Word: fairbanks
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Cultural differences between the United States and East Asia contribute to stalemate and frustration on both sides and make an end to the Vietnam War more difficult, John K. Fairbank '29, director of the East Asian Research Center, has written in a Washington Post article earlier this week...
...problem, Fairbank writes, is the American reliance on negotiations and legal procedures. "We feel," Fairbank writes, "that negotiation is a legal process in which the rights of both sides may be respected and a mutual agreement arrived...
...Fairbank writes that the Chinese have traditionally emphasized moral principles, not legal processes, and "they are more accustomed to government by elites who invoke these moral principles and values, and to mediation of disputes by third parties and upper class figures...
...Fairbank: I think we've got every possibility if we can maintain a correct posture--get into a better posture--to sit tight within certain limits and wait for a break, wait them out. This is not our strong point. We're all for action. We're people who want to get results, and waiting out the Chinese revolution is a tough assignment...
...Fairbank: The Vietnam war, of course, has become a focus for the line-up against Peking, and vice-versa--the occasion on which we glare at each other. If there weren't the Vietnam war, what would there be in place of it? You'd expect that there would be something. And the mood in Peking, at the moment, of pushing into Burma and Nepal, and all these various things, suggests that the Chinese side would not be content with an American presence in say, Thailand, even if it were not in Vietnam. The problem is to choose your ground...