A. Dahana

A. Dahana Jakarta

Sinologist I. Wibowo has recently published a book titled Belajar dari Cina: Bagaimana Cina Merebut Peluang dalam Era Globalisasi (Learning from China: How China seizes opportunities in the globalization era, Kompas Publishing, 2004).

In his book, Wibowo presents a number of interesting aspects about China following Deng Xiaoping's reform drive and its opening up to the world.

The book introduces the Chinese "model of development", under which its socialist system co-exists with and allows opportunities for a liberalized market, a system that hitherto prevailed only in a capitalist society. As a result, China emerged as an economic giant, sending a chill even to the United States, the world's only superpower.

More interestingly, however, is that the book dwells as to why China has enjoyed such a high level of development. Wibowo attributes the drive behind China's economic development to "historical vengeance", particularly as regards the insult it received from colonialists and imperialists.

Chinese history shows the painful experience it endured through Western and Japanese imperialism and colonialism.

After the defeat of the Qing, or Manchu, Dynasty in the 19th century over a series of wars fought against Western aggression, China was colonized by several countries. The historical terminology guafen was derived from this experience, and means dividing Chinese territory like cutting up a watermelon, or gua, among Western and Japanese aggressors.

In the territories controlled by Western and Japanese colonialists, an extra-territoriality system was enforced. One of the stipulations of this system was that only the law of the colonizing power applied in these concessions. If a foreigner committed a violation against the Chinese government or people, the perpetrator was tried in a foreign court.

This is why Sun Yat-sen, known as the Father of the Chinese Revolution and the Father of the Republic of China, said the Chinese had experienced a far worse fate than colonized nations, because China was controlled by several colonial powers at the same time. In other words, the Chinese were subservient to a number of colonial masters concurrently.

This colonial system, say historians of Chinese Marxism, was able to last long because feudalism still held sway in China from the 19th century to the mid-20th century. The colonial masters maintained this feudal system by allowing the Qing Dynasty to continue ruling the country. This is why Chinese Marxist historians refer to China during that era as "a semi-feudal and semi-colonized country".

The greatest insult that foreign powers subjected to the Chinese can perhaps be inferred from a warning put up in a foreign concession in Shanghai: "No entry for dogs and Chinese". Evidence of exploitation, repression and abuse that the Chinese were subjected to can be viewed in the Museum of the History of the Chinese Revolution, which is located close to Tiananmen Square in downtown Beijing.

Following the expulsion of foreign imperialist and colonialist powers from China and the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the vengeance against foreign colonialists was channeled through a revolution. Mao said the establishment of the PRC did not necessarily mean the end of the Chinese revolution -- the next stage of the revolution would be to fight against imperialism in the world arena.

To this end, China felt called upon to export its revolution: Colonized nations, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, then still in the process of liberating themselves from the shackles of foreign imperialists, needed assistance. They were advised to take "the path of the Chinese revolution" in liberating themselves from the yoke of Western colonialism and their foreign henchmen.

The attempt to change the world by exporting revolution reached its height in the early 1960s following the ideological conflict between the PRC and the Soviet Union. The PRC openly supported the armed struggle waged by "communist rebels" in Indochina, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.

It also lent support to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), which was the comrade-in-arms of the Sukarno administration's leftist offensive of mobilizing the New Emerging Forces (Nefos) to crush the Old Established Forces (Oldefos).

At home, Mao organized a number of mass campaigns to stoke the flames of the revolutionary spirit -- as such, Mao's rule could also be characterized as a campaign period.

All of this activity was based on Mao's assumption that the Chinese Revolution was an integral part of the world revolution.

After Mao died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping, following exhausting political intrigue and internal conflicts among the elite, came to power in the early 1980s.

When he took hold of power, Deng basically continued Mao's vengeance but through a different channel: He introduced the reform drive and popularized the principles "To get rich is noble" and "To enrich a small number of people and then distribute the wealth to others is ideologically correct".

The masses, by then very exhausted because of Mao's political campaigns, welcomed Deng's call warmly: They happily went into business and took up economic activities. Under Deng's command, China opened itself up to foreign capital by offering wide- ranging incentives and facilities to foreign investors. The result is that China is now an economic giant that other major economic powers both admire and fear.

Viewed from an historical perspective, to make China rich (fu) and strong (qiang) has been the obsession of the Chinese elite since the mid-19th century, when China was looted by foreign powers -- and Deng Xiaoping was able to transform this dream of fuqiang, being rich and strong, into reality.

How does this Chinese vengeance phenomenon compare with a similar phenomenon in Indonesia?

Colonial and imperialist powers dominated China for about 110 years, from 1838 to 1949, while Indonesia was under Dutch colonial rule for 350 years. Mathematically, therefore, Indonesia's vengeance against colonialism and imperialism should be more or less 3.5 times bigger than China's.

Unfortunately, Indonesia's vengeance is yet to find an outlet like Deng Xiaoping's reform plan. In Indonesia, channeling this vengeance is still confined to rallies and protests, demanding this or that.

Otherwise, this vengeance is channeled through the persistent fight for the principles of those political parties that won or lost in the elections. Or, in the most extreme cases, it will take on the form of sectarian conflicts between ethnic, religions or social groups, which would give rise to mutual killing and bomb blasts.

Some mass media reported recently that Indo-Chinese cooperation with China would be strengthened. One of the articles in this cooperation scheme should be how to manage our historical vengeance.

It seems we have much to learn from China as to how to channel this vengeance.

The writer is a professor of Chinese history at the School of Cultural Sciences, University of Indonesia.