Ten debts China owes the U.S

Visitors view a photo showing late Chinese premier Zhou
Enlai meeting with former U.S. President Richard Milhous Nixon

In the history of Sino-U.S. contacts, it is clear that there have been many miscarriages of justice. The result of the historical review on the scale of conscience is that we should not ignore the contribution of the United States and its good faith. As a matter of fact, through profound self-reflection, we should be grateful to the United States for its contribution.

There is a long distance between the two countries, and therefore they should be friendly and harmonious with each other. If it is so, both sides will be benefitted. Why is there contradictions between them? In China especially, there is a tremendous force of anti-American public opinion. When we trace the historical truth without prejudice, we can see that obviously China has made more mistakes. The United States has been friendly and beneficial to China; we should thank the United States. Both countries should abandon their differences and join hand in hand.

In Chinese history, there has never been a country so supportive of its development, contributed so much, given so much benefit in political direction and in the people's well-being as the United States of America. Let us briefly review the ten debts that China  owes the U.S.

Debt One: During the Qing Dynasty, the U.S. managed to check Japan and the Western powers from carving up China, and helped China to avoid a civil war. It safeguarded China's reunification and prevented splitting China.

When the Eight-Power Allied Forces entered Beijing, the Qing government was on the verge of collapse. The central government was unable to control the provinces. All parts of the country were prepared to be independent. No one was willing to help the Qing government.  At that time there was only the law of the jungle in the world. It was in the imperialist colonial era. Germany attempted to occupy Shandong, Russia attempted to occupy the Northeast and the Northwest, Japan tried to occupy the Northeast and Taiwan, the United Kingdom tried to occupie Fujian, Guangdong and Tibet, and France tried to occupy Yunnan and Guangxi.

They intended to divide the spheres of influence in China. China would have been permanently split into a number of countries and there was the risk of colonization. At this time, only the United States, not yet a very powerful country, suggested that the Powers should respect the Qing government and maintain the existence of the central authorities. It also advocated an equal trade of China's "open door" policy; maximized the containment of the plot to carve up China; and ensured China's interests and unity so that China did not become the second British division as did India and the Middle East. The Boxer Indemnity was also repaid in full to China for it to build educational institutions such as the Beijing University. It also supported students to study in the United States.

Debt 2: During the period when China became a republic, the U.S. supported China's National Revolutionary Army and the Central People's Government of Nanjing, so that China was not split by the warlords, and did not repeat the tragedy of feudal restoration.

At that time, the fruit of the democratic revolution in China was stolen by Yuan Shikai, and then China fell into a state of feudal Warlordism. The Northern Warlords were corrupt and incapable.  he country was divided into semi-feudalism and semi-colonisation. The revolutionary government established by Dr Sun Yat-sen, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, launched the Northern Expedition to unify democracy in China. In this process, particularly in Nanjing and Shanghai, they met the resistance of various warlords, and the intervention by the imperialist countries. At this time, the United States was the first country to recognise the Nanjing government, supported the reunification of China's democracy, and ultimately a formal unified China was constituted. It then stopped the interference from the hostile imperialist powers.  The "Sino-US cooperation”  was very smooth and effective. China has not been split, and did not return to a feudal society.

Debt 3: the U.S. supported China in World War II and thoroughly defeated Japan and Germany to avoid China being subjugated. This helped China to secure an international environment and enhance its political status.

Han Chinese have been under foreign rule on several occasions in history. In the last 800 years, half of that time the nation was about to be destroyed. The Mongolian Yuan dynasty occupied China for nearly 100 years and the Manchu Qing dynasty ruled China for nearly 300 years. The people suffered under external bullying due to the internal weakness of the Chinese nation. How many lessons of blood and tears have they learnt through national subjugation?

During the period between 1932-1945, the just revived China faced another critical time of national subjugation. It was the United States that sent its ‘Flying Tiger’ aircraft wearing Chinese insignis to directly fight against the Japanese. It also sent a large amount of war materials and urgently needed loans to China. Not only did it put an embargo on its own trade with Japan, it called on other countries to do the same thing. In talks with Japan, the condition of an immediate and unconditional withdrawal from China was non-negotiable.

When the Pacific war broke out, the U.S. fully supported the Chinese in the anti-Japanese war. A strong U.S. military was the decisive force to defeat Japan, which is beyond doubt. If there was no support from the United States, China would have been colonised. Even if it could win over Japan, it would have been a long-drawn-out sacrifice. The U.S, helped overcome the fascist Axis powers of Germany and Italy, making China safe for the first time. Besides this, the U.S. forced the imperialist countries to abolish all the unequal treaties with China.  This enabled China to became the foremost country in Asia. It was one of the five powers that founded the United Nations. Its international status has been elevated to an unprecedented high level.

Debt 4: The U.S. dissolved social imperialism.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 3,000 years’ threat in the North of China has disappeared. China's largest real potential threat has been lifted.

Over 3,000 years, the threat to China came from its North - the Huns, Liao, Jin, Xianbei, Turkic, Mongolian and Manchu invaded China several times. Some of these nations even occupied and ruled the country for nearly 400 years. The former Chinese Communist dictator, Mao, judged that Soviet imperialism was the greatest threat to China and was the world's first source of war.

The famous general of the Qing Dynasty, Zuo Zongtang, also said that Russia was China’s disaster.The Soviet Union and China had numerous conflicts and border disputes: arguments over the segmentation of the border, hatred due to the independence of Mongolia, the shame of recovering debts, provoking the relationship between China and other countries.The Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons and huge resources of war. People living in Xinjiang and Northeast China suffered a lot. The Soviet Union has taken full advantage of China’s weakness and generosity. In 1969 it invaded China on a large-scale, and threatened to use nuclear weapons.

It was the enemy of China at that time. The United States threatened the Soviets that it would protect China if Russia invaded. This helped China to avoid huge losses and once again the danger of national subjugation. The most important of all was that the tragedies of the "Prague Spring" and the "Hungarian incident" in Eastern Europe were not would not stage in China. After that the U.S. continued the global confrontation with the Soviet Union, and ultimately the Soviet Union collapsed. The largest potential threat to China was disarmed.

Debt 5: Contemporary China and the United States forgot their previous prejudice, abandoned their ideological differences and resumed diplomatic contact. Eventually it opened up China from its closed state to modernization.

As a result of misunderstanding and prejudice, discord of other countries and heavenly arrangement, it was sad that a confrontation between China and the United States lasted for a long time. However, even during that period, the feeling of friendship between China and the U.S. was not completely interrupted.  The Ping-pong diplomacy opened the prelude to the Sino-US contacts. Before the U.S. had established a diplomatic relationship with China, the visit of President Nixon to China was a successful ice-breaker. The U.S. cast aside the baggage of history and forgot about the hostilities caused by the Vietnam War and the Korean War for the time being. It carried out an extensive cooperation and communication with China and thus led it permanently out of the era of closed-door policy: to move towards modernization, and mingle with the international community.

Debt 6: In the contemporary world, democracy and freedom of thought have encouraged the transformation of Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Russia, India and other countries. This has successful established a peaceful and advanced political system. China is now situated in a secure environment.

In history, we can see that there were only two results after wars: one was that the defeated country was completely extinct, such as when Rome eliminated other countries and the major tribes in China eliminated the minority. The other result was a cycle of hatred, such as The Hundred Years War between Britain and France and the wars between Germany, Russia, and France. The reason is very simple, and that is the two sides did not fight for justice, or after the war the victorious side ill-treated the defeated side.

The Second World War was actually the continuation of the First World War. The U.S. showed their nature of leniency through democracy and justice in the world war. The outcome of the war was that both sides were benefitted and the world was at peace. After the defeat of the Axis powers, not only did the U.S. not exploit or abuse them, but it helped Germany and Japan to pass through the period of famine, to establish a truly democratic system of peace. Eventually Germany and Japan have surpassed Britain, France, Russia and China.

Both have one of the highest incomes among the well-developed countries.If this had not happened, even though Japan had been beaten and the Soviet Union had been transformed, they would still be a powerful threat to China when they had recovered.  Now Japan has become one of the most peaceful countries in the world.  The feelings of hostility in India, South Korea and Russia towards China have fallen.  This should be attributed to the good work of the U.S. In history, there has never been a defeated country that so convincingly praised its conqueror. China has never been so safe.

Debt 7:  create a brilliant modern civilization, and bring the latest science and technology into China, so that China's productivity has increased and the quality of the life of the Chinese has improved.

Can you imagine a dark world without modern lighting? This is an American invention. Can you imagine a world without airplanes? This is an American invention. Can you imagine a world without a network of electronic information? This is an American invention. Can you imagine lives without computers? This is an American invention. Can you imagine a world without television? This is an American invention ... America was the first country to establish patent law.  It encouraged scientific and technological inventions. As a result although the history of the United States is much shorter than that of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, it has created the world's greatest modern civilization.

When we look around us, we are now living with all the advantages of the United States’ invention and manufacture. The country also invented medication to cure many diseases. The American space ships have drawn us closer to the universe and so we gradually know more about it. The United States promoted the second and third industrial revolutions, and led us to the information age. Shouldn’t we be grateful for its contributions?

Debt 8: the U.S. has transferred to China advanced ideas of democracy and freedom, and they also set examples of how a democratic government works, so to help China to rid itself of the ignorant, feudal, backward, autocratic, utopian and ideological extremism.

Some of the ideas of Confucious emphasize tolerance, but 60 years of modern Chinese history under communist rule, including the savage 'political purges' and authoritarian policies, has resulted in Chinese people having lost many of their virtues. They have become vain and venal, weak and empty, subservient to power and insular, confused about ancient Chinese traditional values; corruption and theft are rampant. At a time when Western countries minded only their own business, only the United States had the sense of responsibility to spread thoughts of democracy and freedom, and to put itself into practice to become a model of a modern state.

Debt 9: the U.S. established the world trade market system. This system has provided the basis for China’s participation in the international market and the acquisition of global interests; it also provided a broad prospect for the development of the Chinese people. 

In ancient times, the volume of trade was extremely small. Everywhere around the world relied mainly on self-sufficiency. When there were famines and wars, lives lost in large numbers. Many innocent people died and a lot of civilisations vanished. There were no fair trading in the world, but merely plunders and wars, such as the ‘Mongolian Massacres’, the ‘Persian Conquest’ and the atrocities of Portugal and Spain in South America. In modern times the Western powers, led by Britain, captured many territories of the other countries and established their colonies in the world. They brutally set up a single national economy, controlled prices and reaped huge profits at the expense of the dignity and interests of the colonized people.

The United States has always considered colonialism as a crime. In the active intervention of the United States, the colonies were liberated. Trade barriers were dismantled and a fair, reasonable relative current world trade system was established under the auspices of the United States. In this system, Japan and Europe have been mostly benefitted and there is an international cooperation among all the countries in the world.  China's earliest open-market reform relies on the needs of the global market. In this system, China acquired a lot of job opportunities and great benefits. As a result, it has promptly caught up with the advanced countries.  It is difficult to achieve without the assistance of the United States and the maintenance of U.S. dollars in international finance.

Debt 10: to play the role as World Police in the fight against the extreme Islamic forces, to defeat the new terrorism, to ensure China's sustainable development without war and chaos, safeguard the safety of China's western region and maintain world stability.

Idealism and economy are unequal in different countries due to uneven development of the world.Some authoritarian countries and a number of extreme Islamic forces began to stir up troubles. With the profits they have made from the sale of oil and drugs, by making use of the convenience of the world integration and the use of the weaknesses of democratic institutions in various areas they exercise extreme policies and implement an extreme Islamic fundamentalist ideology.

The former Yugoslavia massacred Islamic Kosovo, Saddam invaded Kuwait and engaged a high-pressure dictatorship in his country, Iran carried out a threat to global oil and energy security and engaged in nuclear weapons. Al-Qaida and the Taliban engaged in terrorist attacks to the world in Afghanistan. The dictatorial and extremist North Korea is seeking nuclear weapons. The Southern and Central African countries committed genocide. The world is still in turmoil. The United States, despite misunderstanding and suspicion, has spent a huge annual expense to take up the tasks as a global policeman. Its aim is to maintain global stability and to implement the value of democracy and freedom. China's development has not been dragged down by these warlike countries because of the police policy of the United States.

Conclusion:

I am grateful to the United States and hope that it will encourage China to resolve the contradictions and sincerely co-operate in building a democratic, harmonious, and prosperous new world.

The United States led the world situation; the Chinese people have greatly benefitted. The outlook of the world for unity is for the first time so clear. Some Chinese people who are blindly anti-American should be aware that their behaviours are completely wrong and meaningless. China should sincerely cooperate with the United States in various fields at the global level. This will help to establish a more secure international order and build a more prosperous world economy. As a Chinese migrant worker, as a citizen of the global village, I would like to say, ‘thank you, America.  I sincerely express my gratitude.  Please continue your just cause.  Although many people misunderstand you, however through the fog of history, the politicians plot will be smashed, your pursuit will eventually be accepted around the world and your cause will certainly succeed.

Long live the friendship between China and the United States.  Long live the great unity of the people of the world!

This is an article by a Chinese migrant worker.

Opinion articles represent the views of the author and not necessarily those of Secret China.