By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
BEIJING
If
anti-Americanism is on the rise around the world, no one
told
the kids in the student visa line at the U.S. Embassy
in
Beijing. The quest among Chinese students for visas to
study
in America, say U.S. Embassy officials, has become so
intense
that it has spawned Internet chat rooms, where
Chinese
students swap stories about which arguments work
best
with which U.S. consular officials and even give them
names
like "Amazon Goddess," "Too Tall Baldy" and "Handsome
Guy."
Just
how closely Chinese students strategize over the
Internet
on how to get visas to America - at a time when
fewer
are being given for security reasons - was revealed
to
the embassy recently when on one day one consular
officer
had scores of students come through with the same
line,
which some chat room had suggested would work: "I
want
to go to America to become a famous professor." After
hearing
this all day, he was surprised to get one student
who
came before him and pronounced, "My mom has an
artificial
limb and I want to build a better artificial leg
for
my mom and that is why I want to study in the U.S." The
consular
officer was so relieved to hear a new line that he
told
the young man: "You know, this is the best story I've
heard
this morning. I really salute you. I'm going to give
you a
visa."
You
guessed it. The next day every other student who showed
up at
the embassy said he or she wanted to go to America to
learn
how to build "a better artificial limb for my
mother."
Said one U.S. official: "We have to be so careful
what
we say, because it gets into the chat rooms right
away."
Hearing
stories like this, you have to wonder: are Bush
officials
right when they dismiss all of this talk that
President
Bush has made America more unpopular in the world
now
than at any other time in postwar history? Do people
really
hate us? Don't those visa lines say otherwise? This
is
worth a closer look.
To
begin with, there a few "technical" reasons why
anti-Americanism
generally does not have the same edge in
Asia
as in Europe and the Middle East. Asia's leaders, as a
group,
have much more legitimacy than leaders in the Arab
world,
either because they have come to power through free
elections
or because they have delivered on their core
promise
to their people of economic growth. Because of
that,
they don't need to demonize America regularly to
deflect
their people's anger from them. Also, Asia
generally
is focused like a laser on economic development -
and
countries like China see investment and technology
transfer
from America as critical to their growth. "People
in
Asia do not hate the United States," Singapore's elder
statesman,
Lee Kuan Yew, said to me. "Big countries like
China
and India are focused right now on their economic
development
and they see in America an enormous well to
draw
technology and economic growth from."
But
here's the problem: Young people want American
education
and technology more than ever, but fewer and
fewer
want to wear our T-shirts anymore - want to be
identified
as "pro-American." As one former U.S. diplomat
in
Beijing put it to me: "They want to cherry-pick us, not
line
up with us. We've lost prestige."
The
idea of America as the embodiment of the promise of
freedom
and democracy - not just of technology and high
living
standards - is integral to how we think of
ourselves,
but it is no longer how a lot of others think of
us.
They are now compartmentalizing. The unilateral war in
Iraq,
the postwar mess there, the walk-away from Kyoto and
other
treaties, the Abu Ghraib scandal have taken a toll.
The
idea of America as embodying the charisma of democracy
has
been damaged. As the political theorist Yaron Ezrahi
put
it, "America as the do-gooder has been hurt, but
America
as the goods-doer is still there."
Fortunately,
this situation is not irreparable. The longing
for
an America that exports hope, not fear, and that is an
example
of the best global practices and values, runs
really
deep in the world. In fact, it is one reason that
some
people abroad are so angry with President Bush -
because
they blame him for taking that America away from
them.
I'm convinced a different approach or different
administration
would elicit a big response from the world.
But for
now, we will pay a price, because when people want
to
line up for our visas but not for our policies, it means
Americans
alone will have to bear the burden and the price
of
those policies.
That
is not good for us. When you lose your status as a
power
with values, you weaken your ability to fight those
powers
without values.