The City, and the Citadel, on the Hill

November 20, 2002
By 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 (3^rd to 1^st century b.c.e.), imperial China created wealth and power beyond its dreams. By the middle of the Han dynasty (end of the 2^nd 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.