Jottings from the Granite Studio

Last month, 7′6″ Yao Ming had a shot blocked by 5′9″ Knick guard Nate Robinson. If there was ever a moment when Yao seemed to epitomize his country’s struggles over the last few centuries, there it was….even more so when you look at the video and realize that Robinson got away with a poke in the eye after the fact.

Yao entered the NBA with so much hype and so much promise. Yet for the last few years Yao never seemed to make The Leap: that next step from ’solid frontline player’ to dominant center. Sure he had his moments. He would rise to occasions against Shaq, for example. But to be a big man in the NBA you have to have a mean streak and Yao was too soft, too passive.

The final blow for Yao may have been when a Chinese businessman tried register Yao’s name for a brand of sanitary napkins.

Call it pride, call it maturity, or maybe Yao just got tired of sportswriters, fellow players, and coaches constantly referring to him by a certain five-letter epithet synonymous with “cat,” Yao has decided to get mean–throwing down on people and yelling in their faces (earning Yao a “T” against Minnesota), pushing people around the paint and generally deciding that screw you all, I WILL be the baddest m———-r walking this court. It’s a new look and it’s paid off. None of this “nice humble guy” crap. The old Yao rode the bus and was interviewed in this tiny apartment in Shanghai. The new Yao just bought a custom-built BMW 7-Series and parties on South Beach.

And he’s destroying the league. He is the most dominant center in the NBA today. Granted Shaq is hurt, but there is nobody that matches Yao for size, strength, and agility on the court. He is playing like a man among boys and it’s a thing of beauty to watch.

But what does this have to do with China today?

It seems that the CCP is learning from Yao. In today’s New York Times there is an article about China’s exploration of what it means to be a great power in the world–and that it sometimes means occasionally throwing an elbow and talking trash to the other team.

President Hu Jintao set off an internal squabble two years ago when he began using the term “peaceful rise” to describe his foreign policy goals. He dropped the term in favor of the tamer-sounding “peaceful development.”

His use of “rise” risked stoking fears of a “China threat,” especially in Japan and the United States, people told about the high-level debate said. Rise implies that others must decline, at least in a relative sense, while development suggests that China’s advance can bring others along.

Yet this tradition of modesty has begun to fade, replaced by a growing confidence that China’s rise is not fleeting and that the country needs to do more to define its objectives.

With its $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, surging military spending and diplomatic initiatives in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Beijing has begun asserting its interests far beyond its borders. Chinese party leaders are acting as if they intend to start exercising more power abroad rather than just protecting their political power at home.

Interestingly, this new exploration centers on a television series about the rise and fall of great powers. How far we have come. 20 years ago, Chinese documentarians lamented China’s weakness as a result of its insularity and the weakness of its people in the multi-part television series He Shang 河傷 (River Elegy). He Shang was less about history (the documentary wasn’t really based on actual research) than an emotional gut-check for the CCP to keep the route to the world open in the future.

It would seem that this current series also takes–liberties, shall we say–with its historical narrative. These liberties have less to do with historical accuracy than for what is celebrated and why.

Its stentorian narrator and epic soundtrack present the emergence of the nine countries, from Portugal in the 15th century to the United States in the 20th, and cites numerous achievements worthy of emulation: Spain had a risk-taking queen; Britain’s nimble navy secured vital commodities overseas; the United States regulated markets and fought for national unity.

The documentary also emphasizes historical themes that coincide with policies Chinese leaders promote at home. Social stability, industrial investment, peaceful foreign relations and national unity are presented as more vital than, say, military strength, political liberalization or the rule of law.

In the 90 minutes devoted to examining the rise of the United States, Lincoln is accorded a prominent part for his efforts to “preserve national unity” during the Civil War. China has made reunification with Taiwan a top national priority. Franklin D. Roosevelt wins praise for creating a bigger role for the government in managing the market economy but gets less attention for his wartime leadership.

More to the point, there seems to be a certain glorification of empire. I don’t see this so much as the CCP throwing off its cover as a nationalist, anti-imperialist organization (ahem), but as a reclamation of a mantle of empire officially abandoned (but obviously never forgotten) in 1911. Today’s China rests upon the foundation of its previous empires. It’s not unique in this. But there is an idea brewing in the halls of Zhongnanhai–and even among the people on the street– that China, despite its long history, has only yet to live up to its true potential.

One wonders if the recent program was designed to remind the Chinese people of this fact, or to look across the ocean at the former imperial powers and say, “We’re coming back.”

A graduate student at Qinghua University and I once were discussing China’s peaceful rise and I mistakenly referred to China as an “emerging power.”

“Excuse me, J,” said my friend, “but where was Europe before 1800? We are not emerging, we are RE-emerging.”

There’s a new attitude coming out of the Middle Kingdom. It’s not arrogance really, it’s a certain cockiness, a sense that an old swagger long lost has now been reclaimed. Whether its Wang Guangya blowing up at the UN or Yao Ming throwing down in the NBA.

China’s problems are numerous and severe. Let’s be clear about that. And being big is never going to be enough. Yao only reached his greatness when he decided that his game wasn’t perfect and that he would allow himself to be coached. Part of being great is knowing what it takes to acheive greatness. It takes confidence to know when you need to fix things.

Here’s to hoping that China continues to learn from Yao, and channels its newfound confidence into the stones necessary to learn from the mistakes of great powers past and present while making the hard decisions and tough reforms needed for China to continue to rise. Peacefully.
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ESWN has a great collection of translated comments from Chinese viewers of the new series.