Kate Merkel-Hess and Jeffrey Wasserstrom: The Many Chinas

[Merkel-Hess is an assistant professor of history and Asian studies at Pennsylvania State University and co-editor of China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance; Wasserstrom is chair of the history department at the University of California at Irvine and author of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know]

What factors hinder the growth of"understanding and mutual trust" between China and the U.S.? Chinese President Hu Jintao called for more of both when he met with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Beijing and is likely to refer to it again when he lands in the U.S. on Jan. 18. One big obstacle, according to Beijing, is cultural warfare. Intimidated by China's rise, Chinese spokesmen insist, the West has been going out of its way to offend the world's most populous country and second biggest economy. Exhibit A in their brief: the Nobel Peace Prize committee's decision to honor Liu Xiaobo, a figure with views so allegedly"un-Chinese" that celebrating him is equivalent to launching a broadside against China's cultural core.

We agree that Chinese culture is under assault — but not, as Communist Party officials would have it, just from the outside. Yes, some foreigners disparagingly talk about China's flawed" cultural DNA," bequeathed to it, apparently, by a hierarchy-loving, conformity-prizing"Confucian" heritage. But damage is also being done by those within the country who repeat the Chinese leadership's simplistic mantra about China's unwavering love of"Confucian" stability and harmony. (See"Best Introduction to Chinese Philosophy.")

One problem with this official rhetoric is that there has been plenty of wavering. A century ago, a broad spectrum of Chinese intellectuals criticized Confucianism for holding China back, and as recently as the 1970s, communist leaders were denouncing Confucius. China, moreover, has never been an exclusively Confucian nation. There have always been other indigenous, competing creeds. Taoism, for example, has provided an antiauthoritarian counterpoint to hierarchical models of politics for millennia....