FACES beijing: competitors and collaborators

FACES is about China-US relations. It is the underlying center topic in all seminars, speeches and talks. And even though I do not fully understand about the details (sometimes a single word) of any topic, I identify one common assumption in all the events. And this finding not only reshapes my view of China-US relations, but also the human relations in general.

Before FACES, I generally agreed with the statement that every nation cares about their own interest. And because of the limited space and resources, all nations are ultimately competitors. But in Trade Session, almost every speaker talks about the interdependence of China and US in economy; in Diplomacy Session, almost every speaker talks about the cooperation between China-US in solving regional and global crises; in Research Session, almost every speaker talks about the collaborations between China-US in scientific researches on space, life science and materials. All of these bring out the final underlying assumption: nations have common interests. The common interests will not become clear if one only see problems from the perspective of one country. But they might become obvious when one view problems in a GLOBAL perspective. 'Global' is not a big hollow word. It means that one nation consumes products and services of other nations; it means that the bankrupt of one nation's economy will affect other nations'; it means that the pollution of one nation will affect other nations as well; it also means that the unrest of one nation will make many nations unsafe. The interdependence among nations calls for the collaboration. Therefore, though they might be ultimately competitors, they will also be collaborators all along the way.

If we also see a person as an entity of interests, it is easy to extend this argument of nations to personal level through an analogy (though might be a false analogy). Nations have interests and common interests; so do individuals. If one only sees things from his own perspective, he tends to compete against every one and easily become narrow-minded. Seeing things from other's perspective and identify the common interests are the equivalent of the GLOBAL view in personal level.

FACES beijing: Ronnie Chen

During the FACES Beijing conference this November, Ronnie Chan, a successful business man (in terms of money), gave a speech on "Americanism vs. Chineseness: Differences and Similarities and How They Affect US-China Relations Today". His speech covers a huge range of topics, such as how Chinese and English language affect people's thinking pattern, medicine, and literature. He talks about why an ABC girl fails in business bidding in China because of her aggressiveness and assertiveness, which are very common in people doing business in US. He talks about why the leadership in China is described as "benevolent dictatorship". He also talks about the corruption in China. In a word, in his speech, I was totally astonished at his amount of knowledge and experience.

The confrontation arises when American delegates question about his classification of Japanese people as amoral people in the Q&A section. In his speech, Ronnie Chen classifies Chinese and American as moral people, and Japanese people as amoral. The base for his argument is that the Japanese deny their outrageous crime in World War 2. Chen questions that what you are going to with a person who just killed 40 people yesterday and ask who they are today. At that moment, I liked his statement very much. But I changed my mind abruptly soon when some delegates argue later that every nation did silly things in the past. Chinese and American both did. So why did Chen use a double standards. And I was ashamed that I did not discover this obvious fallacy in Chen's argument.

Though I do not remember clearly how this argument ends, I learn one thing from it. It's hard for me to keep rational when intense emotion is aroused. Under intense emotion, I am more likely to fail to identify what is opinion and what is fact, what are reasonable and what are irrational. Being completely rational is impossible, but identifying beforehand what my "hot spots" in emotion are will make easy coping with situations like that.