Eric's Beijing Diary

Last night, as I was sitting on a quayside bench between the palm trees, feeling a light, South China breeze off the bay, I thought of an old chorus from my days at Hillcrest:

Today is mine, tomorrow may not come.
I may not see thee the rising of the sun.
When evening falls, my work may all be done.
Today is mine, tomorrow may not come.

Strange to think of how many tomorrows have come and gone since those years. And every new day is one more opportunity to follow God's divine purpose. Never could I have imagined during those days that I would be sitting by the side of Xiamen Bay in South China, still taking one day at a time and wondering what the future holds. It's an accepted axiom among Christians. You're supposed to say it. But it bears repeating--God is so faithful. He may lead us through things we would not have chosen for ourselves, but He never, never lets us down.

This morning, as I was standing by the window of my hotel room watching the sun come up over Xiamen Bay, I was struck by an odd thought. I have not seen as many sunrises and sunsets since I left the trucking industry. I think over-the-road truck drivers probably see more sunrises and sunsets than any other group of people. I don't know...I guess maybe farmers see more, but not as many different kinds. During the seven years that I was in the trucking industry, I saw many, many different sunrises and sunsets. It's amazing how sunrises and sunsets stick in your mind. Like the time I was heading out of West Yellowstone one cold morning, and squared up with a bull moose, silhouetted against the western sky, his lone figure brightened by the golden sun behind me. It was a beautiful picture, but not one I wanted to see quite that close. Fortunately he moved just in time. It would have been messy.

Xiamen, formerly known to the world as Amoy, has a deep, natural harbor, so it was always destined to be a trade center. The interesting thing about Xiamen is that it has had that character for hundreds of years through several dynasties, geopolitical changes, and cultural upheavals. It was a major trading center through all the time that China was turning up it's nose at western trade.

I'm sitting here in my hotel on Gulang Yu, a small island situated in Xiamen Bay right off the coast of Xiamen. It's kinda confusing at first, because if you go to Google Earth and take a glance from the air, you can see that Xiamen itself is an island, connected to the mainland by a causeway. But it's quite a bit bigger than Gulang Yu. Gulang Yu is the old foreign concession. It is becoming more Chinese now, but there is still quite a remnant of colonial architecture.

I wasn't going to come, because I really don't have as much time to spend here as I would like, but I didn't have class this evening, and the weather is really nice, so I decided to take the bus down from Fuzhou and go back in the morning. When I got to the long distance bus station in Xiamen, I took a cab to the harbor and rode the ferry across the bay to Gulang Yu. I went to the first hotel I saw and asked for a room with a view of the bay. They took me to one of the suites with a view--660 RMB. I thought that was pretty high, but I was tired, and it was getting on toward late afternoon, so I offered them 400, and they took it. Fifty bucks. That's still a lot, but there aren't any youth hostels in this area that I know of, and besides, once in awhile it is kinda nice to have a room of your own, especially if you have work to do. I have my laptop with me, and I wouldn't get much done in a youth hostel.

This afternoon, as soon as I got my room and started walking around the island, a kid met me and offered to be my tour guide. I told him I just wanted to get something to eat, so he started leading me through a bunch of alleys. I kept asking him if he could tell me a good place to eat, and he kept telling me that it was right ahead of us. I was about to tell him that I didn't need his help anymore, when he showed me an obscure restaurant. I don't know why he chose this place--could be he was getting some sort of kickback from the proprietor to lead tourists there. Gulang Yu has many of these places. They all have various kinds of exotic species of sea creatures swimming around in tubs at the front of the establishment.

It's interesting, but a bit expensive. I went round and round with this lady trying to negotiate something that would give me a meal for a price that wasn't too outlandish. A guy I met later told me that he had been advised not to eat on the island because of the prices. I don't blame him. I don't know...I guess I would do it once, but I don't know if I would do it again. The problem is that in the time I have lived in China, I have had lots and lots of very good food for a lot less than what these guys are charging. Tourists from America might go for these prices, because sea food in America is usually frozen for shipment, so fresh fish would be a rare treat for an American. But fresh fish is the standard in China. And I am used to eating with students who have become quite adept at finding very good food for a very good price. In other words, I'm spoiled rotten.

After the seafood thing, I told the kid that if he would take me to Sunlight rock, I would pay him the 10 kuai he was asking as a fee. I don't think he makes most of his money from the fee he charges, I think he makes most of his money from the shops he kept leading me through on the way to Sunlight Rock. Don't know how it works, but I'm sure he's is getting some sort of kickback for every shop he took me to. We finally got there, and the kid said he was leaving. I climbed to the 100 meter platform and had an experience that is quite unusual in China. I was absolutely alone. Moments like that don't come often in this country, and they pass quickly, so I took the opportunity to spend a little time with the Lord. The view was really remarkable. The sky was a clear blue and visibility was good. I thought I could see Jinmen Island in the distance, but I couldn't be sure, since this is my first time to the area.

Very shortly, a bunch of tourists showed up. One of them, a friendly young lady, wanted her picture taken with me. After the photo shoot was done, she asked me, very politely, if she could touch my beard. I asked another one of the tourists, a local guy, to point to Jinmen Island, and he pointed in the direction I had been looking, so maybe I had it right. Maybe next time I will take a boat tour of the harbor and see it up close. Jinmen Island is part of an island group that used to be known as "Quemoy." Quemoy consists of Jinmen, Xiao Jinmen (Little Jinmen), and a few other islets in the cluster. After he became president, Eisenhower removed the blockade around Taiwan that had been imposed by Truman. Chiang Kai-shek promptly moved thousands of troops to Quemoy and Matsu (several hundred kilometers to the north).

Understandably, this precipitated a conflict, which was only "resolved" after Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons against China. Some would say that he should have taken a stronger stand against Chiang Kai-shek, whose actions in placing troops on Quemoy and Matsu were clearly provocative. But how could Eisenhower rebuke him? What could he do? Tell Chiang Kai-shek to give the islands back to China? Remember, according to official U.S. foreign policy at the time, Taiwan was China. That's why Taiwan was a member of the Security Council. Certainly a tiny island like Taiwan would never have been given a permanent seat on the Security Council. Taiwan was given that seat because the Taipei government was recognized as the "legitimate" government of the Chinese people. As ludicrous as that may appear now, it did seem to make sense at the time, because Chiang Kai-shek was, in fact, the leader of China. He was not from Taiwan.

So how does this relate to the geopolitical situation today? Recently Lee, the former president (significantly the first democratically elected president) of Taiwan has been visiting the United States. In his speeches, he says that Taiwan already is an independent country, and that the only thing left is for this independence to be formalized. Spoken like a true native, but it is a bit simplistic. If Taiwan, which has always claimed that it is part of the mainland (or that the mainland is part of it), is now going to resign itself to being separate, and give up on "retaking the mainland," what is the point of continuing to occupy Quemoy and Matsu. Putting troops on those islands makes sense if your objective is to retake the mainland. But if Taiwan wants to be independent, she has no business on those islands. Look for yourself--those are clearly not defensive positions.

Well, Beijing, of course, detests Lee, but I like him. I respect his sentiments as a native of the island, but I also believe that his position is not realistic. You cannot have an independent country if you cannot defend yourself. That is, unless someone else has taken the responsibility, as in the case of Japan after World War II. The Americans are sworn to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack, but not in an independence move. It's complicated, and in a way, it doesn't make sense, because anyone with any level of integrity would have to acknowledge that Taiwan already has a sort of "defacto" independence, and has been practicing it for many years. But the problem is that Taiwan did not get interested in being "independent" until very recently. Today we talk about how Chen Shui-bian is an irritation to Beijing. But he was also an irritation to the KMT. They put him in prison. So, while many in the West are used to thinking of Taiwan as a separate entity, the move toward independence actually has a relatively short history.

Last night I was studying at the coffee bar near Fujitsu, when a lady came and sat down at my table. She is a young professional who apparently works for some sort of local journal. She did not speak a word of English, and I am not very conversational in Mandarin yet, so I did not get a detailed description, but she was very interested in talking with me. As we were talking, she was overcome with an irresistible urge to touch my beard. It was rather amusing to watch her slowly reaching across the table.

You know, it is not always easy for Americans to appreciate the extreme cultural deprivation that many young people in China are afflicted with. This young lady was not strange or abnormal. She was bright and friendly, and her boyfriend insisted on buying my coffee. But I guess she just could not live with the thought of having been so close to a beard without having taken the opportunity to touch it. The thing that really concerns me most, though, about young people like this young lady and her boyfriend, is that they do not speak a word of English. When I meet older people in China, I do not expect them to speak English. But young professionals who do not speak English are frozen to very limited future. They do not have a lot of options.

Last time I was in Fuzhou, I went to a Saturday night church service with one of my students. For some reason, he dropped the class, and I haven't seen him since that night, so I wasn't exactly sure how to get to church this morning. But I am a churchman, and this is the Lord's Day, so I walked out into the street, got into a cab, and told the cab driver that I wanted to go to church. He dropped me off in front of a religious looking building, which happened to be a Catholic church. A beggar woman was the first to greet me as I got out of my taxi, so I gave her some money, and then started talking to one of the friendly parishioners who happened to be standing there. I am not a Roman Catholic, but I am always open to finding fellowship in a place where I might meet those among the faithful. But Mass was over. I mentioned the name of a shopping area that I had remembered being near the church I had gone to last time. He picked up right away on what I was getting at. "Jidu-jiao," he kept saying. Jidu-jiao is the term used for Protestants in China. But Jidu-jiao does not mean "Protestant." It means "Christian teaching." This is why people in China always ask me, "Are you Catholic or Christian?" Religion in China is controlled by the government, of course, and within the greater realm of Christianity, the government recognizes two "normal" faiths, Catholicism and Protestantism. But for some reason, they never use the word "Protestant." In fact, I don't even know if there is a word for Protestant. I like this, actually, because I have never liked the term. I don't want to be known as someone who protests the Catholic Church, I want to be known as someone who protests sin and darkness and injustice.

Anyway, I started walking in the direction he had pointed out to me. Fortunately, it was close by. The beggar woman had followed me, and she told me that she was a believer, and she could show me how to get there. Coincidentally (I should say Providentially), I got there just as they were doing the "Do Re Mi" thing. It's something that goes on in Chinese churches every Sunday as sort of a warm up for the service. The song leader helps the congregation practice all the hymns before the service. It's actually a clever way to deal with the restlessness that often characterizes Sunday morning "getting ready to get started" time.

I like this church. It has a warm, upbeat atmosphere. I asked a young lady afterwards if there were lots of churches in Fuzhou. She said that there were, but for some reason, this one was quite popular. It's a picture of what is going on all over China. The really committed Christians are coming back to church, and the Three Self Movement, which many felt was designed to facilitate the eventual elimination of religion from society, is being taken over by the "true believers." Modern young people who don't know the history, do not always appreciate this. But for me, it is absolutely amazing to see what is happening in this country. Surely God has extended His hand of mercy. God is giving China a second chance.

This morning, I went to the North Gate to catch the airport shuttle. There was a lady there who was also going to the airport, so we decided to split a cab fare. When the cab driver discovered what we were doing, he told the lady that we would each have to pay him 60 per cent. She quickly agreed, because she was saving money, but I told her that was complete nonsense. The cab has a meter. We should only have to pay whatever it says.

The lady teaches epidemiology at the Peking University Health Sciences Center, which is located across College Road (Xue Yuan Lu) from Beihang. She did her undergraduate work at Peking University, went the Medical School, and then got her PhD in Hong Kong at Chinese University. I asked her how she liked Beijing. She told me she has lived here for 25 years. She seems to consider Beijing home now.

Well, we got to the airport, and I noticed that the lady ended up paying the cab driver extra. Disgusting, but what could I say? Not much you can do for someone who wants to be cheated.

Fuzhou. This evening, as I was returning to my apartment from the coffee bar, I stopped into a teashop to get some tea. I had forgotten to bring any with me. Although I drink coffee in coffee bars (it goes good with studying, I guess), I never brew coffee at home. At home, I prefer tea. Always have. In college, it was herbal tea with honey. Stuff that came in brightly colored packages with hippy sounding names, that we put in a little tea ball and soaked in a ceramic cup. Here in China, we put the leaves in whole, and they eventually float to the bottom.

In China, a teashop is a place where tea is sold, not consumed. There isn't anything that correlates to this in the United States. In China, you have both teahouses and teashops. Teahouses are places where people gather to drink tea. Teashops are small stores that sell different varieties of teas in different kinds of packages. The tea is usually sold by weight, with the price varying quite a bit depending on the type of tea and where it is grown. I stepped into the teashop, and the ladies welcomed me in and asked me to sit down. They started right in preparing the tea service so that I could sample the tea they sold. They needn't have bothered; I was already sold. But I could tell that they were really enjoying the process, so I sat down for a pleasant conversation (as much of it as I am capable of at this point). The tea service is complicated--kinda hard for me to describe here. One thing that always strikes me is that they wash all the cups (which are already clean) with tea. The Uygurs in Kashgar last summer had an interesting variation of this. A group of Uygur men were sitting around drinking beer when I walked by. One of them grabbed a glass that someone else had just been drinking out of, rinsed it out with beer, and offered it to me. Needless to say, I was unenthusiastic. But in China proper I don't see that happening. Many times I will be at a restaurant with someone, and they will rinse out the already clean teacups with tea and throw it out.

They served the tea to me in teeny tiny cups. As I was drinking, the lady who was serving me went on and on about how little cups are so much better than big cups. I kept thinking that if she could see the mug I use for tea at my office, she would be horrified. There was another guy sitting there, and he was telling me how not good for you green tea is compared to oolong tea (I had asked for green tea when I entered the shop). Funny, everywhere else, they always talk about how healthy green tea is. But here in Fujian Province they seem to be pretty proud of their oolong tea. I concur. I am sipping it now. Good stuff. If you were here, I'd pour you a cup. But not the way they do. I wouldn't put you through all that rigmarole. Just throw a few leaves in the bottom of the cup and pour in the hot water. Good for what ails you.

Last night I went to the Bookworm for a lecture night with Jasper Becker. I haven't really read much of Jasper Becker's stuff, because he tends to see the dark side of things, so it's kinda depressing. Still, he is one of the most widely published of the old China hands, and this time I had to cut him a little slack, because his latest book is about North Korea, and I am a bit of a pessimist myself on that subject. Pretty hard not to be.

I asked him what he thought of the current six-party talks. He said he didn't think that anything substantial would be accomplished. I told him that my frustration with the situation is that the whole thing boils down to repeated attempts by the Kim regime to extort money from the West to support a system that seems incapable of generating capital, because of failed economic policies. In other words, North Korea, the only Marxist economy left in the world, is forced to hold the West hostage to it's demands because, as every other Marxist economy has discovered, Marxism doesn't work.

This evening, I met a guy at the coffee bar who had just come from North Korea. Apparently they have opened up the border to Americans for a few weeks. I told him that I planned to go, but that I could not go now. He told me it was the strangest tour he had ever been on. Of course, it is well known that anyone going into Korea is escorted everywhere. And they hold your passport. But what he also told me is that there seem to be others around him that are somehow operating in an undercover capacity. For example, he met waitress in a restaurant who had been a flight attendant on his flight into the country, but she had a different name tag, and refused to acknowledge that she was the same person.

Delphi. When I first saw the news about Delphi going "belly up," I passed it over. I don't have time to dwell on every news item. Trivia Pursuit is fine as a parlor game, but it can be very debilitating if you really want to get a handle on what is happening in the world. So I passed it off as another story about a company that somehow couldn't put it together.

But a couple things changed my mind. One is the fact that Delphi has become a symbol for the ultimate futility of high-dollar unskilled labor, with wages kept artificially high by militant unions. The other is the success of Delphi Asia. The CEO of Delphi Asia is a Korean by the name of Choon T. Chon. Mr. Chon, in explaining the demise of Delphi in America, told his staff, "Our mother has a tumor. This tumor is the UAW.

Delphi's workers in America were paid $27 an hour. If you add in the value of the benefits package, it came to about $65 an hour. Total cost for wages and benefits in China comes to about $3 per hour. Pretty easy to see that the American company just couldn't compete.

During my years in America, I had an uneasy relationship with unions. In the State of North Dakota, I was not only a member of the teachers' union, I was on the negotiating committee, charged with negotiating pay increases and contract issues with the school board. But I have also crossed two different picket lines during teacher strikes--one in Oregon, and one in Montana. The striking teachers in Eugene, Oregon, were pretty raucous. It's hard to describe the impression I had riding the school bus provided to take the substitute teachers from the hotel where we were staying through the picket lines to the classrooms where we were supposed to teach--neatly dressed teachers yelling obscenities, and giving obscene gestures--it was really sickening. The striking teachers in Great Falls, Montana were quite a bit more civilized. But I remember one teacher in particular who made me laugh. I really didn't intend to, but I was caught off guard. I was sitting on the bus, waiting to leave, when a striking teacher walked by with a sign that said, "I have a Master's Degree." It struck me funny. I hope he didn't see me, because I really would not want him to think I was making fun of him. I wish I could have talked to him. I would have said, "Sir, nobody cares that you have a Master's Degree."

This is the fundamental problem with unionism in America. I believe the unions were necessary at one time. But they went too far. If you are in a job where you have to continually be badgering your employer to pay you more money, then you are either working for the wrong company, or you are in the wrong business. The key to prosperity is to develop skills that put you in demand, and then let that demand create your income naturally. But many of the unions are populated by workers who are not skilled, and either cannot or will not get those skills. So they have used the union to help them obtain wage packages far in excess of what their skills would ordinarily win them.

During the years I was in the trucking industry, I used to dread going into union steel mills, because if I came in within an hour or two of the next shift, it was just about impossible to get anyone to do anything. If I had a load of steel, there was no way I could take it off myself. There just isn't a lot of motivation to produce in a union establishment. A story related to me by an oil man in North Dakota accentuates this. He had gone to work for a GM plant, and was forced to join the UAW. A few weeks after starting work, his coworkers began to pester him to slow down, because he was making them look bad. He ignored them. Before long, the union boss came to him, very upset. He ordered this guy to slow down. Well, this guy wasn't in the mood to let a union boss tell him what to do, so he just kept working. He told me it wasn't more than a few weeks before his employer came to him and told him very apologetically, "If you don't slow down, I'm going to have to let you go. The union is complaining, and we don't want any trouble."

"Slow down or get out." This is the watch word of union America. Many, many companies have finally gotten fed up and moved their manufacturing operations to Asia. But the US Congress still doesn't seem to get it. Of course the Congress has a role to play in addressing the trade imbalance. But the first thing they need to do is to come to terms with the fact that America's labor problems are not China's fault. And they weren't Japan's fault in the Seventies. Japan kowtowed to America and the Japanese economy went flat. China is not so easily pushed around.

Beautiful Autumn day today. Another perfect day for exploring Beijing on my bicycle. This time I was using the new Beijing guidebook Rhea had brought me from America. I like this particular bike tour, because it takes you along the palace moat around the Forbidden City, which is really a pretty ride.

I stopped at a little tea shop just west of the Forbidden City. The problem with this place is that it only had the price for a group of people. I don't know why you can't just drop into a tea house and buy a simple cup of tea. But maybe there is something I'm missing--I really haven't been in tea houses very often, because they aren't designed for studiers like me, so the only time I ever go there is if I am with a group that happens to be going. It was a nice place, though. But it was a little hard for me to read, because a talking mynah bird in a cage behind me kept speaking Chinese to me, asking me over and over again if I had eaten. I finally answered it in Chinese (as if that would keep it quiet), much to the amusement of the fuwuyuan.

Another thing I like about this route is that it leads through a couple of old hutongs that would be hard to find if you did not have a guide. Of course, I have biked around town without a guide, too. The basic English Language tourist map of Beijing sells for 8 RMB (about a dollar), and is available lots of places. Even if that is the only thing you have, you can get familiar with the town pretty easily, especially if you live here, and can try different areas of town on different days. But I still recommend the Lonely Planet Guide for Beijing, because it will introduce you to places that you would probably not find right away on your own.

And I only had to do one photo-op today. A friendly couple from who knows where were visiting the city, and wanted me to be in the picture. The last time I did this, a television camera crew pulled me off the street and had me ride around the corner on my bike a few times while they filmed me from different angles. I'm afraid my agent is going to quit if I keep doing this stuff for free.

The German Connection. Germany has been in the news this week, mainly, I'm sure, because of the new chancellor. But all the discussion about Germany has highlighted a phenomenon that I haven't completely figured out yet. China seems to have a real interest in Germany. Perhaps what I am seeing is a reflection of China's interest in developing relationships with the EU to balance the US relationship with Taiwan--I don't know. But there is a fair about of news about Germany on CCTV. And I probably meet more Chinese speakers of German than any other European language. On the way home from the English Corner this evening, a guy rode up beside me and started speaking German to me. Wishful thinking on his part, I think. He had lived in Germany for 12 years, and his German was better than his English.

And then there is the Japan thing. Japan is constantly being compared to Germany. So many times I have been asked, "Why doesn't Japan apologize like Germany did?" Last summer, in a seven-part documentary on the Bataan Death March, and subsequent imprisonment of US POWs in Shenyang, the narrator began every presentation by comparing the number of prisoners who had died in German prison camps with the number who died under the Japanese after the Bataan Death March.

One hundred years ago, the Germans had a concession in Shandong Province. The pretty coastal city of Qingdao was sort of a German Hong Kong. The Germans built a brewery that has survived the revolution of 1911, two world wars, the Sino-Japanese war, the Communist revolution, the Cultural Revolution and every other conceivable political upheaval in between. To this day, when there is need for maintenance of machinery at the Tsingtao (old spelling) Brewery, the parts are ordered from Germany. Beer is not native to China, but consumption to some level or another is widespread, because Chinese restaurants do not serve water (unless you want it scalding hot). No matter where you go in China, the choice is between Tsingtao and the local brew. It's ironic that what is undoubtedly the most widely consumed German beer in the world is brewed in China. Most Chinese don't seem to be aware of this history. I would venture most Germans aren't either. But both the Germans and the Chinese seem to be aware of the importance of their relationship.

This morning, I watched a fascinating discussion on Dialogue with the German ambassador on the subject of reunification. It is a subject the Chinese have an obvious interest in because of Taiwan, but there are certainly many differences. The ambassador did not dwell on that issue, but he did discuss some of the problems that Germany had because of the great economic disparity between the two Germanys at the time the wall came down. And it has been interesting to watch the recent election between the center-right candidate, a Lutheran pastor's daughter from East Germany, and the Social Democrat, who is from the West. And the future of the new government is very hard to predict, because of the kinds of compromises that had to be made. When the two Germanys first united, there was a lot of talk about the perceived threat to their neighbors, no doubt drawn from the memory of two world wars. But it must be remembered that Germany lost both of those wars, a result predicted by Tolstoy in War and Peace:

Bonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking the Germans. And only idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody has beaten the Germans. They beat no one--except one another. He made his reputation fighting them.

Tolstoy wrote those words a couple centuries back. Would he express himself quite the same way if had seen the results of World Wars I and II? I don't know, but I think Tolstoy would agree that the unification of Germany is not a threat to the other countries of Europe. And it's interesting that the unification has been used as a model when discussing countries like Korea, or even the Mainland--Taiwan relationship. In any case, the relationship between China and Germany is likely to become more prominent in years to come, and the results of the recent election give hope that there might be needed economic reform. Merkel's finance guy is an advocate of a flat tax. There is one thing about Angela Merkel though that troubles me a bit. I found out the other day that that little old lady is younger than I am.

I watched the launch of China's second manned space flight yesterday. The weather at the launch site was very cloudy, with a pretty low ceiling. Very shortly after the rocket left the launchpad, it disappeared into the clouds. The announcer then expressed surprise that as pictures showed the rocket rising up through the atmosphere. He seemed not to be aware that he was watching an animation. These guys don't have a lot of experience with this. But they are getting it pretty fast.

It has always seemed to me that China had opted to borrow heavily from the Russians in their space technology. But when I mentioned this to a friend of mine who is a research scientist involved with the space program, he denied it. This morning, there was an interesting discussion on Dialogue with a professor from the University of Arizona. He seemed to think that China's approach was eclectic--borrowing the best from both the American and Russian space programs. There was some discussion about China's decision not to go with the idea of a reusable vehicle like the American space shuttle. The first issue mentioned in that regard is cost. But I think there are other reasons. The space shuttle has not turned out to be such a good idea. I don't really fault the Americans for trying it--it was a worthy experiment in many ways, but it hasn't worked out very well, and I think it is time to phase it out.

The big issue to watch is whether China will enter into cooperation with other nations at any level, or determine to go it alone all the way through. At any rate, expect to see China put a man on the moon before too many years.

Beautiful day today. It was a perfect day for riding my bike down to Houhai Park. Instead, I took the subway to Dongzhimen, because I wanted to go to the Bookworm and pick up a book that is not available in China. Seems like a lot of trouble to go all the way across town to get one book, but I have heard a lot about it, and it's a pain to try to order it from the States. It's called Mr. China, and concerns the efforts of an Englishman, a Chinese businessman, and a Wall Street banker to finance businesses in China. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Abraham Lincoln said, "My best friend is the man who can find me a book I ain't read." I understand how he feels. I have always liked to read. This past summer, I have mainly been reading two books. The first is called Battle Hymn of China, by Agnes Smedley. I won't say anything about that one, because I have already written a book review for Amazon. The other one is War and Peace by Tolstoy. I have been reading War and Peace for almost a year. And I must have mentioned something about it when I first started, because there's this one guy at the English Corner who is always asking me how it's going.

Well, it's not going very quickly. I have so much other stuff to read. But it's just one of those things I have wanted to do for sometime, and I don't really need to be in a hurry. Besides, I feel a little undernourished if I stay away from Russian literature for too long. I am, of course, very interested in history, but I am not usually a reader of novels. I don't like novels, because I find myself constantly second-guessing the author. But Tolstoy is an exception. The historical novels of Tolstoy give you a feel for the tenor of the period like nothing else can. And his characterization is incomparable. Shakespeare characters are bold and intense, but the players on Tolstoy's stage possess a depth and richness of character that is unmatched by any other fiction writer. Consider a brief example:

She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking, and before going down she went into the room where the icons hung, and, her eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit up by a lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a man, be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of happiness and of children, but her strongest most deeply-hidden longing was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. 'O God,' she said, 'how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil? How am I to renounce for ever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to fulfill Thy will? And scarely had she put that question than God gave her the answer in her own heart. 'Desire nothing for thyself, seek nothing, be not anxious or envious. Man's future and thy own fate must remain hidden from thee but live so that thou mayest be ready for anything. If it be God's will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill His will.' With this consoling thought (but yet with a hope for the fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longings) Princess Mary sighed, and having crossed herself went down, thinking neither of her gown and coiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what she would say. What could all that matter in comparison with the will of God, without Whose care not a hair of man's head can fall?

Putting them it together, though, is a daunting task. This book has roughly 500 characters. I had hoped to finish it in a year, but the year is almost up, and I'm not even a fourth of the way through.

Speaking of books, a new book started today on Christian Classics. It is the story of Eric Liddel, who was the child of missionary parents in China, and became a missionary to China himself. In his youth, he was an Olympic runner, and gained some notoriety because of his refusal to compete on Sunday. I think it's going to be good.

Just got back this morning from Shenyang. I went up there Sunday evening for the National Day "Golden Week." Manchuria, or "Dongbei," as we call it in China, is not the easiest place to visit. Seems kinda strange, but it is easier, in some ways, to travel in Western China then it is in the Northeast, even though the Northeast is much closer. This is because Western China has such an abundance of backpacker hangouts, such as youth hostels and other dormitory style accommodations. I had wanted, for some time, to take a trip to the North Korean border, but I had more or less put it on the back burner, until Rhea invited me to stay with her family in Shenyang. From there, it is just a three hour bus ride to Dandong, on the border.

We took the bus to Dandong Tuesday morning. When we got to Dandong, we boarded one of the tour boats for a ride on the Yalu River. I was interested, of course, in the role this strategic border area played in the conflict we know as the "Korean War," but there is another benefit of this tour. I cannot imagine a better picture of the stark contrast between old, Soviet style Marxism, and the world's latest market economy.

Most people will tell you that the Korean War started in June of 1950. But to really understand how the war got started, you have to go back to December of 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek set up his government on Taiwan after being defeated on the mainland. Louis Johnson, the Secretary of Defense, wanted to defend Taiwan, but Acheson was opposed to this. In January of 1950, Acheson gave his infamous speech to the National Press Club, in which he stated that Japan and the Philippines were inside the American defense perimeter. South Korea and Taiwan were not on the list. Omitting Taiwan was not surprising at all, because Truman had very publicly stated that he would not interfere in what he viewed as a continuation of China's civil war. But the omission of South Korea is puzzling, because there had not been other indications of this in Truman's foreign policy. Not surprisingly, Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung both accepted this "invitation." Fortunately for Taiwan, Mao begin by invading Hainan Island in April of 1950 (in preparation for invading Taiwan the following year), whereupon the Nationalist defenders on Hainan quickly crumbled. Mao was biding his time, because the Truman administration had basically invited him to invade Taiwan at his leisure. Kim Il Sung made his move in June, of 1950, when he invaded South Korea, but not without first getting permission from Stalin.

As usual, the attacker has the advantage of surprise, and the North Koreans quickly moved south, which turned out to be bad strategy, because they overextended themselves. Their plight was made worse by MacArthur's landing at Inchon, which cut them off. The Americans pushed them back to the 38th parallel, the line agreed to in the original partition, but then the American's, encouraged by their success, moved beyond the 38th parallel. The North Korean Army quickly disintegrated. Mao had decided that if the Americans moved beyond the 38th parallel, he would have to help North Korea. It was the involvement of the Chinese that created problems for the Americans. Without that, the Americans probably would have reached the Yalu River by the end of 1950.

Much has been made of the charge that MacArthur was not allowed to bomb the bridges across the Yalu River, but this is not accurate. In fact, MacArthur did bomb the bridges, at least the one I saw. I first noticed it when I saw Dandong from the air (using Google Earth). The Lonely Planet Guide that I have says that the bridge was bombed "accidentally" (meaning accidentally on purpose). This is nonsense. Bridges are not bombed accidentally. It is a well known fact that MacArthur issued an order on November 5th that the Korean side of the bridges across the river be bombed. As soon as the JCS heard about MacArthur's bombing order, they countermanded it, and told him not to bomb targets less than five miles from the border. MacArthur issued a strong protest, and the Joint Chiefs relented. The plaque I saw on the bridge in Dandong says that it was bombed on November 8th, which jibes with the timing of MacArthur's order. The problem is that the major movement of Chinese troops across the Yalu River took place in October, so the bombing was a wee bit late. Why the delay? I'm not sure about this, because it has been a number of years since I read MacArthur's memoirs, but I cannot find any information that MacArthur requested permission to bomb the bridges before the Chinese troops moved across. In my opinion, it is very probable that MacArthur himself did not anticipate the extent of Chinese involvement. Perhaps nobody did. But the point is that once it was clear that they were involved, MacArthur's response was forceful, but he was continually restrained by the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Mao was a poor administrator, but he was a brilliant military strategist. He ordered his general to retreat, in order to allow the Americans to distance themselves from their supply lines. Because the North Korean army was pretty much in disarray by this point, the Americans made good progress. They were almost to the Yalu River when the Chinese attacked on November 25th. Ten days later, the Chinese took Pyongyang. The cost was high for the Chinese, but also for the Americans, who lost 24,000 men in that ten day period, almost half the number of soldiers lost in Vietnam in ten years of fighting. This is where MacArthur's problems with Washington really came into play, because Truman was adamant about not allowing MacArthur to attack the Chinese supply sources in Manchuria. The Chinese moved south, and took Seoul, but this time they got overextended, and they couldn't hold it. The Americans pushed back to the 38th parallel, whereupon a stalemate settled in that lasted for the rest of the war, and actually up to the present day.

PERSONALITIES

There are several key persons whose personalities and perspectives merged (or clashed) to create the drama that we know as the Korean War.

Douglas MacArthur. General Douglas MacArthur was the last of the great American field marshals. There had, of course, been many other great field commanders before him, but none after him. Ordinarily, it is not advisable for a military leader to follow up military conquest with domestic, political leadership. It is rarely successful, and often disastrous (Mao is the most poignant example in recent history). According to Manchester, only two military commanders in history have been able to pull it off--Julius Caesar, and General MacArthur. After the defeat of Japan, MacArthur ruled Japan as a benevolent dictator for five years until the beginning of the Korean War. MacArthur got in trouble for saying that there was "no substitute for victory," which is a sad commentary on the state of American foreign policy at the time of the Korean War.

Dean Acheson. I would generally support the adage that if you can't say something good about someone, you shouldn't say anything at all, so I really shouldn't say anything about Acheson, except to reiterate that his speech to the National Press Club in January of 1950 set the stage for the aggression that precipitated the Korean War.

George Marshall. Marshall had become Secretary of Defense in 1950, replacing Louis Johnson. Briefly, Marshall believed in limited war, while MacArthur believed in total war. These two views were destined to clash in the personalities of these two men. Marshall is generally viewed as a hero and a great American, but I believe history has vindicated MacArthur's position. More on that later.

Omar Bradley. From 1949 to 1953, General Omar Bradley was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Omar Bradley was a decent man, but he was not a winner. Not a fighter. He was cautious. Measured. Patton was a fighter. Patton was awesome. But Patton was dead by this point. Bradley's personality and approach served him well in World War II, because there were others like Patton who could drive the push to victory while men like Bradley were holding the line. But in Korea, his infernal "politeness" was sad, because he was constantly pulling the reins back on MacArthur.

President Truman. I have always intensely disliked Truman, because of his penchant for using Asia's millions as a buffer against Communism, without any concern for how the Asian people themselves were affected by his policy. Beyond that, although I would not say that Truman was politically corrupt, he was a profoundly ungodly man, who represented the polar antithesis of MacArthur's tendency to see war in terms of good forces and evil forces. Truman is basically the architect of "containment," which emphasized keeping the Communists from expanding too much, which seemed good to many in America who were terrified of another world war, but which was inherently immoral, because it meant that America, as a world power, had to sacrifice millions of people on the altar of the American wish to avoid conflict.

ISSUES

Forgive me for being pedantic, but if I can take you back to Political Science 101, an issue is, by definition, a conflict of values. No conflict, no issue. There are two main areas where values conflicted to create the key issues in the Korean War.

Who's war is it anyway? For the first time in American history, the management of war was surrendered to foreign powers via the United Nations. Under the constitution, the Congress has the authority to declare war. The president cannot declare war. He can only request that the Congress declare war. In other words, the Constitution is designed to prevent any one president from starting a war on his own. The last time the president submitted himself to the supreme law of the land and requested a declaration of war from Congress was on December 8, 1941. When the Korean "War" broke out, Truman did not go to the Congress. He went to the United Nations. This was the first big mistake. We have become accustomed to hearing how "fortunate" it was that the Soviet Union had boycotted the Security Council, so that the Security Council was able to approve assertive action. Nothing of the sort. The United Nations never should have been involved. Consider the absurdity: The prosecution of the war was being managed with Stalin's guidance on the North Korean end, and the prosecution of the war from the American end was also being managed, at least in part, by the Soviet Union. Remember, the Soviet Union was a member of the Security Council.

Limited War vs. Total War. George C. Marshall is known for the Plan that was named for him. He had a distinguished reputation stemming from his service in World War II. But his approach to the conduct of war was essentially amoral, which was a problem because war is inherently immoral. Listen to me, I'll say it again--war is a dirty, rotten, hellish business. If you must fight it, the only way to do so morally is to fight a war to the bitter end, defeat your enemy, and then help your defeated adversary to heal and rebuild. The contrast is often made between MacArthur, who believed in total war, and Marshall, who believed in limited war. But if Marshall and the Joint Chiefs really believed in Limited War, they should have ordered MacArthur to push the Communists back to the 38th parallel and leave it at that. But they didn't. They specifically authorized him to push beyond the 38th parallel, but only if there was no presence of Chinese or Soviet forces in North Korea. Seems like the Joint Chiefs believed in total war only if nobody (including the enemy) objected. This borders on cowardice, but the directive is revealing, because it epitomizes what has sadly become the standard American approach to warfare. It's wrong. You don't push forward merely because it is easy to do so. You push for victory because justice demands it. Of course you must count the cost and consider the "winability" if a given engagement, because Augustine's rules for a just war specify that a given conflict must not be futile. The Japanese fought futile, suicidal conflicts, but this is not something that is appropriate in a Christian nation. But by the same token, withdrawing merely because of the presence of the enemy is tantamount to surrender.

CONCLUSIONS

I believe that the Korean War represents the beginning of the end of America as a world power. I do not, of course blame the JCS entirely for failing to anticipate the involvement of the Chinese. MacArthur himself seems to have underestimated this involvement. I can't remember how Manchester came down on this issue, because it is quite a few years since I have read his biography of MacArthur (which, by the way, I highly recommend). But whatever the case may be, once the involvement of the Chinese became clear, MacArthur was right about the importance of pursuing the enemy's ability to wage war, even if it meant bombing supply depots in Manchuria.

The Americans were terribly worried about another World War. It is understandable that they would feel this way so soon after World War II was over, but their fears were unfounded. The Chinese did not want war. Kim had visited Mao in the summer of 1950, and reported to him that Stalin had given him permission to invade the south. What Kim did not tell Mao, was that Stalin had told him in no uncertain terms, that if he got kicked in teeth he was on his own. Mao requested air support from Stalin, making Chinese support for the war effort conditional on this support. Stalin called his bluff and said that North Korea could be sacrificed, and Kim could reorder his forces in Manchuria. This was absurd, but it worked. Stalin knew that Mao was very concerned about having an American ally right on the Yalu River. Mao's fears were unfounded, because the Americans had no designs on China. The fact is that if the Americans had taken an assertive position and attacked Manchuria only in so far as destroying the materiel of war, the Korean peninsula would have been reunited.

Historians have not treated MacArthur positively (except for Manchester, whose appraisal is mixed, but basically fair). This is because they are viewing the issue from the same hopelessly American perspective shared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. MacArthur was not without faults. His comments about Chiang Kai-shek invading the mainland were ill-advised, because they implied a hostile intent on the part of the Americans that simply was not there. The Americans and the Chinese are not natural enemies; they are natural allies. But, again, MacArthur was right in his understanding of how the war should be pursued once the Americans came under significant attack by the Chinese army. Korea represents the most tragic example of opportunity lost in the history of the American military. The Americans have had no legal (declared) wars since Korea, and they have not been able to win a war since Korea, unless you count Grenada, which if counted, only becomes the exception that emphatically proves the rule, and gives credibility to the charge that the Americans will only fight where there is an overwhelming advantage. The Americans went swaggering into Iraq saying they needed to invade because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to be true. Kim Jong Il openly announces to the world that he has weapons of mass destruction, and the Americans are scared to death to confront him and try to buy him off by offering him a nuclear reactor.

Ironically, Korea's loss was Taiwan's gain. Before the Korean War broke out, Truman had made it clear that he did not intend to interfere if China invaded Taiwan. In the summer of 1950, after the war broke out, Truman's concern about the fallout somehow overcame his unmitigated contempt for Chiang Kai-shek, and he ordered the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Labels: Koreas

I was studying at the Reading Cafe this evening, when a young lady came and sat down at my table. Nothing unusual about that. It happens quite often. They're usually English majors. Tina has just graduated from BLCU, and she has gotten a good job with a state-owned enterprise. I asked her how she liked her job. She told me that it wasn't really what she was interested in. I asked her to elaborate. She said that many students in China have majors that they don't really like; they choose them because of their parents, or because they think that this major will help them to get a good job. I said, "If you could snap your fingers and instantly be qualified for any job, what would it be?" She told me that she wanted to educate people. I told her that as long as she remembers her goal, everything that she is doing now would help her to be a better teacher in the future.

She asked me if I had a religious belief, and I told her that I was a Christian. As with many Chinese young people I talk to, she was very interested in hearing about my belief. Interest in Christianity is very high in China right now. Educated young people tend not to be involved, because they have been taught for so long that belief in God is naive. But they express to me often their feeling of loss at not having anything to believe in.

As I am writing this, I am listening to Christian Classics, and Millie Dawson a New Tribes missionary to the Rain Forest of Venezuela is talking about how they were saddened by hearing how many in America are turning to the very religious beliefs that she and her husband have worked so hard and for so many years to deliver the rain forest people from. She talks about how they actually sent a Rain forest Christian to America to preach to University students who were becoming infatuated with the pagan religions from which he had been freed.

It is a tragic thing to see a country like America, which has known so much greatness, turn from the light, and move toward the darkness. I often tell people in China that America is a civilization that is dying spiritually, but that China is a country that has been given another chance. When people ask me how I feel about China, I always tell them that I am "cautiously optimistic." I see mixed signals in this enormously complicated society. There are many signs of God's Spirit moving. But there are also ominous signs of growing materialism--the belief that money can solve all problems and bring happiness.