(So… I kind of messed it up and signed up for a wordpress blog. Now I cant make new posts a-la-Justin’s Instructions. Shame on me! For those of you in the seminar, please remember to make any comments in the course blog, not here! If you do post here however, I’ll just copy them over.)
Anyways, I came across these thoughts in a novel a few years back. The novel’s called Children of the Mind, by Orson Scott Card. Its a Sci-Fi novel that included a tiny bit of political intrigue-seeking, but the afterword is what interested me. In broad terms, he dissects cultures into two types- “Centre” People and “Edge” People.
It does take a little bit of time to get to my points, but if you guys have time, have a look at it. I think it opens a longer term perspective into Sino-US relations.
—————————————————–
“Center People are not afraid of losing their identity. They take it for granted that all people want to be like them, that they are the highest civilization and all else is poor imitation or transient mistakes. The arrogance, oddly enough, leads to a simple humility- they do not strut or brag or throw their weight around because they have no need to prove their superiority. They transform only gradually, and only by pretending that they are not changing at all.
Edge People, on the other hand, know that they are not the highest civilization. Sometimes they raid and steal and stay to rule- Vikings, Mongols, Turks, Arabs- and sometimes they go through radical transformations in order to compete…
…Edge nations, even when they ruled the very civilizations in whose shadow they had once huddled, were never able to shake off their sense of not-belonging, their fear that their culture was irredeemably inferior and secondary…
…True Center nations have been few in history. Egypt was one, and remained a Center nation until it was conquered by Alexander; even then, it kept a measure of its Centerness until the powerful idea of Islam swept over it, Mesopotamia might have been one, for a time, but unlike Egypt, Mesopotamian cities could not unite enough to control their hinterland. Hey result was they were swept over and ruled by their Edge nations again and again. The Centerness of Mesopotamia still gave it the power to swallow up its conquerors culturally for many years, until finally it became a peripheral province handed back and forth between Rome and Parthia. As with Egypt, its Center role was finally shattered by Islam.
China came later to its place as a Center nation, but it has been astonishingly successful. It was a long and bloody road to unity, but once achieved that unity remained, culturally if not politically. The rulers of China, like the rulers of Egypt, reached out to control the hinterland, but, again like Egypt, rarely attempted and never succeeded in establishing longterm rule over genuinely foreign nations.
…America, which was composed of refugees from the Edge, but which nevertheless behaved like a Center nation, control[ed] brutally its hinterland, but only briefly flirting with empire, content instead to be the center of the world.”
-Orson Scott Card, afterword of “Children of the Mind”
————————————————-
Since it comes as part of his Afterword, there is no mention of where the ideas of “Centre People” and “Edge People” came to him from; his writing is the first time I was exposed to the idea, so I’m crediting (and quoting) him with it.
The idea of cultural Centres and Edges is intellectually appealing, if hard to prove empirically. It does however, describe East Asia’s political geography for centuries prior to Europe’s rise in the 19th century. A large empire, consolidated relatively well and much more powerful than its neighbors economically and militarily. Surrounding cultures and political entities then, while not directly vassal to China, acknowledged some sort of political Overlordship by China. Foreign leaders, upon assuming power, would tend to make visiting China’s capital the first trip abroad. This role of course, was greatly enhanced during the early Ming dynasty, but subsequently diminished as China looked inward. By the onset of the Qing dynasty, the isolationist policies of the Emperors broke this role until now.
While it might sound strange, right around the time China’s effective role as Center diminished, another country was boosting its own- the United States. Since the Independence of the original states, the Union expanded its borders aggressively to the west. Once it couldn’t expand its borders, it engaged in a doctrine of becoming the one and only large force in the hemisphere- a doctrine pioneered and named after President Monroe (1817-1825). The policy proclaimed that European powers would no longer colonize or interfere with the affairs of the newly independent nations of the new continent. Additionally, belief in Manifest Destiny is a belief in the right of the US to be the Center nation of the new world.
The first foreign trip a new leader makes has been, by tradition, the most important and telling. Its a trip in search of international legitimacy, to show both the local electorate and the foreign policy makers who the new leader is. Canadian PMs have always done it, and Harper was no exception- the visited Washington and had his picture taken with Bush (even if Her Majesty the Queen is actually the head of the Canadian Gov’t… ) However, when Bush refused to visit Canada as his first foreign trip after both his election and re-election, a lot of Canadians weren’t very happy!
The first trip the other newly appointed leaders of the continent make abroad is without fail, also the United States. A trip to the overlord of the continent to ask for official recognition. Its a trip to say Mr President of the United States, I’m the new President of Some-Country. Will you recognize me as such? And the US usually replies positively by awarding full honours to the visiting leader. How important is this recognition? Well… during the Cold War, rightist leaders overtopping democratically elected leftist governments were accepted and legitimately considered the leaders of their country- they stayed in power for a long time (Pinochet, anyone?).
(I’m being a bit derisive here about the new leaders, I know… but I hope I’m being able to express the idea through).
So where does this leave us? We have a Centre who’s been increasing in strength at a continental level for over a century and in global levels since World War II. And now we have an old Centre thats finally reasserting its role as one after a century. Islam is a powerful Centre as well, but its internal strifes (e.g. the Shiite-Sunni split) and the lack of political union between Islamic countries make it harder for them to act as one.
It is, as always, a matter of perspective! Our own lifetime perspective makes us look at China as the new kid on the block. A longer perspective shows us China isn’t the new kid on the block… The once Big Kid, however, became a recluse, got addicted on opium, had his house broken into and then starved for a few years… but now he’s back. A lot of the close kids of his old gang are ready to join him again; his next-door neighbor looks at him with a feel of resignation (Japan seemed to be on its track to become THE Asian power twice in the 20th century- once a military power in the 1940’s, and again as an economic one in the 1980s. WWII ended the expansion in the 40s, and a sudden, long lasting recession in the 90s destroyed Japan’s second of opportunity. In line with its Edge People classification, it succeeded for a while, but eventually returned to the Edge).
Back to the analogy, the incumbent Big Guy of the block is now wary of this new guy. His finances are wobbly lately (The Fed’s cut of 0.75% on the overnight rate in an emergency meeting a week before a scheduled meeting smacked of panic). His fists are tired after fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq; his family ain’t ready to sacrifice more for tools and bandages so he can keep on fighting forever. His word is now less credible following the faulty Intelligence provided to the rest of the world trying to convince them of the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction. So, while the US is still the Big Guy of the Block, he’s not the all-powerful in the eyes of the block anymore- or at least, not as powerful as he seemed at the dawn of the Third Millennium.
We are, interestingly enough, in the middle of seeing two Centres interacting with each other. And, if we follow the ideas of Centres and Edges, I can’t really recall a similar parallel in History, where two centres were active at the same time. We’ve had Centres be absorbed by their Edges, and then taken over by another Centre (Egypt). Centres being destroyed by their Edges are also there (Rome, Mesopotamia). Centres passing their role on as the world grew beyond their reach has a potential candidate: the British Empire arguably has left a Centre heir to the world- the US. The same war that propelled the US into a global Centre also reduced much of Britain’s clout as one.
Any thoughts so far?
~Paul
(NB… I need to come up with better analogies, because the kids-and-the-street-gang one felt a bit asinine. At any rate, its 3am, so I’m off to bed. I’ll try to continue these ideas at a later date.)
