Soundings, February 2002

The revolution has fizzled, or so it seems. The renewed embrace of government that leftist columnists rushed to proclaim has collapsed, and for just the reason that rightists predicted. Following September 11, the American public did not suddenly believe that omnicompetent planners inhabited Washington. The public simply trusted that its government would get serious and concentrate on what governments do best: providing security and justice.

An ABCNEWS poll finds that "the public by a wide margin does trust the federal government when it comes to handling national defense and the war on terrorism." But "when it comes to social issues, Americans' distrust of the government runs high. This result calls into doubt reports of a fundamental change in views of the government since Sept. 11."

"ABCNEWS tested the issue with two questions: Half the respondents in this poll were asked if they trust the government to do what's right 'when it comes to handling national security and the war on terrorism.' Sixty-eight percent said yes. The other half were asked if they trust the government to do what's right 'when it comes to handling social issues like the economy, health care, Society Security, and education.' Far fewer—38 percent—said yes.

When one looks at the views of party members the figures are initially paradoxical. As one might expect, trust in the government's ability to handle national security is strongest among Republicans (80 percent) and Independents (72 percent). But it is a trust shared by 62 percent of Democrats. The paradoxical part is that trust in government to handle social issues is also highest among Republicans (48 percent), lower among Independents (37 percent), and lowest among Democrats (32 percent). The explanation, one might speculate, is what Republicans and Democrats think of when contemplating the Bush administration's "handling" of social issues. With regard Social Security, for example, they may be thinking of partial privatization. Obviously, that would evoke feelings of trust among Republicans and mistrust among Democrats. Were a Gore administration in power, "handling" social issues would mean something quite different, and reactions by Republicans and Democrats would also tend to be quite different.

Nicholas D. Kristof, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the massacre in Tiananmen Square, now writes for the New York Times's oped page on the foreign-policy implications of America's war on terrorism. For his January 18 column, Kristof examined the attitude that China's best and brightest young people took toward the terrorist attack on America. The results, as he makes clear, should be extremely disturbing for those who expect China's de-communization and economic liberalization will bring about bourgeois, anti-collectivist, and peace-loving society:

"As soon as the two planes hit the World Trade Center, Chinese Internet users logged into online chat rooms to discuss the terror attacks.

"'Just one word: cool!' says the first of 6,000 comments on the attacks in a chat room on Sina.com, a leading Chinese-language portal. 'Now the day has come for the American dogs.'

"'Why not the White House?' asks another a moment later. The gleeful declarations come in a rush.

"'Excellent! . . . '

"'Just great. Really fantastic. Serves 'em right.'

"'So cool to see America bombed. . . .'

"'I'm waiting for the third plane, the fourth plane, the fifth plane, the sixth plane. Ha, ha!'

"Not until the forty-fourth message is there a reproach. . . .

"To anyone who deeply loves China, as I do, it is devastating to see how the deaths of thousands of Americans left many people here chortling. . . .

"There is something going on here, something more complex—and, to me, far more worrying than simply schadenfreude at seeing America humbled. It is a rapidly increasing Chinese nationalism.

"This nationalism has deep roots in China and results in part from the battering that the country at foreign hands over the last 200 years. But the latest surge in nationalism is the result in particular of 'patriotic' campaigns planned by President Jiang since 1990 as a way of knitting together the country, of providing a new 'glue' for China to replace the discredited ideology of communism. . .

"Why is this a risk? Think of Japan, where nationalism combined with an economic boom to help lead to the Asian half of World War II. Or of Germany, where a similar combination helped cause World War I. . . . Elsewhere in the world, we were far too late in recognizing the way movements in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan arose to preach intolerance and hatred. In China it is still early enough to reshape this nationalist tide."