Here’s one lecture of the guy. I think he expects us to write a bit similar.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Departement Geschiedenis
“America, Asia and the World”

Visiting Professor Arthur Waldron
Lauder Professor of International Relations
University of Pennsylvania

2004 12 16
Lecture 11

Taiwan, Hong Kong and China beyond the People’s Republic

Note: No office hours, this week only.

Introduction:

The basic law of Hong Kong, adopted when China took over jurisdiction from Britain, states that “all Chinese residents of Hong Kong will become citizens of the People’s Republic of China.”

Obviously, this formulation seemed unproblematical to its drafters in Beijing. But who exactly are “the Chinese residents of Hong Kong?” Presumably I would not qualify. But what about another American, whose parents came from China but who is an American citizen? Or my wife who is a naturalized American but born in China? What about s Singaporean? (the Singaporean government actually insisted that a special provision be made recognizing them as non-Chinese), what about a Taiwanese? What about a person from Taiwan whose parents came from China . . . I think you grasp the issue.

Being “Chinese” is not as simple as it sometimes seems, both to foreigners (“they all look the same”) or to Chinese themselves (“aren’t the Koreans basically just Chinese?) or above all Chinese political authorities (who include Turks, Tibetans, Mongols, Manchus, Thais, and others as “Chinese”).

My view has always been that China is a civilization, as great and as diverse as Europe’s and that being “Chinese” is like being “European”—which does not exclude say, being French, but does not require it either.

In the post World War II period, however, the question of Chineseness, hitherto cultural, took on a strong political coloration, as the “Chinese” world broke up into several not entirely friendly pieces.

Macao:

This is a mushroom shaped city, of about six square miles (16 square kilometers). A narrow isthmus with a gate connects it to China; it has two outlying islands, Taipa and Coloane, and a population of perhaps half a million. Visited by the Portuguese in 1513.

This was the time that Portugal was displacing India, Persia, and Arab states in world trade, owing to their superior ships and firepower. They also spread Christianity, from their great Catholic university at Coimbra (founded in Lisbon in 1290. transferred in 1537). In 1510 Alfonso de Albuquerque (1453-1515) took over the harbor at Old Goa in India, founding a settlement—subsequently moved inland owing to water borne disease—which grew to a substantial size, having a mixed Portuguese and local population, many churches, and so forth.

Macao was visited by the Portuguese in 1513 and permanently settled from 1557; in 1849 Chinese recognized it as Portuguese territory and in 1951 it was made an overseas province of Portugal. In 1999 it was given to China.

This was where St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552 who died on a small island nearby) began his missionary journeys, which took him to the Indian coast, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Malacca (Melaka, on the Malaysian side of the Strait) and then to Macao and beyond.

I have not been to Macao for more than twenty years and have no intention of returning (Waldron’s law of travel, #4, with respect to The Last Time I Saw Paris) as it is now a completely crime ridden gambling center, having immense casinos, long controlled by the rather louche capo, Stanley Ho. Regular mob hits, as his family is now bitterly divided over assets. China has meanwhile installed a governor, who has his hands full—and is trying to solve the Stanley Ho problem by inviting many more, but foreign, gambling companies in. Also boasts a canidrome (dog racing), the rua de la felicidade (sp.?) and other charms . . .

However, in my day (pours large single malt) Macao was pretty much still a backwater, overshadowed by Hong Kong, some 46 miles (60 kilometers) to the north across the mouth of the Pearl River. Hydrofoils carried gamblers back and forth, landing them directly in front of the grotesquely lavish Lisboa hotel/casino/bordello-makes Las Vegas look like the acropolis in Athens–where they stayed and thus left the rest of the town in peace. There was a night ferry for sentimentalists—and today in Hong Kong the Macao ferry dock is the site of a bustling night market.

This was a Chinese territory that had been cut off from China since the mid Ming dynasty: this was the only place where one could find smoky old temples, almost on the muddy water, shaded by ancient banyan trees, and backed by the sides of hills far too steep to climb. One could sit for hours in the hot sun, while absolutely nothing at all happened, as had been true for centuries. There had been o Qing dynasty, no 1911-12 revolution (though Sun Yat-sen practiced medicine there, and his fly-blown office pavilion could be visited), no Kuomintang, no Communism.

All was safely in the hands of the Portuguese governor, who lived in a pastel pink residence of great beauty, and of the Catholic fathers, whose churches and cloisters crowded on the peninsula’s central hilltop, with bells all through the night, dogs barking, and cocks crowing before dawn), as well as the Macanese (a well-defined ethnic group of mixed Chinese-Portuguese ancestry, bilingual, mostly civil servants, the creators of an exquisite Sino-Portuguese cuisine, which one could sample in picturesque pousadas overlooking the deserted harbor, as well as of the triads, and other intriguing groups..

This was where the celebrated poet Luiz Vaz de Camoes (1524-1580, a Coimbra graduate) composed his celebrated Lusiads (ca. 1556 ff) and where the celebrated English genrie painter George Chinnery (1774-1852) lived and worked (or rather fled, it was said, to escape his wife). A Waldron, who died there in his twenties of malaria or typhoid, is buried in the protestant cemetery.

For centuries, this was the only European settlement near China, and only way in or out. In my day (pours second large single malt) it was exquisitely beautiful and run down, a pastel colored Mediterranean/Chinese town on the South China Sea, of infinite architectural interest, with decaying barracks, beautiful houses as old as Groot Begijnhof 71, a lavish and gilded club and opera house with red velvet armchairs, and the façade of a great cathedral that had burned. I stayed regularly at the decaying Hotel Bela Vista (hot water supply, irregular; rooms simple; site and view spectacular) and would explore the city for hours on foot, in the morning, until my friend and traveling companion DSB (Harvard ’70) awoke (early afternoon) and started his breakfast—a medium sized bottle of inexpensive port.

A number of banks operated there, but they accepted no deposits. They were a link in a gold trading racket, that I have never completely understood, except that the world price was far lower than the black market price in China.

And what of more recent times (pours immense cup of black coffee).

During the Cultural Revolution (1965-68 or so) the Portuguese attempted to return the territory to China, but were rebuffed. Thereafter the island was in effect Communist run, with Stanley Ho and his ghastly concrete mansion with heavy steel garage doors and antennas sprouting everywhere, in charge, while the Portuguese governor contemplated the beautiful tiles and fountains in his garden. Anti-communists could be found there, in wretched condition, but fascinating to talk to.

This was also the closest that an ordinary China specialist could get to the “real” China until the 1980s. There was a vacant lot—the cabbies knew where it was—where only a filthy ditch separated Portuguese from Chinese territory. A large sign proclaimed “No photographs” but one could stand there, a yard away from the Forbidden Kingdom, gazing at the endless fields of rice, shimmering in the hot sun, and the low mountains near the horizon.

Macao may seem insignificant, and it has, in effect, vanished today, but from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, it was the rather unsatisfactory bridge that connected China to the west. True, the past is another country—but old Macao was as close to a visit there as I got, until I saw Shanghai just after tourists were first admitted, frozen in time since the 1940s. One felt that if one walked long and fast enough, and through enough alleys and dark gateways, that—as in some children’s novel—one might actually be able to enter the past. Again—that is all gone today.

Hong Kong:

Far more successful in worldly terms has been the British colony of Hong Kong, just across the Pearl River estuary. Much larger (381 square miles, 1031 square kilometers-one third the size of Luxembourg) with a population of perhaps seven million. Hong Kong consists of Hong Kong island and a small portion of the mainland Kowloon peninsula—up to Boundary Street—which were ceded in perpetuity to Britain in 1842 and 1860, respectively. In 1898 the New Territories (366 square miles, 948 square kilometers) were leased to the British for 99 years.

This colonization and leasing by Britain took place at about the same time that the city of Shanghai was beginning to grow, and it, rather than Hong Kong, became the unquestioned metropolis of China—vast, wealthy (and also very poor), at the mouth of the immense valley of the Yangzi, Han and other rivers, with foreign concessions where middle class and rich Chinese lived, or rather maintained residences, along with tens of thousands of foreigners, not all from the top drawer. Romanticized in the Graham Greene manner (1904-1991) as the “Paradise for Adventurers” or “City for Sale” where the likes of Noel Coward (1899-1973) wrote Private Lives (1930) while ensconced in the luxury of Mr Kadoorie’s Cathay (now Peace) hotel—in fact Shanghai was the most important center of Chinese thought, commerce, art, education, and life in general until 1949 when the Communists, distrusting its cosmopolitan people, effectively shut it down.

Macao had a small permanent population, many of whom became Macanese over the centuries. Hong Kong, by contrast, had a very small population given its size—perhaps 200,000 at the end of the Second World War—with only a handful of “native dwellers” such as the celebrated and immensely rich Eurasian Hotung family. Hong Kong served as an entrepot, and the terminus of the Kowloon and Canton railway, but little else.

When things were peaceful in China, most Chinese left Hong Kong and went there. But when there was trouble in China, they would flee to Hong Kong for the duration, swelling the population by hundreds of thousands.

After the Communist victory, millions of refugees began arriving in Hong Kong. Some were rich, such as the Shanghai factory and ship owners (C. Y. Tung, who hated the Communists and registered his fleet in Kaohsiung, Taiwan was the father of Chee-hwa Tung, the current puppet Chief Executive (who went bankrupt and was rescued by Beijing). In North Point area, a “little Shanghai” developed. These people carried on in Hong Kong the businesses they had started in Shanghai.

But many poor people fled as well. Jimmy Lai (1948–) arrived as a street orphan, made a fortune in the clothing business, and started the Apple Daily, one of the most widely circulated newspapers in Hong Kong and Taipei. Lai is hated by Beijing. One of my classmates in graduate school swam, like many others, from the Chinese shore to Hong Kong . . .

What are the British rulers to do with these hundreds of thousands of Chinese who are camped out in shanty towns—but as becomes clear, have no intention of returning to China. A vast program of public housing, very simple at first, and free port status and low taxation. The result is that Hong Kong gradually moves from being poor to having (today) a per capita income higher than that of the United Kingdom.

More importantly, the population no longer ebbs and flows. Children born after 1949 and those young at the time grow up knowing only Hong Kong and sharing surroundings—the harbor, the mountains, the canyons of Kowloon—and experiences: going to school, watching local TV, speaking a gradually modified version of Cantonese, grasping their armrests during the white knuckle landing approach to Kai Tak airport (now no longer used).

This leads to the formation of a Hong Kong identity. When the Hong Kong football team beats China in Beijing, there is joy in the colony, but windshields broken and shops smashed in the Chinese capital. When PRC Chinese speak of Hong Kong residents, they call them Xianggang ren—which is a linguistic acknowledgement of their distinctness.

(The name incidentally does not mean fragrant harbor, but incense port, owing to the export of sandalwood, now long gone from the surrounding hills)

Unlike the Portuguese, the British fully intended to hang on to Hong Kong. At the end of World War II they secretly send a detachment of destroyers there to accept the Japanese surrender—less those starry-eyed Americans hand the place over to Chiang Kai-shek.

So they resist the underground Communist movement by means of the Special Branch.

During the famine of 1959-61 hundreds of thousands of Chinese fled to Hong Kong, but were able to find work and housing. Gradually Hong Kong emerged, to its own astonishment, as the first middle class Chinese city.

During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards attempted to take over Hong Kong. Headquarters, loudspeakers, and hospital facilities were set up in the Bank of China building (PRC controlled) and the governor’s residence blockaded. However, the movement failed to take off. Local people took no interest, which was implicit support for the British. Terrorism—one anti-communist radio host was doused with petrol as he left his home and set alight—likewise had no effect. The Hong Kong police handled crowds well, and when the Red Guards waved their little red books, the police waved back their little blue books of police regulations. Eventually Peking tells the local Communists to call things off.

But these were crazy days. The British embassy in Beijing was burned to the ground; at Portland Place in London, where the Chinese embassy has been since Qing times, several diplomats emerged with an axe and attacked local British police. No one badly hurt. “The battle of Portland Place.”

Yours truly arrived from Taiwan, where, not surprisingly, no Communist publications were available, put up at the old Astor Hotel (now torn down) in Kowloon, and on his first morning bounced out to the nearest news seller—a wizened looking woman sitting on the pavement surrounded by her wares. He asked for the People’s Daily. She looked at him in shock, as if he were a mad person (?) and then politely explained that few people in HK read that paper (same is true in China today—it is unavailable outside my sister-in-law’s apartment) but that if I really wanted it I could go to a “China Emporium”—a PRC owned department store—and find it, along with other treasures, such as the works of Chairman Mao, silk embroidered portraits of Marshal Stalin, red dates (unavailable in Taiwan) etc.

Your truly further embarrassed himself by visiting the FCC (Foreign Correspondents’ Club—in those days one covered China from Hong Kong) where the assembled reptiles of the press could be found in various states of inebriation—and the famous, tragic Cambridge educated genius David Bonavia held forth. The topic then, in the 1970s, was whether China would ever take Hong Kong back. I ventured that they might.

Hoots of derision. The Chinese would never be that stupid! They would never kill the goose . . . etc. They are pragmatists! “Eppur si muove!”

And so it did (see below)

In 1971 China watchers were puzzled as the neon slogan on the top of the Bank of China building was changed from “Long Live Chairman Mao’s Thought” to “Long Live Chairman Mao.” Lin Biao.

In the 1980s the Chinese made clear to Britain that they would take back all of Hong Kong when the New Territories lease expired in 1997. Shock and horror! Run on Hong Kong dollar. Rush for foreign passports, real estate, etc.

After difficult negotiations (no Hong Kong civil servants were allowed to participate, as Beijing wanted this to be the White People versus the Chinese) The British and Chinese announce a joint communiqué in 1984 that promises continuing freedom for Hong Kong and a government “constituted” by democratic processes. “One country, two systems.”

Christopher Patten (1944-) is named “last governor” and moves, against the advice of the Foreign Office “Mandarins” to create as much democracy as possible under the mixed system of electoral districts and functional representation. First governor not to wear feathered hat, sword, etc. Very popular—I bought a figurine of him waving goodbye from my friend at Ah Lo’s newsstand (Theatre Place, HK)—he has everything—and as he wrapped it and handed it to me (this was years after Communists had taken over) he whispered “I love this man.”

Future of HK now very much in question. On the day of handover, rain poured down all night, and television showed a long column of military vehicles moving in. The unpopular Tung Chee-hwa was named governor, by a handshake from Jiang Zemin. But the Hong Kong people began to push for more democracy, as promised, and in particular for direct election of the chief executive. Last July massive demonstrations against a proposed draconian security law brought Chinese back down. Elections have given democrats major voice in Legislative Assembly, but true responsible parliamentary government is lacking.

Very risky, as Hong Kong, and its hinterland of Canton and other cities, is by far the richest part of China. It has the largest number of private companies. It has its own very distinct language and culture. Hard to see what it needs from Beijing. Quite capable of running itself—literacy rate 99%, numeracy top in world (tied with Flanders?)

PRC is trying somehow to control this territory, but that is proving difficult. The decision in the early 1980s to pour billions of central government dollars into reviving Shanghai was in part designed to overshadow greater Hong Kong.

Taiwan:

Taiwan is an island about 100 miles off the coast of Fujian province, China. 13,087 square miles (35,760 square km) bigger than Belgium, smaller than the Netherlands. Associated territories include Pescadores (Penghu) islands in the Strait, Jinmen (Quemoy) island group, in the harbor of the city of Amoy, Fujian; Mazu island group off Fuzhou, Fujian, and the largest of the Spratly islands, in the middle of the South China sea, more than a thousand miles to the south. Population is about 24 million (Australia, 27 million).

Separated from northern Philippines by Bashi Channel; Shimoji-shima, about 250 nautical miles NE of Taiwan is a substantial Japanese island, having a 10,000 foot 747 capable runway.

The island is part of a chain originally inhabited by speakers of the Austronesian languages, which range from Madagascar to Hawaii. These people were essentially like todays Malays or Filipinos.

Visited by Portuguese who named it Ilha Formosa but did not settle. In 1624 Dutch establish fortifications and settlements. When the Ming dynasty is overthrown by the Qing (1644) Ming loyalists flee south to Fujian and eventually to Taiwan, where Zheng Chenggong (1662-1624) born in Hirado, Japan in 1624, defeats them and sets up his own kingdom in 1662, dying in the same year. The Zheng family maintains control and flourishes so much from trade that the Kangxi emperor of the Qing lifts the maritime interdict, so that his empire can benefit from trade as well. In 1683 Zheng’s grandson comes to terms with Qing, and in 1885 the island becomes a province of the Qing empire. In 1895 it is ceded to Japan, remaining a colony until 1945.

Until the arrival of the Japanese, a steady stream of poor young men from Fujian mostly, but also including Cantonese and Hakkas, arrived in Taiwan, married local women (Malays) who then took on Chinese names and family customs. The result was a mixed population we call “Taiwanese.” In 1945 after Japan was defeated Chiang Kai-shek sent forces to “liberate” the island. Initially welcomed, they proved so corrupt and incompetent that massive rioting broke out on February 28, 1947 when a Chinese policeman arrested a local woman for selling cigarettes without tax stamps on them. The rebellion was only quelled when more troops came from China—perhaps 16,000 killed, and a period of “white terror” followed in which the Taiwan intelligentsia was systematically decimated.

In 1949, following his defeat in China, Chiang Kai-shek and about two million of his followers, came to Taiwan. The city of Taipei (Taihoku) population perhaps 200,000 was named provisional or temporary capital of the Republic of China, pending recovery of China proper.

The army was defeated and demoralized, but under the leadership of Sun Liren (1900-1990 later purged by CKS) and others, it was brought into better fighting shape.

On October 25, 1949, three weeks after the proclamation of the PRC, 10,000 Chinese troops were landed at Guningtou on Quemoy, to begin the “liberation” of the territories CKS still held. The ROC general in command allowed the troops to land, then destroyed their ships with artillery. His entrenched forces then wiped out the entire Communist landing force. This was a major morale booster, and no invasion attempts have been made since, though Quemoy used to be shelled regularly.

Alliance with the United States:

At this time Washington and every other country considered that Communist conquest of Taiwan was just a matter of time. But in June 1950 Kim Il-sung invades South Korea and nearly takes it.. US had signaled it would do nothing: famous press conference in which Secretary of State Acheson fails to mention Korea. Secret, open plans all call for withdrawal. But when there is actual war, we are in there. . .

Korean war leads US to put Seventh Fleet in Taiwan Strait, thus helping to protect the Chinese Nationalists in Taiwan, who have also secured some offshore islands—Quemoy, Matsu, and some of the Zhoushan islands off Shanghai. In 1953 we establish diplomatic relations and a defensive alliance.

This leads to a series of confrontations over Quemoy (notably 1958)—which ultimately undo the Sino-Soviet alliance.

The Japanese have surrendered their sovereignty over Taiwan to the United States, but owing to the lack of relations with the government in Beijing, we hang on to it, as a fiduciary, so to speak. Nor do we acknowledge that CKS’s government has sovereignty over the island. Even today, our position is that the sovereignty of Taiwan under international law remains to be determined.

China invades and occupies Tibet (1950-51). Dalai Lama flees to India (1959). India, however, acquiesces hoping to be friends with “non-aligned” countries, including China, which humiliates them in a short war (1962)

In Vietnam, the powers (with the French aboard) manage to partition Vietnam between North and South at the Geneva Conference (1954). Hanoi must wait for South Vietnam to fall, like a ripe fruit, which it fails to do—leading to slow motion invasion from the North starting in 1959. This also leads to wars which end with Communist victory in 1975.

What is missing from this picture? The economy.

USSR is supposed to grow and overtake us “about ten years after the date of publication of the textbook” (the late Otto Eckstein). Europe is supposed to collapse as a result of contradictions of capitalism.

Hong Kong is a “stinking slum” in 1949 when my friend passes through on his way back from Columbia University to New China. But when he comes out again in the 1980s, Shatin Shopping Mall is just what they had envisaged Communism as being.

The non-Communist Asian countries adopt economic policies that permit growth: C..Y. Yin in Taiwan—invents the export processing regime, which makes use of manpower while affording some protection to domestic industry. “Do you expect to make Taiwan into Lancashire” (Chiang Shuo-jie is asked).

No one believes Asians can grow.

But there is a time lag. In the 1970s the reality is that the Communist states, which seem strong, are entering terminal decline. The pro-Western states, long considered little more than clients, are getting rich and educated.

Taiwan today:

Yours truly studied Chinese in Taiwan for three years in the early 1970s, when per capita income was about US$900 (same as Hanoi today). The system was authoritarian—CKS was in charge of politics and his police saw to it that no one got out of line; newspapers were censored (but independently owned with a few exceptions), my mail was read and several magazines to which I subscribed never arrived. Political prisoners. Strong emphasis on “Chineseness”: little Taiwan history or public speaking in Taiwanese—everything looked to China, which Chiang proclaimed he would reconquer (we recognized his government as the legitimate government of China until 1979; it held the China seat in the UN until 1971).

Money spent on two things: (1) military, army in particular. Much too big; garrison duty, worst thing you can do to a fighting force (cf IDF as it checks Palestinian women crossing into Israel). (2) education: new primary schools everywhere, even in the most remote locations. Superb curriculum. National Taiwan University (founded as a medical school by the Japanese) is now considered, in ratings by Huadong University, Shanghai as “the best university in the Chinese speaking world.” Enormously good. We have just hired a graduate to teach Chinese history at Penn. She knows it far better than PRC candidates.

Really all an elaborate, face saving charade. Everyone pretends CKS is president and all talk bravely. But ROC leaders and military in fact deeply demoralized. By the early 1970s China is beginning to reciprocate Washington’s long time interest in Beijing, owing to the threat from the USSR.

But how do we get rid of Taiwan, this monkey on our back? Idea develops (1) that since leaderships on both sides consider Taiwan part of China, they may be able to be brought together (2) especially if the US cuts all relations with Taiwan. It is a puppet state, like South Vietnam, and will collapse. CKS dies in 1975. amidst a violent and sudden thunderstorm; Mao follows him in 1976.

Richard Nixon (1913-1974) and Henry Kissinger (1923-) decide to do this, in stages. Kissinger makes secret visits to Beijing (during the Lin Biao crisis, of which he is completely unaware) and promises the US does not support “Two Chinas, One China One Taiwan, or an Independent Taiwan” (so what is left?). But he reserves sovereignty explicitly. South Vietnam falls in 1975 and Nixon resigns, so it falls to Jimmy Carter (1924–) to do the deed, which he does in December 1978, when Taiwan’s then president Chiang Ching-kuo (1910-1988—only son of CKS and Mao Fumei) is awakened in the wee hours by a phone call, without warning.

US Congress is enraged at not being consulted, and passes Taiwan Relations Act, which requires us to supply Taiwan with defensive weapons, be prepared to defend her, and warns China that we “expect” only peaceful means.

But confidence is strong that CCK will fold: Deng Xiaoping sends him a very polite letter about one country two systems. But CCK, who was educated in the USSR and married a Russian wife, does not respond. US tries to cut off arms sales, to hasten things along (see ANW debate with Ambassador Charles Freeman, Council on Foreign Relations, on the net).

But instead of folding, CCK does something so surprising that no one in Washington had even considered the possibility. He begins to democratize the island. Martial law is lifted, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party is allowed to form, censorship is removed, political prisoners are released, exiles return, parliament and president’ are elected’ . . . first under CCK, then his successor Li Teng-hui (1923, a Hakka, also a “Nihonggojin” in that he was educated at Kyoto Imperial University, and although he speaks Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, English, and so forth, Japanese is by far his best language).

We have now had three entirely free presidential elections in Taiwan (won by LTH, then twice by Chen Shuibian, son of a landless farmer, educated at Taiwan University, brilliant corporate lawyer who turned to human rights and was imprisoned, whose wife was crippled in an “accident” involving a truck). We have just had another parliamentary election.

Island now richer than ever and one of the freest and most dynamic places in Asia (see Taipei Times, a superb newspaper). Major investor in China (owns 70% of IT). But has diplomatic relations with only a handful of countries, though “informal” relations with more than CKS ever did—big “embassies” in Tokyo, Seoul, Washington, Moscow, Brussels, etc.—but invisible. Ostracized from international society at Beijing’s insistence.

No one quite knows what to do, since the 1970s attempt to deep six Taiwan has clearly failed. PRC engaged in massive military buildup—700 or so missiles aimed at Taiwan, or one for every 30,000 or so Taiwanese. But island is key to energy supply routes and to Japanese security. So as PRC builds up, so do others (though Taiwan arms purchases are hung up in parliament). Key strategic position.

Developing its own advanced weapons, but army is a mess, and government is going through a period of confusion and growth, like any young democracy.

Growth of Taiwanese identity. Chinese call them “Taiwan ren”—even CKS, who, whatever else he may have been, was certainly NOT Taiwanese. He and his son are now being permanently buried there—claim to China long abandoned.

The Chinese World:

My non-teacher at Harvard, the once celebrated China expert John King Fairbank (1907-1991) regularly referred to Taiwan, HK, etc. as “the last treaty ports”—vestiges, in other words, of an obsolete system, due eventually to disappear, superseded by Mao’s definitive Sinified Marxism.

In fact the opposite has happened. China is now becoming more and more like Taiwan and HK, except for the freedom and democracy. The Maoist model, once solemnly contemplated, is understood to have been a tragic failure and intellectual joke.

More than sixty million “Chinese” live outside of China—25% or so of Penn’s students, capped at other universities, as Jews once were—but few are PRC citizens. They are mostly highly accomplished (though some a very poor and persecuted, as in Burma) and control vast intellectual and financial resources. Their media—Xingdao Erbao on the newsstands here, Shijie erbao in SE Asia and US—not to mention HK and Taiwan based TV, and Xin Tang Ren TV—are more powerful than local media..

Har har…wait…I’ll be damned, I’m in my late 20’s and I’m still in school! Stupid Master’s program! 😀

Are you doing a Phd in history?

Finally in Belgium we switched to the bachelar-master-system. At least we can move abroad now. Before, you could as well have a diploma from Mars.

Please keep in mind that I’m Dutch-speaking and not English. Writing in English is not difficult, trying to write something intelligent however is something else. I also see some sentences have to be rewritten because they are quite boring to read (some words i use too often, however, even). I chose not to write it in dutch first and than let it translate by a professional because
1. it’s too expensive
2. I think most people will understand what I wrote. The mistakes are a price I’ll have to pay.

I tried to be as objective as possible. I don’t think the average american would be upset reading this, unless you are a gun waving lunatic.

What notices me is that these American professors are quite different from the ones here in Belgium. They actually talk to students and invite them to their home. Interresting guy this Arthur Waldron, especially because he knows a tremendous amount of information on naval history. Seems like he really wants us to put an opinion into this paper. Normally, I try to stay objective, use lots of footnotes but this looks more like writing an article for a newspaper 🙂

Damn, if it wouldn’t be that darn expensive i would really like to study one year in the states. 🙁

Well, here’s some of it. What I wrote today.

When we think about “American Foreign policy”, we have the tendency to place this in a European perspective. If you would ask the public opinion in Belgium, how they see America’s role in the world today, the majority will most likely see the United States as a country, which tries to dominate the world by imposing sanctions, triggering wars … Others see the US as a key ally, which saved us from both Nazism and Communism, and therefore, we should remain loyal. The debate is always seen as a “pro-contra” discussion among politicians and the public opinion. However, few try to understand what is driving America to the foreign policy it has today: harshly seen by European intellectuals as unilateral. “The fashionable source of anxiety in both Europe and Asia is whether America is becoming so different from everywhere else that it is becoming a problem for the world, not a solution. It’s not just a reckless Bush administration leading America astray, in other words. On this view, the United States is now inherently assertive and unilateralist and so can no longer be trusted to lead the world. Instead it should be feared.” We could read in an issue of the Economist some months ago.

How did this change? During the nineteenth century and even at the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States were not even considered to be a state of any influence. Apart from the Monroe-doctrine, the US and Europe tried to stay out of each other’s business. And the Monroe-doctrine and I quote, said “In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It’s only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defences. With the movements in this hemisphere […]” And even in this case, the US does not want to involve into purely European politics, it just wants the European powers to stay out of the ‘western’ hemisphere. Even the plans for an Anglo-British alliance were rejected by John Quincy Adams, the secretary of state. One could argue this is unilateral behaviour, however, we should be careful. The US wanted to stay out of the European ‘game’ of Imperialism and Colonial Wars, maybe out of humanitarian reasons, but more likely out of self-preservation. In his “Proclamation of 1821” czar Alexander I announced that the American west-coast, reaching from Alaska to Oregon, is object of possible Russian colonisation. Anyway, the early US diplomacy may not have always been effective, we can’t blame it for being neither arrogant nor unilateral. Without going into details, we can say that during the nineteenth century US foreign policy was reluctant and mostly concerned with her own defence.

In the Proud Tower, according to Barbara Tuchman, America’s foreign policy started to change with one book, The influence of sea power on History by Mahan. Even the Kaiser had a copy of it, and he ordered to spread the book on every German vessel. Not only popular among the military, also politicians were intrigued by it. Henry Cabot Lodge, senator of Massachusetts, Roosevelt’s friend and political sponsor, forcefully advocated and carried the case for a larger navy and American expansionism in the Senate. He used a map of the Pacific and pointed out every British naval base, marked by red crosses, while explaining Mahan’s ideas on the strategic importance of Hawai and Cuba. For the first time, the US wanted to expand further than the North-American continent. In 1898 American soldiers and sailors joined Cuban and Filipino rebels in a successful war against Spain.
Some regarded this as imperialism, others oppose the idea and say the US never got into imperialism. In my humble opinion, this is just a semantic discussion. Nevertheless, it did change the US foreign policy.
But, did this really affect the Europeans? The British had enough difficulties trying to get the Russians out of Afghanistan and the Dardanelles, and fighting the Boers in South Africa, France was busy trying to form a protectorate over Morocco and Egypt, and was even close to a war with Britian over this (Fachoda, 1898). Alfred von Tirpitz had his hands full on trying to build a “Hochseeflotte”. ‘Britannia rules the waves’ was not a certainty anymore. The United States did not interfere into European politics before. It played a role as a negotiator after the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905. At Portsmouth a treaty is signed. In 1906, the United States took part in the Algeciras conference. The purpose of this conference was to mediate between France and Germany over a Moroccan dispute.

Did this mean the end of the Monroe-doctrine? Although the United States wanted to stay out of a (possible) European conflict between the Entente Cordiale and the Triple Alliance, it began to see itself as a police power. This was what Theodore Roosevelt had in mind, at least dealing with the western hemisphere. (Collary Roosevelt). “Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe-Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”

When World War I broke out, the US decided to stay out of it. Officially at least, because the US supported the entente through financial and military aid. But there were enough reasons for the United States to get involved. The sinking of the Lusitania was one. Still, Woodrow Wilson decided to keep America out of the war. Secretary of State William Jennings said “I agree with the American people in thanking God we have a president who has kept – who will keep – us out of war.” However, when the German Reich started the “Unbeschränkte U-boot Krieg” in February 1917 the US had no other choice than to join the allies, since the Germans didn’t care about neutrality anymore. But how could Wilson sell this to the American public. At the same time, there was a revolution going on in Russia, a liberal revolution. The US wanted to support the temporary Russian government in it’s fight against autocratic Germany. In fact, it was “a crusade for democracy.” On the 2nd of April 1917 Woodrow Wilson used this argument in the Congress. “No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith or observe its convenants […] The great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naïve majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honor.”

The Belgian Police cars r all different.Belgium has many different local & national Police forces,& their vehicles r all different colours & types.When I was there,I saw Black Police cars with white writing. I also saw the white police cars with blue stripes & white cars with red & blue diagonal stripes.

Yeah, that’s because there’s no money to paint those cars :diablo: Actually they should all look the same by now. The black police cars are the ones used in the city of Brussels, to chase the really bad guys!

Started at the age of fifteen, working as an assistant in the local grocery shop. Quite boring. Being a student in Belgium is quite easy though. Students here normally don’t work during the week or even the weekend. However, I do work in a pub during weekends. (I even have a diploma from Stella, which means you can hire me as an official bartender :))