Equitable distribution of human nobility.

Despair not. Kaiser Kuo does not believe Chinese and Americans are doomed to an eternity of enmity. There is also equitable distribution of human grace and nobility.

“I feel a real stake in this, as a bicultural Chinese-American. What I feel about both America and China goes beyond empathy, it goes to identification. When the United States does something good and noble, I feel that stirring pride. I feel the same thing when China does something good and noble. For example, I was around in the Bay area after the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 when San Franciscans pulled together in enormous civic pride, and they rebuilt their city. It was really something to see.

“Last year, in May, I saw my friends in Beijing pile into their Jeeps with extra blankets and sleeping bags and head to Wenjiang in
Szechuan Province, where the earthquake had killed 100,000 people, I felt this welling up of Chinese pride. When I read about Abu Ghraib, when I read about Guantanamo, I feel deep shame as an Amerian. When I read about all sorts of unspeakable human rights violations that have occurred under Beijing’s auspices, I feel the same sort of deep national shame.

“But I take encouragement from conversations in the real world. Not the online world, where you’re hiding behind a shield of anonymity, where nothing you say you’re really accountable for. Conversations that take place face to face tend to be a whole lot more civil and more polite. We find ways to agree, even if it’s to agree to disagree.

“Like it or not, during the next three or four decades, we’re going to be living in a bipolar world. It’s my sincere hope that this world does not suffer from bipolar disorder.”