The American Congress has named another Select China Committee. The main purpose of the Committee doesn’t appear to be to understand China: so far it doesn’t have many people with first-hand experience in China or even with a knowledge of the Chinese language. Its purpose instead is probably to act as an in-house inquisition reminding the American people and the world at regular intervals of all the wicked things China is up to. It reminds Talleyrand of the famous Jackson Committee (actually Subcommittee) during the Cold War, led by the Senator from Boeing, Scoop Jackson and the home of the neoconservatives. It had a great deal of power, not just over appropriations, appointments, and budgets, but also over the tone, the discourse, and the temperature of the Cold War. It also served at least one more useful purpose: foil, or what Americans like to call the ‘bad cop’. Diplomats would sometimes say, ‘you know, we’d really like to make that concession or conclude that agreement, but we can’t: Jackson would eat our lunch… but, if you could perhaps give us just a bit more…’ etc. Maybe that little pheonomenon will repeat itself. But, who today is playing the ‘good cop’? |