Quotes of the Day
It was worth the wait. On Oct. 15, after decades of fitful starts and spectacular failures for China's space program, Lieut. Colonel Yang Liwei, a diminutive ex-fighter pilot, roared into the heavens to become China's first man in space. During his 21-hour journey in the heavens, the 38-year-old Yang maneuvered weightlessly in the tight compartment of the Shenzhou V capsule, taking photographs, naps, and at one point producing a tiny Chinese flag—an iconic image that would soon be broadcast to 1.3 billion fellow citizens back home. The mission-control room outside Beijing burst into cheers, already buoyed by a message from President Hu Jintao who announced that the liftoff was "the glory of our great motherland." Then, Yang fished around and produced another flag, this time a pale blue one bearing the emblem of the United Nations, and held it up beside the red Chinese ensign.
In an expedition more important for its symbolism than its science, Yang's flag-waving exercise sent an unexpected message to Planet Earth: not only had China joined the U.S. and Russia in the exclusive club of spacefaring nations, it wanted to celebrate the achievement with the whole world. For the first time in centuries, China, ever sensitive of its past as the isolated and reactionary "sick man of Asia," seemed confident of its own economic and political power, as comfortable strutting its stuff on the international stage as any member of the G-8. "Now, no one can look down on us anymore," crowed Xue Ping, a Shanghai-based software entrepreneur who was perusing Shenzhou V memorabilia at a local street market on the afternoon of the launch. "After a long time of being considered the little kids, we can now sit at the adult table."
Nowhere has this newfound confidence been on display more than in China's rapidly improving international relations. Under communist rule, Chinese foreign policy had often been marked by suspicion and a certain belligerent petulance. But in the past few months, under Hu's leadership, Beijing has emerged as an increasingly sophisticated and mature player on the global stage, a power more intent on diplomatic pragmatism that preserves the country's robust economic growth than on replaying the Maoist rhetoric of confrontation. "Hu puts more emphasis on substance in foreign policy rather than on symbols," says Chu Shulong, director of the Institute of Strategic Studies at Beijing's Tsinghua University, who advises the Chinese leadership on foreign affairs. "[Former President] Jiang Zemin tended to focus more on symbolic victories." Indeed, on a slew of issues ranging from Taiwan to Iraq, China is engaging in constructive policies that finally place the nation within a global context—not outside of it. "Up until a few years ago, China was unsatisfied with the international system and challenged it," says a senior research fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo. "However, nowadays it's existing within the international system and behaving as a responsible state."
China's amicable stance toward its Asian neighbors was also on display earlier this month, when Wen Jiabao, China's smooth-talking Premier, traveled to an ASEAN confab in Bali. Instead of harping as usual about the Spratly Islands—tiny dots in the South China Sea that are claimed by China and several Southeast Asian nations—a smiling Wen instead urged greater economic cooperation through the establishment of a mutually beneficial trading bloc. Earlier this year, China also moved substantively to resolve a long-simmering border dispute with India—a big step for a nation that has had territorial disputes with every one of its neighbors except for Laos. And in a remarkable about-face, Beijing has used its considerable influence to bring its cold war ally North Korea to the bargaining table over the Stalinist country's nuclear weapons program.
Perhaps the biggest shift in China's foreign policy lies in the way it handles Taiwan, which it considers a renegade province that must ultimately be reunited with the mainland. In 1996, when Taiwan's first direct presidential elections aroused concern on the mainland that democracy would draw the island further away from unification, Beijing reacted angrily by lobbing missiles over the Taiwan Strait. Four years later, the pro-independence background of Taiwan's current President Chen Shui-bian elicited a televised harangue by former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on the eve of the presidential polls. But during this year's presidential walk-up, China has been strangely quiet, even though some of Chen's policies, such as a push for a new constitution, arouse suspicions that he is laying the groundwork for independence.
Why the velvet touch? Political analysts say China may have finally learned that its threatening behavior is counterproductive. In the 2000 Taiwanese elections, the vitriol from Beijing actually gave Chen a 5% boost in the polls, according to a survey consultant. "The Chinese government's confidence in dealing with diplomatic issues has increased and they don't haggle over every little issue," says Guo Dingping, a political science professor at Shanghai's Fudan University. "They're now focusing more on long-term interests instead of insignificant altercations across the strait." Still, politicians in Taiwan caution that subtlety doesn't mean China has softened its cross-strait stance. "Beijing may be showing self-restraint in public," says a high-ranking government aide in Taipei, "but in private they seem to be trying to give us hell." Indeed, China is steadily chipping away at Taiwan's sovereignty by stripping the island of nations that still maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei. Just last week, little Liberia switched allegiance to Beijing, possibly because China used its position on the U.N. Security Council to sweeten aid for the war-torn African country.
Of course, China's newfound maturity in the foreign-policy arena might prove fleeting. China watchers forecast similar changes before the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests and the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade—only to see China turn inward again. Even during the heralded manned space mission, there was a reminder that the central government remains authoritarian and insecure. China refused to air the liftoff live, lest state TV broadcast a midair disaster. But, for now, the rest of the world seems willing to share in the internationalist spirit that inspired astronaut Yang to hold up that little blue flag.
- Hannah Beech | Shanghai
- China's great leap skyward—its first manned space flight—signals the nation's coming of age as a global citizen