The Tragedy of 9.11 and China, November 1, 2001

As the first American speaker to give a talk in Chinese for the HCR seminar series, Professor Ezra F. Vogel clearly conveyed his reading of the profound impacts of the 9.11 tragedy and handled sensitive questions with his usual sensibility and diplomacy.

He paralleled the astonishment of the 9.11 tragedy in the US with that of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Neither the North Korean invasion of the South nor the North Vietnamese invasion of the South had such a profound effect. The terrorists' activity has given us a clear enemy for the first time since the end of the cold war. Some Americans, nostalgic for the sense of purpose of the cold war, had tried to make China the enemy, but this idea never took firm roots. Now, with a clear enemy, American policy

making will be easier. With a clear consensus it will be easier to agree on priorities and on what needs to be done. President George Bush's speech a week after September 11th gained him credit among many people, including intellectuals who had doubts about him after his presidential campaign. In his speech, President Bush clearly identified the enemy - not the Arab world or the Islamic religion, but only the terrorists. To combat the terrorists, Bush sought a broad base of international cooperation across countries. This effort earned him broad public support.

Vogel acknowledged that the US was not prepared for terrorist activities and that the American bombing of Afghanistan will have great difficulty proving successful. The communication among Afghan terrorists barely relies on modern technologies, leaving American advanced electronic equipment ineffective for gathering information. Americans trying to gather information will be spotted immediately. We will have to rely on other Islamic countries to collect information about terrorists. The US is not prepared to wage the war for the hearts and minds of the Arab world. It will be very difficult to counter the Arab world's bias against Americans.

On the impact of 9.11 on Sino-US relations, Vogel said that the US need for international cooperation to combat terrorists makes the US-China relationship, which had begun to improve in the previous months, even better. The damage in the relationship due to the April 1 mid-air collision over Hainan Island had started to thaw over the summer. China's support to the US in this campaign may well be for its own reasons, such as helping China suppress the extreme Muslim independent movement in Xinjing province. China's interest in Pakistan is not identical with that of the US. Recently our relationship has begun to improve, but our relations may begin to diverge. Nonetheless, the fact that so many people who died in the World Trade Center were not Americans helps Bush's call for international cooperation.

Vogel said that the last two US presidents in their original election campaigns had criticized the incumbents' friendly policy toward China, but, when they actually became president, they always realized China's importance to the US. The American administration was not against Beijing hosting the Olympic games in 2008, even though Bush was very tough on China policy during his campaign. The conversation between President Jiang Zemin and President Bush during the October APEC meeting in Shanghai has been described as "candid, constructive, and cooperative." This expression is likely to be more politically sustainable than Clinton's argument that engagement paid off, for the pay-offs were not yet visible.

Finally, Vogel commented on cross-strait relations. Although former President Li Denghui had intended to cultivate Taiwan's independent identity, current President Chen Shuibian has realized that it is impossible for Taiwan to be formally independent. There are hundreds of thousands of