Can China help itself when smaller neighbours defy its will? For me, Beijing’s behaviour over the past couple of years conjures up the classic Aesop fable ‘The Scorpion and the Frog.’ Like most such tales, it’s short yet rich in substance:
‘A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, ‘How do I know you won’t sting me?’ The scorpion says, ‘Because if I do, I will die too’.
‘The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp, ‘Why?’
‘Replies the scorpion: ‘It’s my nature...’
The author has a point. But he is mistaken to frame the issue in the sense that the Chinese might do something against their better interests, so presumably we must be prepared should they do so. That is too America-centric. The fact is that we can only say China wouldn't do something out of self interest if China was ruled by Americans who see the world the same way. The simple fact is that even this attempt to adapt the fable is mirror-imaging the Chinese. Don't assume that what we believe is in China's interest (and what is not) is how China views the world.
I mean, if the scorpion is part of a family of scorpions that fears the frog as a mortal threat to their nest, killing the frog at the price of but one of the nest's scorpions doesn't defy logic and reflect a blind obedience to nature. It makes perfect sense.
China isn't a scorpion. They just aren't us.
