Lynch Lecture 2011: Reflections

Ms. Yasmina Mrabet, editor of the S-CAR Newsletter, has invited me to comment on the 23rd Annual Lynch Lecture, “Peacemaking and Development: China’s Role in the World.” The lecture was presented on Tuesday, 25 October 2011 at the Arlington Campus of George Mason University, by Mme. Yan Junqi, Vice Chair of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and Senior Vice President of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD).

My first observation is that Mme. Yan’s presentation, which lasted well over one hour, did not address “peacemaking” or any other aspect of the comprehensive subject matter dealt with by S-CAR faculty and students.  Mme. Yan’s comments were reflective of a political speech rather than a presentation in the spirit of the Lynch family that endowed S-CAR’s Lynch Chair and the Lynch Lecture to further the development and institutionalization of the multidiscipline of Conflict Analysis and Resolution locally, nationally, and globally.

As I departed Room 125 of Founders Hall, where the speech was made under tight security – the Chinese Ambassador was in the audience – I overheard a number of comments made by S-CAR students, suggesting that Mme Yan’s speech was either “boring” or an “exercise in propaganda” that no one in the audience, including a number of Tibetan-American women sitting in front of me, had a chance to refute. The Q & A period, lasting a relatively short time, was confined to only three questions, which were asked by S-CAR faculty trying to build upon Mme. Yan’s comments.

Both S-CAR Dean Dr. Andrea Bartoli and Lynch Professor Dr. Sandra Cheldelin, who had invited Mme. Yan to be this year’s Lynch Lecturer, had expected that Mme. Yan’s comments would be in keeping with the Lynch Lecture tradition. Drs. Bartoli and Cheldelin and a delegation of GMU/S-CAR faculty had met Mme. Yan in China in June 2010, during a visit hosted by the Chinese People’s Association of Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD) and sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), New England and Beijing Offices.

Adding to the post-speech “fallout,” two of the Tibetan-American women in attendance sent a letter to U.S. Congressman Gerry Connolly expressing disappointment and mentioning that “silent compliance with the Chinese leadership promoting their propaganda in our public institutions is not only a dangerous route for the United States to embark on, but also an insult to the countless Tibetans, Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, and Han Chinese human rights and democracy activists who paid with their lives to challenge [this] very propaganda.”

Given the perception that S-CAR was politically naive to expect anything other than what we heard from a high level official and former mayor of Shanghai in the presence of her country’s ambassador, one of three responses could be made to this PR challenge.

First, S-CAR could ignore Mme. Yan’s presentation to avoid making a difficult situation even worse.  This would not, however, be wise, especially in view of the letter sent to Congressman Connolly, which may represent the tip of the iceberg in public sentiments on the issue. Indeed, to not respond would be to make the situation worse.

Secondly, Dr. Bartoli could persuade GMU’s President Alan Merton to write a letter to the Chinese Ambassador, capturing the sentiments expressed in the letter written to Congressman Connolly, indicating GMU’s displeasure at having unwittingly provided a venue for political propaganda.  This, too, would not be wise, as it would likely destroy the relationship carefully cultivated between S-CAR and Mme. Yan and her colleagues.

A third response would be to take full advantage of the dualism inherent in the Chinese word for “crisis” (“opportunity”) and frame Mme. Yan’s lecture as one event among many in the development of a mutually satisfying relationship between S-CAR and Mme. Yan and her colleagues, especially those in the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD). Paraphrasing a comment emblematic of the financial crisis of 2008, China is too big to blow off: its citizens represent one-sixth of the world’s population; they are the world’s second largest economy and primary trading partner of the U.S., Brazil, European Union, India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others; they own a significant amount of American debt; they have brought more than 600 million of their people out of poverty during the past 30 years, an achievement unprecedented by any standard; and Mme. Yan and the CPAPD – and presumably the Chinese leadership – want to bring Conflict Analysis and Resolution to China.  Importantly, they have selected S-CAR to play a leading role in this endeavor.

So, with the first and second options having been eliminated from consideration, S-CAR is left with the third, which is compatible with S-CAR’s mission.  Our institutional objectives include, among other elements, reaching out to potential and actual parties to conflict in order to encourage them to shift from a narrow, virulent, zero-sum Realpolitik orientation to a collaborative problemsolving, positive-sum approach to their common security. The reason is practical rather than ethical: win-lose rationality often makes sense in the short run but tends to be counterproductive and self-defeating in the long run. Win-win rationality, by contrast, tends to lead to outcomes that endure into the long term.

As part of implementing the third option, I recommend that S-CAR propose to Mme. Yan and her colleagues that we collectively establish a “Working Group for Analyzing and Resolving Complex Common Problems.” One such problem is rising inequalities in both countries, their likely impact on societal unrest, and how best to deal with them. In the process of developing the Working Group’s agenda, the group could build sufficient trust and a collaborative working culture that increased the likelihood that issues of interest to Tibetans, Uyghurs, and others whose human rights have been disregarded, would be addressed without being perceived as “threatening” to the political leadership.

One way to facilitate this objective would be for S-CAR to work with its primary Working Group partner, the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD). Together they could develop and maintain a Conflict Early Warning System (CEWS), perhaps in Nanjing, China – site of massive atrocities during World War II – to assist the international community in identifying and responding to potential and actual violent conflicts globally. The momentum generated by this kind of collaborative work would likely spillover to each country addressing its own conflicts as well.

The mere existence of the Working Group would demonstrate that China is, indeed, what it claims to be – transitioning according to its own model of democracy, with all the ups and downs that typically accompany transitions from autocratic to democratic systems. The importance of China to global stability, prosperity, and peace is such that we have to be patient during the “downs” and build on the “ups,” while continuing to pay attention to those who are not yet benefitting from the “Chinese miracle.” Their grievances must be recognized and dealt with once Conflict Analysis and Resolution becomes fully institutionalized and embedded in the culture of the “new” China – one of S-CAR’s strategic goals for the 21st century! The reason is ethical as well as pragmatic: previously disenfranchised groups must be brought into the mainstream of the “new” China so that they have a stake in the system, thereby reducing the incidence and intensity of domestic conflict, and reinforcing China’s trajectory of developing further into all it can be – economically, socially, politically, and culturally!