Five Questions: Dennis Hickey

Dennis Hickey, professor of political science and director of Missouri State University’s graduate program in international affairs, was appointed to serve as a research associate at San Francisco State University’s newly established Center for U.S.-China Policy Studies. Hickey has extensive research in the field; he trained in U.S.-China and U.S.-Taiwan relations in graduate school and spent the 1989–90 academic year in China with the Johns Hopkins University Center for U.S.-China Relations.

Q: Why do China and the United States need each other?

A: China, as our current president has said, is ‘the most important country’ in the Asia-Pacific region. We need China’s cooperation to cope with a whole bunch of pressing global problems: terrorism, proliferation of (weapons of mass destruction), environmental degradation – and China is an (environmental) mess – health issues, dwindling energy supplies and the series of continuing crises on the Korean peninsula. The two sides are held together by a number of common interests.

Q: What’s changed in the way China does business, and what have we learned from it?

A: The Chinese are trying to learn more about the rule of law – how contracts actually mean something and that everything can’t be done under the table. Unfortunately, Americans are going to have to learn the other side of the coin: that wining and dining folks like we did in the 19th century is what gets things done in China. They have a word for it – guanxi – which means connections. Whether they’re connections to people in business, or in the party, or in the government, it makes a difference. It’s just the way things are done.

Q: And how has the Chinese market grown?

A: Five years ago, people viewed it as an export platform – you put your textile factory over there, you make cheap shoes and you ship them back to America. Today, because you’ve got a growing middle class that will be five times the size it is now within 20 years, people such as the South Koreans and the Japanese are looking at it as an actual market – they put their factories in there and actually sell to the Chinese. Bank of America is going in, Starbucks is going to China – they only have room for maybe 1,000 more (stores) in the U.S. and that’s it. China is their future. I think it’s an unparalleled opportunity for American businesses.

Q: What poses the biggest threat to U.S.-China relations?

A: It’s the Taiwan issue. Fortunately, it appears that both sides are working to manage this relationship better. There are even some positive signals that China might finally be taking America’s advice and looking at the issue more creatively. They’re maintaining the status quo.

Now, when Taiwan does something controversial, China doesn’t scream at Taiwan anymore – they phone Washington and then Bush screams at Taiwan. They’ve learned. I think the Bush administration has been doing an excellent job. They’ve managed to keep good relations with China and Taiwan at the same time and managed to keep a lid on this potential World War III.

Q: During your time living in China, what surprised you most?

A: I think I had a unique perspective in being able to live there, because my wife is from Taiwan – she’s nationalist Chinese. Her family moved to Taiwan with the national government in 1949. So we were able to visit relatives and old family friends, and learn more about how people really lived and conditions and about what had gone on in the past. Some of what we saw was not always real pleasant. We could get in and see things that the average visitor or tourist never saw – get an appreciation for the real way of life there. But again, today you see that things have improved a lot.