Washington must accept Beijing 'as it is', author says

The US government should consult successful US businesses in China on how to better manage bilateral ties, and it must accept China "as it is", said Peter Walker, an author and senior emeritus consultant at a major US advisory firm.

Walker, a former senior partner at McKinsey & Co, made the comments in an online discussion hosted by the US Heartland China Association on April 14.

Walker has visited China more than 80 times, and has met with business leaders, regulators and experts. Besides doing business in China, he also spent more than 15 years studying Chinese history and culture.

His visits and experiences in China have made him more aware of people's distorted views about the country and its negative portrayal in Western media. With this in mind, Walker published the book Powerful, Different, Equal: Overcoming the Misconceptions and Differences Between China and the US.

Walker points out that the US and China will be the two major countries in the world yet neither side is able to impose its will on the other. Both nations can cooperate by tackling several issues, including the threats posed by climate change, cybersecurity attacks and terrorism, as well as working together to protect the environment.

With tensions high between the two countries, he fears that the US doesn't understand China well enough.

"If you listen to the news commentators in the US talking about China, their understanding of China is extremely superficial and generally off base," Walker said.

A look into recent articles on China in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times shows that 95 percent of them are negative, Walker said. "I would argue that they are wrong and misguided in their assumption of what China is."

He said this all started with former US president Donald Trump's move to demonize China to distract the public from his vulnerability in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. "The media went along with it," he said.

Other politicians also contributed to the US-China tensions. "A lot of barriers are put up by the grandstanding congressmen who are looking to make a name for themselves by being the toughest in town on China and creating legislative proposals that make no sense for anybody. What is required is a change in mindset that starts in Washington," Walker said.

The people who understand China are those who have worked in the country. "They found a way to work with China that's good for China and good for themselves," he said.

Silencing effect

While those people might be in a better position to voice reason and help the US to understand China, a lot of them are keeping their heads down because the tension is high.

"The companies worry that being thoughtful and saying what they mean is not protecting. If it goes to Fox News and gets twisted in a way that does not get any links to reality, they have no comeback. They can write a letter, it doesn't matter, it's already out there," Walker said in explaining why the business community has been silent on the bilateral relationship.

China believes in putting collective well-being first before individual success. And this core value, derived from Confucius, is the opposite of the individualism highly valued in the US. Walker said the US must recognize and accept such differences.

According to Walker, the US must accept China's governing model that comes from 2,500 years of history and it's not going to change; accept the fact that Chinese people's approval rate of their government far exceeds the level seen for government in the US.

"We have to understand Chinese history and culture and accept it as it is," Walker said.

Walker applauded the US Heartland China Association's efforts to promote people-to-people exchanges in helping the two sides understand more about each other. "My hope is ultimately we will come together," he said.

mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com