Making Capital in Communist China

Extract

For the best part of this century, the exploitation of the East by the West has been a favourite theme with pamphleteers; and as the sincerity of the pamphleteers has grown, so has the interest of the public declined. The subject, it is argued, has been flogged to death and, taking an Epicurean stand, Englishmen have added—let sleeping dogs lie. In the common mind China appears a far distant continent—another world.

The attitude is typical of Englishmen as a whole, but it is also typical of many Europeans. In America the orientation is different, because Chinese emigrés make up a considerable part of the population of the United States. Often enough Hollywood may depict the Chinaman as either a pirate or opium eater, but to the American he is a person of distinct characteristics; he may run a successful chop-suey restaurant in Greenwich Village or he may be an astute lawyer. They are not deluded by the romantic notion of film directors that he is a man capable of saying little else other than ‘Me muchee-muchee sad’. They are well aware that he may as yet prove a powerful business rival, although his methods of business will not necessarily be those of the American businessman. For part of Congress’s dilemma over recognising the ‘People’s Republic of China’ is a fear of admitting to a certain national failure. The Americans, despite their vast propaganda machine, have failed to impress the Chinese with their way of life; the Chinese have remained impervious, philosophically isolationist.