The standoff is well on its way toward being resolved. But China’s students continue to find it difficult to divide the personal from the political. “These events are really very shocking and deeply hurt the Chinese people’s feelings,” says Jin Wei An, a computer-science student at Zhejiang University of Technology. Jin evokes NATO’s accidental May 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade-which triggered a torrent of anti-U.S. sentiment-as a watershed moment in how young Chinese see themselves and their relationship with the outside world. “I love China very much, and I am proud of being Chinese. Also, I love peace very much. The embassy bombing two years ago deeply hurt my self-respect as a Chinese. Coca-Cola and Hollywood movies and other American things are very beautiful, but I started to hate the U.S. The spy plane incident is similar.”
Similar, but with one crucial difference. Since the U.S. plane went down on April 1, students have been engaged in heated discussions in the dorms and cafeteria’s of Beijing’s universities. But unlike after the Belgrade incident, they haven’t taken to the streets. As they debate, it’s clear that few students think the answers are all to be found in the official U.S. or Chinese version of events. Recognizing the limitations of the information made available to them in the state-controlled press, many students preface their comments on the topic with phrases like, “based on the information available” and “the situation is unclear, but …” One physics graduate student even says he has been reading Taiwanese newspapers on the Internet for more information.
A generation that has grown up with blue jeans and pirated Hollywood movies is weighing conflicting emotions of anger, disappointment and pragmatism as they reevaluate China’s relations with the outside world. That their response has not been to hold anti-Western demonstrations is telling. One recent graduate, now a Chinese journalist, expresses disappointment with the Chinese government’s response. “The government behaves like an impotent man. They should be tougher, instead it is weak and soft,” he says.
This point of view has its historical precedent. Student dissatisfaction with the government’s weakness during the Versailles peace negotiations after World War I led to the May 4th movement in 1919. At that time, students led protests calling on the government to project a stronger image abroad and to limit the influence of foreign powers. Even today, students seem anxious that China is perceived by the world as weak, less developed economically and militarily than the United States. In fact, few seemed angry or even surprised by the presence of a U.S. spy plane off the coast of China. “The United States is a strong country and for that reason can do what it likes. I don’t feel as if they are personally targeting China,” says a 23-year-old English student at Beijing University. “If we had such capabilities, I’m sure we would do the same.”
Such pragmatism is one reason so many Chinese students want to study in the United States. “Young people want to go the U.S. to improve their standards of living,” says Xiaojing. Even hardliners are anxious for a U.S. education. “The United States is an international bully. They have invaded China’s sovereignty,” says a 21-year-old student of international trade at Beijing Normal University. “I’ll never live in the U.S. However, if I have a chance, I would go there to study. I just want to learn advanced technologies and methods and bring them to my motherland.”
This sort of reaction is exactly what’s China’s jittery government wants. Officials are deeply in favor of nationalistic emotions-but utterly opposed to violent demonstrations that can so easily spin out of control. And the government is all for hard work and patient high-tech achievement. “The U.S. is a threat because it’s the only superpower in the world,” says a 22-year-old student from Hangzhou. Not forever, Beijing hopes. It wants to harness such sentiments, channel them into economic development-and eventually transform China into a nation that can never be “bullied” again.
