一些無關緊要的對話（五）

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— So Im teaching this course on 一帶一路 to Chinese students. 一帶一路, man… I think the teaching of politics and like what a government is in china is fairly weak honestly. I am trying to explain the difference between "state" and "nation.」 There are a lot of awkward moments where its clear their teachers dont know what theyre talking about.

— Oh, I wouldn』t be so polite to say 「weak.」 I would say deliberately muddled.

— Yes. So one issue with the Chinese students is terms like the 「west" are taken as kind of scientific terms, like there is a 「west.」 Honestly, there isnt a west in any academic sense. There isnt an 「east.」 Those are terms of like British imperialism from the 19th century, where china and India are in one single group, and France and America are another group. It barely made sense then and it doesnt work now.

— Right, when people use words like the 「west,」 the 「bullshit」 alarm in my head just goes off.

— So one thing that is muddled is "empire" and "nation", another is these quasi political cultural terms like the 「west.」 Chinese like talking about 大國. 大國 are good and important, but how do 大國 like America and China get created? Empire. They conquer people, and then tell them theyre American or Chinese. Russia is the same. But students struggle with seeing china as a historical empire, because they see china as a victim of imperialism. There isnt anything wrong with empire, everything was an empire up until a century ago, but I think thinking in this way undercuts a strong narrative of "imperialism" for the students.

— See man Ill say one thing. Americans are extremely pessimistic about the future right now. Super pessimistic. But theres not a revolution yet. There will be bits and pieces of good news here and there. Chinese seem to still be optimistic about the future, which makes me feel they arent really aware of whats happening in the world right now.

— No they don』t.

— And I will always remember this. I still do. The moment I really felt that the Chinese government was clueless about America was in 2016 when I was in China, and everyone there loved Trump and the media was favoring him over Hillary strongly.Now, they of course realize this is a mistake in a way because I think Trump is bad for china honestly. One can make the argument that "long term" Trump is good for Chinas "rise,」 but I dont buy that necessarily. China has too many hurdles to get over before that. There is a great story in IR studies about Stalin and Hitler. Why did Stalin try to make peace with Hitler? As a good Communist, Stalin saw Hitler as a capitalist who would need the USSRs resources to engage in the war in Europe. What Stalin didnt understand was Hitler BELIEVED that he was destined to create a massive German state. Bush BELIEVED he was bringing democracy to Iraq. Humans arent rational. The choice in 2016 was between a flawed rational candidate and a flawed irrational candidate. Between the two, ALWAYS PICK the rational one.

— Remember when Tillerson called Trump a 「moron?」 The Chinese IR experts were wondering what a 「moron」 was. My feeling is that even the experts are not very good at English, and I dont mean that they dont know the words. Its more than that, like if you dont REALLY know English, you wont get HOW Trump talks.

— Let me tell you, I was at Apple hanging out with Chinese friends. Their English wasnt very good. Not bad but… Heres the point. I mentioned oh yeah how Trump talks, and they were like "he talks like a billionaire.」 And Im like NO. Exactly wrong. He talks like a truck driver and thats the point.

— Hahahaha.

— They are only listening to what he literally says, bragging about how rich he is. They miss how he says it. This is a critical misinterpretation. They only focus on the literal translation of his words. Trump is a liar. his WORDS are meaningless. But his tone and humor tell the truth. So if Im a Beijing official and I see Trump Im like "Americans love wealth and billionaires.」 Wrong. Americans respect private wealth, but what they like about Trump is he fluently speaks in a blue collar voice. The wealth endears him to them because they think "wow, this very wealthy man can still speak and think like me,」 so "he cares about me then.」 Hillary said rational stuff but spoke like a queen. Trump was insane but spoke like a farmer. Trumps most brilliant insight was the wall. People pick up on tone, humor, personality more than data. In order to understand a place. Its not about studying its economy or political system. Its about knowing the humanities. Knowing the films and the literature of that place, but these "specialists" in DC and Beijing dont get that.

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