Although the China model has generally called into question; although the epidemic has exposed China’s institutional deficiencies; and although the CCP propaganda has triggered negative impressions that are escalating, there are still some scholars in the West who are not supposed to be so wide-eyed still clinging to ingenuous fantasy about the CCP. One of them is Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the renowned American economist who has helped Eastern Europe and South American countries survive the economic crisis with “shock therapy”.

An illusion that China can shoulder responsibilities

In a recent interview with the BBC, Professor Sachs criticized the United States for launching a cold war against China to create divisions instead of cooperation. He said that if the United States stays put with its hostility towards China, the world cannot get back to normal. Then Professor Sachs put forward his expectations of China: "If China, as a powerful nation, adopts collaborative attitude towards diplomacy, regional cooperation and multilateralism, in other words – develops its soft power, Asia will have an incredibly bright future." Unsurprisingly, Professor Sachs's remarks are highly appreciated by the Chinese authorities. The Chinese official media covered it and quoted him, saying that Professor Sachs had become "a good friend of Chinese people."

I believe that Professor Sachs did not deliberately fawn on the CCP, but his comments are obviously awash with flaws. For example, when criticizing the United States for creating divisions, he did not mention CCP’s new "wolf warrior" diplomacy that tore the Sino-US relations apart; when he accused the United States of being hostile to China, he talked like he did not know how CCP propaganda created ridiculous public opinions in China that the United States is “determined to destroy China” and that the US Secretary of State has become “an enemy of humanity”. Isn’t this a kind of “hostility”? But Professor Sachs made no comments on all of this.

The typical naïve fantasy of a Western scholar is manifested in his expectations of the CCP that a powerful China can become a member of the international community, shouldering responsibility. To this end, Professor Sachs has shifted his outspoken attitude in lambasting the United States to a cautious, almost “pampering” tone in advising and inducing the CCP, with the hope that China will bring a bright future to Asia. With soldiers at the Indo-China border fighting with maces and stones and Chinese fighter jets persistently invading Taiwan's airspace, Professor Sachs’s expectation makes us totally bewildered.

Professor Sachs, and all those naïve Western scholars whom he represents, can be deemed an embodiment of a long-standing tradition. The core of this tradition is to set unrealistic expectations on a distant issue due to unfamiliarity with it. In 1982, famous American historian Schlesinger said after his visit to Moscow: "Those in the US who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready for one small push to go over the brink are wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves". History reveals that although he was more confident than the Soviet Communist Party at the time, the Soviet Union collapsed within 10 years.

Failure to see the evil in another contrasting system

Galbraith, another authoritative, influential economist in the West, also concluded with certainty in 1984: "The Russian system succeeds because, in contrast with the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower.” And Thurow, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had been saying this until the late 1980s: “Can a planned economy significantly boost economic growth? The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union has suggested that it can." These are prominent, solemn scholars. They are educated, not talk-show personalities who talk through their hats. Today as we review their comments, we can only feel sorry for them. And such regrets happen time and again, constituting a tradition. This is what we should mull over.

Western intellectuals are critical of the society and system where they reside, which is good. However, when criticizing the evil before their eyes, they fail to see the contrasting system that is even more evil.

(Wang Dan is founder of the think tank Dialogue China.)

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