Not Zero-Sum: Perspective of an Ordinary Chinese American
In the era of Trump/Putin/Xi, an ordinary Chinese American's hope for solidarity (Chapter Eight)
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← Chapter Seven: Progress Zigzags
Chapter 8: Butterfly Effects
Whenever I’ve tried to capture the whole ordeal of the Trump presidency with words, I kept coming back to what a co-worker said back in 2016. With Obama still in office and the election undecided, Trump the candidate often came up as a lunch topic begging for attention. While many of us took turns expressing incredulity at his latest affairs in politics and magazines, one girl simply said “What a shit-show” and shook her head. A few years later, a good friend would utter the same remark followed by a head shake of his own. And as the political landscape devolved into a trial of endurance—a cruel joke testing how much you really believe—I knew exactly how they felt.
At some point, I found that by focusing on real, day-to-day interactions, I could lower the volume on the incessant noise streaming from the White House, finding shelter from the rain if not the dark clouds. In fact, when I zoomed in, Obama’s vision seemed to manifest everywhere I looked. Rainbow backgrounds brightened profile pictures, pronouns popped up in titles extending warm intentions, offices hummed with inconspicuous diversity, hands linked on street corners in universal love…
But if I was buoyed by the solidarity around me, I was also torn by a sense of lost opportunities and a foreboding of long-term consequences. Just as Obama’s appeals to people’s best instincts continued to inspire, I worried how Trump’s appeals to people’s worst instincts would metastasize, propelling America and the world toward rockier shores, even as we finally pulled the plug on the nonstop drama.
The 2020 election was both elation and relief. It was a moment of pure joy in the midst of tough times. As I watched people flood the city streets in spontaneous celebrations across the US and much of the Western world, I felt a connection to all the revelers. It reminded me of something a Turkish colleague once said to me: when people of different ethnic backgrounds who espouse tribalism (tribal superiority) get together, they want to fight each other despite their shared beliefs, and when people of different ethnic backgrounds who espouse diversity get together, we want to hug each other because of our shared beliefs—our faith in each other.
However, the election was not quite salvation. Spurned by the people, Trump turned to Pence for four more years. Pence left Trump and winked at integrity, thus defaulting on his Republicanship. Trump spoke to mob. Mob almost caught up to Pence. Two years later, these stories are recounted during the January 6th committee hearings by aides to senior officials—senior officials had collectively lost their memories.
Liz Cheney displays leadership and grasp of the larger picture at the hearings, thus defaulting on her Republicanship. Adam Kinzinger speaks the truth from the sideline, thus defaulting on his Republicanship. They are voted off the islands to make room for newcomers: Majorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. I think a time-traveling Lincoln may just get booted off the planet.
Internationally, the Trump presidency marked a significant loss of American prestige around the world as well as a shift in hostile target from Russia to China. By weakening NATO, pulling American troops out of Syria, and siding with Putin rather than US Intelligence in front of the world, Trump had succeeded in making Russia great again. The quid-pro-quo episode that held Ukraine’s security aid hostage also could not have projected confidence in America’s commitment to support Ukraine’s sovereignty. Meanwhile, perception of China among Americans had fallen from 47% disapproval to 73% disapproval despite almost no policy change toward the US initiated by China during the Trump presidency. The poisoning of public perception will hamstring the course of action American leaders can take on China going forward. Though President Biden had pronounced China an adversary and not enemy, he nevertheless cannot politically afford to appear soft on China. And so as the calendar flipped to 2022, despite raging inflation hammering average American households, the Trump tariffs on China remained—unrepealed and under evaluation.
2022 Winter Olympics
Compared with the 2008 summer games, the mood of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony was decidedly more somber. 2008 had felt like a warm, coming out party for China, while 2022 felt chilled and isolated—both from the physical setting as spectators social-distanced on a frigid night and from diplomatic posturing as the US and allies grew more critical toward China, pushing it closer to Russia, even as Russian troops perched precariously along the Ukrainian borders. As the athletes marched onto the field, they were greeted by a sparsely populated Bird’s Nest stadium including local spectators and foreign dignitaries, though many Western cohorts were conspicuously absent.
President Biden decided to boycott the games diplomatically because of China’s human rights issues in Xinjiang province—although I think the desire to project toughness on China had also been part of the equation. Australia, UK, Canada, and other allies soon joined the American-led protest in a display of multilateral alignment, and as Putin and Xi stood together prior to the games opening in a defiant response to the West, the world was divided.
One of the biggest controversies and sensations of the Winter Olympics was Eileen Gu, an 18-year-old skier born in the US of half Chinese descent, who had chosen to represent China at the games. Although Gu had grown up on the West Coast of the US, she also spent many summers in China and embraced its culture with a noted passion for Chinese food.
Contradicting the state of divisions among governments, Gu chose to compete for China because she wanted “to help inspire millions of young people” in China to participate in winter sports and “to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations.” As someone who also comes from a multicultural background, I can very much relate to the latter aspiration and was really glad to see her do well at the Olympics—going for a trick for the first time and landing it on sports’ biggest stage to capture gold is amazing, a feat that temporarily broke Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.
Rather than featuring her good intentions, the American media chose to focus on Gu’s citizenship status. To compete for China, she needed to be a Chinese citizen, and since China didn’t allow dual citizenship, she would had to relinquish her American citizenship. However, that didn’t appear to be the case; it seemed that China had made an exception that allowed Gu to be both American and Chinese in passport ownership, in addition to self-identification. Though I disagreed with the press’s angle of coverage, I would love to see China extend this liberty to everyone: the possibility of not having to choose between heritage and way of life, the opportunity to build goodwill bridges around the world, and the empowerment of millions of unofficial ambassadors, living proofs that China’s relationship with other nations is not zero-sum.
Another sensation at the games was Su Yiming, a 17-year-old child actor turned skateboarder, who was better known in China. A judging error had potentially robbed Su of his first Olympic gold medal in the slopestyle event, but he didn’t complain, displaying excellent sportsmanship, and it was awesome to watch him come back and capture gold at the big air event.
Su’s journey, following his passion from child actor to extreme sports, seemed a most unlikely path for a Chinese youth. Based on the childhood environment I had known in China spanning the late 1980s and the early 1990s, it was hard to imagine anyone having the flexibility to pursue an unconventional interest that was not academic-related so early in life. The prospect of younger generations charting their own path would be a welcoming development, a boon as a result of China’s progress toward prosperity, and a reason to be optimistic about China’s future. Sometimes, I feel like that’s what gets lost in the rhetorics of containing China among American politicians—that it also means containing the aspirations of 1.4 billion people.
While the aims of the people were growing more united across oceans and continents, the interests of world leaders stubbornly strayed from common goals. The end of the Olympic games was what Putin had waited for to start a full-scale invasion. Despite touting a theme of unity throughout the games, China adopted a path of less tolerance under Xi. In the US, Trump’s chants continued to reverberate: Make America Great Again, dead people voted; Make America Great Again, find me 11,000 votes.
Reflections
On a personal level, I had experienced what Jack Ma and others had warned: the mistakes, disappointments, setbacks, unfairness, bad luck that are inevitable in every life, coupled with my own laundry list of shortcomings and bad habits such that I often found myself struggling to maintain some sense of optimism, an endeavor made all the more difficult by Trump’s constant attempts to erode the advancement of humanity, media’s admirable but exhausting efforts to hold Trump and his enablers accountable.
It was in this trying environment, both macro and personal, that I came to formulate what faith meant to me. I began to focus more on the process—what work I had put in and how consistent the effort—and I became more appreciative of the good things in life: listening to MBA alumni share their experiences as if Dr. Strange had pressed the fast-forward button, making more friends on the basketball court even as my skills peaked and then began to regress, finding a partner that I can always talk to…
Without the 2016 election, I may have been content striving in my own pocket of the world. But as Trump’s influence expanded, I found an increasing desire to counter it. If 2008 helped me understand the potential of American democracy—how the dialogs of the people led to change—then 2016 made me more keenly aware of the role each individual has to shape the future. If no one concerns themselves with the larger picture, then the larger picture might turn against everything you care about—diversity, democracy, the fragile ties between the US and China…
Prior to Trump’s presidency, my career had come upon the choice of pursuing a MBA vs. a Master of Public Policy (MPP), two paths that shared similar tuition fees but would diverge upon graduation where the expected salary would either double or halve my previous income was only a slight exaggeration. I chose practically after some deliberations, simultaneously questioning whether I was a sellout and convincing myself that the relationship between the US and China could be impacted through the private sector too, and it was easier to move from the private sector to the public sector.
The MBA experience turned out to be both transformative and useful, especially for someone coming from an engineering background. Concepts like ownership, or making decisions by putting yourself in the shoes of the CEO, was empowering and rendered most job tasks more interesting. Networking provided the chance to practice people skills, a reawakening of sorts for me after years of engineering training motivated purely by logic. Business schools’ rehabilitated pitch to pursue something personally meaningful and make money as a byproduct was a good pivot from the greedy Wall Street stereotypes and a positive spin for my own story. The program I joined had been distinguished for its teaching, and it more than lived up to expectations; the dedication of the professors led to such lively discussions that classroom experiences sometimes felt like life experiences. I also very much enjoyed meeting and learning from talented classmates who hailed from different paths all over the world, and I often found myself inspired by their impassioned arguments for the principles they believed in, although I had trouble finding others who shared my specific interests. Whether it was the right decision I still don’t know—2016 had further complicated the equation.
What I do know is, as time passed by, the desire to do something greater than myself grew, counterbalancing the accentuated survival instincts that accompanied getting older. The gap between what the world is and what it could be served as a steadfast reminder. Disappointments and setbacks made me grateful to the people who encouraged my better impulses. Personal losses hit the hardest. It was as if all the colors of the world had drained, a slow and steady stream of black and white pictures passing by, while I remained still, immobile in the background. I became aware of the time limit on our existence and asked myself the question that when looking back at the end of life’s journey, what would I want to be able to say? I hope I can say that I remembered there’s always a choice, a choice to stay optimistic, to seek the best qualities in others, and to rise above adversity and circumstances, while maintaining individuality of mind, generosity of heart, and conviction of both. I hope I can say that I had stayed true to the path that Steven and others have highlighted for me, a path that transcends race, gender, sexual orientation, wealth, nationality, and everything that makes us different—a path that is larger than life.
Chapter Nine: Citizens of the World - The Ukraine War →
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Chapter Eight End Notes:
Internationally, the Trump presidency marked a significant loss of American prestige around the world - “The Trump era has seen a decline in America’s global reputation” by Richard Wike, Pew Research Center (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/19/the-trump-era-has-seen-a-decline-in-americas-global-reputation/)
Perception of China among Americans had fallen from 47% disapproval to 73% disapproval - “U.S. Perceptions of China in the Pandemic Era and Implications for U.S. Policy” by Patricia M. Kim, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2021/01/us-perceptions-of-china-in-the-pandemic-era-and-implications-for-us-policy?lang=en)
Gu chose to compete for China because she wanted “to help inspire millions of young people” in China to participate in winter sports and “to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations.” - “Olympics 2022: Freeski star Eileen Gu's delicate balancing act between China and the U.S.” by Alyssa Roenigk, ESPN (https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/33160624/olympics-2022-freeski-star-eileen-gu-delicate-balancing-act-china-us)
Su Yiming… child actor… judging error had potentially robbed of an Olympic gold medal, but he didn’t complain, displaying excellent sportsmanship - “Su Yiming: Former child actor grabs Beijing 2022 limelight” by Ben Morse, CNN (https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/15/sport/su-yiming-snowboarding-china-winter-olympics-spt-intl/index.html)