John Pomfret

from The Washington Post
Sunday, June 7, 2009

On June 14, 1989, I was in the Associated Press bureau in Beijing. I had just filed a story about the reopening of the U.S. Embassy in China’s capital. As the sun streamed through the office’s grubby windows, the phone rang.

“This is the police in charge of resident foreigners in China,” a male voice on the other end announced. “Are you Pan Aiwen?” He was using my Chinese name.

“Yes,” I replied.

“You are ordered to appear at our bureau immediately,” he said. Click.

Three days later, I was on a plane bound for Hong Kong, expelled from China. Officially, I stood accused of stealing state secrets and violating martial law provisions. My actual offense: I’d written about Tiananmen Square.

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from The Washington Post
Sunday, July 27, 2008; B01

Nikita Khrushchev said the Soviet Union would bury us, but these days, everybody seems to think that China is the one wielding the shovel. The People’s Republic is on the march — economically, militarily, even ideologically. Economists expect its GDP to surpass America’s by 2025; its submarine fleet is reportedly growing five times faster than Washington’s; even its capitalist authoritarianism is called a real alternative to the West’s liberal democracy. China, the drumbeat goes, is poised to become the 800-pound gorilla of the international system, ready to dominate the 21st century the way the United States dominated the 20th.

Except that it’s not.

Ever since I returned to the United States in 2004 from my last posting to China, as this newspaper’s Beijing bureau chief, I’ve been struck by the breathless way we talk about that country. So often, our perceptions of the place have more to do with how we look at ourselves than with what’s actually happening over there. Worried about the U.S. education system? China’s becomes a model. Fretting about our military readiness? China’s missiles pose a threat. Concerned about slipping U.S. global influence? China seems ready to take our place.

But is China really going to be another superpower? I doubt it.

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