China is promoting Chinese culture domestically against Western influence, which could be a tangible sign that the country is preparing for an extended period of isolation or siege.
“China has expanded an initiative to create a new academic discipline that aims to stamp out Western bias in ethnic studies as Beijing works to consolidate its narrative on a unified national identity,” according to a South China Morning Post report. This could be a new concept bypassing the old binary division between ethnicities inherited from the USSR.
“Museums should ‘refute all kinds of wrong historical views, including attempts to create a binary opposition between China’s Central Plains and the border areas, between Han and non-Han groups, and between Han culture and the cultures of ethnic minorities,” said Pan Yue, director of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, who is ethnically Han.
Pan, an extremely sophisticated official, is also in charge of the campaign against Western bias. Thus, the project could be coherent: reinforcing national unity without ethnic divisions that “mischievous foreigners” could exploit and gradually stamping out Western cultural influence, which “mischievous foreigners” could again use for undue impact in the country.
Besides national concerns, there are real cultural issues. Ge Zhaoguang (whose essays are also translated on this website) notes in the third volume of his “Zhongguo Sixiang shi” (History of Chinese Thought, 2001) that at the turn of the 20th century, China reorganized all its thinking according to Western categories. China didn’t have subjects like philosophy, religion, or economy, which were introduced via Japanese translations.
The recategorization of thought brought a new worldview and system to rearrange even past Chinese knowledge and tradition. This realignment was perhaps never fully socially digested, and the Chinese lived between two worlds, the new Western and the traditional one, neither fully grasped.
Mao’s Cultural Revolution also addressed the issue by attempting to wipe out the culture of the past, but things possibly got worse. This attempt seems, at first glance, more cautious and more grounded. Yet these actions could hamper other developments.
Talking to a Western World
Beijing sees the US as deep in an opioid crisis, similar to what contributed to the downfall of the Qing dynasty 200 years ago. The official People’s Daily reported that with 5% of the total world population, the US consumes 80% of all the world’s opioids.
About 200 years ago, the imperial court restricted opium imports at the beginning of the 19th century. Still, British traders argued it was the only product the Chinese were willing to buy from abroad.
The British, in 1840, and then an alliance of Western powers in 1856, fought two wars to liberalize the opium trade in China. Historically, the Chinese blamed opium addiction for the ensuing national decadence, while foreigners shrugged off the issue, arguing that the Chinese people’s consumption was the problem.
Currently, the US and China are locked in a controversy over fentanyl consumption in America. Components for fentanyl—a synthetic drug that can be manufactured anywhere—are mainly exported by China. Those components are also used to produce medical drugs for clinics and hospitals.
It seems like an opium crisis in reverse two centuries later. American officials blame China for turning a blind eye to the trafficking of fentanyl components. At the same time, the Chinese argue that American addiction to opioids is the real issue, asserting that blaming China won’t resolve it.
The US is losing its young lives and its moral compass in the fentanyl crisis, which is possibly the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 49. The US and China are collaborating to stem the fentanyl trade, but the US isn’t apparently satisfied with the results. Two centuries ago, these tensions led to war. Will there be a new opium war now?
In a parallel development, China is ramping up its diplomacy to replace the US, which is rattling the world with tariffs.
A culture of communication
The world relies on Western culture for communication. It’s not just a matter of language; it’s an issue of culture.
Herein lies a dilemma: if China promotes its culture to replace Western culture, it risks losing the “language” needed to engage with the world. China may even require further Westernization to communicate with America amid its opioid crisis or to replace the US altogether.
Replacing the Western culture that has shaped the world for five centuries is a daunting task that cannot happen overnight. It requires considerable time. If the US is stepping off the center stage and China wishes to engage with the world, it must be able to talk through “Western culture”; otherwise, it will not understand and will not be understood.
Moreover, if the US opioid crisis leads to a collapse, China will again need to communicate with Americans and Europeans. In a century or so, they might learn “Chinese culture,” but in the meantime, they must understand and be understood. In this new context, China’s Westernization would be necessary.
Stamping out Western concepts could be beneficial if China is defeated globally and the US survives its many crises.
Yet there’s a deeper underlying problem: many Western concepts and categories are no longer relevant. The crisis initiated by US President Donald Trump reflects a sense of insecurity and threat that America feels as a nation and within the global system.
China’s systemic approach to rethinking cultural categories mirrors its overall problem-solving methodology: there must be a system reset. The answer may not be ideal, but the issue is undeniably real.
It’s unclear if the US will use a holistic, systemic approach to tackle its domestic problems that translate into the opioid crisis and the trade controversy, which deal with China but do not end with China. It’s also unclear whether its present strategy will suffice to cope with systemic China.
This article first appeared on Appia Institute and is republished with permission. Read the original here.
