Who the heck is Hu? If you’ve been paying attention to current events this past week, you’d notice that two main news stories have been soaking up most of the oxygen. First, there’s been all the talk about Democrats and Republicans playing nice in the wake of the Tucson shootings, and perhaps even sitting next to each other during President Obama’s State of the Union Address Tuesday night. This is ironic, given that the new GOP House majority seems hell-bent on waging retroactive mortal combat over virtually everything the President has accomplished in the previous two years.
And speaking of bitter rivals playing nice, news story number two focused on Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington, D.C., inviting a collective yawn if not the faintest hint of nostalgia. Let’s just say that being a superpower just isn’t the same without having the Soviet Union to kick around anymore.
It used to be simple, black hat, white hat type stuff. We were the good guys, the Soviets were the villains, and there wasn’t a heck of a lot of wiggle room in between. Our summits with the Soviets used to draw wall-to-wall media attention. We knew their leaders as well as we knew our own. Khrushchev banged his shoe and Kennedy shooed him out of Cuba. Nixon and Brezhnev went eyebrow to bushy eyebrow. Gorbachev and Reagan became best buds even as Gorby presided over the unexpected if welcomed collapse of his “Evil Empire…” and it’s never been the same since.
Back in the day, our proxy wars around the world with the Soviets were deadly, even though troops from the two countries weren’t shooting directly at each other. Even our athletic competitions were epic events, with the Soviets winning tarnished Olympic basketball Gold over the Americans in 1972 when the refs in Munich gave them three shots at it; or the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” when the American hockey team shocked the Soviets…in the semi-final round. No one remembers who they beat to actually win the Gold.
But then Solidarity in Poland combined with Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost; a perfect storm whose tidal surge eventually swept away Euro-Asian communism in the sort of reverse Domino-Effect those American leaders in the ‘60s could only dream about. Good for us, good for the Russians, and good for a global population that no longer had to worry – as much – about their planet being incinerated in a barrage of mushroom clouds.
But we seem to be built on the binary system. Apparently we crave the simplicity and neatness of two opposing sides locked in a blood-feud; Democracy vs. Communism, Pepsi vs. Coke, Red vs. Blue, the Bears vs. the Packers, and so forth.
As such, we’ve spent the years since the collapse of the USSR searching for a surrogate. Putin helps, because let’s face it, it was tough to demonize the Russians with Yeltsin in charge, but it’s still just not the same. So, we’ve tried to make do, elevating a rotating assortment of not-quite-ready for primetime players to Public Enemy #1 status the way a football coach without an all-star running back rushes the ball by committee. Iraq’s been the bête-noir a couple of times, North Korea makes a handy foil, and Iran might make a good sparring partner, but China seems to be the current nominee.
They’re not a new rival, with America sworn to defend the Republic of China’s democratic government in Taiwan against a communist invasion from the mainland since the 1950s, and Chinese support of North Korea remains a nagging thorn in our side. Then there was the tragic Tiananmen Square protest back in 1989, which recaptured our attention, but only briefly.
It doesn’t help that with the possible exception of Chairman Mao, none of their leaders have exactly been household names; in fact we sometimes don’t even know who their leaders are. As Wikipedia so succinctly put it, “…in 1982, China perceivably had four main leaders: Hu Yaobang, the Party General Secretary; Zhao Ziyang, the Premier; Li Xiannian, the President; and Deng Xiaoping, the ‘Paramount Leader,’ holding title of the Chairman of the CMC.” The Chinese didn’t make it easy to know who to get mad at.
But now the People’s Republic of China has but a single leader. The President of China isn’t democratically elected, of course – that whole “People’s Republic” part of the name only goes so far, after all -- but Hu Jintao has held the job since 2003. While Russia continues to atrophy, the Chinese economy, population and global influence are growing by the day and they are rapidly developing the military and technological sophistication to match.
Ultimately, if America has been craving a worthy foil, China just might fit the bill…which means we better be careful what – or “Hu” -- we wish for.
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