I Can't Become Chinese

Why I Just Can't Become Chinese

The contributions of Chinese Americans underscore a great U.S. advantage—and the limits of China's rise.

By Eric Liu

Aug. 29, 2014 1:32 p.m. ET

 

From left, former Ambassador Gary Locke, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, restaurateur Eddie Huang and labor activist Ai-jen Poo. Photo Illustration by Sean McCabe; ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images (Gary Locke); Reuters (Tony Hsieh); Associated Press (Eddie Huang); Getty Images (Ai-jen Poo)

Try as I might, I just can't become Chinese.

It started as a thought experiment: I wondered what it would take for me, the son of Chinese immigrants, to become a citizen of China. So I called the nearest Chinese consulate and got lost in a voice mail maze with nobody at the end. The consulate's website explained the process for getting visas but not for naturalization.

Then I realized why it was so difficult to get an answer: Beijing doesn't ever expect to hear from foreigners who want to become Chinese citizens.

As it turns out, a naturalization procedure is found under China's Nationality Law. But precious few people pursue it: The 2000 Chinese census counted just 941 naturalized citizens.

But let's say that I decided to become fluent in Mandarin, brush up my knowledge of Chinese history and culture, move to China and live the rest of my life there. Even then, even with thousands of generations of Chinese genes behind me, I would still not be accepted as truly Chinese.

All this crystallized for me why, in this supposed age of a rising China and a declining U.S., we Americans should worry a bit less. No matter how huge China's GDP gets, the U.S. retains a deep, enduring competitive advantage: America makes Chinese Americans. China doesn't make American Chinese.

China also isn't particularly interested in making American Chinese. It isn't in China's operating system to welcome, integrate and empower immigrants to redefine the very meaning of Chinese-ness. That means that China lags behind the U.S. in a crucial 21st-century way: embracing diversity and making something great from many multicultural parts.

Consider, for instance, the way that a Chinese state media organ earlier this year mocked the departing U.S. ambassador, Gary Locke, as a "banana": yellow on the outside, white on the inside. What did Mr. Locke—the first Chinese American ambassador to Beijing, Eagle Scout, former governor and cabinet secretary—do to earn such an epithet? Merely his job: representing U.S. interests and values even when they conflicted with China's.

The episode suggested that some ruling elites in China were unwilling or unable to distinguish between someone Chinese and someone Chinese American. The premise of the "banana" diatribe was that an ethnic Chinese—even one born and raised in the U.S.—must be essentially loyal to the Chinese motherland. That assumption could be called romantic or racial. It can't be called modern. 

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