by Hugh M. Lewis

My sojourn in central China was primarily motivated and framed by my desire to extend my doctoral research in Anthropology in relation to a comparative cross-cultural perspective upon Chinese people. The fact that research there was consistently frustrated and hampered at every level by the generally repressive situation and by authorities as well as exceptional circumstances, did not prevent a form of participant observation and ethnographic research to be carried forward.

My conclusions in general in relation to China during the year that we were there can be summarized by the following paradigm:

1. Continuing Communist Revolution for more than half a century has had a deep and lasting impact upon Chinese culture and personality structure, affecting Chinese social structure in basic ways. The consequences of this have been in part a sense of loss of various facets of traditional Chinese culture, but also the gain of a "Han centric" sense of pan-Chineseness that takes pride in the accomplishments of a modern China.

2. There is therefore deep ambivalence by the Chinese people about their own society and status in the world.

3. The face system is a principle ethos and pattern of social relations and networking, and is especially hyper-developed in the central core areas of China. This system is tends to undercut and influence bureaucratic structures and articulation of power in the countryside and in the cities.

4. In this articulation, there is structural asymmetry of relation between certain categories of people (communist/non-communist; country-side/city; male/female) that is relative and exists along a gradient. For instance, authority tends to be exercised with an iron glove in the countryside, versus in the more developed urban areas.

5. There is a deeply rooted "underground" of Chinese culture that is involved in sexual promiscuity, black market trade, and the elaboration of "closed" facets of traditional Chinese culture that are usually kept hidden from view.

6. Corruption is inextricably entangled in a centralized propaganda and information monitoring control system that is tied to communist party interests, and this corruption tends to undercut and undermine policies and action at all levels of society.

7. The one child policy of China was probably not as successful as the Chinese propaganda machine would have people believe, and statistical evidence gathered suggested an average family size in the province of Henan, the most populated province in the Chinese nation, to have been for the past 25 years about 2.5 children. 

8. Harsh family planning policies tended, once again, to fall unequally upon some classes and categories of people versus others, and it is something of a paradox that one child families is most noteworthy among the bureaucratic, educational and administrative middle classes, who can be said to be involved in the articulation of the "false consciousness" of Chinese communist ideology.

9. The general failure of the one child policy has had several negative consequences. The first has been an exploding younger population that is rapidly moving up through the system and which is causing stress and strain upon social serves and structures. The total population of China and hence the total world population is probably much greater than admitted or believed or advertised by world agencies, by my estimates about .5 billion people greater.

10. Penicillin and other anti-biotics are doled out in large quantities on an indiscriminant basis, often for infections that are essentially viral in origin. The consequence of this, combined with the general lack of sanitation, poor hygiene, and proximal contact with rodents, combined with very high population densities in some areas, has been to make China consistently the foremost breeding grounds for new strains of infections bacterial and viruses.

I send this notice uninvited as an independent expert regarding the state of affairs in China in consideration of recent events. I have observed a great deal of apparent ineptitude on the part of Americans in dealing with the Chinese. I am a cultural anthropologist in the tradition of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, and Gregory Bateson. Chinese culture has been the major focus of most of my research and fieldwork for the past 16 years. I returned in the summer of 1999 from a year of fieldwork and teaching in central China. I dealt with them for that year first-hand, on their own terms. Having worked with Overseas Chinese during previous periods, there is much to say about the differences and discrepancies of Mainland Chinese character. Chinese character and culture, especially as the result of a half-century of radical communism, is quite unique and different in the world. It now embodies core contradictions at the level of primary socialization entailing that it is extremely deeply rooted, intractable, inherently contradictory, sociopathic and difficult to modify or mollify.

The fact that now there is a third and even fourth generation arising under communist-dominated culture entails that the sense of discrepancy and contradiction of the senior generation is ameliorated with increasing degrees of natural constructive reification among the grandchildren. This entails that the vast majority of Chinese will remain very loyal to the central communist government, even under very dire circumstances. At the same time, the core contradictions entails that the Chinese people cannot remain permanently or for long satisfied with the status quo of their lives in their old-styled communist system that is increasingly unable to take care of even their most basic needs.

I make the following statements unequivocally and without hesitation in consideration of somewhat hypocritical ethical commitments in my own academic-bound profession. I do not believe I am wrong in the conclusions and inferences I draw, unless I am presented with first-hand empirical information from China that indicates otherwise. My own wife is an Overseas Chinese person who has been involved first hand in all my fieldwork activities in relation to the Chinese, and she would fully corroborate my opinions.

I enclose a couple of documents as first-hand testamentary evidence of my work and conclusions. Unfortunately, I destroyed most of my symbolic framing data I had collected after the May 1999 Embassy bombing incident and prior to leaving China for fear of its confiscation by the communist authorities. We have as well first-hand journals we kept during our time there. I am engaged in the production of a manuscript derived from these journals. Extensive evidence of my previous fieldwork can be found on my publishing website:

http://www.lewismicropublishing.com

Some of the tasks were related to perception, projection (inkblots), color choice, and family drawings. These tasks, as well as many student essays written in the course of the year that were intentionally projective, revealed some interesting facets of shared Chinese character. I carried the "Mr. Pan" document (enclosed in Chinese script) out at some risk to our selves. Last summer I sent this work to a contact with Amnesty International in San Diego. I sent the documents to him by registered, two day express. It did not reach him for seven weeks, and I believe the package was intercepted either by US authorities or possibly even by Chinese themselves. Unfortunately, this contact proved to be unreliable in the translation of the document. From what my contact told me over the telephone, it is apparent that the document describes the murder of Mr. Pan's family and his own forced sterilization. It describes as well some secret experiments conducted by the Chinese upon Chinese people in the area. I believe Mr. Pan's testimony to be true, reliable and accurate, in spite of its incoherence that is the result of strong use of dialectical and local idioms and the marginalized, borderline character of Mr. Pan who is obviously a long-term political pariah in his own world.

In regard to possible publication of the document, or its contents, please refrain from linking its source to myself, as this would permanently jeopardize my ability to deal with the Chinese in the future. It was Mr. Pan's desire that I publish the document for him, though until now I have refrained from doing so because it would link back directly to myself. The VOA and BBC remain one of the most effective forms of counter-propaganda media available to the Chinese people. The Internet is also increasingly available, but the Chinese have spared nothing in their efforts to control Internet communications and to use the Internet itself as a means of surveillance and espionage in the world.

I would like to see the communist regime brought to its knees in any manner possible. It is a totalitarian dictatorship that has only its own aggrandizement and absolute power at heart. It is evil in the way that George Orwell framed the dark Utopia of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I believe it represents, alongside of radical Islam, one of the greatest threats to world peace and the advancement of democratic reforms in the 21st century. We therefore cannot afford to take the threat of Chinese militarization lightly.

It has been my observation that Americans are both naive and largely misinformed regarding the Chinese people, and for at least a decade the Chinese have gained much advantage from this asymmetrical and non-reciprocal state of affairs between the two systems. Much of this has been due to deliberate efforts by the Mainland Chinese authorities to manipulate the media and to deceive American interests in China. I have watched the Chinese get away with a great deal especially during the previous Clinton administration. Though I have many Mainland Chinese friends, I can say without a doubt that on certain levels, few if any Mainland Chinese are to be trusted in any nonrelative sense. It is the capacity for the Chinese to embody contradictions in their own character and behavior that seems for most Americans impossible and therefore incredible. Nevertheless, Chinese can quite casually "switch" gears, depending upon their understanding the prevailing contexts, to best suit their interests. This can be, from an American point of view, very duplicitous indeed.

The validity of my conclusions is based primarily upon the presupposition of cultural sharing, which in the case of the Chinese is presumed to be quite strong. This presumption is based upon the following points:

The principle of culture sharing allows us to make inferences about very large populations and systems on the basis of relatively small samples sizes. When sharing is presumed to be high, small sample sizes are of greater significance in reference to and in drawing inferences about very large systems.

I will summarize my opinions in several main points:

1. The Chinese population is probably greater than anyone knows. Chinese birth control programs targeted only select groups and peoples, and were mostly ineffective in curtailing population growth especially in larger primate cities and in rural areas of the central province. Chinese authorities have misrepresented the actual statistics. A partial but representative sample from across Henan province based upon over 180 students reveals an average of 2-3 children per family between the years 1975-1985. Birth control efforts were made subsequent to this period, including forced sterilization of some individuals, but these efforts appear to have been mostly ineffective in curtailing population increase.

I had access to documents from an abandoned family planning center where I was located, and it was evident from what information I could get that for the most part this family planning center was probably ineffective in its mission, such that by 1995 or 1996 it was abandoned.

It is my conclusion therefore that the actual Chinese population figures are probably about one-quarter higher than reported. This has certain important ramifications in terms of absolute population growth rates, domestic conditions and policies of the Chinese government. Furthermore, it appears that the Chinese have for the most part yielded on the one-child policy due in no small measure to corruption and the desire of most Chinese for a son.

Insider information and direct observational evidence reveals that the Chinese adult population is fairly promiscuous, and I have substantial evidence of a vast underground network, composed mostly of communists, that are engaged in extramarital sexual activities. The medical system appears to have reverted to the widespread use of contraception among young women to curtail population increase. Nevertheless, sexual promiscuity is increasingly a problem with younger and younger age sets.

The basic consequence of overpopulation of the Chinese system is to strain social resources and services upon every level. Thus, there is a dramatic requirement of the Chinese people for basic resources like food and energy, and there is a great need for increasing "living" space for the Chinese people beyond its limits. At the same time, this sets up basic driving pressures for the Chinese authorities to keep up in its efforts to control and manage effectively this growing population in a manner that is in keeping with its own communist doctrines.

2. The Chinese are undergoing very rapid modernization and acculturation. The domestic Chinese economy is largely independent of foreign intrusion, and thus remains fairly stable and robust in spite of a great deal of corruption and black marketeering, especially associated, I believe, with the military.

It is a grand paradox that Chinese modernization is using the American example almost exclusively. Much of the copyright & patent piracy and cloning is reflective of this acculturative pattern. They attempt to model their changes and reforms based upon the American system, which they try to translate into a communist ideological and functional framework. Unfortunately, a great deal is lost in the translation. Democratic-style reforms have not been forthcoming from these changes, as the Chinese are unfamiliar and distrust the principles involved in such reforms. There is a revolution of rising expectations in China among the people who seek a better life for their children, but there is not a concomitant revolution of equality forthcoming from this. There is a hidden advantage in this, in the sense that such reforms can be introduced indirectly, as for instance in the library that we built without the authorities understanding the full implications of such seemingly innocuous reforms. The library was begun by my students and myself in need of books to read. It was based upon the open library model of the American system that was founded by Benjamin Franklin. This library succeeded for three years, in spite of efforts by school authorities to obstruct it and close it down. Evidence for this library can be found at the following:

http://www.lewismicropublishing/Library/

The impact that acculturation is having is to increasingly disaffect the average Chinese person from the framework of the established communist government, and to strain relations between Chinese people, especially in different levels and areas of Chinese society, and between the people and the institutional forms that manage the people. The biggest threat that the Chinese government fears is not the threat of military attack from beyond its borders, but the threat of uprising by factions of their own people.

The Fa Lun Gong movement, which I was fortunate to have observed in its early days, is the primary form of expression of the resistance of the people to communist totalitarianism. Some of my student's families were inside leaders of this movement, and they confided to me a great deal of mistrust and anger towards their government.

The Chinese therefore utilize their mass media in effective and concerted propaganda campaigns aimed at organizing their people for mobilization for emergencies. In particular, they use the United States and the Taiwanese issue as the basis for stimulating and organizing nationalistic chauvinism and appeals to solidarity within the communist party. This has become a time tested and proven technique to steer public attention and popular interest away from mounting domestic tensions and contradictory issues, towards external "enemies" of the people, in this case primarily the United States and Taiwan. These efforts are especially directed at Chinese College students who remain sadly misinformed about the real world beyond Chinese borders.

The communist party has deliberately appropriated symbolic forms of a traditional Chinese cultural system for the legitimization of their control. In spite of this, the communists are extremely duplicitous and corrupt. Its intrinsic and pervasive corruption is well known to the people, and serves to delegitimize the interests of the government in the eyes of the people. On the other hand, the average Chinese person is quite oblivious of the degree of manipulation and control of information by the communists in the background of their own lives.

3. The Chinese government is deliberately militarizing and mobilizing its people for collective aggression. It is doing this by means of manipulation of the mass media. The Chinese people have a fractured and unintegrated worldview. They do not have either a realistic or coherent understanding of the affairs of the world beyond their own homeland, or even of their own system. The Chinese have deliberately cultivated this mass ignorance and misinformation for purposes of implementing and maintaining Orwellian-style control.

One consequence of this, I believe, is to make the Chinese people extremely vulnerable to misinformation and susceptible to suggestion. They are, collectively speaking, hyersuggestible, and this is utilized by the communist party to foment mass crowd reactions and "revolutionary" movements to the benefit of the communists.

Evidence in the area where I was situated indicated the possibility of secret caves in the mountains where some form of military activity was going on. The area seemed to be particularly sensitive from a military standpoint. I suspect that the Chinese have been experimenting with weapons of mass destruction, as is evidenced by this enclosed document by Mr. Pan.

I would hear sometimes in the very early morning hours tracked vehicles operating along the main road in front of our campus, and from my own military experience I believe these vehicles to have consisted of armored personnel carriers that were possibly transporting some kind of sensitive cargo. My conclusion in regard to the Chinese military is that they are increasingly militarizing, to the point that at least half of the national resources are invested into the huge military machine at some level or another. They are deliberately dealing weapons of all kinds with entities that can be considered enemies of the U.S, including Iraq, Pakistan, and central European factions that are organized against Nato interests. It is my estimation that Pakistan might not have succeeded in acquiring the atomic bomb without the assistance of Chinese expertise, and probably, Chinese materials. The Pakistani weapons appear to be similar to the Chinese in design.

Though I was never allowed direct access to communist meetings, based upon extensive interviews of informants I've been able to piece together the following picture of Chinese governmental organization. As far as I can tell, based upon observations and inferences derived from the field, Chinese governmental structure is three tiered. There is civilian bureaucracy on the one hand, and authoritarian military organization on the other. These intersect in the form of police and internal security agencies, which can be considered to be paramilitary. Overarching all these bureaucratic structures is the communist party structure, which is very vertical and does not in fact have that many rungs between the bottom and the top. This makes for very fierce competition and insider fighting for position and advantage in the communist system. In all institutional forms, the communist system as an organized, bureaucratic structure functions as a partly secret, partly public organization that is parallel to all other institutional forms and that always functions unseen in the background. Evidence of this surfaces both when policies and interests of normal bureaucratic institutions diverge from party interests, and when they converge in cooperation to some desired aim.

From insider information, there has been an on-going struggle for top leadership and influence in the central government between the old-guard Beijing group and a younger Shanghai group that is more deeply involved with economic reforms and is more pro-western in orientation. I was more closely connected with the Shang Hai group, to the point of being taken to several banquets by high level authorities in Shang Hai. Beijing still remains in a dominant position, and is directing national policy towards increasing militarization.

4. The Chinese consistently demonstrated on projective tasks given to them in private and in the classroom a distinctive character and cultural orientation. They appear even more intensive in orientation than British counterparts, and this is due, I believe, to the very deeply rooted history of the Chinese, particularly in the Central Provinces where we were located. This is evident on inkblots by their continuous elaboration of part-whole and edge-pattern responses. Strong edge-pattern responses, correlated with a lack of overall holistic responses, indicate a basic compulsion of personality that is due, I believe, to deep-seated insecurities. In private interviews, these seem connected indirectly to totalitarian communist control structures operating in the everyday background of people's lives, as well as the deliberate lack of a coherent view of the larger world, or else the indirect impact this system has had historically upon the families of the Chinese.

The Mainland Chinese consistently showed a fundamental sense of discrepancy in family action drawings. I did not have time to analyze these results before the bombing incident, but superficially they revealed a deep attachment to primary family relations. At the same time, that demonstrated a basic sense of disruption, insecurity or intrusion on private family life that I would interpret as the result, either indirectly or directly, of communist policies of intervention and control at a very basic level of personality. There is almost isomorphic transference in secondary socialization from the family to the state. Much of this sense of discrepancy is more directly related to the experience of some trauma in the lives of the students in relation to their families, whether it is injury or death of primary family members, poverty or starvation, or strained family relations.

First-hand reports indicate a marginal form of cannibalism that is institutionalized in China. I would expect further evidence to be forthcoming in relation to this. The significance of endemic, institutionalized cannibalism must be construed in a wider culture-historical context. Certain traditional medicinal remedies call for the cooking and consumption of human flesh, and hence there is a marginal demand for such meat on the black market, and it is expected that such meat would fetch very high prices. I would not be surprised if military hospitals in China were not regularly engaged in this kind of market, recycling human fetuses and possibly the remainder of the bodies of political prisoners executed by the state. This set of conclusions and observations is an abhorrent aspect of Chinese culture to accept and should not be allowed to be misconstrued in relations with or attitudes toward the Chinese, but it does reveal the depth that Chinese cultural orientation reaches. First-hand reports of this activity came from our closest and in a sense our dearest and most trusted friends there. This evidence I consider to be very reliable, hence undeniable. Given other similar kinds of evidence, inference of more generalized and organized institutional activity is expected.

5. The Chinese have managed to organize a vast espionage network throughout the United States, the locus of which appears to reside in major Univiersities and academic institutions. Almost no Chinese students allowed to come to the US are non-communists. Usually, their families are well placed within the communist system, and often are quite corrupt. Students allowed to come to the US will be quite clear in their party loyalties. Given considerations of Chinese character, I would say that no Mainland Chinese, whether faculty or student, is to be fully entrusted with proprietary or classified information in the US. It is simply foolish to do so. This network involves a vast amount of cheating within academic contexts. It is inveterate, pervasive and culturally sanctioned cheating that is usually ignored by and oblivious to their American academic counterparts, but it creates unfair advantages for the Chinese students over their American counterparts in the classroom and in department contexts. Furthermore, a great deal of probably sensitive and proprietary information is regularly being transfered from the US directly back to China through these networks.

Research on Chinese prisoners of war in the 1950's suggests strongly that of those Chinese who come to the US, less than one-quarter can be expected to be reasonably reliable enough to support the US in policy and to not lend surrepititious support to the Chinese government. More than 50% can be expected to engage on some level of indirect activities that could be construed as at least implicitly conspiratorial against the United States. This is not to say that most of these Mainland Chinese in the US are actually engaged in such activities. Probably only a minority of them at any one time would be so involved, but under the appropriate circumstances, almost any number of them can be expected to behave in such a manner that is consonant with their own cultural background.

Given considerations of Chinese culture and character, and the central role of filial piety, first-generation Mainland Chinese can be expected to retain a core sense of Chinese loyalty and commitment to the communist system, even if they reside abroad. The paradox of the Chinese espionage system in the US is that those people who are the least suspicious seeming from an American point of view are likely to be the most dubiously involved. This includes especially those involved in translation or interpreting, and those mediators between the two systems who appear to have an especially gregarious personality, which is what Chinese think the Americans are like.

6. China will probably become increasingly aggressive in its foreign policies over the next decade. It will become increasingly heavy handed in the dealing with its own people who do not tow the party line in an increasingly narrow way. China has very serious intentions towards Taiwan, and this is in character with its previous dealings with other countries, i.e., Tibet and India in particular.

It is my conclusion that, barring unexpected developments of a major scale, the Chinese communist system must either be eventually transformed or brought down by force from within or force from without. It cannot be expected, by itself, and if left alone, to modify its totalitarian structure or to voluntarily change itself in a manner to make it a fully cooperative nation in the world system. In managing in a totalitarian manner almost one quarter of the world's population, it is an extremely efficient and effective system that has grown very consonant with monolithic Chinese cultural values.

If China succeeds in taking Taiwan, then it will pose a threat to the entire Asian region, including Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. It will strive for regional, and eventually, global hegemony. In such a context, it would be expected to adopt increasingly a "Big Bully" orientation. I do not think that the Chinese would hesitate to employ weapons of mass destruction if and when it saw the opportunity and it believed it could do so without a reasonable threat of retaliation. I don't think that the Chinese authorities would blink an eye or suffer any remorse about throwing away half of its population for the sake of advancing its collective national interests.

China's weakness in extending its interests abroad is the lack of an ocean-going navy, or a tradition of great maritime prowess. The very closed nature of Chinese culture, to the point of xenophobia, entails that the Chinese in the long run will not extend themselves in a wide arc beyond their own borders. This is true unless there occurs first a critical transformation to their culture and character, as for instance the economic transformation that happened with the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. This entails that Chinese businesses cannot compete with their foreign counterparts away from the Chinese homeland, without political support, and economic development of Mainland China will remain essentially regressive and corrupt in orientaton as long as the system remains closed and authoritarian in structure. On the other hand, Chinese curiosity and the thirst for coherent knowledge about the world entails that the Chinese people, in increasing numbers, cannot forever exist comfortably locked up behind closed doors. China must eventually come out of the closet. It will probably do so in a military and political, rather than in an economic, manner.

China is like a vast cooking pot with its lid only half secured. Pressures inside are building up daily. Chinese authorities have its military escape valves, but these may not be enough to contain all the forces latent within the Chinese people.

In regard to dealing with the regime internally, I was in a position to introduce what I believe would have been key strategic educational reforms in the Central Provinces of China. I had connections that led up to the provincial level government in Henan Province and that stretched to Shang Hai. We had unofficial approval and cooperation by these authorities to introduce a unique kind of educational exchange program that would have had an effect of introducing an American system within the system, and that might have lead to widespread institutional reforms in the Central Provinces. These kinds of reforms might have been widely adopted, fairly rapidly, and led to fundamental changes that would impact upon the central government. Implicitly, many of these reforms would have been democratic in character, and would have led directly to the disenfranchisement of the Beijing power group and an empowerment of the economic power group focused in Shanghai.

The point of this kind of reform is that it would have taken place in the heartland of the Chinese communist system, where the communist party and the people's liberation army were born. It is the central regions that are the strategic center of balance for China and that can change China internally. If the right kinds of reforms can be instituted there, then the pivot of power in the minds and hearts of the Chinese people can be shifted from Beijing to Shang Hai. This is a continental strategy that the Chinese themselves are well aware of and protective about. There is a sense that Chinese authorities, if exposed to popular opinion, can be made to yield control and authority to the people's interests and demands.

It is not too late yet to introduce this kind of radical program. I have been unable to connect with Academic institutions here in the U.S. that would cooperate with me in this regard. There is some recent precedent in the US for these kinds of programs, though they are superficial and connect directly to the major cities near Shanghai. There is still a possibility of implementing such a program in China given cooperation by proper systems in the US. I do not know how much information from me has leaked to the Chinese already.

The Chinese respected Richard Nixon the most for visiting China, in spite of the fact that Nixon was fairly conservative. They did not respect Clinton very much, though they took advantage of him greatly. Chinese leadership at all levels of government expect to receive "Golden Face." To give face to the Chinese is extremely important, and can produce many results where a stand off will yield nothing. A well-placed bottle of Chinese wine can work miracles.

The face system has been exaggerated and hyperdeveloped throughout contemporary Mainland China, and is a form that is traditionally well rooted. This reflects the exclusive political preoccupation of the Mainland Chinese and the preoccupation with status manipulation in a closed society. It reflects indirectly the deeply rooted poverty and insecurity of the people in the heartland of China. In such an exaggerated face system, one can play the game quite effectively on Chinese terms. It assures that cooler and more calculating heads always prevail.

The worst thing that can happen to the Chinese is to lose face in the world. To force the Chinese to lose face is to humiliate them in public, and to invite reform. This is how the Chinese view the Americans and thus the Chinese have been attempting to force the US to lose face. The whipping of the American boy in Singapore in the early 90's is a similar example of the reaction of Chinese to Americans abroad. Unfortunately, the Americans have given to the Chinese several incidents by which they could take advantage of the Americans, at least in the eyes of their own people, about which they are most concerned. They gain legitimacy in the eyes of their own people at the expense of delegitimizing Americans.

The Chinese people fear most insecurity and domestic violence resulting from widespread anarchy that would result from the breakdown of the Chinese government system. This is not an unrealistic concern. They are well aware of the contradictions and foibles of their own government. Yet they are able to deal well with contradiction and this does not diminish their fundamental sense of loyalty to the Chinese government, especially in relation to foreign interests or rogue Chinese, which is how they see the Taiwanese. In fact, from the standpoint of cognitive dissonance, it may actually serve to reinforce a sense of chauvinistic loyalty to the party. The Chinese government capitalizes on these fears. It is a paradox that the threat of under-control leads to almost compulsive over-control, which in turn incites the greater likelihood of the development of under-determination leading to destructive consequences.

I do not have any final answers regarding China. It is an open book. All US personnel must deal very carefully with the Chinese and try to meet them on their own terms without compromising what is most important about our selves. I think that Americans are poorly trained in learning to deal effectively with the Chinese. The Chinese can be met and dealt with on their own terms, and even defeated at their own games and strategems.

If the US policy towards China remains open to them in ways that encourages reforms, and yet provides them with no moving targets in terms of their foreign affairs, then the Chinese can be knocked off balance. They can be kept permanently off balance to the point that they must internally reform their corrupt and authoritarian system. In such conditions, the will of the people cannot be consolidated or united against any recognizable extraneous targets. Unfortunately, Taiwan now represents just such an immobile target which the Chinese government can be expected to take increasing advantage of in the future.

I have given you my two cents worth. If I was not an anthropologist, if I had not worked, lived and conducted research in China on Chinese terms, and if I had not studied the Chinese extensively and intensively from a cross-cultural perspective, I would not presume to offer this set of opinions. If I were not fundamentally concerned with the relation of China to the world, then I would not bother. Nothing I have said in these pages I consider to be unrealistic as an analysis of the Chinese relationship to the US, and I consider these issues to be vitally important to the future of such relations.

I find it a paradox of American society and culture that in returning from China my own expertise should be completely devalued and ignored, especially in light of recent events. Having served in the military, it perturbs me now that the Chinese are keeping hostage 24 American service people and may even try to conduct interrogations and trials on them. In such a context, I offer you my fullest support and service. I like the Chinese people, but not the communists.

I went to China without any ideological prejudices one way or another about communism. I went anthropologically with an open mind. I very soon realized that communism had no moral bottom line compared to Chinese culture as I had experienced this in other times and places. The Chinese communists had erased forty centuries of religious philosophical development in scarcely five decades time. In reflecting upon the issue, I must point out the great relativity of cultures in both time and place. Though individual personalities may vary considerably within a normal human range, it is culture that is shared between people that sets or fails to set certain constraints upon what is acceptable behavior or not in human social life. Within prevailing circumstances, even otherwise normal people can be induced into behavior that is considered humanly aberrant from another cultural standpoint. A culture, like communist culture as it now exists in China, may lack such internalized boundaries to behavior except those rigid restrictions arbitrarily defined by absolute state authority and control and those that can be maintained independently by the isolated family, often in persecutory defiance of the state mandate. In place of such boundaries, it has fostered a system of giving and getting face in social life based upon the manipulation of status within a closed rank-ordered system of stratification. The most that can be expected within the Chinese communist system is widespread corruption, personal deindividuation, repression and the loss of common human value. Nothing great or good can be expected to be forthcoming from such a system, except human frustration and violence.

The Chinese people struggle everyday for answers to their common dilemmas. They are justifiably proud of their own national heritage, but they are not and cannot be completely satisfied with the lives they are forced to lead under communist dictatorship. Communism has had an invidious effect upon Chinese culture, but it is neither the beginning nor the end of China. It was an unfortunate pathway that the Chinese turned down in the course of history. We should not be overly proud when we pass judgment upon the Chinese, as there is no culture without its own contradictions. The Chinese are quick to remind us of our own faults. Culture is indeed relative, but if we are to forge a better world, then we must learn to transcend the limitations of both our own and other's cultural constraints.