Interdependent Development

Today, old friends will visit.  My classmate from grad school is a diplomat, with the Chinese Foreign Service, currently stationed in Berlin.  Back home, we insisted he and the family come by for a visit.  He thinks very quickly and speaks even faster about China’ international relations shifting constantly between Chinese and English. And I always come away from our discussions exhausted and feeling so much better about U.S. China relations and China’s future, in general. 

Our families drew close to one another when he was stationed in Japan.  I got to visit him a number of times and together we made sense of the regular kerfuffles in Sino-Japanese relations.  He was there with his family during the Fukushima disaster and his wife and kids were understandably nervous.  They came and stayed with us in Beijing for a number of months while things were sorted out in Tokyo.  And today the whole family will join us for this sunny Sunday.

We go at it back and forth for hours.  Is this rift I’ve read about between the president and the premier really irreparable?  Which of your immediate neighbors do you think China has made the most progress with towards establishing something trusting?  Do you see the TPP as an opportunity or a threat to China?  The answers are always candid, plausible, and err on the side of mature, interdependent development between the U.S. and China.  I always wonder if he is an outlier within the Ministry of if all the diplomats trend toward this philosopher-sage comportment.

Vietnam keeps coming up.  My friend and I think much of his countrymen have a deep if somewhat paternal respect for their indigestible southern neighbor.  He fully expects to see Vietnam but not necessarily many other southern neighbors, develop self-sustaining industry.  He makes a not too subtle face when we suggest a Pakistani lunch spot and so, perhaps appropriately enough we wind up at our local Vietnamese restaurant for Pho. 

Back home, his wife presented us with a painting she did of a plumb blossom, to match my wife’s Chinese name.  Simple, majestic, she explains that her teacher could do it in just a few minutes but that it took her more than an hour.  Their daughter has grown and suddenly become very talkative.  My daughters smother her with attention, recalling how they used to play when she was younger, only a few years ago.