Conservative Congressman Christopher Cox’s congressional committee charges the Chinese with a criminal curiosity that challenges our national security. According to the allegations the boys in Beijing have been sniffing around our missiles and satellites for at least twenty years, and most recently with the help of American aerospace firms Hughes and Loral.

I don’t doubt the Chinese have broken some rules and remedial steps should be taken. Indeed, I trust the objectivity of Congressman Bereuter’s (R-Nebraska) vote on Cox’s Committee – he’s a long-term expert on trade with Asia and a genuine advocate of increased trade.

What I don’t like is the xenophobic and racial overtones of picking on China. It’s very hard for me to believe that the Russians aren’t getting from us even more aerospace technology out of their currently cozy relationship with NASA and the associated American firms. Can we be really comfortable in assuming that China is a greater threat to American national security than is Russia? And what about the earlier cases of both French and Israeli military/industrial espionage? Indeed, all four countries are big sellers on the global weapons market, and all four have good reason to be curious about, even aggressive about American technology. Why does Cox’s Committee focus on China only?

Fear of foreigners is a natural thing; and the more foreign, the greater the fear. Indeed, our best pals these days are the British. Same language, same religion, a shared Anglo culture, we love their brands and call their TV “educational,” and they own more of America than any other foreign nation. British accents make people sound smarter. This is so even though we’ve fought two wars against them and they very certainly have their own separate national interests.

As Americans go East from England, the fear of foreignness begins to grow. Just pass through the Chunnel and they’re already speaking unintelligibly, rejecting American TV, and eating horses and frogs and snails, oh my! Go all the way to East Asia and they’re using characters instead of an alphabet, beliefs are based on Confucius and Buddha, and the diet includes raw fish in Japan or dogs, cats, rats, lizards, snakes, grubs, bugs, and quite literally anything with digestible protein in China.

Burrlington Coat Factory recently committed a major faux pas by importing parkas from China with accurately labeled dog hair collars. In America it’s OK to have a collar on your dog, but not a dog hair collar around your neck. From the Chinese perspective why would you waste the fur of something you eat? Don’t Americans sit on leather wallets?

This strange Chinese culture can only be understood with respect to famine. Starvation (true starvation, not the typical American January calorie cutting) changes values and behaviors. Recall how your fellow Americans behaved during the gas crunches of the 1970s. If you doubt you’d eat your own pet dog or cat in a crisis, I suggest you rent the movie Alive or read again about the Donner Party. The current one-child policy in China, with all its ugly social consequences, is comprehensible in the context of a history of mass starvation. Chinese views about human rights and individual freedoms must also be understood in the context of the civil chaos associated with famine.

So, because the language, religion, values, and culture of East Asians are more different (than Europeans) we tend to understand them less and fear them more. And these fears have had and still have effects on our foreign policies. Hearken back to Christopher Cox’s own congressional district of the 1920s. Then the Orange County Farm Bureau took the lead in promoting the racially motivated anti-Asian immigration policies of the time.

Recall the shrill outcry of the 1980s when Japan bought so much American real estate and so many American companies. One of Newsweek’s 1987 cover stories was, “Your Next Boss May Be Japanese.” Even then the British owned more of America. And now why don’t we hear the same alarm about European investments in America? Japan’s 1980s appetite for American assets pales in comparison to Germany’s 1990s gorging on the likes of Bankers Trust, Random House, and Chrysler. Indeed, history tells us we should fear Germany more than Japan. But, instead we fear the more unfamiliar. Our xenophobia dominates our remembrance.

Many Japanese even complain that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and not Berlin was racially motivated. Thank God, history belies that particular accusation. But, generally the behavior of many Americans feeds such Asian perceptions of American racism. After President Bush’s visit to Japan (you may recall he barfed on the Prime Minister) with the CEO’s of Ford, GM, Chrysler in tow, sales of Japanese imported cars plummeted. German sales did not. In the mid-eighties two companies, Toshiba of Japan and Kongsberg of Norway, illegally sold technology to the Soviet Union for making submarine propellers quieter. The consequences for Toshiba were far greater than those for the Norwegian firm. And China still has to bargain for Most Favored Nation status every year.

I urge Congress to broaden the scope of the Cox Committee. Aerospace technology transfers to all foreign countries should be considered – Russia, France, Israel, and Japan included. A focus on the Peoples Republic of China smacks of racism and the wedge politics of fear. A focus on China smacks of Clinton baiting. A focus on China does great damage to our political, commercial, and personal relations with potentially powerful friends. Our leaders in Washington must be very careful to avoid letting xenophobia cloud their vision of the evolving global political economy. And finally we should remember that the Chinese may yet have some technology to give us in return, given a context of cooperation and creativity. Indeed, isn’t it Chinese technology that makes or 4th of July celebrations so spectacular?

U.S. Xenophobia is Only Directed at the East
Orange County Register (1/11/99)

Incentives for Peace
Orange County Register
(10/ 25/01)

Can we be really comfortable in assuming that China is a greater threat to American national security than is Russia? And what about the earlier cases of both French and Israeli military/industrial espionage?

So, because the language, religion, values, and culture of East Asians are more different (than Europeans) we tend to understand them less and fear them more. And these fears have had and still have effects on our foreign policies.