China’s rise-challengers and opportunities by CFred Bergsten intro.pdfVIP

Introduction China is not a superpower, nor will it ever seek to be one. If one day China should change its color and turn into a superpower, if it too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to its bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should . . . expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it. —Deng Xiaoping, speech at the UN General Assembly, April 1974 Twenty-five years ago, in the early years of China’s opening, the cultural, economic, and political gulf between China and the United States was vast. If you were one of the foreigners living in Beijing at the time—one of the lucky 1,200—that gulf could produce its share of quirks. A night out could mean a trip to the “Disco” at Ethnicities Hotel on the western side of Tiananmen Square, where one drank warm beer and watched a hand- ful of local Chinese—typically children of high-ranking officials from the leadership compound at Zhongnanhai—shimmy across the dance floor to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Jingle Bells,” and (endlessly) “Fer- nando” by the Swedish group ABBA. Any effort at communication be- tween foreigners and Chinese was quickly rebuffed by conspicuous, leisure-suited representatives of the Public Security Bureau. The city’s streets were deserted after 7 p.m. or so, and one could zoom across town at the end of an evening in a matter of minutes to one’s heavily guarded foreigners-only compound to call it a day. That Beijing is long gone now. The city’s art and music scenes are vi- brant and sophisticated, although one still encounters quirks now and again. Foreigners and Chinese congregate and connect without fear of of- ficial molestation. That same trip across town at any time of day or night will take n