Both elites and the ordinary people in the US were considerably disturbed by the rise of Japan. The Japanese could produce better TV sets or cars and were performing better than Americans in many areas. The dominant feeling particularly in the western parts of the US was that the Japanese will soon leave Americans behind for world domination.
However, Japan lost its place in the international arena due to recession and political instability. India and China took its place. Thanks to its deep-rooted tradition of democracy, the rise of India is met with sympathy and even supported. China, on the other hand, is creating concerns. In the first place, it still bears the communist designation. Although it is practically not important, labels still shape perceptions. Second, like Japan, China represents a different culture and it is a country that is hard to understand fully. And it is a gigantic country, both geographically and with respect to population.
When I first went to the US, what struck me the most was the sheer magnitude of sizes. Supermarkets, airports, roads, and even food portions were oversized. I had to go to China in order to see what was really big. Five or six-lane roads, soaring skyscrapers, crispy and giant airports are everywhere. Only food portions are still of normal size. Moreover, the US is getting old while China is rapidly renewed. New roads, airports, buildings, dams and high-speed trains are being built every day.
China is like an adolescent who is late to the party and is rapidly drinking alcohol to catch up with his/her pals. It is engaged in frantic activity with a desire to catch up to its rivals in growth. China claims that they have the best high-speed trains, and their first commercial plane has recently made its first test flight. They conduct space exploration. But they are still afraid of the West. Facebook is practically prohibited; Twitter cannot be used; and visiting Wikipedia is denied. These are just a few examples of the bans my daughter and I discovered in our personal experiences. We know that Google is censored and its search results are filtered, and even that those who have access to unapproved pages are reported by this company to the administration.
Despite concerns over the growth of China and Japan, the US sent a new wave of innovation with its Apple, Intel, Facebook and Twitter. Actually, China will become a “little America,” to borrow a phrase from Celal Bayar, a former Turkish president. This may not be the case in the economic sense, but certainly in the cultural sense. Almost all of the works on display in Art Zone 768 in Beijing are Western. Patterns of architecture, apparel, consumption and lifestyle are all Western. The role or power of the West and the US in world politics and economy may be in decline, but it seems that they will continue to dominate superstructure values for many years to come. Today, every country you visit is a little US, Italy or France. Local cultures are trying to protect themselves in their niches.
It is hard to find the real China in Beijing or Shanghai. You have to go to smaller places in order to get a taste of the old China. Actually, the West wins even when it is seemingly losing. It still continues to dominate the lifestyles and values all over the world with its computer technology and content. In a world where Facebook is more valuable than General Motors, this is where the real power lies. This is where the world is really becoming a global village.
