Rethinking China

When most Americans think about China, they probably think of a strong central government that dominates its persecuted, downtrodden people. They think of a country of walls, from the Great Wall to the Google Firewall. They believe that these structures imprison the citizens, physically and mentally, and make them either unwilling or unwitting pawns of a corrupt, possibly evil, totalitarian government. And Americans believe that only if Chinese citizens could be exposed to freedom of speech, assembly, etc., that they would cast out the government and pretty much become like us.

Maybe the above is an oversimplication and Americans are more nuanced than that, but I admit that it is what I thought to an extent. While I never thought that a few Baywatch videos and an mp3 player would be sufficient to lead to the next Chinese Revolution, I thought that given the knowledge of what they were “missing,” the tools to bring about reform, and the chance execute their plan, Chinese citizens would overturn a government that I thought was corrupt and acted counter to what their people wanted.

However, that perception started to change about two months ago, when the latest Tibet flare up took place. At the U of I, there are a lot of LLMs, or foreign nationals who come to the US to study law. Shortly after the reports of the Tibetan incidents filtered their way back to the US, a Chinese LLM sent an email to the school supporting the Chinese government, calling the Tibetans cowards and war mongers, and labeling Western media as either fools or liars.

While I was not necessarily surprised that a Chinese national did not condemn the government, I was surprised by the passion of the unsolicited support extended by her. She lived in the United States, which meant she was fully exposed to all the benefits that could be found here in comparison to mainland China. Yet she questions the Western media, which despite its many failings, I would never consider less free than China’s. Ultimately, the whole exchange led me to question whether exposure to Western ideas would lead to regime change in China. Maybe the Chinese citizens were not hapless victims, but rather willing participants in their own subjugation.

As the month progressed, there were other pieces of evidence that led me to change my mind on China. Francis Fukuyama’s column, which I referenced on this blog last month, at least led me to believe that the most offensive governmental actions were not always initiated by the strong central government, but was decentralized to other agencies.

Further, there was the Duke counterprotest to a Free Tibet demonstration. As you can see in the YouTube video attached, this was not a small gathering. The sheer number of people in the counterprotest, and the fact that they resided in the U.S. provided further evidence that maybe there is not that large of a divide between the Chinese government and its people, and if there is, that “good ol’ fashioned American living” would be sufficient to expose it.

I am not trying to say that the Chinese counterprotesters arguments are totally without merit, or that the Western Media always gets the story right. The latter proposition is downright laughable. But if the Chinese citizenry were really the downtrodden masses that we are led to believe they are, and if exposure to Western ideals would be sufficient to get them to condemn their government, the counterprotests in the US would not have happened at all, much less with the passion that the participants displayed.

So for the past two weeks I have sought out individuals who are better acquainted with the issue than I am, in that they have actually been to China and have talked to the people there. The comments have been consistent. The culture is group oriented, highly nationalistic, and that people in China feel that they have been wronged and denied their place in the global hierarchy. As a result, the Chinese citizens are more likely to accept the government’s actions so long as it furthers the overall goal of obtaining the recognition the people feels their country deserves.

Now these observations are hardly empirical evidence, but I do think the combination is sufficient to compel us to question our underlying assumptions on China. If one billion people can’t be ignored, they certainly can’t be assumed away either. Assuming that the Chinese will simply transform to another bastion of Western values is foolhardy and dangerous considering that this is a people with goals that extend beyond being the happy trader.