador SHAUN DONNELLY, Vice President of the U.S. Council for International Business, former American Ambassador to Sri Lanka, and former Senior American Trade Negotiator at the White House’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative “Dr. Patrick Mendis’ new book is both timely and relevant as the center of gravity of global political and economic power moves inexorably from the Euro-Atlantic to the Asia-Pacific. Dr. Henry Kissinger observed that ‘American exceptionalism is missionary . . . Chinese exceptionalism is cultural.’ The relationship between these two giants will be the determining influence in international affairs for the foreseeable future and the scope for structures of

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peace to be built between them is analyzed through Mendis’ unique perspective and wide-angled vision.” —Ambassador JAYANTHA DHANAPALA, President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science & World Affairs, former UN Under-secretary-general, and former Sri Lankan Ambassador to the U.S. “Patrick Mendis masterfully examines challenges for the United States and China through historical, philosophical, and ideological differences and similarities. An important book that changes the way we think about these two superpowers.” —Dr. SHIRO ARMSTRONG, Australian National University and Editor of the East Asia Forum and author of The Politics and the Economics of Integration in Asia and the Pacific “In Peaceful War, Patrick Mendis takes the reader on a journey made possible by his presence in two worlds: one American, one Asian. Using the experience of that dual presence, he analyzes the most important strategic relationship of the twenty-first century, China and the United States. It is a dazzling analysis, full of history, philosophy, ironic similarities and unusual distinctions, fears and hopes, but mostly dreams—the kind of dreams Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela dreamed. For that reason and more, Peaceful War is worth reading.” —Colonel LAWRENCE WILKERSON, Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy, College of William and Mary and former Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell “Professor Patrick Mendis tells a carefully researched narrative of Sino-American relations and provides a delightful glimpse into the future. Using a practical approach to history in describing the issues of our times, Mendis charts a path for the Pacific century that avoids the losses of wasteful conflict and instead develops positive

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engagement while allowing for respectful disagreement. This is a very useful book for both experts in the field of Sino-American studies and the general public.” —Professor NIU MEILI, Assistant Dean, School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University and Research Fellow of the Center for Chinese Public Administration Research “As America pivots to Asia, China is pivoting south and east— expanding its American-style Manifest Destiny across the South China Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Silk Roads to Central Asia and the Middle East. In this engaging book, Patrick Mendis seamlessly links the domestic inspirations and geostrategic implications of two continental superpowers sharing the Pacific Ocean, with global stability at stake.” —Dr. PARAG KHANNA, Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation and author of How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance “The highest compliment a reader can give an author is to think: ‘I wish I’d said that.’ This imaginative and optimistic book provokes numerous responses of this sort. Mendis counsels historical awareness, cultural sensitivity, and humility as Americans peer across the Pacific to a China intent upon assuming its rightful place in the world. It’s hard to think of better advice.” —Dr. ROBERT M. HATHAWAY, Director of the Asia Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars “Many authors tend to explore some aspects of culture, philosophy, history, economics, and politics of China and the United States. Professor Patrick Mendis’ book depicts the interconnected links between and among these disciplines; but he does not stop there. His insightful observations shed new light on today’s China-

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U.S. relations and the future of Pacific world order. This makes his book particularly unique. More importantly, he presents a range of similarities between the two countries; both nations could learn to appreciate each other better.” —Professor CHUANJIE ZHANG, Director, Doctoral Program in Developing Country Studies and Resident scholar, Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, Tsinghua University “In a premature search for the so-called ‘new type of great power relations’ between the United States and China, the Asia-Pacific region is fueled with fears of potential conflict and widespread of anxiety. In response, Dr. Patrick Mendis brilliantly articulates the linkage of cultural heritages and geostrategic realities between the two most influential countries in the twenty-first century. ‘Harmony’ cannot be reached without ‘consensus;’ ‘dreams’ can hardly come true without ‘liberty.’ In his new book, Dr. Mendis brings all students of international relations into a long journey of rational soul searching.” —Professor ALEXANDER C. HUANG, Professor of strategy and war-gaming, Tamkang University (Taiwan) and Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies “An intriguing and fascinating study of two exceptional nations and the path towards a new Pacific world order. I heartily recommended for all interested in Asia Pacific.” —Dr. NIKLAS SWANSTRÖM, Director of the Institute for Security and Development Study, Stockholm (Sweden) and author of Sino-Japanese Relations: Rival or Partner in Regional Cooperation “With the debut of the Chinese dream concept, Dr. Patrick Mendis presents an innovative analysis that is wise, welcome, and timely.

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He uncovers philosophical convergences and divergences between the United States and China as both Pacific nations engage in unbridling competition. As a sage who grew up in Asian and American cultures, Dr. Mendis counsels the importance of cooperation over competition for a new Asia-Pacific order that benefits all stakeholders.” —Dr. WEI HONGXIA (VICTORIA), Research fellow of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Visiting Scholar at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and co-author of U.S. Role in East Asia “In this ambitious treatise, Dr. Patrick Mendis challenges the conventional wisdom that China and the United States represent two distinctly divergent sets of ideals, philosophies, and aspirations. Situating his discussion in the philosophical and historical contexts, Dr. Mendis makes a strong case as to why when it comes to the pivotal question of the ideals about governance, China and the United States indeed share as many similarities that bind the two together as the differences setting them apart. The result is a breakthrough that is powerful, inspiring, and visionary. Leaders and public alike concerned about the future trajectory of one of the most important bilateral relations in the world should read this book and heed Dr. Mendis’ wise counsel.” —Professor WANG DONG, Director of the Center for Northeast Asian Strategic Studies, Peking University “Tackling two of the critical questions that will confront American leaders in the years ahead—what the “Chinese Dream” really is, and what this will mean for the Sino-American relationship— Patrick Mendis explores analogies and differences between the “American Dream” and the Chinese one. In doing so, Mendis not only raises profound questions about Confucian and classical republican notions of virtue, but probes the historically-rooted

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cultures of these two great Pacific nations and how these shape their ability to understand each other and work together. This book is an important guide for broader policy dialogue among strategic thinkers in both Beijing and Washington.” —Professor EDWARD RHODES, Dean of the School of Public Policy, George Mason University, and author of Global Politics