Fairbank Says Cultural Gap Causes Stalemate

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.

One 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 at."

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."

Because of this, the idea of negotiation is not highly esteemed on its legal merits since the parties cannot assume that they have certain basic legal rights assured, Fairbank writes. He continues: "Consequently, when we urge negotiations upon Hanoi, we are not aware of the lower valuation put upon the word in their tradition." Negotiation is viewed, Fairbank explained, as an alternative or even an adjunct to the use of force in conflict resolution.

He writes that coming to the conference table does not mean leaving the battlefield. The struggle goes on.

According to Fairbank, another important cultural barrier is our inability to understand the importance of "face" or personal prestige as a motive force in everyone's life in East Asia.

If a ruler is shown up as stupid, foolish, ineffective, or evil, Fairbank maintains, then the moral basis of his authority is undermined and he may lose power.

Fairbank says that "the upshot of these considerations is that when we ask for negotiations we are not offering as much as we think we are, and when we endanger the face or prestige of the opposing power we are threatening it more than we realize."

The first necessity in dealing with East Asia. Fairbank writes, is to break away from the limited viewpoint which our own culture imposes upon us. Fairbank says that we "have to put our message in the terms of the other culture if we want to get it across."