The Myth of China as a Harmless Tiger
Chinese dissident writers exiled to the West today get a very different response than Soviet writers received not so long ago.
In 1975, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger advised President Ford not to meet with writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, warning in a memorandum that doing so would offend the Soviet Union. Now, similar views are held not only by pragmatic politicians but also by multinational corporations with large investments in China as well as universities and foundations with inextricable links to China.
The Chinese communist regime’s penetration of the West far exceeds that of the former Soviet Union. In the Cold War era, the Soviet Union was blocked behind the Iron Curtain; there were few links between Soviet and Western economies. An average American family would not be using products “made in the USSR.” Today, China is deeply embedded within the globalized system. An American recently wrote an interesting book detailing a year of her refusal to buy products that were “made in China” and the many difficulties she encountered as a result of this decision.
On the surface, the West has profited from its trade with China. Western consumers can buy vast amounts of cheap Chinese products. However, fundamental values of the West are quietly being eroded: Who knows whether the American flag flying outside your home was manufactured by inmates in Chinese prisons or by child labor?