By Jerome A. Cohen
The February 3 Wall Street Journal opinion piece entitled “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia” and the PRC’s consequent ouster of three WSJ China correspondents, calling the Journal “racist” have surely stimulated one of the more interesting debates encountered lately by those concerned with China. The topic is full of issues and ironies. Did the WSJ op-ed headline editor go too far in invoking an imperialist phrase from the distant past and giving it a catchy new meaning in the contemporary setting? Might the impact have been reduced had the title been recast as a question? Might the title have been less subject to attack if the underlying essay had discussed the coronavirus crisis now emanating from China rather than the fragility of the nation’s economy? How great would be the outcry over the perceived offense if the PRC had not chosen to mobilize its media at home and abroad to focus on this question rather than the immediately preceding United States government action requiring PRC reporters to register as foreign government functionaries or the rising criticisms of PRC handling of the virus crisis or the world’s growing worries over PRC political, economic and military influences? Is the PRC’s angry reaction an effort to divert national and international attention away from such substantive problems? To what extent was the PRC waiting to pounce on the WSJ, as well as other American media, for previous prohibited exposures of the financial dealings of the families of PRC leaders? How can the PRC and its supporters credibly invoke “racism” as the underlying motive for the offending headline? Can the WSJ’s support for the people of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet against PRC oppression be said to reflect “racism”? Are the heinous PRC efforts to “transform” many millions of Xinjiang Muslims “racist”? Are Han Chinese a “race”? Are they as “racist” as white Americans? Would it have been unwise self-censorship for the WSJ to refrain from a clever headline out of deference to a PRC that is increasingly seeking to repress freedoms of expression in other countries? Such questions deserve further discussion.