My companion on the journey to interview the founder of the magnificent Shanghai Museum was a sociology student, Gao, who was in her final year at Fudan University before leaving to pursue a doctorate at one of the top American universities. She had been asked by her professor to assist me during my month’s stay at Fudan and she had proved wonderfully supportive. She was one of the most intelligent and committed undergraduates I had ever met and was extraordinarily well read. More than that, she was very pleasant and agreeable company, full of suggestions, always prepared to meet my requests, as well as having plenty of ideas of her own. She helped to make my stay in Shanghai a real pleasure. On this occasion she was coming with me to help with any translating that might be required during the interview.
In the taxi we talked about the interview, the Museum, which I had visited on a couple of previous occasions, and the interviews planned before my return home to Hong Kong in just over a week’s time. Then our conversation drifted on to other subjects. Gao was naturally excited about the prospect of studying in the United States and suddenly said: ‘Did you know that some Chinese students that go to America marry Americans?’ I told her about the television programme I had made the previous year about the overseas Chinese, including an interview with such a mixed-race couple living in San Francisco. ‘Actually, three weeks ago I saw a mixed couple at the supermarket checkout at the end of our road,’ I said. ‘A Chinese woman and an American guy.’ Then I added after a pause: ‘He was black.’ Why did I say that to her? I guess there were several reasons. In Hong Kong such a couple was a rare sight – indeed it was the only time I had ever seen one, and it had stuck in my mind. And my wife was Indian-Malaysian, possessed of the most beautiful dark brown skin, but I was painfully aware that not everyone perceived her colour in the way that I did, especially the Hong Kong Chinese.
I was totally unprepared for Gao’s reaction. Her face became contorted and she reacted as if she had just heard something offensive and abhorrent. She clearly found the very thought repellent, as if it was unnatural and alien, akin to having a relationship with another species. Her reaction was a demonstration of prolonged physical repulsion the like of which I had never previously witnessed. For her the idea was simply inconceivable. Gao was a highly educated and intelligent woman; and an extremely nice one. I was shocked. I asked her what the matter was as she writhed in disgust, but there was no answer and no possibility to reason with her. That was more or less the beginning and end of our conversation on the subject. The memory of that journey has remained with me ever since. There was, alas, no reason to think that Gao’s reaction was unusual or exceptional. This was not simply the reaction of an individual but the attitude of a culture. And she was surely destined to become a member of China ’s elite.
What will China be like as a great power? The traditional way of answering this question is in terms of geopolitics, foreign policy and interstate relations. In other words, it is seen as a specialist area of foreign ministries, diplomacy, bilateral talks, multinational negotiations and the military. A concentration on the formal structures of international relations, however, fails to address the cultural factors that shape the way a people think, behave and perceive others. The geopolitical approach informs how a state elite reasons and acts, while a cultural analysis, rooted in history and popular consciousness, seeks to explain the values, attitudes, prejudices and assumptions of a people. In the short run, the former may explain the conduct of relations between countries, but in the longer run people’s values and prejudices are far more significant and consequential. [704] Ultimately, nations see the world in terms of their own history, values and mindset and seek to shape that world in the light of those experiences and perceptions.
