很多美国人都觉得中国人非常不同， 有的甚至可能觉得中国人如同外星人。当你想到大多美国人，包括很多国会议员，从来没出过国，更没有去过中国，那种想法也就不奇怪了。

   其实我一直觉得中国人的很多想法和美国自由和左派或者很多民主党人都很像。大家都有左倾的传统。从反对伊拉克阿富汗战争到支持妇女拥有流产的权利，美国的自由和保守势力将美国分成红蓝两色。而中国更多是自由派的蓝色州。或者说是处于红蓝之间。

   中国和美国没有很多人想象得那么不同。

By Chen Weihua

When Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, speaks at the Barnes & Noble in uptown New York tomorrow (Mar.10), it will remind people of the strikingly different Chinese and American ways of raising children.

The two peoples living on the opposite sides of the earth do have a lot of differences in education, food and culture. On the other hand, they are really not that different, but share great similarities on a host of social and political issues.

If the United States is divided into blue and red states as people often seen during presidential campaigns, then China, which is usually associated with the red color, would look more like a blue state, or something in-between, in a wide range of issues from war in Afghanistan, abortion to homosexuality.

As several liberal professors mocked Rush Limbaugh, the popular conservative radio talk show host, at a recent seminar on China, I told them that progressive New Yorkers would surely identify themselves more with Shanghainese or Chinese than with Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, another American conservative radio and TV talk show host.

The same is true as pro-choice and pro-life advocates squared off outside the Indiana Statehouse Tuesday morning and as pro-life rallies swept major US cities in January on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade case in 1973 which allows women to make a decision on abortion. The pro-choice Americans would garner huge support among the 1.3 billion Chinese.

Anti-abortion violence, when clinics were blown up and doctors murdered, is just as shocking to Chinese as to American liberals.

The increasingly active gay and lesbian community in China also means that China is moving towards in-between the divided America, where 52 percent of people describe gay and lesbian relations as morally acceptable and 43 percent call it morally wrong according to a Gallup poll.

Other studies conducted in the two countries over the past years also find that Chinese and liberal and progressive Americans identify with each other more on other social and moral issues such as divorce and stem cell research.

US President Barack Obama would win more support among Chinese for his health care reform, as his landmark law was repealed symbolically by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives in January.

On foreign policy issues, liberals and Democrats, who see George W. Bush presidency as damaging to US global status, would get more support from Chinese who were overwhelmingly against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as unilateralism and the notion of preemptive strikes.

It should come as no surprise for Chinese and American liberals and Democrats to share much on social and political issues since both have a left-leaning tradition.

That has also been reflected to some extent in the Democrat’s view of China. A recent Pew Research Center study shows that Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents express more positive views of China-US relationship than do Republican and Republican-leaners.

According to the survey, the majority in both groups say relations between the US and China remain the same, but 22 percent of Democrats say relations between the two countries are improving, compared with only 9 percent of Republicans.

The survey also found Republicans are somewhat more likely than Democrats to see China as an adversary (24 percent vs. 19 percent, respectively). Conversely, Democrats are slightly more likely than Republicans to say China is not much of a problem (29 percent vs. 23 percent).

While many Americans may still believe Chinese are fundamentally different, more Americans will find that China is a large and populous Middle Kingdom between the Progressive America and Conservative America. It is not really that different.