China's old world order.

• Author: Howell, Llewellyn D.

CHINESE LEADERS exercise authority today in very much the same manner they have over the last 5,000 years. Heavenly authority pronounces; mans acts in response to the command. "Man" in this case means all humans, not necessarily just those who are identifiably Chinese. While Chinese culture distinguishes between those who are Chinese and those who are not, it doesn't do so between those who are subject to rule. All are. It's just that some are in the Middle Kingdom and many are outside it. When some are allowed in from the outside, as was the case with delegates to the September, 1995, conference on women, they all are subject to the Chinese concept of rule and sovereignty, not that of the United Nations or any Western state.

Those who are in the center are identified racially. Passports and national boundaries as lines on maps (or even on the ground) are Western--and therefore alien--concepts. Despite some clear differences among Chinese--including one based on color--such distinctions are nothing compared to that between the Chinese and others. American Chinese or Malaysian Chinese are seen as Chinese first and the nationality second. It is a concept that needs to be understood clearly by outsiders dealing with the Chinese.

It is the fear of the Malaysian government (primarily Malays) that Malaysian Chinese are clearly Chinese first, either in their own or in Chinese government eyes. The Chinese government claims that all of the South China Sea, into Indonesian waters thousands of miles away, belongs to and is a part of China. This sends chills down the spines of Vietnamese, Thais, Malaysians, and other Southeast Asians. It should send a chill down the spines of Americans, French, and others as well.

The border disputes with India are on hold for the moment, more because China is preoccupied with other matters than because of any Chinese shyness regarding sovereignty with respect to claims in the Himalayas. Both China and India claim a Himalayan landscape known as the Sumdurong Cho sector, lying between northeast India and Tibet, an area nearly as large as nearby Bangladesh and a potential source of great amounts of hydroelectric power. Although India is content to join China in backing away while both face other more immediate challenges, there is no question that the Chinese claim is at least as strong as its claim to the South China Sea and that, in the longer term, China will come back to the issue.

In the longer term, China will be...