Chapter 18: Huntington Overlooked That Communism Remained the Primary Enemy, 1992–1996 (Part II)

Furthermore, the core of Chinese civilization includes the ideal of Great Harmony, the selection and yielding of the worthy, benevolence and benevolent governance, an emphasis on historical lessons, the unity of spiritual and secular authority, governance by a chancellor-led executive group, the political role of official historiography, merit-based selection through the imperial examination system, freedom of religious belief, an order based on loyalty and filial piety, the family system, selflessness in pursuit of the public good, the primacy of righteousness over profit, self-cultivation as the foundation, the Doctrine of the Mean, the way of forgiveness, the way of the gentleman, and the way of ritual and propriety, among others. Which of these core elements of Chinese civilization is in conflict with Western civilization?

Chinese civilization and Western civilization were, in fact, highly harmonious during the Qing dynasty. Empress Dowager Cixi personally presented President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) with a large portrait of herself, painted by an American female artist over several months at the Summer Palace, and Roosevelt held a special presentation ceremony for it at the White House. Roosevelt in turn dispatched his daughter to China on a goodwill visit, where she was personally received by Empress Dowager Cixi. When Roosevelt’s daughter married, Cixi sent a large chest of ceremonial garments and gifts. The wife of the American minister to China became Cixi’s close confidante, with whom she spoke freely about everything; when the minister’s daughter gave birth, Cixi personally sent diapers and other gifts. When the minister’s wife completed her term and returned to the United States, Cixi specially selected a ruby and presented it to her. In return for Cixi’s goodwill, Roosevelt took the lead in reducing the Boxer Indemnity, directing the funds toward Chinese education and the dispatch of students to study in the United States.

In the 1920s, communist ideology, propelled by the Soviet Union, infiltrated China. Mao Zedong, ingratiating himself with communism and acknowledging thieves as his father, kidnapped Chinese civilization. From that point on, a communist demonic headband was fastened onto China’s old lion, Marxist–Leninist–Maoist steel chains were locked onto it, and the lion was driven forward at gunpoint to follow him.

In the modern world, there is no such thing as an inherent “clash of civilizations”; what is more common are “conflicts between states.” Among countries belonging to the same Islamic civilization, Saudi Arabia is friendly toward the United States, while Iran is hostile to it. Whether friendly or hostile depends on certain leaders who hijack their nations; it has almost nothing to do with civilization. Some people ask whether the 9/11 attacks of 2001 proved a clash between Islamic and Western civilizations. Not at all. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were the work of a small group of extremist terrorists led by Osama bin Laden (1957–2011), and the overwhelming majority of Muslims opposed him. After 9/11, millions of Muslims in the United States displayed American flags to express their condemnation of terrorism. This shows that the destructive actions of a tiny minority of extremists do not constitute a clash of civilizations.

Huntington’s argument shifted people’s attention toward opposing Muslims rather than confronting the communist ideological virus. He pointed the world in the wrong direction. The main axis of struggle should be directed against the communist virus, not against different civilizations.

Huntington’s view was keenly absorbed by his direct disciple, Francis Fukuyama (1952–), a professor of political science at Stanford University. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man in 1992, asserting that with the disintegration of the Soviet communist empire, Western democracy had become the sole final form of government for the contemporary world, marking the end of history. Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis caused a sensation in the United States and worldwide, becoming the mainstream interpretation of the collapse of the Soviet red empire. People believed that since the Soviet Union had dissolved, the communist catastrophe that had ravaged the world for more than half a century had come to an end, and that the future would belong to freedom and democracy. Little did they know that by the 2010s, the red empire would rise from the ashes and seek to replace the United States as the global hegemon.

Xi Jinping’s red empire, like those of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong, originates from the same “communist virus”; any differences are merely variations of that virus. Some think-tank experts deliberately ignore their essential sameness. Li Weidong, president of China Strategic Analysis, argues that the “red” emphasized by Xi differs from Mao’s: “Mao’s red empire was a communist utopia, while Xi’s red empire is state socialism; state socialism is essentially Nazism.” Stripping Xi’s red empire of its “communist virus” characteristics and categorizing it as equivalent to Hitler’s Nazi Germany reflects a basic misunderstanding and risks misleading public opinion.

After the Soviet collapse, Fukuyama advanced his “end of history” thesis, but he overlooked the fact that the Chinese Communist Party still existed in the world. The communist polar bear was paralyzed, but the Chinese lion, bound by communist iron chains, was still alive. This lion had already split with the polar bear in the 1960s and no longer took orders from Moscow. While the Soviet Union transformed after its collapse, the CCP persisted in orthodox Marxism–Leninism and refused to recognize the Soviet turn. On the surface, Deng Xiaoping pursued “reform and opening,” but beneath the surface remained the “Four Cardinal Principles.” These were obscured by the banner of reform and opening and thus escaped attention. Deng’s strategy of “hiding capabilities and biding time” was merely sheathing the sword; he never abandoned the communist blade. In the 1989 Tiananmen incident, Deng deployed hundreds of tanks and hundreds of thousands of troops to massacre the city under cover of darkness, resulting in the deaths of thousands—an act of brutal sword-drawing. Fukuyama could hardly have forgotten this large-scale, shocking, and bloody suppression of a democratic movement. Can the “end of history” really exclude China, a country comprising one-fifth of the world’s population?