China is not a totalitarian regime - you shouldn't believe all the propaganda out there, you should actually go there yourself and you'll find that you can live your life quite normally and happily.
China's identity isn't based on a single ethnic identity - the various restrictions (such as the now-3-child-policy, and permanent immigration between cities) apply to everyone. In fact ethnic minorities generally get preferential treatment - e.g. looser restrictions, affirmative action in various places such as state examinations - because it's recognised that a majority ethnic groups have disproportionate power.
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Reply to the comment below:
> As long as you don't stick out, or criticize the government positively quite frequently.
The ways in which this statement is both true and false in its details, is not particularly different from the West.
In China, there are local protests quite regularly, and local governments respond.
In Hong Kong the protests were incredibly violent and disruptive. You cite the crackdowns by the government, but you don't cite the actions by the protestors and opposition legislators, that also attack innocents and filibuster the legislature for years, much more disruptively and disrespectfully than anything that's happened in the West, including shouting "Fuck China" during legislative oath-taking.
In China, mass organised protest against the national government is not tolerated, but nobody cares if you write some stuff on social media. In the West, in the rare case that actual mass protests ever get too rowdy they are shutdown quite brutally by the police. In China the government stops the situation before it gets to that point. In the West, anyone that sticks out enough to really be a bother, like Julian Assange, gets shut down very brutally too.
In both cases, these types of mass protests don't generally change anything in the political system. And in both cases, most ordinary people actually really just don't care to do these things, because the situation is fine in both China and the West - certainly not like the levels of the revolutions in the 1800s or the wars in the early 1900s. So when you criticise China for not allowing these things, this comes from a position of privilege, you have forgotten what it's like to be hungry. Not being hungry matters more, and China has found an efficient way to do that, so I am happy for them (and "us" as far as I can claim that). Maybe later things will become more relaxed, but it's not a particularly big priority.
> brutal suppression they do in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, or Inner Mongolia A-OK?
Most of the "evidence" regarding Xinjiang is fabricated, the Hong Kong stories are exaggerated and one-sided. I'd be against any actual specific cases of brutal suppression that's going on. But that still wouldn't make me "anti-China" in the same way you're not "anti-US" or "anti-West" presumably (I am not either). But that's what Western media portrayals seem to be trying to do - saying that, oh China is doing some bad things, they are evil, they need to be stopped. China is not evil, the world is a complex place.
> we all know it was would be like Putin and Medvedev, with Xi still controlling,
Nobody really knows the details of these things high up, it's all conjecture. It's sure convenient that Democrat and Republican policies, compared to the rest of the world, are very similar. How do you know they're not essentially in cahoots and just putting up a show of being "opposites" for the rest of the world?
> In China, mass organised protest against the national government is not tolerated, but nobody cares if you write some stuff on social media.
Is there a typo somewhere or are you really saying there is no consequence for posting on social media in China? Because that's certainly not the case[1,2,3], unless all of Western media is misleading about this.
I lived in China, in Shanghai, near the French Concession, speak Mandarin, read 汉字，(not fluently, but HSK5-6), and have been to pretty much every province in China. About as privileged as you can be as an ex-pat, and I can still say, IMHO, it's pretty totalitarian.
Totalitarian: "relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state."
Is China centralized? Yes, it has a top down system, top-down industrial policy, top-down internet policy, state owned enterprises (30% of economy), state-owned media, etc.
Is China dictatorial? You can talk all you want about the Politburo Standing Committee sharing power, but Xi Jinping essentially holds total power (now for life with no term expiration), and even if Li Keqiang took power, we all know it was would be like Putin and Medvedev, with Xi still controlling, otherwise there would have been no reason for removing term limits for Xi. Xi controls the PLA loyalty, and he could arrest Li Keqiang or people from his faction if he wanted.
"you can live your life quite normally and happily."
As long as you don't stick out, or criticize the government. Ask the Hong Kongnese. Or if you prefer, ask Feng Ti Mo, who was invited for a cup of Tea with the gestapo because she sang the Chinese National Anthem in a way that displeased the government, and is now forced to carry Communist Youth League content on her streaming channels. Or ask Jack Ma, who offered a milquetoast criticism of out-of-date financial regulatory framework in China and found himself with a Tea date with the gestapo. (The analogy here would be Colin Kalpernick being held by the CIA, and then forced to make pro-Trump speeches at football openings, or Elon Musk criticizing the SEC, and being told the SpaceX IPO is cancelled)
In other words, sit down, shut up, keep your head down, and you'll be ok.
Oh, and woe unto you if you want to access internet outside of China, and waste time everyday trying to find which VPN server you can connect to that isn't blocked. The sum total knowledge of mankind is now available to most people on the planet, but foolishly blocked in the Mainland.
"In fact ethnic minorities generally get preferential treatment - e.g. looser restrictions, affirmative action in various places such as state examinations". Yes, and I hear and see Han complaining all the time about Uighurs, Tibetans, and Miao, etc getting preferential treatment on the Gaokao, which is very much like whites and asians in the US complaining about affirmative action.
But does that make up for the abuse? Does the US government setting up Affirmative Action programs make up for a terrible criminal justice system biased against African Americans, or police brutality against African Americans? So the Chinese government has affirmative action for ethnic minorities, that makes any other brutal suppression they do in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, or Inner Mongolia A-OK?
Is repression over anyone criticizing the central government publicly (and being loud enough to be noticed) made up for by marvelous infrastructure projects? Is this the price of high speed rail? Is it not possible to have freedom to compare Xi Jinping with Winnie the Pooh, and also have High Speed Rail and Shiny new airports?
Look, I don't hate China, otherwise I wouldn't have traveled all over it, learned Mandarin, and lived there. But I criticize US government policy HARSHLY, especially foreign policy, and I believe people have a right to criticize their government, and that China would be a much better agent for positive change in the world if it could shed the legacy of Mao, and move on to become a more open society, even going back to Deng-era policies would be better than the neo-fascist/nationalism that Xi is promoting these days.
The last 4 years saw rising nationalism in the US, and it has also been rising in Europe and in China. This is not good. We're trying to tame out nationalist Trump-wing here, and IMHO, Xi's pursuit of stroking nationalist sentiment is creating additional danger.
Rare to see such high quality content here. I share your analysis. But I believe Xi came at a time the mainland needed to be strengthened, to avoid being trumped over again (opium war like)
He is still needed? Maybe, because you said:
> The last 4 years saw rising nationalism in the US, and it has also been rising in Europe and in China. This is not good.
It is not good. Eventually the future for the mainland is bright, with good material condition and freedom. The situation is not ready yet. You can not "impose" democracy, the population must be ready.
But I believe all is done right and set for the generation being born now ("3 children per family") to be the happiest in the world.
Look, I understand the sentiment and context. China saw what happened in the USSR, and what's happening in India, and they are rightly fearful that a mob of 1 billion people who have not risen to the level of the 300-400 million middle class Chinese, pose an existential threat to the stability of the country if a power vacuum were left. They need to bring up the rest of the country to, ironically, prevent a communist revolution to the current "state capitalist" system they have.
The US came frighteningly close to instability during the Great Depression until FDR launched massive infrastructure projects, created social security, built 40,000 schools, created the GI Bill, etc.
But there is a such thing as overdoing it. I don't believe the current censorship is actually creating stability. Most educated Chinese know what's going on, can use VPNs, and the creativity of using anti-censorship terms on Weibo, shows people still want to criticize the government. (for example, mentioning Chloe Zhao was banned, so Chinese netizens started using her pinyin initials or English initials like CZ to refer to her, and the algorithms didn't pick it up)
Scarily enough, Xi has created such an atmosphere of nationalism, that "cancel culture" on behalf of "patriots" these days is enough to ruin someone, you don't even need the government to censor. If you criticize the government or China online these days, netizens will crush you.
Thank you for writing this epos. Your points are valid and even thou many chinese would disagree (I think), the parallels you draw between western and chinese phenomena are striking.
From afar (I have never been to china), I have to admit with a cold shiver, that the chinese control over the media might be working as intended. Usually, wealth and security encourage laicistic world views but like you said, nationalistic tendencies are on the rise everywhere and very useful for totalitarian regimes.
Maybe, the CCP even manages, with stronger measures, to rule away the demographic crisis, they are heading for and western governments will be even more jelly. It’s very concerning.
I spent years travelling around SE Asia, and met plenty of Chinese, enough to decide I did not want to go there. All of them were openly racist (mind you, all of SE Asia is openly racist, so this is nothing unusual). I accept that there are minority ethnic identities within China, but I have been told over and again (by Chinese people) that China is Han.
I have Chinese friends here in Berlin who still won't talk about Chinese politics within hearing range of their phones. If this isn't a totalitarian regime, what is?
My direct experience contradicts your statements. What are you basing them on?
My direct experience contradicts your direct experience. I'm Chinese, grew up in China until I was 5, and visit it every now and again.
> I have been told over and again (by Chinese people) that China is Han.
You are either selectively reporting, or selectively misremembering things based on your own existing prejudices. I have certainly talked to more Chinese people than you, and nobody has ever said this.
I lived in Berlin for 3.5 years, I found plenty of racism there as well; also in the UK and US where it's more subtle.
I'd assume your Chinese friends are a non-representative sample of Chinese people - likely, you are friends with them because they ran into issues with the government, and hence had similar interests and were attracted to the same events and locations. China has 1.4 billion people, this is bound to happen.
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Reply to the comments below:
> little point in discussing anything China-related in Western internet forums.
Thanks for the advice, I am indeed trying to take it in moderation. I think it's important to try to maintain some level of healthy discourse though, the anti-China propaganda is taking the world down a dark path.
> Curious on what you think of what China is doing to the Uyghur people. Do you believe that this is fabricated by all these media outlets?
Yes, they are all citing the same fake reports written by a few people working non-independently, driven ultimately by geopolitical strategy and taking advantage of liberal media's existing prejudices to portray China as "evil". See https://www.qiaocollective.com/en/education/xinjiang - a collection of a large number of sources from many different people, working independently.
I'm sorry you experienced racism. As an Australian and Brit, I apologise for our countries not living up to our ideals on these things. I can't speak for Germany - I'm a guest here too - but I know that most Germans are working towards eliminating racism from their culture.
That's not my experience of the Chinese, however. China is not working to eliminate racism. It doesn't have these ideals. As a white person I will never be accepted as a Chinese person by the Chinese, because in Chinese people's eyes, Chinese == Han (from my experience). This isn't unusual in Asia - Cambodians only recognise Khmer people, Japan only recognises ethnic Japanese people, and so on. I have white friends who have lived in Cambodia for decades, speak the language perfectly, have Cambodian families, but who can never become citizens and will never be accepted as "Cambodian" because of their race.
This isn't true of Australians (for example). Australia doesn't equate Australian = caucasian [0]. You can emigrate to Australia, and become a citizen, and the vast majority of Australians will accept you as an Australian because of that. Being Australian is not about race, but more about culture and commitment. Australia's sense of identity is not linked to its ethnic identity in the same way that SE Asian countries are.
[0] There are always some racist dickheads who will disagree with this. Sorry for that.
These days, I find that there is little point in discussing anything China-related in Western internet forums. There's an overwhelming amount of ignorance, misinformation, prejudice and propaganda about China from tons of different parties. People largely post to get their standpoints confirmed, and nothing you post will change anything.
As a fellow Chinese raised in the West, I know it's hard to resist getting drawn into such thread. I try to avoid posting/reacting as much as I can, and sincerely advise the same to you. You're probably not going to change anybody's mind and just wasting your own time.
As a Brit (though I have travelled and worked a bit in China), I'm constantly dismayed by the thinly-veiled (and sometimes overt) racism, biases, prejudice and ignorance that are on display in just about any HN thread about China - the comments for this article are particularly shocking.
Yes, the Chinese government has done some bad things in it's time, but plainly not everything they do has bad intentions. And bejesus, people in glass houses and all that.
It seems very much like the USA's anti-China propaganda machine is working well - particularly telling since I would have assumed that the average US HN reader was educated.
A culture of ostracizing what's perceived as 'the dumb and uninformed' is what got the US Trump. Putting up a wall against them didn't get the US to a better place. Like it or not, there's a substantial amount of misinformed and misguided people and if you do not at least interact/counter-argue there's a real chance that more people get misinformed to the point something goes horribly wrong, they're in support of it and you can't do anything against them.
As chinese there's a sense that we should keep our head down in favor of the harmony. But I've come to realize this isn't enough we should let the truth speak louder. Keep fighting the good fight.
I think this is equivalent to someone not arguing back because theres no real evidence to support their bias. Saying that all these media outlets are spreading misinformation for some reason is really not supported by fact. Is there fake news, sure. But that's different from saying that everything critical of a country is propaganda.
What are people ignorant about here? There's been several countries/states that deny China and confirms what everyone believes (Taiwan, Hong Kong).
Curious on what you think of what China is doing to the Uyghur people.
Do you believe that this is fabricated by all these media outlets? I would think that genocide of a particular ethnicity would count as totalitarian and racist.
China's identity isn't based on a single ethnic identity - the various restrictions (such as the now-3-child-policy, and permanent immigration between cities) apply to everyone. In fact ethnic minorities generally get preferential treatment - e.g. looser restrictions, affirmative action in various places such as state examinations - because it's recognised that a majority ethnic groups have disproportionate power.
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Reply to the comment below:
> As long as you don't stick out, or criticize the government positively quite frequently.
The ways in which this statement is both true and false in its details, is not particularly different from the West.
In China, there are local protests quite regularly, and local governments respond.
In Hong Kong the protests were incredibly violent and disruptive. You cite the crackdowns by the government, but you don't cite the actions by the protestors and opposition legislators, that also attack innocents and filibuster the legislature for years, much more disruptively and disrespectfully than anything that's happened in the West, including shouting "Fuck China" during legislative oath-taking.
In China, mass organised protest against the national government is not tolerated, but nobody cares if you write some stuff on social media. In the West, in the rare case that actual mass protests ever get too rowdy they are shutdown quite brutally by the police. In China the government stops the situation before it gets to that point. In the West, anyone that sticks out enough to really be a bother, like Julian Assange, gets shut down very brutally too.
In both cases, these types of mass protests don't generally change anything in the political system. And in both cases, most ordinary people actually really just don't care to do these things, because the situation is fine in both China and the West - certainly not like the levels of the revolutions in the 1800s or the wars in the early 1900s. So when you criticise China for not allowing these things, this comes from a position of privilege, you have forgotten what it's like to be hungry. Not being hungry matters more, and China has found an efficient way to do that, so I am happy for them (and "us" as far as I can claim that). Maybe later things will become more relaxed, but it's not a particularly big priority.
> brutal suppression they do in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, or Inner Mongolia A-OK?
Most of the "evidence" regarding Xinjiang is fabricated, the Hong Kong stories are exaggerated and one-sided. I'd be against any actual specific cases of brutal suppression that's going on. But that still wouldn't make me "anti-China" in the same way you're not "anti-US" or "anti-West" presumably (I am not either). But that's what Western media portrayals seem to be trying to do - saying that, oh China is doing some bad things, they are evil, they need to be stopped. China is not evil, the world is a complex place.
> we all know it was would be like Putin and Medvedev, with Xi still controlling,
Nobody really knows the details of these things high up, it's all conjecture. It's sure convenient that Democrat and Republican policies, compared to the rest of the world, are very similar. How do you know they're not essentially in cahoots and just putting up a show of being "opposites" for the rest of the world?