May 3, 2003

Know When to Lie, Know When to Shoot Straight

A while back I wrote a column about cheating and getting ahead in Chinese Universities – I received a torrent of emails demanding how I could brand an entire nation as a nest of liars and cheats.

An article this year in the Asia Times by Gary LaMoshi addressed this "phenomenon" from a different perspective: that of face and how precious it is to Asians – as opposed to the rest of us who have no face. I wonder how many emails he received from irate Asians demanding their face back.

Recently, we have seen the Chinese demonstrate their ability to lie like petty crooks caught in the act, covering up the mess with one foot while loudly proclaiming their innocence – all this does is give more ammo to China-haters and more to chew on for those suits looking for the big money.

Before all you Chinese patriots furiously click over to your Yahoo email accounts, rest assured that the trail of poo that the Bush Administration is leaving behind as it goes from "Iraq can kill us all" to "Regime Change in Iraq" to "Won't tolerate theocracy" and so on is very clear to me. All governments lie. Satisfied?

A developing country will naturally lie a little to keep the predators of the developed world guessing as to where the real meat is and how difficult it will be to get to it. What China and the Chinese need to understand is that the rhetoric concerning China's ascension out of the morass of the past and well-deserved acceptance into the international community demands actions to back it up.

Developing or developed or transitory or whatever, if I have to hear about China's unrivalled growth and how much the world wants to be here, then the nation needs to give a little. Of course we foolish Westerners should sit and study deeply the annals of China and do our best to unlock the secrets of face and politeness and double-talk … er, I mean sophisticated negotiations …but wouldn't it be nice if the Chinese did a little homework on the value of forthrightness and the pungent aftertaste rampant BS leaves in ones mouth?

Fudging statistics and covering up infectious diseases may be detrimental to us all, but what is nice about China's mastery of "face and sophisticated negotiations" is the effect these may have on the – somewhat broken down – negotiations between the US and the DPRK.

As of now, we're looking at something like this:

"In this corner, weighing in at, ohh, 90 some-odd pounds: One Punch Kim (OPK)!!!

"And his opponent, a 995 pound Wall of Solid Muscle: The Crusher!"

Gotta give it to Kim and friends – he sends a low level toadie to saunter up to James Kelly and whisper in his ear: "Yo, Kim's got one helluva right hand."

While Chinese begin to question why the government has to send out sophisticated telegrams to the rest of the world about the attacks that aren't imminent and the talks that aren't broken down, the Japanese calmly quiver and seek shelter while the South Koreans wave their hands saying: "Hey, can we get in on the talks, too?"

Very complicated mess indeed, for Ol One Punch there really believes the nuke scare will keep the US from doing anything too violent and the US really believes that Kim will either back down, is bluffing or can be brought to heel by the Chinese, who have a lever or two over the DPRK.

Now, this is the kind of situation where sophisticated lying and fake smiles and such come in real handy. Everybody sips some baijiu and is entertained by a dancer or three, near the end of the evening Kelly and whichever toady Kim sends next are slapping backs and waving away any animosities and non-aggression pacts and plans to dismantle nuclear plants are drafted up over hang-overs on the plane ride home.

Can the Chinese bridge the gap between Asian Face and American Straight-shooters as LaMoshi put it?

Hopefully, the Chinese can demonstrate that other ability – learning real quick from others and their own mistakes – and make everybody forget about the SARS business by facilitating a diplomatic coup on the peninsula.

–Sascha Matuszak

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Sascha Matuszak is a teacher living and working in China. His articles have appeared in the South China Morning Post, the Minnesota Daily, and elsewhere. His exclusive Antiwar.com column (usually) appears Fridays.

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