Given the daunting complexities of U.S.-China relations, what would be the crucial component necessary to bring about progress? We posit that the crucial necessary component is a mutual trust in each other.

 

How do we, all private citizens, help build mutual trust between our two countries?  We suggest that we begin, at the foundational people-to-people level, working at the cultural level, with a three-step process:

Mutual Understanding — Let us now return to the twin gates at the Chinese Heritage Foundation festival, A Passage to China and unpack the meanings of the names of those gates. The first one is the Gate of Mutual Understanding 互諒 [hù liàng].

互, the Chinese character for ‘Mutual’ — If you were to put a pin in the middle of this character and then bisect it into two halves in any direction, you would find that the resulting halves would always be perfect mirror images of each other. This is the true concept behind the Chinese character 互. It represents two absolutely equal halves.

諒 [liang], the Chinese character for ‘Understanding’ — Frequently used together with the character 解, the term 谅解means that having understood the situation thoroughly, you will now excuse / pardon the other side’s ignorance that had led to the misunderstanding in the first place. There is action involved in mutual understanding, and it goes both ways.

Understanding the fundamental differences in historical practices between how China, through its tributary system, and European countries, through their colonialism, have treated foreign lands and their native peoples, and taking thoughtful appropriate actions, would go a long way towards cooling current tensions in many parts of the world.  

We have now arrived at the true meaning of mutual understanding and the way forward to requisite action.

Mutual Courtesy — The second gate at A Passage to China was the Gate of Mutual Courtesy 互讓 [hù ràng].

讓, the Chinese character for ‘Courtesy’ — Confucian etiquette dictates that to show courtesy, you will defer to the other party to lead the first step. Both the U.S. and China now will extend to each other the mutual courtesy of deferring to the other side to lead the first step.  

Often the first step is simply to take a half step back and tone down one’s current rhetoric, as advocated by China experts including John Thornton and Kirsten Gunness. As an example, if the U.S. would tone down its concrete clarity in announcing military support of Taiwan, China would not be sending its war planes over the Taiwan Strait.

The applied practice of Mutual Understanding and Mutual Courtesy will then lead us to:

Mutual Trust  互信 [hù xìn] — A case study can best illustrate this step. Invited by the Chinese government, Ecolab, based in St. Paul Minnesota, took on the huge task of purifying Shanghai’s drinking water during the 2010 Shanghai Expo. It succeeded spectacularly: there was not one case of a health issue that could be attributed to contaminated water. Local Shanghai residents appreciated the purified water so much that they requested their government to make it the city’s standard. Ecolab readily agreed to share its technology. Mutual trust had thus been established and both sides are now planning more collaborations that would benefit both sides, a win-win situation and a distant cry from the zero-sum game that has been advocated by hardliners.

Let us now dissect the Chinese character for trust [信].  The radical on the left side is a verticalized form of the character for humans: [人].A further look at all three Chinese characters for understanding [諒liang], courtesy [讓ràng], and trust [信xìn], would reveal that all of them contain the Chinese radical for mouth, [口]. It means all three of these actions require peoples (human beings) talking to / communicating with each other. They require in-person dialogues. We are heartened to see that at the highest diplomatic levels between the United States and China, this type of dialogue has already begun. 

         A Dynamic Equilibrium — When we, on a people-to-people basis, have built mutual trust with each other, we will be able to discuss any topic that concerns us, express and respect our different views, seek common ground, and come to an agreement – perhaps only a tentative one at the moment, but one that we can revisit down the road because we have trust in each other. The situation is a dynamic one. It can change when other factors change, but secure in our trust of each other, we will not feel threatened. Rather, we will be open to change and reconsideration. Over time, with so many areas covered and kept in perspective, with much give and take, we will have dug a deep well from which to draw equanimity. Our relationship will remain stable and, in an equilibrium, dynamic and able to accommodate fluctuations.