Level the playing field

Snowden, despite an expressed interest in Asian culture and the study of elementary Mandarin, would find himself a total outsider in China. Even in the unlikely event that Snowden might have found sanctuary in China, Sino-US relations would have regained balance quickly because the two countries are intricately interlinked economically, and there are built-in mechanisms such as the upcoming Strategic and Economic Dialogue and track-two meetings that keep the conversation going.

I remember being in China during the uneasy calm after the shocking Sept 11, 2011, attacks, a rare moment in modern history where the world's mightiest military power was unexpectedly the victim, and most of the civilized world rallied to its defense. At a briefing given by the US embassy in Beijing, a US State Department spokesman asked for China's understanding of America's intent to attack outposts of radical Islam in Afghanistan and elsewhere. When the question of Islamist violence in Xinjiang was raised, the spokesman quickly changed his tune, saying: "No, that's different. That's a human rights problem."

This is a classic example of "America can do no wrong, China can do no right" that has long infected US diplomacy and the media and even academia. To point out this obviously false narrative, as I did on a China politics list named Chinapol a few years ago, is tantamount to declaring the US emperor had no clothes. The University of California, Los Angeles academic who ran Chinapol, despite dedicating his life to researching China, had also worked for former US president George H.W. Bush and had access to NSA secrets. So he discouraged criticism of the US and banned Chinese scholars in China from joining the online community "for security reasons".

US politicians will continue to make pretty pronouncements about "human rights" and "free speech" it's in their political DNA to see the world in red, white and blue but it's going to ring hollow and sound hypocritical since the US, in its cyber-security overdrive, is increasingly guilty of violating the very values it preaches most loudly.

Getting back to the business of business does not mean business as usual. The US must stop once and for all acting like the "king of the world". US diplomats will stutter and mutter vague platitudes about how "all countries spy" and then change the topic. But they should drop the hypocritical lecturing and hectoring about cyber security, as if it were a one-way street with the US as the sole victim.

The author is a visiting research fellow at Cornell University, New York.

(China Daily 07/08/2013 page9)