An alert reader–who\u2019s also a retired naval captain–offered some email kudos to yours truly for offering a perspective on China that isn\u2019t as vapid as the gibberish emanating from most pundits these days. The CNMI knows well that we\u2019re right in the middle of things when east meets west, and when the junction produces friction.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, we in Saipan have a perspective that most Americans lack: we see Chinese folks every day. They\u2019re part of our community. In the states, by contrast, most people have probably never seen, much less ever talked to, a real, live person from mainland China.<\/p>\n
Then how does the public form its impression about the Chinese? How else?–television. The TV long ago replaced God as the symbol of longing and fulfillment, and China–the nation, the people, the military, in sum, the entire concept–is whatever the television says it is. Which means, to Americans, that the Chinese are a devious cabal of hostage taking scoundrels who are also lousy pilots. Every nuance of news emanating from China, and Hainan in particular, is combed, analyzed, distilled, and distorted as evidence of a devious Chinese strategy.<\/p>\n
Never mind that your average “pundit”–often wooly headed third rate academics from fifth rate colleges–couldn\u2019t even order the lunch special off a Chinese menu. It\u2019s the same old, tired, game, when the Johnny come lately\u2019s are trotted out in front of the cameras to say something–anything–that might sound like analysis. Most will sink back into the obscurity they deserve, but, roach-like, others will crawl into the limelight the next time some other crisis boils up in China, or anywhere else for that matter.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Americans regard Chinese as a homogeneous product. China, the nation, is viewed as the same as Chinese, the people. And, of course, America, the nation and the people, are viewed as fundamentally superior. Which is interesting for me, given that I deal with both nationalities a lot in the Commonwealth and the sleaziest operators I\u2019ve run up against have been Americans, not Chinese.<\/p>\n
There is a creeping concern in the states that China and Uncle Sam might slug it out someday, and along these lines I\u2019d like to ask if America really has the collective guts to fight a real war like that. Oprah and Prozac are the two most distinct cultural characteristics of modern America. How would a whining, neurotic nation cope with a big war, when everyone is such a mess in times of peacetime and prosperity? Could today\u2019s generation match, say, the tenacity of WWII\u2019s fighters? Could the soccer moms and cubicle clones rise to the occasion of hand-to-hand combat in the fields of China? Heck, most start blubbering when the Starbuck\u2019s clerk screws up their double latte orders. America is a nation of office dweebs, which is fine enough with me, but they\u2019re better equipped to handle a battle with Windows 98 than a war with the Chinese.<\/p>\n
Which is none of my concern, since nobody else\u2019s battles are my battles, so I just keep to myself. Like everyone else in Saipan, though, I at least know that Chinese people are people, and that\u2019s something America at large doesn\u2019t seem to have figured out.<\/p>\n
Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. \u201cEd4Saipan@yahoo.com\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An alert reader–who\u2019s also a retired naval captain–offered some email kudos to yours truly for offering a perspective on China that isn\u2019t as vapid as the gibberish emanating from most pundits these days. The CNMI knows well that we\u2019re right in the middle of things when east meets west, and when the junction produces friction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}