T

he passage of a repressive 
law by China has showcased 
their growing international 
influence and the weakening of the 
United States on the world stage. On 
June 30, China’s government passed 
a highly repressive national secu-
rity law aimed at cracking down on 
anti-government sentiment in Hong 
Kong. This law follows a year of mas-
sive anti-government demonstra-
tions against the growing control 
that mainland China is exerting over 
Hong Kong, which is supposed to be 
semi-autonomous.
The new Chinese security law 
comes with harsh penalties including 
possible life in prison for grave dam-
age of government buildings and 
terrorism charges for anyone who 
sabotages transport and causes 
significant damage to property. 
Within days of the law going into 
effect, pro-democracy books were 
being pulled off the shelves and a 
man was arrested for having a pro-
independence flag.
The law also allows for residents of 
Hong Kong to be extradited to main-
land China in certain cases, where 
they would face a secretive and non-
impartial legal system. This will 
occur if it is deemed a “national secu-
rity case” or a complex case — these 
broad definitions will likely allow 
the Chinese government to prosecute 
anti-government activists through 
sham trials in mainland China. This 
directly contrasts the current legal 
system in Hong Kong, which ensures 
a fair and transparent trial. 
Following the passage of this law, 
there was a vote at the United Nations 
Human Rights Council to condemn 
this law. The list of which countries 
voted not to condemn China was a 
disturbing reminder of the growing 
influence of China, especially in Asia 
and Africa. China has used its wealth 
to invest in developing nations. How-
ever, this investment does not come 
without strings. Over 40 of the coun-
tries that voted not to condemn the 
law have also signed onto China’s 
Belt and Road Infrastructure proj-
ect, in which China lends money to 
countries to build roads and ship-
ping infrastructure with the hopes of 
creating interconnected worldwide 
trade routes for Chinese use. 
China is known to lend money to 
developing countries, especially in 
Africa. In 2018, it was reported that 
20 percent of African governments’ 
external debt was owed to China. 
Many of these nations have been 
unable to repay their debts, especial-
ly during the COVID-19 pandemic. 
This has led to fears that counties 

may feel more and more indebted to 
China and will be forced to support 
the country’s egregious policies. 
The growing international power 
of China, especially in Africa, has 
also been aided by the U.S.’s steady 
withdrawal from the international 
stage. Over the past few years, the 
Trump administration has promoted 
isolationist policies under the guise 
of America first. These policies range 
from slashing the United Nations 
budget to withdrawing from the 
Paris climate accord and instituting 
tariffs on our allies, including Can-
ada, Japan and the European Union. 
The Trump administration has 
also refused to be a leader at the Unit-
ed Nations. The U.S. is not a member 
of the UN Human Rights Council, 
which was the body that voted on the 
resolution to condemn China. The 
U.S., under orders from the Trump 
administration, 
withdrew 
from
the council after a disagreement 
about which other countries were 
allowed to join the council. While I 
admit that is absurd that countries 
such as Saudi Arabia are on this 
council, that does not mean that the
U.S. should have withdrawn. It is 
always better to have a seat at the 
table and use the power and influ-
ence of the U.S. to help advocate for
democratic values. 
The move towards isolation-
ism by the Trump administration 
has helped to create a vacuum that 
countries such as China and Rus-
sia are more than happy to fill. 
The growing sphere of influence 
of China and Russia in three devel-
oping countries is something that 
should concern all of us. 
The events of the past few months 
have put issues of justice, freedom 
and equality at the forefront of 
our national conversation. As we 
seek to emphasize these values, 
we must remember to look beyond 
our borders. Although these issues 
are oceans away from campus, we 
cannot turn a blind eye. The bla-
tant suppression of free speech and 
expression in Hong Kong is unac-
ceptable and must be opposed at 
all costs. We must also recognize 
the plight of countries that are los-
ing their autonomy to China. As we 
look to 2020, we must support can-
didates who understand the impor-
tance of international relations and 
recognize the power of the U.S. to 
use our influence to promote the 
values of freedom and democracy 
around the world. 

5

Thursday, July 9, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5

China’s expanding sphere of influence

ISABELLE SCHINDLER | COLUMNIST

Isabelle Schindler can be reached at 

ischind@umich.edu.

TUHIN CHAKRABORTY | COLUMNIST

L

ate this past June, four years 
after defending its namesake 
in spite of backlash from 
student activists, the Princeton Uni-
versity School of Trustees voted to 
remove former U.S. President Wood-
row Wilson’s name from its Public 
Policy school. The decision-makers 
cited this “searing moment in Ameri-
can History” (i.e. the fallout from the 
George Floyd shooting) as a wakeup 
call to choose a better role model for 
Princeton students. While statues and 
other monuments of racist and con-
troversial American historical figures 
have been being removed for months 
now, this is one of the first times 
a United States president has had 
their memorialization eliminated. 
Wilson is considered to be a well-
regarded president among historians. 
In 2017, historians participating in 
C-SPAN’s presidential survey ranked 
him the 11th best president in U.S. his-
tory (President Barack Obama was 
12th). His accomplishments include: 
leading the U.S. to victory in WWI; 
agreeing to a suffrage amendment 
that led to Congress passing the 19th 
amendment granting women the 
right to vote; and playing a key role in 
establishing the League of Nations, 
one of the first intergovernmental 
organizations in the world. However, 
Wilson also, among other misdeeds, 
spoke “approvingly” of the KKK, 
further segregated the federal gov-
ernment and called D.W. Griffith’s 
incredibly racist film “The Birth of a 
Nation” “terribly true.” So was he also 
an unapologetic and dedicated racist? 
Quite certainly, but that does not nec-
essarily mean that we can’t honor him 
for his positive contributions to soci-
ety. When we consider the legacies 
of past Americans, we must first ask 
ourselves these two questions: Why 
are these people famous and does 
their claim to fame merit recognition 
despite their flaws?
Some of the historical figures at the 
forefront of the current statues and 
monuments debate are Confederate 
generals and political figures, such as 
Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, 
whose statues are scattered through-
out this country, particularly in the 
South. Regarding the first question, 
these people are famous for betraying 
their country and fighting for a slave-
owning rebel regime. Therefore the 
second question is moot, as their claim 
to fame is extremely undesirable in the 
first place. Every single one of these stat-
ues, military bases and other memori-
als to the Confederacy need to be taken 
down and/or replaced immediately as 
their values represent non-patriotic 
rhetoric and anti-Black agendas. 

However, remaining on the topic 
of the Civil War, not everyone during 
this time has such a clear-cut legacy. 
A statue of Union General and 18th 
U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant was 
recently taken down by protestors in 
Golden Gate Park in California. The 
protesters did so because Grant had 
owned a slave named William Jones. 
While this is true, Grant owned Jones 
only because he married into a family 
that owned slaves, and he emancipated 
Jones in 1859, the same year Jones may 
have been given to him by his wife’s 
family. Additionally, Grant is famous 
for leading the Union Army to victory 
in the Civil War, which allowed for the 
last slaves to be freed on July 19, which 
is now celebrated as Juneteenth. It is 
pretty safe to say that facilitating the 
widespread emancipation of millions 
of slaves greatly outweighs owning a 
single slave for less than a year before 
freeing him without any conditions. 
Back to Wilson, saying his accom-
plishments are formidable would be an 
understatement. His Fourteen Points, 
promulgated in a speech before Con-
gress that outlined his vision for ending 
WWI, were some of the most impor-
tant declarations in favor of free trade, 
national autonomy for Poland, Belgium 
and many other nations, as well as dip-
lomatic developments toward world 
peace such as the League of Nations. 
While the U.S. did not actually join the 
League of Nations, it is a widely accept-
ed fact that the League’s principle of 
international political cooperation (a 
principle strongly advocated for by 
Wilson at Versailles) was a major inspi-
ration behind the charter of today’s 
United Nations, of which the U.S. is an 
active member. Wilson not only voiced 
support for the 19th Amendment, but 
also fought tooth-and-nail for women’s 
suffrage for months in Congress while 
other legislators were convinced that 
allowing women to vote would harm 
their own electoral prospects. Toward 
the end of his term, Congress finally 
passed the 19th Amendment.
While he used to be opposed to 
female suffrage, Wilson quickly 
changed his views after recognizing 
women’s contributions to the WWI 
war effort and stated women abso-
lutely deserve to vote because they 
are capable of “service and sacrifice 
of every kind” for their country. Fur-
thermore, one should consider this: 
Abraham Lincoln was once against 
abolitionism, 
but, 
like 
Wilson, 
switched sides to a more progressive 
stance and freed the slaves with the 
Emancipation Proclamation. If that 
helped make him one of the great-
est presidents of all time, why can’t 
Wilson be given just as much credit 

for empowering women with voting 
rights? 
Woodrow Wilson has an extremely 
checkered and controversial legacy. 
After the recent decision, Princ-
eton President Christopher Eisgruber 
claimed that Wilson’s racism “disqual-
ifies” him from being a “role model” 
for Princeton students. However, 
it is not right to take his name away 
from a university solely because 
he was a bad role model in terms of 
race, because this ignores other areas 
where he can definitely be consid-
ered a role model, namely interna-
tional relations and women’s rights. 
Wilson’s solid contributions to public 
policy in those aforementioned areas 
build a strong case for his name to be 
on the public policy school of the uni-
versity where he was once president. 
It is also worth noting that the de 
jure segregation that Wilson helped 
implement is long gone due to legisla-
tion such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 
but the UN and female suffrage still 
remain among the pillars of democ-
racy and diplomacy today. Ameri-
cans need to fully recognize Wilson’s 
failures and injustices but also cele-
brate how he helped propel America 
into a more progressive future.
As previously stated, Wilson’s 
demise as the name for Princeton’s 
Public Policy School is simply one issue 
among many right now. Statues of 
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson 
and other giants of American history 
are also being defaced and torn down. 
However, in the words of Eugene Rob-
inson, acclaimed African-American 
Washington Post columnist, “there is 
an obvious difference between George 
Washington and Thomas Jefferson, 
who founded our union, and, say, Jeffer-
son Davis and Stonewall Jackson, who 
tried to destroy it.”
When we look at people like 
Presidents Jefferson, Washington 
and Wilson, we should absolutely 
acknowledge that these people were 
racist and Washington and Jeffer-
son were slave owners who played a 
large role in perpetuating the racially 
oppressive conditions that haunt 
Black Americans to this day. How-
ever, this should “temper our admi-
ration of them, not erase it entirely.” 
These people may have passed down 
to us a country plagued by slavery, Jim 
Crow and other problems, but they 
also created and protected the “con-
stitutional tools” that have allowed 
later Americans to make our country 
a better place for everyone to live. For 
that, they deserve to be recognized.

Which of our nation’s statues deserve to stay?

Tuhin Chakraborty can be reached 

at tchakra@umich.edu.

OPINION

