Rebecca MacKinnon (RConversation) posted her inaugural HuffingtonPost article today. Its an exceptional, concise piece of writing that understands the situation in China and Western misconceptions of that situation.
Stop reading this post and read her article!
OK, welcome back!
Four Key Misunderstandings
Rebecca’s post is effective at speaking to Westerners because it takes into account four key misunderstandings that Westerners have about China:
- Westerners view China as an authoritarian state where popular opinion has no bearing on policy. In fact, considerable effort is made to shape popular opinion because it is simply not practical to govern the country without popular support.
- Young Chinese people just don’t see the West as liberators. There are significant generational differences in the view of the West. The generation born after 1980 didn’t live through the transition from the Cultural Revolution and came of age in a much more liberalized society. They already have significant personal freedom and economic opportunity.
- Popular support for the government is much greater than most Western people think. One could argue that this nationalism arises from a biased education system and censored mainstream press. But the idea of a repressed populace straining to overcome their government is not correct.
- Some Westerners view Chinese as “an undifferentiated mass of brainwashed drones” unaware of the greater World outside. Of course this is just ignorant thinking.
It may feel tiring for people who know China to address this misconceptions. But this is the starting point that some Westerners have. So shaping those people’s opinion must start by addressing these ideas. That is why the MacKinnon article is so brilliant!
Then how should the US engage with China?
Rebecca recommends direct engagement with people through social media:
Just as you have used new technology to engage with the American electorate, your China policy can be greatly strengthened if you conduct a real conversation with the Chinese people. Listen as much as you talk; provide a much-needed platform for open discussion. The U.S. embassy in Beijing should build a Chinese-language website modeled after change.gov, focused not just on U.S.-China relations, but on the range of concerns and interests – from environment, to food safety, to factory safety standards, to education and real estate law — shared by ordinary Chinese and Americans. Some linguistically talented State Department employees should start blogging in Chinese. Open up the comments sections, see how the Chinese blogosphere responds, then respond to them in turn. Translate some of the Chinese conversation into English for Americans to read and react, then translate it back. Sure there will be censorship problems on the Chinese side, but if enough Chinese find the conversation important and relevant to their lives, the censors ultimately won’t be able to stop it.
An exciting vision that I hope comes to pass!
Photo credit: London Olympic torch relay, Beijingolympicsblog
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Discussion with Rebecca MacKinnon on the emerging uncertain future of the Internet under non-democratic, non-Western countries like China, and new approaches toward US-China relations.
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“It may have made certain people in this society feel better about themselves, but if the goal is changing behaviors in China…” “…or...
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Kaiser Kuo speaks at TEDxHonolulu about the crisis in US-China relationships on a person-to-person level, exacerbated by large-scale and unmediated contact over the internet.
MacKinnon: Internet’s Uncertain Future & US-China Relations 
Quote: Howard French on China-Obama Press 
Rednecks, Red Guards & Trolls: Kaiser Kuo on US-China Online 
it is a good article …
one thin i sense, a lot of (“western”) people who have been in china for many years seem to me to be unable to break free of the conditioning derived from their earlier experiences there, and are burdened with judgments and understandings that are no longer true ..
rebecca mackinnon’s article seems mostly free of that ..
thanks for posting …
enjoy, gregory lent
Unfortunately for Americans, most Chinese know MUCH more about the US than Americans do about China. They have friends, classmates, business people, and relatives who have all spent time in the US, and have a fairly deep understanding of the country. Not to mention that the rulers of China have all sent their children to the US for study.
Now, how many non-ethnically Chinese Americans can say that about China? And even then, how deep is their familiarity with China? I would say that in most cases, it is not very deep.
Question: So how is it that the US western media, which is supposed to be free, has not given more unbiased and objective information about China, instead choosing in most of their reports, to depict China as a country ruled by authoritarian rulers who are out of touch with the outside world?
I think I know who is more out of touch with the real world, and it isn’t China.
Answer:
1. Free media != unbiased and objective information. In fact, a free media inherently provides for bias and subjectivity.
2. As far as the “US western media” is concerned, China is indeed “out of touch with the outside world” insofar as “the outside world” is what they [the US, the "West," the "western media," etc.] are part of or represent.
But I think you already knew that, Paul.
Successful intellectual elites, such as those holding positions as editors in mainstream media, are seldom forced to revisit long standing preconceptions they may have about a subject, especially if those preconceptions are also held by their readers. I don’t know if there is a cynical attempt to pander to their readership–more likely they are just miserly with intellectual effort, until there is a strong incentive to expend the effort to deepen their understanding.
Unfortunately, I think there is so clearly a general attitude of “dumb as we wanna be” that hopefully is receding as the era of exorbitant American privilege comes to an end.
The concern conscientious Americans SHOULD have is whether or not Americans are “squandering” their privilege. The frightening possibility are Americans who are completely oblivious to the fact that they ARE enjoying a measure of privilege.
I do agree that the well educated over 80s,90s even those over 1975s are the future of China. especially the graduates.They do know a lot more about the West then the West know about them.But some of them are also influenced by the mixed up over 50s & 60s, who have been the recipients of some past “brainwashing”. People in China read books translated from Western languages.But having checked & read some of these books in Chinese.(positive becomes negativesThere are so many,many “mistranslations”,somehow the nuance of the language is lost.So in any conversation with
the younger generation. Language is of utmost importance in any conversation.
Rebecca’s article is indeed valuable and she highlight some important misconceptions but I believe that she, Elliot and the commenters above chose to minimize some critical facts:
1) China is an authoritarian state with strong censorship. The government has (successfully) managed through fear, uncertaincy and doubt to change the young vocal part of population to be very apolitical and – ironically – extreme capitalistic. As anybody who lives or works in China knows, the “typical” (there are always exceptions) young chinese citizen know very well to avoid discussion topics that would be “anti-government”. In private conversations some people relax somewhat but in general there is just little interest. Some use the word “brainwashed drones” which simplify the the seriousness – this has been a deliberate policy by the ruling party for decades to de-politicize the population and enforce “the government knows what is best for you” mentality.
2) Young modern Chinese are – in general – very nationalistic; maybe even more so than the average americans. And because of strong censorship there is little counter balance aka the system feeds itself. I will not go into why extreme nationalism is unhealthy – lot of historical examples – suffice to say that the ruling party itself is an active player in growing nationalism.
Increased dialog and engagement is always the better option for a peaceful world but when Rebecca and others promote a “open” engagement its naiive to think they are truly open under the above conditions. Until the chinese government allow and encourage open conversations without censorship, its worthwhile to keep Roosevelt’s words in mind: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far”.
PS: This from a non-American (I have lot of issues with official US policy which is a total different matter) who has lived and/or worked in China, HongKong and Taiwan.
In reply to Niels, I’m not sure you’re aware of who Rebecca MacKinnon is or what she’s done, but there’s probably no single Westerner out there with a deeper understanding of China’s regime of Internet censorship than she has. I’m not faulting you for not knowing that, of course; no reason necessarily that you should! But when you say that her promoting of open engagement is naive because of the the government’s censorship, I think in light of her work that’s just doesn’t stick. She’s intimately familiar with it.
That aside, I don’t think it’s that Rebecca chose to minimize the issues that you raise in your comment — the authoritarian and censorious nature of the regime, or the fact of nationalism among young people. In fact I think what she’s done with her Letter to President Obama is to present a take on these issues deliberately meant to lend nuance to precisely the perspectives you set out in your comments; those perspectives represent just the kind of conventional wisdom that she’s arguing are in need of a rethink.
She’s arguing that there’s a lot more behind the kind of political apathy (or even the pro-government stance) you find among so many young Chinese than just the government’s management “through fear, uncertainty and doubt.” And she’s suggesting that it’s far more than just the ruling party’s machinations that account for the uglier nationalism you see. It certainly exists, and I heartily share your view that extreme nationalism is unhealthy, but to suggest that it’s mainly attributable to the Party’s flame-fanning or encouragement fails to recognize 1) that the CCP is often at pains to curb the more strident nationalists, 2) that this nationalism seems to be present even among otherwise quite cosmopolitan and even liberal intellectuals who are often highly critical of the Party and openly advocate more pluralistic politics.
As to why liberalism and nationalism seem to cohabitate within the worldview of a single individual when, in the West, we generally see these strains as mutually antithetical, is fairly simple, I think, and it’s something I’ve written about elsewhere. In China, liberalism and nationalism developed in lock step, with the one (liberalism) embraced because it was believed to serve the nationalist ends of the country’s wealth and power. Very few of its early advocates urged the embrace of liberalism for its own sake; rather, along with the scientific worldview, it was seen as one of the chief reasons for the West’s overwhelming strength in the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Herr Kaiser,
you are right on that I do not have a extensive insight to Rebecca’s background; I did however do my homework and read-up about her prior to my comment – particularly because I think she made some interesting suggestions and I have a tiny bit of experience and quite some interest in this topic. Now having said that – I continue to believe her “plaform for open discussion …. build a Chinese-language website modeled after change.gov” is flawed given the conditions I mentioned and your reply does not really address why nationalism and an authoritarian regime does not impact the approach of dialog with “the people”.
The context is the following: the CCP has deliberately (and successfully) managed to “shape” the general population to match the need of the party system: minimize internal dissent/critical opposition but at same time encourage “controlled” nationalism. As Rebecca – and you – point out, China today is not a suppressed people waiting to be saved by some great liberator (sarcasm intended) but actually quite different: A population shaped by the idology of CCP and merged with ultra-capitalism. You could say it’s the worst of both worlds – extreme capitalism, nationalism mixed with political marxism. Before you potentially bio-react let me state that:
a) this is not a personal attack on chinese people but much more of the system foced upon the population since ‘49 (discussing the uncountable bad things under KMT or European occupation is a whole other discussion in itself).
b) you could argue similar occurrences of “shaped population” in other countries like USA (think of the bible-belt where God’s country = US of A) but in these cases balances and dissent exist visibly and supported by law within the system.
As to your comment about liberalism and nationalism; I argue there is much more capitalism than liberalism within “..the worldview of a single individual..” in China today. The core concepts of liberalism (individual liberty, individual rights, freedom of thought and speech and limit to the power of government) are all attributes that are – broadly – secondary within China today. Side-note: I argue that the idea of liberalism was very much “for its own sake” – or you could say as a revolt against the feudal structures in Europe in the 16th and 17th century.
To summarize – I do firmly believe that increased dialog and conversation (like we have here) is the approach but to suggest a truly “open platform for discussion” can take place between an Obama Administration and the chinese people that has been “shaped” by an authoritarian regime is just……flawed (avoiding the “naive’ word).
Best wishes and gong xi fa cai,
Niels
Niels,
I appreciate your comment and generally agree with Kaiser’s response. Here’s my thoughts:
1. Most Americans already view China as “an authoritarian state with strong censorship.” However, they are missing a few facts that you undoubtedly have since you’ve had first hand experience with China.
First, they miss the fact that, in Ted Koppel’s words, “China is an authoritarian state barely in control of its people.” Explicit use of force is a sign of weakness, not strength. So there is much more give and take between “the people” (maybe specific local groups, affinity groups, event-based mass incidents, or other causes) and the government (of which there are many levels). The word “authoritarian” lacks this more delicate sense of control vs. lack of control.
Second, they miss the nature of censorship in China, which is much more complex and, yes, insidious than most people think. In fact Rebecca has written about this topic in the Wall Street Journal (“The Chinese Censorship Foreigners Don’t See”) and also her blog (Censorship Foreigners Don’t See – Stuff That Didn’t Fit in My WSJ Op-Ed”).
You allude to this as “depoliticization” which is a separate item from “censorship.” I wish the Western media would talk more about this topic, and how this process of “depoliticization” works in China and other countries. For example, why have there not been “mass incidents” around the bankrupting of America by poorly run Wall Street financial institutions and poor Government regulation? Why are Americans happily handing over $2-3k per capita to the people who got us into this financial mess? Somehow Americans have been “depolitized” and bought into the system, thinking that by throwing George W. out and voting Barack Obama in, that we have upended the power structures that got us into this mess in the first place.
But your point is well taken, and control of the education system is a powerful tool that has clearly been used to completely hide (or at least, heavily flavor) much of recent Chinese history.
2. You are right that Chinese are much more nationalistic than Americans. This was clearly shown in a 2008 BBC World Survey (see our CNReviews post What Does the World Think of U.S. and China I am not sure that there is no counterbalance. There is clearly strict controls of official media, but everyone also knows that the media is control. Social media, however, is much less effectively controlled, and information does leak out for Netizens to spread out. Again, this dynamic of the ebbing and flowing of state control, and the increasing power of the people due to the Internet, is usually lost in more simplistic accounts of Internet censorship.
I’m afraid that the “speak softly and carry a big stick” approach is not the right one in this day and age. I propose a different slogan – “listen, understand, lead by example, and leave the big stick at home.”
Elliot,
pew – jut spent 30min on above reply to Kaiser so I’ll keep this short.. running out of time..:-|
Good point about “lack of control” – I actually think this is very common for authoritarian systems; they do not necessary have full control but they do manage to “keep the lid on” mainly thru fear, uncertaincy and doubt. I believe this is true in China too – the “fud” factor is mainly visible thru wide spread corruption on many levels within the government – again a by product of a authoritarian non-transparent system.
As for media censorship and internet. As you know the CCP has managed to create a very tight control – the “average” chinese internet citizen is consuming information that has been and is carefully filtered; anything from traditional news, search results, social networking and/or VOIP (example Skype/TOM scandal with conversations logged and filtered by China servers)
Finally – “..carry a big stick..” (I did not say “use”!!) is timeless and just as true today as 60 years ago – no matter if you talk about educating your kids or negotiations with authoritarian governments (and carrying a stick does not preclude listening, understanding or leading by example :-)
Xin Nian Kuai Le.
One comment about your point on the “bought into the system”:
I wonder how many foreigners are genuinely interested in knowing how many Chinese had been bought in by CPC since 1949, which can explain why CPC still hold some support and legitimacy in China. It’s not just those born after 1980 (who can speak some English so are naturally more vocal to the westerners). Many born in 1930s/40s/50s/60s can be as much patriot and CPC supportive as those post-80ers, and they have their life stories to tell you why.
As a post-70er I don’t just learn Chinese history from the school, but also from my parents. My mother, who at very young age had to flee into deep mountains during the Japanese occupation, could have been married out at 15 to whoever could afford a dowry. But the PLA came and she managed to break from the traditional bondage, went to university, achieved financial independence, and married her childhood classmate. My father, who had to drop out of schools for multiple times due to hardship and had worked as child labor in local coal mine, joined the army and was eventually promoted to mid-level commander. This was apparently a new China for them. They were not happy and were extremely confused and troubled during the high time of the Cultural Revolution, when no one was immune of anti-revolution suspicion. But then it wasn’t quite as convincing to them for anyone else other than the CPC to govern the country.
Stories of their generations were seldom told in the west, or if mentioned, are in the although clause (e.g., although there were some good things happened to Chinese, but what about the 40 millions starved to death, blah blah…). Their stories won’t sell anyway but apparently something isn’t right when billion’s of people were branded as brainwashed by some 20-year-old who’ve never been to China and known anyone who’s brainwashed in their lifetime.
It’s important to distinguish for what reasons any Chinese person has “bought into” or otherwise generally support the current political system (that the Chinese Communist Party represents) in China. People support, consent, or abide by systems often for very different reasons.
Is it for ideology or pragmatism? Or is it patriotism for China? Is that patriotism more strongly tied with the political system or with just the very identity of China? Loving China does not always mean supporting the political system it current possesses just as loving American doesn’t mean one supports the George W. Bush administration. It is a bit misleading to imply that support of, love for, or pride in China automatically means support of, love for, or pride in the Chinese political system under the Communist Party.
For one thing, the vast majority of Chinese actually understand the ideological “principles” the CCP supposedly represents and works towards. More Chinese are familiar with the concept that government results in corruption than the government seeks equality for all people. The sentiment of the former negative is arguably far stronger than most positives we can associate with the CCP.
One interesting characteristic of Chinese political consciousness is the somewhat demoralizing resignation that all political systems pretty much suck and one never knows if one system would actually be better than another. I tend to think it is an intrinsic distrust in human nature but whatever. The point is that more Chinese people support, consent, or abide by the current ruling political system because the CCP to a great extent conquered and consolidated a China that was previously far weaker and more divided. It is not because most of them genuinely understand what the CCP ideologically represents or supports how the CCP actually functions in the real world. If you educate them about the ideology, the ideology may indeed sound attractive to their ears. If you ask them about how the CCP functions, more often than not, you’ll hear quite a bit of grumbling and dissatisfaction, even if the final result is resignation.
The Chinese people love China as their country, their culture, their identity first and foremost. Don’t be too eager to mistake that as informed consent and support for the CCP. The fact is that most Chinese are not informed, and quite frankly, they can’t be bothered to at this point because they have more important Maslow needs to attend to. The CCP knows this. It enjoys it. To what extent the CCP genuinely will seek to address the people’s Maslow needs is another matter.
Historically, CnInDC’s mother belongs to a minority. First, I even like how he throws in “traditional bondage” as if everyone knows what that actually means. Second, attending university during the Mao era was a questionable thing. Third, define “financial independence” as a result of the CCP policies beginning from 1949. Fourth, what does marrying one’s childhood classmate seriously have anything to do with the CCP?
There are good sociological reasons why CnInDC’s parents, and most Chinese, couldn’t imagine anyone else besides the CCP governing China. It has far more to do with being socialized to accepting your circumstances than it does with the CCP being the best thing there is for China, especially as CnInDC himself acknowledges that they were not happy and extremely confused troubled during the Cultural Revolution. For all intents and purposes, the CCP was the only thing there was and is for China. The KMT opposition failed and the CCP has done a good job solidifying its power. Despite even the Cultural Revolution and all the modicum of communist ideology that was propagated, Chinese people are still more influenced by Confucian concepts of social hierarchy than anything else.
For many Chinese, the CCP is the apparatus that runs the country in which they live and it isn’t something in “their power” to change. They just have to survive and make do as best they can. Again, resignation does not imply genuine support much less informed preference.
But yes, Chinese people often will and do become defensive when they perceive attacks on their political leaders and political system as attacks on the concept of China and the Chinese itself. That’s not really surprising, is it? In fact, its quite natural.
CnInDC and his parents are right that here was indeed a “new” China after 1949. The thing they’re forgetting to acknowledge is that “today’s” China is NOT the “new” China that Mao ushered in. We can even say today’s China isn’t even the same as the China Deng ushered in. Sure, certain things have remained the same, such as a strong one-party state government, but everything else for which the Chinese people are so proud of today had less to do with what Mao and the early CCP did with China than it does with the later CCP undoing what the earlier CCP did. The sleight of hand is helping the people think they had to go through the unhappiness, confusion, and troubles of the Mao era before they could achieve and enjoy the progress they have today…so the narrative remains that the CCP didn’t do anything really wrong and it was all part of their glorious foresight, leadership, and execution.
(You know, in some ways, the current CCP isn’t too different from the early days of the KMT in Taiwan. Capitalistic, with state control of key sectors, corruption, and state policing of dissent? So how’s that for coming full circle?)
The key is understanding and distinguishing the causes for the defensiveness without jumping to conclusions about their subscription to political systems or ideology. The vast majority of defensive Chinese don’t know shit about politics, but they do know they WANT to be proud of who they are and their country, because it is something thing they can’t change.
Clearly shows how little you know about China’s past and how many uninformed, blanket claims you are willing to make about it. Randomly pick a few:
- The trend of arranged marriage was never forcibly reversed in China before 1949. After that, CPC made enormous effort to raise women’s social and economic status. My mom can still recall how her mom was totally shocked when she attended the college entrance exams and subsequently got admitted, requiring neither the parents’ consent nor financial support, then she got a job and became the main wage earner of the house.
- My mom was trained under the cloned Soviet higher education system in the 50s, and her math is still more advanced than me even though I hold an advanced degree in engineering. For one, I’ve never finished the famous 5000 analysis problems by Demidovich (http://www.amazon.com/Problems-Mathematical-Analysis-Boris-Demidovich/dp/0846407612/), yet she’s done more advanced stuff than that during her college years.
- Normal people, e.g. the average workers, benefited a lot from CPC in the old days. Until early 1980s my mom’s monthly salary was never 10 Yuan higher than an average worker who barely graduated from the elementary school. Yet nearly free education and health care, although not as modernized as we have today, were provided to most working city dwellers. Food, housing, jobs, even kindergartens were taken care of by the government. For an average Joe there’s no comparison between such worry-free life and the one they had before 1949.
- CPC had provided enormous upward mobility within the society. Just a few weeks ago Wen Jiaobao was criticizing that these days students from the rural area form a lesser percentage of the college student body. There used to be special policies in place to ensure poor but loyal and hardworking people get the chance to move up the social ladder. These days money speaks louder in China, just like everywhere else.
I’m actually quite confident in my knowledge of Chinese history but I’ll try to avoid comparing penis-sizes with you.
- Arranged marriages. Did I say there were no arranged marriages? No, so what are you refuting?
- CCP elevating women’s social status. Did I say they didn’t? No, so what are you refuting?
- Advanced mathematics. I said attending college during the Mao era was a questionable thing. 1. Do you have any idea what I meant? 2. What does an anecdote of your mother learning advanced mathematics that an extraordinarily small percentage of the population will ever use refute what I was saying?
- Your mother’s pre-1980 life is quite the common picture presented by advocates of communism, and yet the adage remains that communism may make everyone equal…equally poor. Nothing quite comes close to “blanket claims” as you claiming that the “average joe” saw life in the Mao era as “worry free.” And as a tit for tat, that statement alone coming from your mouth shows me just how incredibly little YOU know about China’s past.
You ever wonder why Deng decided to reverse all the communist “progress” Mao made and steered China back towards free-markets and capitalism, eschewing the iron rice bowl that kept all the average joes of China in relative poverty despite a limited but universal measure of health care, education, and guaranteed wages? You ever wonder why the Chinese people embraced those reforms and haven’t really looked back except in times of wanting to have their cake and eat it too?
Because that life, THAT society, was NOT worry-free hunky dory and ubiquitously beloved by the Chinese average joe. In many ways, it was just as stagnant and repressive as the feudal China it was meant to liberate the Chinese from.
Why do you think Chinese are far more proud of their country and more assured of themselves today, in the socio-political situation they’re in now that would make Mao turn in his grave because it is NOTHING like what he envisioned for a post-1949 China, than they ever were under Mao? Because they realized you don’t need economic communism to have a satisfactory level of socialist social welfare and they’re content to go ahead and figure out how to combine more economic freedom, opportunity, and choices with a safety net for the unfortunate, for the poor, for the peasants who still need it.
People loved Mao more for the fact that he brought order to China when there wasn’t, than for the lifestyle his policies gave the people. You’ve been watching too many rosy Communist Liberation movies of Chinese worker communes all enjoying bowls of fresh hot dumplings while forgetting that fucking millions of Chinese still lived lives not even remotely close to their Western counterparts and risked dying of starvation. That China TODAY doesn’t much resemble Mao’s China shows just how great and “worry-free” Mao’s China was. Oh, to be sure, there were lots of good changes too that benefited many people, but let’s not delude ourselves into arguing that it was a golden era in China or some workers paradise. It wasn’t. It was a big socio-political experiment of which some successes (greater opportunity/choice/freedom for women) have survived to modern China and of which some failures (iron rice bowl) have not. We can even argue that some of its successes (persistence of women as second class citizens) haven’t survived and some of its failures (nepotism, corruption) have.
Also, “city dwellers” were NEVER the “normal people” or “average workers” of China. The “average joe” of China has always been and to this day remains the overwhelming rural peasant population, the very same poor bastards whose situation really didn’t get all that much better under Mao despite the barefoot doctors and shitty free “schools” run by more by party propagandists or proselytizers than actual educators because Mao had purged quite the lot of them. The peasants, the “average joes” of China have far more social mobility in modern post-Deng reform China as migrant workers than they ever had under Mao’s system. Hell, we can even argue they might have even had more mobility pre-1949 when Mao wasn’t forcing the workers to stay in their corner of China trying to meet grain or steel production quotas.
So as I said, YOUR MOTHER BELONGED TO THE MINORITY. Do you and your overwhelming lack of Chinese historical knowledge and perspective REALLY want to dispute that? Because if you do, I’ve got at LEAST 1 billion Chinese people behind me that will vouch for the fact that they and their parents don’t know shit about Soviet clone schools or the famous 5000 analysis problems by Demidovich.
- You’re kidding me. You equate the percentage of rural students in college as a measure of upward mobility? Wow, I’m not even sure how to respond to this. First, I’d like you to humor me by explaining what you interpret as social mobility, especially back in Mao’s day.
Second, special policies for “loyal?” Oh certainly! But is “loyalty” to a party REALLY the right requisite for the party to grant or deny anyone upward mobility because they sure as hell did that. Or does it reek of the same cronyism that (surprise surprise) still exists today as it existed in Mao’s time and before Mao’s time, in Mao’s CCP and in the CCP Mao has left us?
In Mao’s time, people were granted and denied upward mobility not on the basis of their intellect or efforts but on their family background as peasants or landowners, as revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries, often on the whim of some party cadre.
Please tell me you took SOME humanities courses (ideally involving China) while you were studying Engineering. It’s usually part of GEs or whatnot. Otherwise, I’m already feeling like I’m giving you too much credit when the bulk of your arguments are premised on anecdotes about your mother (no offense to your mother, I bet she’s hot).
http://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/china-expat-rants/grow-up-china/
“…This is why we doubt the accuracy of Chinese historical accounts of the past 60 years, because we see them as tainted by intent, by the purpose of indoctrination, by the impurity of emotion. Perhaps we should give our own understanding of this country and its people a second thought, in the event that it may be impaired by the failings of our imagination.”
Sorry wrong link. Here:
http://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/china-expat-rants/expatese/
Kai, I’m not arguing anything, as you always do. And I may have taken more humanities courses than you think, although I don’t think these courses necessarily give anyone more qualifications in either an argument or a real life decision making scenario.
For years the Teaching Company courses are my commuting listening. The last set I finished was “From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity” (http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=6577), which refutes quite some brainwashing in the west. You may want to check it out some day.
CnInDC, if you make a statement that I find questionable, wrong, or insufficiently supported, I may take you to task for it. Your statement and subsequent proofs or defenses of your statements are “arguments” of rhetoric. Why you expect to make such statements but get annoyed when others question you about them is beyond me.
You’re right that how many humanities courses one has taken does not give anyone more qualifications than others. However, as I recall, you’re the one who first made a snide comment about my knowledge of Chinese history: “Clearly shows how little you know about China’s past.”
If you don’t want to compare educational qualifications, don’t make snide comments like that and let our arguments stand on their own. I do note that you’ve ignored all of the points I’ve offered that refute, debunk, or otherwise marginalize the anecdotes you’ve upheld as being representative of Chinese history. And now you’re trying to change the subject. Why is that?
Please don’t ALLUDE to things and IMPLY they counter my points and just COUNTER my points already. I extended you the same courtesy, so please return the favor. Don’t tell me to listen to “Teaching Company” audiotapes and just tell me what you heard in them during your daily commutes that actually refute what I’ve said.
I know there’s plenty of bias in the West just as there’s plenty in China. The general consensus remains that access to a plurality of information is far better in the West than in China. I’m drawing from that plurality of information to refute the gross misrepresentations or misinterpretations you have and are promoting of Chinese post-1949 history.
About the “depoliticization”: I remembered once Chris Patten said, these days Chinese do need the freedom to be free from politics. Coming out of the Cultural Revolution, many Chinese, including my parents, instinctly don’t like anything involved in the politics or politicians. That probably explained why Hu-Wen are popular, esp Wen, who talks less about ideology but more on average people’s life. On the other hand, does there also exist a tendency to politicize things happened in China? Pick some hot topics from the western media and you’ll see the reason why the topics were hot could be attribute to these stories shed bad lights on CPC and/or had much potentials to be politicized.
would someone be so kind as to email me the article. I am logging on thru a university in changsha and am unable to access the article either via huffington or any other way known to me. from the summary and my admittedly brief and limited experience here i concur with the assessment adding that I have met some aunties and uncles in their 80s who have been quite friendly and curious. it has been usually through a student at a home. the ignorance of most Americans about most, no not most, all other countries cannot be overstated. They are staggeringly ignorant with many of them perversely proud of not knowing anything. the article can be sent to stevelaudig@gmail.com. thanks in advance for your kindness.
sent!
Another link that comes to mind: Newsweek’s Melinda Liu and Duncan Hewitt wrote a great piece entitled: Rise of the Sea Turtles: Why Westernized Chinese Dislike The West
The main problem with engagement with Chinese is that it inevitably reduces to a bunch of partisans on different sides calling each other names, whether it be imperialist or zombie. At least the initial phase of Chinese-Western people-to-people dialogue will be completely counterproductive.
Actually, now I’m wondering whether it’s possible. It’s somewhere between trying to talk your next-door neighbor into believing he’s an ax-murderer and talking your childhood friend into believing his daddy is a cannibal. Because that’s what Western critics are essentially doing; people become instinctively defensive when criticized, especially when Western critics take a patronizing air.
There’s equal number of people on both sides who don’t and don’t want to know their counterpart, and its nothing more than normal, people listen and believe, then speak to get others to believe, and so on. Misinformation, deceits, lies, ego, they are part of life, things ingrained into our genes.
Humans are hypocritical by nature, unless we undergo some cerebral mutation it will remain that way, so no matter how some Chinese shouting on the web that they are not understood or foreigners bashing chinese government for that matter, they will not accomplish anything. Expecting neutrality or objectivity from a human being is about the most futile hope one can have.
As for this article, the author is correct about one thing — the economically-welloff young people (including me) do support the government, and that is, too, very normal, it has been this way since the reform began, the government offered them privileges to loot without much restriction, so why in hell would they not support it??? HOWEVER, the author failed to address that they don’t lead the population percentage, and that there are a lot more poor folks down in the sewer unable to take advantage of the modern China, they have many reasons to disagree with the government and the upper-class, and the government too has many reasons to fear this bunch.
I have been in US for 4 years. It’s amazing to know how biased and ignorant the general American people know about the rest of the world, not to mention China in the far east.
However, it’s reasonable. The Americans have been living a happy sweet prestigious life for decades. They don’t need to worry or care about anything else. But time changes. If they keep being blind and unwilling to communicate and review themselves, IMHO, the happy sweet prestigious life won’t last forever.