China: Winning the long game

Planting seeds for the next century.

China is doing its own messaging.    China is playing a long game.   They are doing things now which will affect the role of China twenty five and fifty years from now.  

I attended an event involving the Confucius Institute at a local private high school.  They had invested in exposing China to Americans by sending teachers to the high school to teach Chinese language and culture.   Some of the graduates of the high school have had four and five years of Chinese language instruction.

The group of about twenty are here on a goodwill ambassadorship tour, sharing information about China.  There were dancers, marshal arts gymnasts, musicians.   They played some Chinese traditional songs, plus American songs.   We heard Jingle Bells.  

The world is small, they said.   We seek peace and harmony.

The point of this blog is simple so it will be short.  China is doing nonverbal messaging.  China is communicating subtle signals of their position in the world.   I liken it to the helicopter entrances by Trump and the decision of press secretary Sean Spicer to switch to dark suits and white shirts.  China has a past, in which they felt humiliated by western countries that treated it as a colony to exploit and then by the Japanese who invaded and terrorized its citizens.   China remembers that during a time of immigration to America China alone was subject to an act of exclusion, the Chinese Exclusion Act.   That was then.

    Now China is so rich and successful they can offer American free teachers so Americans can learn something they want to learn.

   Now China is very proud of its history and culture.  It is ancient, much older than western culture.  

   Now China comes not as students, but as teachers.  They are low key missionaries to a land that would benefit from knowing them better.

   Now China comes in peace, seeking harmony and prosperity.

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China is not expecting short term results.  This is not a trade deal that provides short term advantage to anyone.  They are planting seeds for trees that take a generation or more to grow.  They are positioning China as a senior member of the family of nations.  

One hundred years ago the assumption of Americans was that the Chinese were an inferior country, suitable for exploitation.  They have repositioned.  Trump amplified the notion of China as a great danger, laughing at American weakness.  The ad,  set in Beijing in 2030, exemplifies this.  America has been defeated and humiliated by China.

China is sending another message with the Confucius Institute.  We are your peer and we can work in harmony.