Abstract

Learning About China

The U.S. has become increasingly aware of China. Sadly, however, this new awareness has not grown out of a fascination and concern for a nation which has chosen to modernize in a way unfamiliar to others. U.S. interest in China, long smothered by the sense of betrayal at the "loss of China" to the Communists, by McCarthyism and by the Korean War, has been revived out of fear of that country and the threat which it is said to pose to our own national security. People study China, not because it is instructive and interesting as they might study Western Europe or their own history but because it is an enemy. It has been assumed that China, by nature of being Communist, cannot be other than our enemy. It has been in terms of our urgent need to understand an implacable foe that China has been presented to high school students learning about Asia for the first time.