Hope for a future democratic China

[Tigga]

We all know China is fast becoming a world superpower economically, politically, militarily. It's a great time to be proud about the nation's many accomplishments if you are a Chinese citizen.

What I find interesting after talking to many educated Chinese students is how these intelligent future generation of China seems to have an indifference about democracy. These are people who have come to study, work and live in the US for years and have experienced first hand the value of freedom of speech, and all the rights given to any US people.

Many of them blindly defend China in all aspect. It seems to be either they are brainwashed by the government propaganda for so long they seem to have a very skew idea of what democracy is.
Some of them think just because China has Starbucks, McDonalds, all the luxury brands, everything is all right. They don't care if the government controls what they can say publicly and put them to jail if you dare criticize the government. When they come here, they happily say what on their mind about Obama but I bet they wouldn't dare say a thing about the Chinese leaders.

This phenomenon is well documented (see Tiananmen Now Seems Distant to Chinas Students - NYTimes.com)

This post is not meant as a way to ridicule China or anyone proud of it. I just want to understand why the bright, highly educated Chinese youth has such an indifference toward the future of China and all of its people. In my mind, after living in the US, arguable the beacon of freedom around the world, they would appreciate democracy more.

Thoughts?

 

[alain]

It seems to be either they are brainwashed by the government propaganda for so long they seem to have a very skew idea of what democracy is.

Brainwashed

I came from a similar regime. I know "brainwash" up, close and personal.

...but I bet they wouldn't dare say a thing about the Chinese leaders.

It is not so much they wouldn't but they can't. Speak against the establishment and jail, exile in the farm, no prospects of a good or a job period will be waiting for you. This is just an extrapolation of what we went through.

 

[Peter]

Tigga, it's more surprising that you (and me, for that matter) are perfectly OK with:

• the Patriot Act
• the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• the expansion of powers of the TSA and Bureau of Homeland Defense
• the defacto death of the 4th amendment
• warrantless wiretaps (even for non-terrorist related reasons!)
• the very real death of Habeas Corpus
• the monotonic death of "fair use"
• We even invent laws ourselves to limit our freedom --- ever try to take a picture in the NYC subway system? Perfectly legal, but see what it gets you.
• We live in a society where it's considered more patriotic to protest giving free health care to the poor than it is to protest a Viet-Nam lookalike.
• We're constantly one judge away from being OK with killing prisoners (some of which have been innocent) and then in the same breath saying "every life is sacred".
• The record industry was just awarded $150,000 because a woman illegally downloaded a single song that she could have legally bought from iTunes for 99 cents.

The Chinese have lived all their lives except for brief periods of study under theirs. I fully understand their actions.

What's our excuse?

 

[Tigga]

Peter,
Just look at how you are able to express what's wrong with the US without losing sleep that the FBI or some plain-clothed agents will knock on your door at night and take you to a re-education camp.
Isn't the list you posted mostly created during Bush's eight year regime? How did we let him and Cheney and Co rule that long? I don't know if you can say you and I or others for that matter are OK with the aforementioned list. We can work to change them, can't we.
Now, let's not turn this into a Red vs Blue discussion. Save it for reelection 2012. We have the greatest country in the world where you can run for the president just using your list as the rallying points. Wouldn't you think the Chinese will take our problem over theirs anytime?

My take on the issue is that the Chinese regime has been using wealth as a tool to distract its people from other thornier issues like human right. Today, many young people can enjoy as much material stuff as their counterparts in the US, so why would they care about the ideological concept like "democracy", "freedom of speech". Where is the motive to rid jail, death, daily harassment for a better future?

 

[Peter]

Peter,
Just look at how you are able to express what's wrong with the US without losing sleep that the FBI or some plain-clothed agents will knock on your door at night and take you to a re-education camp.
Isn't the list you posted mostly created during Bush's eight year regime? How did we let him and Cheney and Co rule that long? I don't know if you can say you and I or others for that matter are OK with the aforementioned list. We can work to change them, can't we.
Now, let's not turn this into a Red vs Blue discussion. Save it for reelection 2012. We have the greatest country in the world where you can run for the president just using your list as the rallying points. Wouldn't you think the Chinese will take our problem over theirs anytime?

My take on the issue is that the Chinese regime has been using wealth as a tool to distract its people from other thornier issues like human right. Today, many young people can enjoy as much material stuff as their counterparts in the US, so why would they care about the ideological concept like "democracy", "freedom of speech". Where is the motive to rid jail, death, daily harassment for a better future?

No, I agree with you. We do have one of the best countries in the world, and it is a testament to it that I can talk freely like this.

However, that doesn't change what I've said. I still think it's an honest and good question to ask why we have been so docile in our own repression of freedom. The Chinese simply live under it. You and I have seen it erode with our own two eyes. We have fallen, and we have seen this fall. I think it would be more likely that *we* protest because we know better. We've lived better.

And if you think those freedoms that have been taken away from us are coming back, you're crazy. Freedom and liberty are asymmetric. It's much easier to lose them than it is to gain them. It's nearly impossible to gain freedom and liberty without a revolution. But you can lose them in a blink of an eye.

My point is this: I'm not surprised they haven't protested in the slightest.

 

[Tigga]

Peter,
You forgot the audience this question is directed at. It's not towards the billion plus people who have lived under the current regime for decades and never breath freedom, but rather to the many who lived under that regime, came over here and see what could have been to their country. The points made in the NYT article is pretty much what I have experienced and I'm sure the Quantnet members who are from mainland can confirm/deny the view.

 

[atreides]

What I find interesting after talking to many educated Chinese students is how these intelligent future generation of China seems to have an indifference about democracy..

Democracy or the concept or idea of democracy will not and cannot work in every country. If more folks at the helm of affairs understood this, maybe we might not have all these wars.

I for one would not really mind if the military bulldozed their way back to power in my home country as the very corrupt politicians have pillaged the country's treasury for decades with reckless abandon and it saddens me that this has become status quo.

 

[Vic_Siqiao]

i am a new generation of Chinese and i think im rich in both western and Chinese politics and history. let me give u my viewpoints.

First, ur viewpoint is typically not welcomed by any class of Chinese, except the few anti-government activists, most of whom finally and ironically become Americans. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Second, every well educated student is aware of the future of China, but in a different way. What u said about democracy makes sense to some degree, however, u ( inlcluding most of westerners ) just cant understand the impact of recent one hundred years of Chinese history, a history of total humiliation, has let most of people on this land potentially have the mind that the foremost thing is to make this country as great as it used to be, like Tang Dynasty(around1200ys ago), or Ming Dynasty(around 500 yrs ago), a country has superior power in almost every aspect and then democratic as well. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
For such a country, it has its own values in how to construct a state and let its people recover. And Chinese dislike the political “suggestion” from western world for many reasons. Apart from the history of socialism and capitalism, what Europeans did last year during Olympic torch delay or Tibet issues, made most of Chinese(even common people) lost the trust on so called those democratic countries, because it offends the baseline that every Chinese has. If u understand the idea of my second paragraph, u can understand this also.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
When a new power is rising, it must grow up with problems, and after 30 years of struggle after communist China is built, everyone( almost surely, excepted the null set) there agree that it is a better way to have progress reform on economics and politics. My grandparents risk their lives working secretly for communist party in WW2 and China civil war, they r still alive and is very happy to see the current situation, and believe it will get better, progressively. When I studied in college, many students were active in the same topics u apparently interested and they also know what u see on western media. I wouldn’t say everything u pointed or see doesn’t make any sense, rather u should respect the choice made by people on the other side of pacific and then maybe u can make better and acceptable suggestions, and I think that’s what Obama is aware of now. There are fewer and fewer nonsense fights between US and China nowadays than in Bush and Clinton administration.

 

[Tigga]

Miket,
I agree with most of your points that China today is vastly better than it was 20 years ago. Most people are happy with just the way it is now.
I don't know if democracy will work for China or not. It has never been tried. The closest case study we have is Taiwan.
What you said certainly sounds familiar to what the China gov has been telling its people that what works in the western world (multi party system) may not work in China (one party). The more wealth it creates for its people, the better chance they have to hang onto the current system.

That's a whole different discussion. My question is about the basic idea of democracy, freedom. Every human being has the same right to speak out against corruption, tyranny, wrongness without fear of jail or death.
Using "cultural difference" as an excuse is just lame and plays right into the govt's propaganda machine. Are you saying just because they are Chinese, they shouldn't voice their opinion if they see something wrong? For example, the local farmers shouldn't protest when the province authority took bride to let chemical factories pollute their lands. Don't they all deserve fairness as everyone else?

 

[GoIllini]

just out of curiosity, where did you get the notion that democracy is the best system of government for china?
personally i think this is exactly the type of cultural arrogance that pisses off so many other countries about the us

Maybe a better word is libertarianism. 7,000 years ago, humans were all independent and didn't have anyone telling them how to run their lives. People talk about what's natural, and the most natural state of things is to have a government that doesn't tell people what they're allowed to think and say.

Autocracies tend to have problems in the long-term because they're less flexible and therefore less durable than democracies. CC: 18th century France and the Soviet Union. It's easier to change things in a democracy or libertarian state where people can share and accept new ideas without looking over their shoulders.

China obviously has the right to self-determination and it can have a Penguinocracy if it wants one. But life tends to be a lot less painful when your government doesn't mind if you to hold a view different from the one it holds.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

Interestingly enough, China was a complete mess under the height of communism. Great leap forward, anybody?

Why did China suddenly start growing the way it is? Outsourcing. From Western countries.

Think about what made America into the superpower it is. Bethlehem Steel, Detroit, and all of the other mass manufacturing before and after.

Now that China manufactures everything, it's looking like a superpower, because it is employing many people and exporting a lot of things.

Why is Japan the economic powerhouse it is, with half of America's population on the landmass the size of half of California? It imports raw materials, and exports cars and all sorts of electronic widgetry.

It seems that the Chinese are capitalists in communist clothing. However, the one aspect of change that remains to be changed is communism.

Tell me:

Why is it good that freedom of speech and expression is subverted and stamped out? Why is it good that the government owns all enterprise? Why would it be bad if the Chinese people could dictate the fate of the Chinese people, rather than some bumbling bureaucrats that believe chairman Mao was such a great leader? (He wasn't).

I feel that if the Chinese people had the chance to actually experience democracy, they wouldn't turn back.

 

[echostate]

i think the chinese people see that the chinese government has been improving and they understand that its a process. they believe in the government so they don't see the need to foster a revolution for freedom just because they've visited the u.s.

I second that. I'm from China.

---------- Post added at 02:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:33 AM ----------

I feel that if the Chinese people had the chance to actually experience democracy, they wouldn't turn back.

This is so ... narcissistic, my friend I'm from China and I like a lot of things in US. But I do will turn back.

Personally I believe our goverment has done a great job *during the past 15-20 years*, especially on improving the quality of people's life and developing the economy. I don't want to comment on the longer history, and i do agree that democracy is something we need to improve. However, what's the solution? Immediately overthrow the current goverment and replace it with a more effective one? I don't see any good candidate inside China (please do let me know if you have a candidate). Or, overthrow the current one and replace it with a new, better, more democratic one outside China ... e.g., some subdivision of another democratic nation's goverment? God ... that's "colonization".

In a word, we need evolution rather than revolution, and we are on our way.

BTW,
Speaking of being "brainwashed". Yes, some negative aspects of the goverment is not highlighted by China media because of the restriction from the goverment. This is especially true before 1990s. However, it is changing, and nowadays I can see news reports pointing out essential problems of the goverment. Even the media was not completely open, most people in China still know the truth, they are not "brainwashed" ---- people talk to each other, and most people know what's going on around them.

One the other hand, I can see that many western media are highly biased when they report anything about China. Most US citizen, who have never been in China and who completely rely on their main-stream media to learn about China, are somewhat "brainwashed" to believe how crazy is the China goverment and how "pathetic" the Chinese people. Just like what I quote from this friend:

I feel that if the Chinese people had the chance to actually experience democracy, they wouldn't turn back.

In the worst case, maybe we are both "brainwashed" in some way. China media is restricted and US media is biased.

 

[bigbadwolf]

just out of curiosity, where did you get the notion that democracy is the best system of government for china?
personally i think this is exactly the type of cultural arrogance that pisses off so many other countries about the us

Western countries -- in particular the US -- have entrenched oligarchies masquerading as mass democracies. In both the US and UK, both of the two main parties are on the side of a moneyed elite which -- since it owns the mass media -- circumscribes the range of debate. Since the parties depend on financial contributions from this elite, they are beholden to it. "Freedom of speech" exists because the rulers know it will have no real impact on public sentiment, and even in the rare cases it does, public disquiet doesn't lead to shifts in policy. So, for example, when millions of protestors came out against the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, Bush stood briefly in front of the cameras, said politely that he respected the position of the demonstrators but disagreed with them -- and end of discussion (and look where the US is today ...).

Where mass protest might have an impact, the authorities stomp it out. Look, for example, at the measures taken at the recent G20 in Pittsburgh. Real methods of democratic expression are stifled while a sham formal "democratic process" (choosing between two almost indistinguishable candidates, vetted by the same elite) is pushed forward.

The "cultural arrogance" is usually a mask for imperial policies. In the old days it used to be known as the "white man's burden" and "educating the heathen." which as we know with hindsight was a thin pretext for colonialism and mass pillage. More on this topic can be found in Immanuel Wallerstein's "European Universalism." Recently -- with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan -- the same old tired excuses have been resurrected ("nation-building," "bringing democracy," "getting rid of the evil dictator"). Or go back a bit further to when the South Vietnamese government was "democratically elected" (and so had to be "supported" by the USA) and the evil totalitarian commies up north had to be defeated ...

 

[Vic_Siqiao]

it is very offensive to use the word "brainwash" if u really want to discuss relevant issues. many Chinese can read English news and know what Americans think, but can u read any Chinese news or did u really come to the placed u mentioned China to see what happened there, or u just made a beautiful assumption that CNN is telling everything unbiased and accurate for the goods of all ppl on earth?

and to those who never read Chinese history, in the earlier 20th century there were drastically democratic reform which costs millions of lives for 30 years of wars and finally, sorry, people finally chose communism and more sorry about that is, it survive until now and in the near future , it will be getting stronger. There were millions of chances last century China can choose ur American democracy, but it just never happened and this has its own reason.

 

[alain]

I agree that brainwash is a very strong word... but I have very strong feelings about communism in general.

... but it just never happened and this has its own reason.

Which ones? I would like to know. History is something that really interests me. My grandfather was chinese and he left China over 60 years ago. I never had a chance to understand why... although I have an idea.

 

[JDMe]

What if you call it Stockholm Syndrome. The captor (govt.) has provided them economic development, etc. so the people have become sympathetic towards them.

 

[echostate]

What if you call it Stockholm Syndrome. The captor (govt.) has provided them economic development, etc. so the people have become sympathetic towards them.

Let's follow your theory and see what we can derive ....

============================

Goverment A provides people with "economic development", so the people have become sympathetic towards A.

Goverment B provides people with "developed economics" and "freedom of expression", so the people have become sympathetic towards B.

OK ... let's be generic ... Goverment X provides people with Y, so the people have become sympathetic towards X.

It seems your theory applies to most goverments. Indeed, no matter in which country, most wealth and resources are owned by a minority of people, e.g., Gates, Buffett, and those bonus-monster at GS. This is a universally observed phenomenon called "power law distribtuion": wealth, resources and many other quantities are neither uniformly distributed nor normally distributed ... they follow a power law distribution. Most people do not belong to this lucky minority. Therefore, most people are just hostages of their captor (govt.), and this captor is a tool of those minority who own most wealth and resources. Of course, the captor will provide people with candy, e.g., "economic development", "freedom of speech" ... in order to develop the so-called "Stockholm Syndrome" for their people and let them be happy and satisfied as the majority part in the power-law distribution.

===========================

Are you happy with this conclusion ?

I am not. I think most goverments are not captors. They are just not perfect.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

America is capitalistic. Basically, this means if you're willing to work your tail off and come up with a new idea that people want, you will necessarily become extremely wealthy, and if you devote enough resources to your children, they too will succeed you and/or surpass you.

The idea that it's simply a matter of luck is hilarious. It's not a matter of luck. It's a matter of work and devotion. Freedom of expression is amazing. It allows people to interact in more ways than any other culture on the planet.

As for why people think the Chinese government does such a great job: hello, it's got massive tariffs on foreign competitors and subsidizes so many industries, and plus, so many people work for far less than American minimum wage. Of course you'll have tremendous economic growth so long as China keeps getting all of the outsourcing manufacturing jobs while people live in garbage conditions (at least compared to first-world nations such as Japan, Israel, and the USA).

 

[alain]

As for why people think the Chinese government does such a great job: hello, it's got massive tariffs on foreign competitors and subsidizes so many industries, and plus, so many people work for far less than American minimum wage. Of course you'll have tremendous economic growth so long as China keeps getting all of the outsourcing manufacturing jobs while people live in garbage conditions (at least compared to first-world nations such as Japan, Israel, and the USA).

dude, you just need to shut up sometimes because, frankly, you don't know what you are talking about most of the time.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

Hmm...I guess the people I talk to then don't know what they're talking about. Oy.