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The
City, and the Citadel, on the Hill
Wang
Gungwu
The conspirators who
attacked the World Trade Center chose it as a symbol of
American wealth and power to dominate, and the supposed
helplessness of the poor and the weak before that power.
What they did not intend was to expose the inner
struggles of the American soul; they could not have
foreseen that the collapse of the two towers threatened
how Americans saw their country as the City on the Hill.
The idea of the City on
the Hill, in Governor Winthrop’s famous locution,
expresses a national messianism close to the hearts of
most Americans. But, until roughly a half-century ago,
Americans lacked the power to project that light upon
the world. Since then, however, American leaders have
striven to use U.S. power for good, for humanity, for
civilization—at least as they have seen it. For most
people outside, including in Asia, that is not America’s
only heritage, however. Consciously or not, the United
States became the successor to diminished European
empires, particularly to the great but short-lived
empire the British had erected around the globe. Some of
the remnants of this heritage, notably in Asia, were
placed in American care after the end of World War ii.
America is thus both exemplar and empire, both a City on
a Hill and a citadel that dispatches gunboats and loans
with strings attached.
The Cold War was a
secular civil war whose origins were established long
before World War ii by European ambitions to dominate
the world; when those ambitions failed, the United
States and the Soviet Union, two self-appointed
interpreters of the Enlightenment, sparred over the
wreckage. Thanks to the Cold War’s Manichean
characteristics, however, the United States could
emphasize the light that its people stood for against
the darkness of godless communism. Accusations of
American imperialism or neo-colonialism, and a host of
other unflattering images, were brushed aside. This was
made easier by the fact that the Communist opposition
could not disguise its ruthlessness, was poor in
marketing its ideological wares and was ultimately a
failure in economic performance. With the end of the
Soviet Union, however, the second side of the American
metropolis came into clear view; in glaring light, the
imperial side of the City, its citadel, could not be
hidden. Without a zone of darkness in opposition, the
double American heritage of civilizing mission and
informal empire stood more sharply exposed than ever
before.
September 11, and the
understandably forceful response to that tragedy, have
together brought America’s dual international
personality to the global center stage. America’s
actions now, more than ever, will affect which side of
its character will predominate. Above all, the actions
that matter most fall into two categories: how America
sees its allies and friends, and how it sees its
adversaries and challengers.
We will take up these
two categories in turn, but it must be said that, so
far, great uncertainty shrouds our understanding of
American intentions. At its core, U.S. power exists to
protect its national interest; and if the United States
were an ordinary country, it would be obvious that it
has much more power than is necessary for that purpose.
The United States can, if it wishes, destroy any regime
that stands in its way. But the question is: What is
its way? The war on terrorism may be narrowly focused on
certain groups of terrorists, or widened into a crusade
against all those ill-disposed toward the United States
and its allies. In declaring a state of war, it is not
clear to many national leaders in Asia whether the
United States is genuinely debating the scope of
retaliation—or whether it is practicing a form of
strategic ambiguity that will allow it to pick and
choose whom, when and where to support or destroy. If
the former, debate may be portrayed as the City
agonizing over how best to gather all good people to a
great cause. If the latter, it suggests that the United
States is determined to expand its power to achieve
absolute security against all comers, the seed of the
will to empire.
Inevitably, this
uncertainty will be interpreted around the world against
the evidence forthcoming as to how America conceives of
and acts toward its friends and enemies.
As to its friends, does
America want its many friends and allies simply to stand
to be counted, but otherwise just wait for the telephone
to ring; or does the United States wish them genuinely
to share in seeking a long-term answer to protect what
they all believe in? This depends on the purposes to
which American power is applied. It is one thing for
that power to be used to protect modern civilization,
another to seek absolute national security at all costs.
The former task requires genuine partners; the latter
would drive them away.
In practical terms, of
course, it is understandable that decisive retaliatory
action needed to be taken quickly after September 11;
there was not time for Washington to assemble both a
civilizational and military coalition. But it would be
wise to remember how habitual and infectious such
actions can become. Think of all the bold men who
extended the borders of the Spanish and British empires
and were rewarded for their heroism, but whose actions
led to manifold imperial burdens and to the ultimate
repudiation of what that power wrought. Many Americans
still prefer that the ideals of the City on the Hill
triumph through good practice, by example rather than by
imposition. The more the American people can still share
these ideals with the rest of the world, the stronger
the values would become embedded among all those who
feel they have experienced them. The American social
experience itself—a genuine multiculturalism—is the
best proof of that proposition. There is nevertheless
the danger that this aspect of American leadership will
be seen as weakness and vacillation by those who see no
alternative to taking on the burdens of empire.
The second question,
whether the United States should try to win new friends
or draw a new zone of darkness, is an easier one to
answer. Since the end of the Cold War, there are no
godless threats to humanity’s spiritual needs—at
least no armed ones. Most Americans believe that Cold
War victory came because they were on the side of the
angels. But increasingly large numbers of people around
the world, not least in Asia, see other spiritual
sanctuaries on offer, such as some new expressions of
old religions like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism or
strict normative practices wrung out of secular ideals.
There are renewed rival claims for the right to offer
the light of decency and self-respect. For such people,
the only potential descent to darkness lies now in the
economic globalization represented by unceasing
capitalist expansion.
Until now, that
potential was checked by calls for freedom, equality and
fraternity, and the finer points of individual rights
and legal institutions that reflect universal human
needs. For many, even in Asia, Western Europe and the
United States have argued persuasively that they should
provide the leadership to underline those calls. Thus,
it is up to them to go forth together to win converts to
their point of view. But the temptation is great in the
United States to identify a new zone of darkness as a
cluster of recalcitrant dictatorships or a murderously
distorted medieval faith, and to tie its national
interest to the elimination of such a zone. Thus the
divisions among Americans, and among American friends
and allies, about who the enemy is today and who it will
be tomorrow, also get to the heart of the purposes of
American power. This is why the "with us or against
us" rhetoric of the Bush Administration is bound to
be misunderstood, especially in Asia. Asians can be
against terrorism but also against the unbridled,
unregulated expansion of American-based global
capitalism at the same time.
Chinese imperial
history may provide some guidance in this regard. For
its first two hundred years (3rd to 1st
century b.c.e.), imperial China created wealth and power
beyond its dreams. By the middle of the Han dynasty (end
of the 2nd century b.c.e.), its frontiers
reached the ocean and the heart of Eurasia, covering all
it needed for its long-term security. At the same time,
it developed a rationale for power play, and the
rhetoric of a universal civilization. Thus, the Han
polity "all under Heaven", "the Middle
Kingdom", became the dominant reality for most of
Asia. Its continuance under successor dynasties led
Chinese elites to believe that the purposes of power
were to ensure not only imperial viability (largely
regime maintenance for each dynasty), but also the
defense of civilization. Toward this end, realistic
appraisals of the enemy were necessary. There was also
need for dependents, allies and friends, the more the
better, especially if they could be accommodated within
the institution of tribute-bearing as a system for
diplomacy and defense.
The results were
impressive, even if imperfect. The system was supported
by forward defense along the land borders to the north
and west, but enemies did nevertheless break through
from time to time. Ultimately, power was needed to
protect civilization, but the moral and political ideals
with which the Confucian mandarins shaped that
civilization mattered more in converting enemies and
restoring power into Chinese hands again and again. In
the end, during the 19th century, their complacency and
their unwillingness to adapt to new realities brought
the whole edifice down, but the hegemony that China
enjoyed was never maintained through physical power
alone.
It comes down to the
purposes of power. American power surpasses all others
in ways not dissimilar to that enjoyed by the Chinese,
albeit in a smaller world, for 2,000 years. Although
China finally made the mistake of underestimating its
enemy, and paid dearly for it, the formula that worked
for them so well and for so long was to erect a system
to collect the greatest number of dependents, friends
and allies, share with them the best products of its
wealth and power, and avoid projecting zones of darkness
that they were then committed to destroy.
Will America’s
enormous power make it easier or harder for the United
States to endure as a great power in a much larger
world? The United States is not a bit like the closed
world of mystery and authority that China sought to
project. Today, there is so much openness, shared
knowledge and interdependence, and the power of the
United States is awesome in ways unknown in history.
Clearly, the United States will not follow the footsteps
of Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon or Hitler, by
depending on aggressive power. But just as clearly, it
still feels insecure about its power and would surely
guard against the self-satisfied attitude of the Emperor
Qianlong in 1793 when he said that his empire needed
nothing from the outside world. What would best sustain
the United States as a superpower is its ability to
convince others that the purposes of its power are not
directed against any country, any religion or any other
civilization but that those purposes have been, and will
continue to be, honed in support of a "Middle
Kingdom" whose spiritual capital is a City on the
Hill.
Wang Gungwu is Director
of the East Asian Institute at the National University
of Singapore.
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