Mission: China
by Michael Maiello

If you're under twenty-five, you're part of a new .03. Not quite that Generation X which left college under the veil of the Cold War. Not quite those young people who left college still able to draw the Iron Curtain over the windows of world affairs. No, we are the Post-Cold War Gen X'ers.

We have much in common with that famed generation of slackers who have since gone onto to gainful employment with Wired magazine. We have endured the same economic stagnation. We have endured the same confusion about what to do with our lives. Sure, we all watched Reservoir Dogs together, and we all watched as Quentin Tarantino fell from movie messiah to mediocre film hack. But we don't share the Cold War anymore. When we younger people read Douglas Coupland, author of that infamous novel Generation X which brought the term to popularity, we arenot quite so impressed by reading characters muse about where they would be when the nuclear missiles started landing.

There are now a whole group of young people for whom the Cold War ended with High School. We didn't go to college with the fear of nuclear hostility held over our heads. For us, being in the wrong Federal building when some domestic terrorist decides to test his lawn fertilizer is a more real fear than global nuclear conflict.

We, the younger brothers and sisters of Generation X, are the generation which might actually change the patterns which have dominated the twentieth century in America. As we grow older and earn positions of stature, we could possibly end the military/industrial complex which made the Cold War a fifty year long reality for so many. We might be more interested in making the United States a real participant in the United Nations. We might start normalizing relations with countries like Cuba, Viet Nam, and China. Because our formative years occurred without the threat of nuclear annihilation and the xenophobia which goes along with it, we might not experience knee jerk fear reaction every time we are confronted with another country's different political values.

We might. if we are vigilant.

We might also be the generation that repeats history, making the twenty-first century a total heir to its predecessor. Already, I hear murmurs of a new cold war. As Russia forges an alliance with NATO, the United States trembles at the prospect of a world without enemies. We have tried o hard, since the Cold War, to create enemies. Remember the PR campaign launched by our government which compared Saddam Hussein with Hitler? How we went to war for the freedom of Kuwait, lest Hussein conquer all the middle east as Hitler did Europe? But Saddam was not enemy enough. The Gulf war was won so quickly that it was forgotten a year later. George Bush couldn't even use his victory to launch a successful reelection campaign.

Over the next few years, those in power will offer us many new enemies. A people united against another are easier to control. The apathy and passivity of the American people during the eighties came from our united front against those evil Russians. Those in power would very much like to recreate that situation, And they have a target.

China, a great communist power with nuclear weapons at its command, looms in the East. The Russians, our new friends, hate the Chinese. The Chinese are responsible for numerous violations of human rights, from Tibet to Tianamen Square. Sure, we ignored those infractions during the Cold War. But then, we couldn't be squabbling with China while we were baring our fangs on the Soviet beast, could we?

China paranoia is already on the rise. That some Chinese businessman might have donated money to Bill Clinton's presidential campaign has thrown commentators into conniption fits. Never mind that donations from tobacco companies probably have more impact in terms of buying influence and undermining our system. Never mind that large American corporations generally donate money to both parties, so that they have influence all around. Never mind that every time I watch a TV news program I find out that it's been sponsored by ADM, "Supermarket to the World." Never mind that our system is decaying from within because we spend so much time looking abroad. When the Oklahoma Federal Building blew up, the whole country wanted to know which Arab did it.

We are so willing to point the finger at other countries. China is a likely alternative for our stern finger and missile guidance systems. A new Cold War means new jobs creating new weapons. Another economic boom. More shopping malls, BMWs, and Rubik's Cubes. More eighties. Another era of preparing for a fight that will never happen. Mutually Assured Destruction keeps us all safe, while building weapons keeps us all prosperous. Those hideous acts of Chin's which we once ignored make them our mortal enemies.

But the answer is not to immediately start palling around with China. We can't. As long as China is torturing Tibetans, they cannot be our best friends. Just beware the path our leaders choose for us. We don't want our children practicing bomb drills in school, and worrying about the a rain of Chinese missiles. We are the first to enter the world with the Iron Curtain drawn. For us, the rerelease of Star Wars, means a movie, not the deployment of some laser powered satellite weapons platform. We can alter the old patterns, with our votes and voices. So be careful over the next few years, and every time you see news about the "growing threat of China" promise to laugh out loud. Let's not fall for the same old trick again, okay?

Michael Maiello recently escaped an institution for centrallized learning and is contemplating what move to make next. We'll keep you posted.

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