China looks weak on the world stage

This was not a good week for China. On the world stage, it looked weak in two very different areas.

First, Google announced it will only stay in China if the government lifts its censorship of the internet for Google’s users. Nicholas Kristof cheers Google’s decision:

By announcing that it no longer plans to censor search results in China, even if that means it must withdraw from the country, Google is showing spine – a kind that few other companies or governments have shown toward Beijing…

Google announced its decision after a sophisticated Chinese attempt to penetrate the Gmail addresses of dissidents….

China is redrawing the balance between openness and economic efficiency. The architect of China’s astonishingly successful economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, clenched his teeth and accepted photocopiers, fax machines, cellphones, computers and lawyers because they were part of modernization.

Yet in the last few years, President Hu Jintao has cracked down on Internet freedoms and independent lawyers and journalists. President Hu is intellectually brilliant but seems to have no vision for China 20 years from now…

Eventually, I think, a combination of technology, education and information will end the present stasis in China. In a conflict between the Communist Party and Google, the party will win in the short run. But in the long run, I’d put my money on Google.

Second, following Haiti’s earthquake, no one looked to China to provide much in the way of aid and reconstruction, and the Chinese response has been rather paltry: 50 rescue workers and a commitment of $2 million for aid and reconstruction.  By contrast, the US has already offered at least $100 million and 5,000 troops. Now I realize that geography and history play a role here: the US is much closer to Haiti and we have much deeper ties to the nation. Nevertheless, articles and books about the rise of China and the decline of the US abound today. It seems to me that if China wants to establish itself as a major power, it is going to have to do a lot better than a 1:50 ratio of aid and a 1:100 ratio in personnel with the US when it comes to global humanitarian crises.

Moral authority matters. It’s clear the US has this and China does not. Two questions tend to dominate the news on Haiti: how bad is it and what is the US doing about it. The US may do a lot of bad and stupid things in the world. Nevertheless, in times of global crisis, people turn to the US to lead the rescue. Obama’s reaction has been swift and forceful. China may have economic power, but it is woefully short of global leadership.