‘Chinese Dream’ puts American Dream to bed
‘The Return of Marco Polo’s World’ corresponds not only to the emergence of a new political geography, but to a new map of sensibilities
My conversation partner is a Japanese banker. He has just returned from Amman, the capital of Jordan. And he’s talking about the Chinese who were also there at a joint meeting of the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank). “They were everywhere and everyone was talking about their new silk road,” he says.
He’s enthusiastic as he describes to me this new reality — this “Chinese dream” — which, with the involuntary help of the United States and members of the European Union, is gradually replacing the American and European dreams. Because while we, on this side the world, are closing our hearts and borders, the Chinese are building roads, bridges, canals and expanding ports.
In the Danish film Pelle the Conqueror, which won the Palme d’Or at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, Swedish farmers who left to make their fortune in Denmark at the end of the 19th century find themselves confronted with the harshness of their living conditions. At the end of the film, one brother goes to the US. Another stays in Europe to make the revolution happen. When it came out, at the end of the Cold War, the film seemed to carry a simple message: The socialist revolution has failed in Europe — the Soviet Union was about to collapse — and the American dream triumphs. The brother who crossed the Atlantic made the right choice, though the one who remained wasn’t completely mistaken. The social democratic model established itself, after all, in Scandinavia. But in 2018 — three decades after its release — the film’s message seems to belong to such a distant world.
Today’s Chinese dream is, indeed, of a completely different nature than yesterday’s American or European dream. It’s no longer a question of joining a land of refuge, synonymous with freedom and respect for human rights. To get to the point, we went from “I come to your country to survive and fulfil myself” to “Come to me with your money and your energy. You are my last hope.” For many parts of the world — not to mention people from Southern and east-central Europe and the Balkans — China is becoming the ultimate reference. For Africans, Chinese workers (unlike Westerners) don’t have a colonial past. Not only that, but they live there in conditions very close to those of local workers.
For the Greeks or the Bulgarians, the Chinese can be formidable negotiators but, unlike the authorities in Brussels, they don’t impose any conditions or give any lessons. Everything is rather simple with them — “they have the hardness of a diamond.” They only pursue their interests, and these may coincide with yours.
Consolidation through trade
As a matter of fact, there’s a sort of communicating-vessels phenomenon at play — the American and European dreams on one side, and the Chinese dream on the other. The more dried out the former become, the more the latter blossoms. By closing themselves up as they do — and, let us be clear, even more out of selfishness than out of fear — the US and Europe are directly contributing to China’s efforts. How can the West champion values it imposes on others when it no longer practises them at home?
‘The Return of Marco Polo’s World’, to use the title of a collection of essays recently published by Robert D. Kaplan, corresponds not only to the emergence of a new political geography of the world, but to a new map of sensibilities. If the beginning of the 21st century is reminiscent of the end of the 13th century, it is simply because, through time, China has been driven by the same ambition: To consolidate its empire through trade; by establishing two routes, over land and sea, linking China to Europe, via India, Persia and Russia.
The “Chinese dream,” buoyed by this mixture of disappointment with the western world and desire for capital from China, shouldn’t make us forget the flaws in China’s system in terms of respect for the rights that the West considers fundamental. In its absolute centralisation, the Chinese model can be effective in profoundly transforming a society, building infrastructure and advancing science and technology. Moving from the West to the East, “the dream” has taken on a more materialist and illiberal dimension, no doubt more in keeping with the spirit of the times.