Again not trying to argue the merits of either one just the different values of the societies. Its also not like collectivism is objectively worse than individualism. The Japanese are still very much an "Eastern" country in the sense that they are more collectivist and Confucian despite having Western style institutions and government and I wouldn't say that it has hindered their progress as a nation.
They are however also a culture that is very meritocratic. In ancient China anyone could be a government official as long as they could pass the imperial examinations regardless of social status and wealth. Right now the CCP is full of a lot of technocrats, relatively pragmatic in its dealings and has largely delivered on its promise of greater economic prosperity so in general people support the government. Its not an inherent thing that the populace will just be subservient to an authoritarian regime.
I'll wait until the 2012 election before I totally believe that's totally the case. But so far the American political situation looks quite grim. The entire reason why it looks grim? Those social groups are indirectly manipulating the media and doing their level best at messaging on a national scale. They are trying to embrace a type of collectivism and tribalism that galvanizes people.
That's why I say media control is the central issue. They're watching China to see how it can stymie, halt or even maybe reverse the flow of social progress all through careful media control. Obviously the exact same approach won't work here for reasons you just mentioned but the fact is that right now in America we do have the danger of our social institutions being entirely undermined by a single political party that has shown no compunctions about taking the world economy hostage to meet its demands.
Such a power is no doubt carefully watching all nations for how they pacify and control their people. That's why I bring up China specifically because on all other accounts it is an absolutely massive nation, it may have a lot of rural areas and rural poverty but it also has a huge amount of cities and an educated middle and upper class. It embraces technology and all modern things except for cultural change or progress. China is the textbook example of how to do this because compared to the USA China's got problems on a far larger scale and yet is far more effective at dealing with them.
I don't think that will happen because Chinese society is unique in the values they have as I previously mentioned about being collectivist and meritocratic. Its also not that they are okay with just having an authoritarian government. More so that they will put up with it as long as everyone's standard of living keeps on improving and the government doesn't intrude hugely into the average person's life.
There was a time where being strictly anti-abortion, anti-gay, and pretty pro-intolerant was not seen as being hugely invasive to the average person's life. These are relative statuses afforded by social conditioning. We believe entirely different now. THAT is where the danger lies. If you can take people who thought it was and convince them it isn't/wasn't again you have a recipe for reversing social change. If you can isolate and make people apathetic about social issues and slow or even reverse taboos in the name of "traditional" or "stable" culture then you can undo social progress. The fact that the Chinese do not see the government as being invasive is EXACTLY the point, China's fighting to keep it that way despite the fact the rest of the world sees what they do as horribly invasive and yet the Chinese people welcome it. Again, people around the world are watching with eager eyes to learn these secrets.
I really doubt that any of the kind of people in the US you are talking about would ever be able to seize power. The US political system and democratic values are much too entrenched in American society for such a fringe group of people to change the system.
I don't think you'd have to worry about tribalism, China is pretty ethnically homogeneous and people don't have the same tribal mentality that you would find in some African or Middle Eastern countries. The elections are just for local councils which deal with disputes between residents and other local issues.
That may be the one possible reason why it wouldn't work elsewhere. If China's still got a huge amount of ethnic/racial homogeneity then it may be easier to sell these concepts. That's one of the things American politics do predict over time is that the changing climate here might end up working against the forces I described above. Whether that works or not I guess we'll see at a later date. (Election day)
China is still a very poor country in general. The aggregate size of its economy is huge but it has a massive population living in poverty. It is very behind both Korea and Taiwan in terms of average standard of living and views on homosexuality and gender roles in Korea and Taiwan are also not modern in comparison to Canada or the US. South Koreans are known to be very chauvinistic in their views on gender roles and Asian countries in general still aren't very accepting of homosexuality.
To the external observer they still appeared to be moving on roughly the same track as other nations. I do know gender roles in Asian countries are definitely something that will take longer to reach Western levels. If these are indeed bigger problems there then I've been hearing about I may concede that point, although amend it with only that it makes me worry that much more in general about the east versus specifically China.
I'm not sure if I really agree with this because I feel like the younger generation is definitely more socially progressive and liberal than the older generation. If you watch any mainland Chinese dramas or television, topics like sex are being talked about more openly and even things like homosexuality are being joked about. There are also increasing amounts of collaboration with Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as huge popularity of South Korean film and TV shows. Its all exposing Chinese society to more open social views than it was before. Of course there are still a lot of mainland produced Chinese films that get banned or edited for domestic screening. However, I think its ridiculous to argue that China now hasn't advanced socially compared to China of the 80s or 90s. Heck, Shanghai even has an annual week long gay pride festival though they do not have an actual parade because the authorities weren't too keen on that.
Also I think you are perhaps overestimating how developed China is. Yes, there is a large group of super rich Chinese, the urban population is relatively well off but they are generally still worse off than the American middle class and there is a huge rural population (we're talking something like several hundred million people) that don't have laptops or internet connections.
I think the best way with reassuring you that China will one day be democratic is their stewardship of Hong Kong and Macau. There were a lot of fears leading up to the handover that the PRC would come in and suppress social freedoms in Hong Kong, but they have left it mainly alone by giving it SAR status and promising not to interfere with it for 50 years. There are large yearly demonstrations to remember the Tiananmen massacres in Hong Kong as well as open protests against the government.
I think the CCP is pretty pragmatic and they will move China more and more towards a democratic society as the economic situation continues to improve. Their greatest fear is that mainland China is too poor, too underdeveloped and too uneducated to move too suddenly towards social and democratic liberalization. The greatest challenge facing the central government is not becoming a democracy but fighting against serious internal corruption, growing inequality between the richer coastal provinces and the poorer Chinese interior and environmental degradation.
Well, you definitely provide much more food for thought for someone from the west to consider. Although I still have very hesitant attitudes. Our current political shift in the USA honestly has me worried. More specifically because of the entire debt ceiling debacle and how the U.S. may end up defaulting on its debts to the world (a lot held by China, ironically ) all because of partisan political issues revolving around mostly reversing social progress.
So seeing any nation stand as an example of being able to do that worries me for the fate of my own country. There are sharks out there, so we don't want any blood in the water politically, so to speak.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve.
Any that's just one of many reasons to be terrified of them gaining military super power status.
The Chinese as a people are more about pragmatism
Building ghost cities to maintain artificial growth rates says hi.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve.
Any that's just one of many reasons to be terrified of them gaining military super power status.
The Chinese as a people are more about pragmatism
Building ghost cities to maintain artificial growth rates says hi.
Also the rural to city thing is just more a thing of logistics. There is a permit system for being able to live in some of the big cities but I would say it is pretty necessary in a country with 1.3 billion people. It is not like it has stopped urban populations to swell. The government just can't handle that big a migration of people nor does it want a bunch of slums springing up in the cities like you find in places like Lagos, Nigeria.
Right, they want the poor out of sight and out of mind.
You do realize that we do the same thing in the US, right? We just use zoning, building codes, and various municipal laws to do it via artificially constrained supply and barriers to entry rather than with a direct permit system. Thanks in no small part to the fact that our entire population is China's census' margin of error.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve.
Any that's just one of many reasons to be terrified of them gaining military super power status.
I'm just not seeing it. But then I seem to be coming at this from a different angle than most other posters, aside from EnlightenedBum as usual.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve.
Any that's just one of many reasons to be terrified of them gaining military super power status.
Let's be fair though, you'd get the same proportional response to that question if you posed it to Americans. (Though it might have to be reworded so that interventionist conservatives who profess to hate "Big Government" wouldn't accidentally give a misleading answer.)
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve.
Any that's just one of many reasons to be terrified of them gaining military super power status.
I think fears of a belligerent China are much exaggerated. The absolute last thing the Chinese government and people would want is for some sort of war to interfere with economic development. I'd like to see actual proof that the Chinese people are some kind of war mongering society and need to be feared. China has constantly maintained a stance that they don't believe in getting involved in the domestic affairs of foreign countries. I'm sure there are people in many countries that are just as afraid of the US military power as a growing China. And lets not get ahead of ourselves China is easily at least 30-40 years behind the US in military capability and isn't the country that spends more on its military budget than the entire rest of the world combined.
Its been said that China and America are too different to ever truly be friends but too important to ever truly be enemies. I honestly wouldn't worry too much about any sort of proxy wars or anything breaking out between the two.
The Chinese as a people are more about pragmatism
Building ghost cities to maintain artificial growth rates says hi.
Reports like that are also exaggerated. I've seen some of these "ghost towns" the news likes to report on in person. Its usually they build an entirely "xing qu" which translates directly into new neighbourhood. The reason it appears empty is because they build so many things simultaneously and often the residential buildings are put up first way before businesses and other commercial activities start moving into the area and there are a ton of rich property speculators who will swoop in first and buy up houses and condos just cause there is a big housing bubble in China right now.
China is a place where the government literally has to build several New York's every year just to accommodate for the growing urban population.
I'd like to see actual proof that the Chinese people are some kind of war mongering society and need to be feared
Well they're phasing on the Tibetan people. But you're missing the point. A country where the people knowingly accept what ever their government is doing as long as the money keeps flowing shouldn't have super power status. There simply isn't enough accountability.
I mean yeah I can cultural relativity with the best of them, but its a hard argument to make the argument that democracy isn't the objectively best form of government we've found so far.
I'd like to see actual proof that the Chinese people are some kind of war mongering society and need to be feared
Well they're phasing on the Tibetan people. But you're missing the point. A country where the people knowingly accept what ever their government is doing as long as the money keeps flowing shouldn't have super power status. There simply isn't enough accountability.
I mean yeah I can cultural relativity with the best of them, but its a hard argument to make the argument that democracy isn't the objectively best form of government we've found so far.
The PRC has shown that they don't have any interest in interfering in other countries domestic affairs though. This has also been a bad thing however as you see them giving loans and developing infrastructure for corrupt African nations without demanding they do anything to fix issues they have with their countries. But I think it shows that China doesn't have ambitions of getting into conflicts with other countries. The Chinese people wouldn't be very supportive of the CCP if they got bogged down in war like the US has in Iraq. The people there want the same thing as the average American does, a bigger house, a nicer car and to be able to send their children to a good school.
The CCP and China right now have no incentive in rocking the boat by getting involved in any conflicts and I think that by the point China reaches actual "superpower" status decades from now it will have also gradually liberalized and opened up to a level where it won't be as scary a boogeyman for America to bring up whenever someone starts ranting "Oh no America is in decline!"
I can't believe that people have been arguing about whether U.S. is as bad as China for seven pages. I mean, America isn't neccessarily a good influence on the world in many things (and very bad in some), but come on. Either way, not worried about China's rise. Thus far they have shown little interest in foreign escapades or threatening any other country. Sub-Saharan Africa will be fucked, obviously, but when has this been anything new? It's not like Western companies are any less ruthless and horrible in Africa.
I can't believe that people have been arguing about whether U.S. is as bad as China for seven pages. I mean, America isn't neccessarily a good influence on the world in many things (and very bad in some), but come on. Either way, not worried about China's rise. Thus far they have shown little interest in foreign escapades or threatening any other country. Sub-Saharan Africa will be fucked, obviously, but when has this been anything new? It's not like Western companies are any less ruthless and horrible in Africa.
Yeah, exactly. I would obviously rather live in a world run by America than I would the current PRC but the fears of China are unwarranted. They've constantly maintained a stance that they don't believe in tampering with other countries domestic affairs and are too integrated into the global society to have any incentive to start a conflict. By the time China achieves military parity with the US, if that even happens, I am almost certain it will be a much, much more free and open society than it is now.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve.
Any that's just one of many reasons to be terrified of them gaining military super power status.
Let's be fair though, you'd get the same proportional response to that question if you posed it to Americans. (Though it might have to be reworded so that interventionist conservatives who profess to hate "Big Government" wouldn't accidentally give a misleading answer.)
Yeah, I did not look at their specific survey design for this study. The point was rather that the Chinese probably think the government is more good than bad whereas Americans and other Westerners probably think the Chinese government is more bad than good because of differing societal views on how much more important civil liberty is than economic development.
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Its not that you have to accept collectivism its more I am trying to explain why Chinese society doesn't have the same values as Western society does and why the average Chinese person generally doesn't think there is as huge a problem with their government as the average American person does. It is definitely an intrinsic American/Western belief that all people around the world strive for a democracy but that desire is perhaps a bit more muted among the Chinese.
bad words under spoiler (1006 to be exact):
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve. They don't care as much about the fact that their country isn't totally "free" at the moment. The Chinese as a people are more about pragmatism, meritocracy and collectivism so they don't value the same ideals as Westerners do.
If you were to talk to my parents, they'd tell you that they think democracy is inefficient and joke about how long it takes government over here to make a decision on starting new infrastructure projects. Whereas in China the government is frantically putting up new metro systems, new highways, new bridges and tunnels and all sorts of other infrastructure at breakneck speed. They point to how India is a democracy and things take much longer to get done in China or how their government has like 37 parties. Many, many other Chinese living abroad will share this same view even though they live in democratic countries.
Please re-read the red text, then re-read the italicized subset of text, then re-read the bold subset of the subset of text. Do you still want to make the assertion that you are asserting with that line?
I'm not contesting your people's support of their government or even the effectiveness of your government's policies versus someone else's government's policies, but that line coupled with one from earlier where you specifically said "white people think this about my Country" has me questioning your motivation for your extremely spirited defense of policies and practices that can be argued by some to be worrisome.
there's also two troublesome ideas I've seen in this thread a few times already that I think geese need to be called out on. The first is the idea that arming a second bully as a check/balance against a first bully will somehow reduce bloodshed. If you and I are in conflict and only one of us has a gun then we can force coercion from the unarmed person with only the threat of using the gun, but if we both have a gun then wouldn't we be more likely to call each other's bluff? Wouldn't the one who previously had more power try to get a bigger gun to reacquire the superiority they once had?
The other is the idea that somehow a government that has no accountability can simply give us their word that they'll listen to our needs and wants and that's enough justification for its state of affairs. I'm really supposed to believe that a government who can do what they want, when and how they want to will actually do what the people want if there's a disconnect between what the people and what the government want. Scout's honor is not a good enough policy for me, and it's certainly not a good enough policy for domestic or foreign affairs.
edit: and just so we're clear I am probably a communist
Please re-read the red text, then re-read the italicized subset of text, then re-read the bold subset of the subset of text. Do you still want to make the assertion that you are asserting with that line?
I'm not contesting your people's support of their government or even the effectiveness of your government's policies versus someone else's government's policies, but that line coupled with one from earlier where you specifically said "white people think this about my Country" has me questioning your motivation for your extremely spirited defense of policies and practices that can be argued by some to be worrisome.
I'm not sure I completely understand what you are trying to say. Are you calling me a Chinese nationalist? Because I've lived in Canada for 17 years. I'm pretty sure that I didn't call it "my" country, although maybe I shouldn't have used the term "white" people. But if you mean that I am culturally biased well I think having been born in China, living in Canada most of my life, visiting about 10 states in the US and 15 other countries I have probably a better perspective on the world than the average person.
I think you are probably misinterpreting what I mean by that one line. I'm not asserting that the idea of democracy is a solely American/Western concept that is forced upon other people. It's more that a lot of people probably think all countries that are not democracies must by nature be extremely discontent with their government and the only thing keeping them from overthrowing it is because of oppression. I mean if you look at a place like Singapore it is hugely authoritarian but there is not significant civil unrest. Its that the principles such as rights of self determination, democracy and freedom from government intervention are core, core American values more so than many other first world nations even. Americans get scared at the idea of universal healthcare and anything that could be viewed as "socialist" much more than Canadians or Swedes or British would be.
I'm also not necessarily "defending" the policies and practices of "my" country. I'm trying to explain an extremely complex and complicated country and culture that I think a lot of people have a misinformed view on. Yes, I think China should be a democracy. But the key is that this must happen gradually. Right now there is a choice between instability that could severely hamper economic growth or lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and having to live with the fact that some are undoubtedly getting stepped on. Neither choice is ideal but I think maintaining the status quo is currently the best realistic option. China is a huge country with a ton of social, demographic and economic issues it has to deal with on its way to becoming an industrialized country. If we were to look at a country with similar problems like India I would argue that China's government has allowed it to increase overall civilian welfare more than India's has. The morality of this is what is questioned but I think the actual pay offs are clear cut. Chinese society will become more and more free and the general populace will desire more and more of a say once standard of living rises and an increasing number of basic needs are met. We saw the same kind of transitions in countries like South Korea and Taiwan. The difference here is that instead of dealing with small countries with 50 million and 20 million people we are talking about a place where that number is a rounding error in census reports.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve. They don't care as much about the fact that their country isn't totally "free" at the moment. The Chinese as a people are more about pragmatism, meritocracy and collectivism so they don't value the same ideals as Westerners do.
Well, the fact that 86% of people in China agree on this point should tell you something: there is no free media in China and the government has a huge amount of control over the population. The fact that 86% of the people in China are in favor of the Chinese government isn't a point in favor of that government.
If you were to talk to my parents, they'd tell you that they think democracy is inefficient and joke about how long it takes government over here to make a decision on starting new infrastructure projects. Whereas in China the government is frantically putting up new metro systems, new highways, new bridges and tunnels and all sorts of other infrastructure at breakneck speed. They point to how India is a democracy and things take much longer to get done in China or how their government has like 37 parties. Many, many other Chinese living abroad will share this same view even though they live in democratic countries.
Well, of course democracy is less efficient than an authoritarian system. A democracy gives regular people some say in how things are run. It's bad that the Chinese government can simply throw up infrastructure programs as it sees fit, with little or no input from the citizenry.
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Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government. If you talk to any Chinese living abroad the vast majority of them will also be pro-China. The Chinese don't think that their government is perfect but they are content with the status quo as long as the standard of living continues to improve. They don't care as much about the fact that their country isn't totally "free" at the moment. The Chinese as a people are more about pragmatism, meritocracy and collectivism so they don't value the same ideals as Westerners do.
Well, the fact that 86% of people in China agree on this point should tell you something: there is no free media in China and the government has a huge amount of control over the population. The fact that 86% of the people in China are in favor of the Chinese government isn't a point in favor of that government.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that the government controls people at the level of the individual, such that they approve of the government against their will to a Pew poll?
It's bad that the Chinese government can simply throw up infrastructure programs as it sees fit, with little or no input from the citizenry.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government.
The citizens of a country thinking their government is great doesn't make that government great.
Is "great government" even the question? I would assume this is a reflection of confidence in and general favorable view of government, if Pew Research is worth a shit. Hell, people in a single American city aren't going to have consistently similar expectations of government, much less people in the United States and China.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government.
The citizens of a country thinking their government is great doesn't make that government great.
A large part of that 88% supports their government simply because of pro-government propaganda feeding blind ultra-nationalism.
I used to date a Chinese girl, and she would not accept even the simplest criticism of China in general and the Chinese government in particular. Even on matters of foreign policy, where China has a horrendous reputation, she wouldn't budge - for example, she would say that the monks in Tibet are barbarians who kill people on sacrificial altars and drink their blood, and therefore the Chinese government has to go in and stop their evil.
Again a study by Pew Research Institute found that 86% of Chinese citizens were pro-government.
The citizens of a country thinking their government is great doesn't make that government great.
A large part of that 88% supports their government simply because of pro-government propaganda feeding blind ultra-nationalism.
I used to date a Chinese girl, and she would not accept even the simplest criticism of China in general and the Chinese government in particular. Even on matters of foreign policy, where China has a horrendous reputation, she wouldn't budge - for example, she would say that the monks in Tibet are barbarians who kill people on sacrificial altars and drink their blood, and therefore the Chinese government has to go in and stop their evil.
I know plenty of Americans and Chinese people. In this respect they seem very similar.
I lived in China for a couple of years. My perspective was skewed, of course, but the general theme that I gathered was that came out of that is that people (generally) liked the central government, hated local governments and the officials... Where nationalism was concerned, most of the people I knew weren't any worse than the typical American.
I lived in China for a couple of years. My perspective was skewed, of course, but the general theme that I gathered was that came out of that is that people (generally) liked the central government, hated local governments and the officials... Where nationalism was concerned, most of the people I knew weren't any worse than the typical American.
/anecdote
Did you ever actually spend time away from the affluent areas?
I lived in China for a couple of years. My perspective was skewed, of course, but the general theme that I gathered was that came out of that is that people (generally) liked the central government, hated local governments and the officials... Where nationalism was concerned, most of the people I knew weren't any worse than the typical American.
/anecdote
Did you ever actually spend time away from the affluent areas?
Nope!
My friends were a mix of the super-rich and the "middle class" as it were (teachers and other such people).
Not to sidetrack all of this "2 superpowers is better than 1" and "The US human rights record is getting worse!" (because a lack of government transparency and occasional corruption is totally worse than butchering millions of Indians and imprisoning Japanese people, yo), but I figured I'd locate this esteemed Pew Research Center study. Aside from various censorship, propaganda and other various civil rights issues I know of in China I figured I'd look into these mysterious findings.
(PDF with more information including methodology is in the top right).
A few things to be aware of:
One should be wary of applying the entire study's results to all of China. Not only was it taken just before the Olympics (although there was also an regional disaster from an earthquake that year, too), but it does not fully represent the Chinese population.
These are the latest findings from the 2008 Pew Research survey of China. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 3,212 adults in China between March 28 and April 19, 2008, a period which followed the March 10 onset of civil unrest on Tibet and preceded the May 12 earthquake in China's Sichuan Province. The sample, which is disproportionately representative of China's urban areas, includes eight major cities, as well as medium-sized towns and rural areas in eight Chinese provinces. The area covered by the sample represents approximately 42% of the country's adult population.
Furthermore, some basic responses show a lack of international knowledge (or a lack of empathy) representative of a misinformed or misguided public (although to be fair China also registered highest in "least individualistic" in Pew's 24-nation study). As examples:
Only 3% of Chinese think their economy is hurting other countries. This is very different from how Americans currently view the effects of their nation's economy -- 61% say the U.S. is having a negative impact on other countries.
Free markets are important to the Chinese, but so, too, is the environment. Eight-in-ten Chinese agree that protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it leads to slower economic growth and some loss of jobs (17% disagree).
(Maybe no one is telling them how dumping factory waste in their rivers is causing a bunch of disease and turning rivers into toxic sludge?)
Q11a How do you think people in other countries of the world feel about China? Is China generally like [sic] or disliked?
Generally liked: 77
Generally disliked: 10
Don't Know/Refuse to answer: 13
And so on. Actually, I recommend downloading the PDF and browsing through page 38 onward, which has the individual questions and the percentage of responses.
Random opinion: these attitudes seem very similar to 1950s-era US to me.
I lived in China for a couple of years. My perspective was skewed, of course, but the general theme that I gathered was that came out of that is that people (generally) liked the central government, hated local governments and the officials... Where nationalism was concerned, most of the people I knew weren't any worse than the typical American.
/anecdote
Did you ever actually spend time away from the affluent areas?
Nope!
My friends were a mix of the super-rich and the "middle class" as it were (teachers and other such people).
I'm inclined to say, if we're using the United States as a basis, this would make a big difference.
Want to see some opinions of the state, the country, and other countries, that would sound "less rational"? Go the impoverished (or even just moderately 'poverished') South, or even just the somewhat less affluent rural areas. I suspect something could be found in certain urban areas--I just have a lot less experience with it than I have with rural ones as a consequence of having lived in the American South where rural life is seemingly everywhere.
Also, I suspect "occasional failures in government transparency" are not particularly vigorous complaints of the United States outside the United States. "Using missile-armed drones to solve long-standing diplomatic and security concerns," is, I bet. I haven't conducted any studies, but sitting here in a ex-police state, the average Taiwanese complaint about the United States--if someone is complaining, which is not always the case--is not "occasional failures in government transparency." It usually has something to do with "bombs", "oil", or "international monetary fund."
Logical? No, but that's how a lot of people feel, I suspect.
You know if our second hypothetical super power was the UK or France or Germany, or even some sort of idealized EU I could get behind a balancing effect, but China?
This would be your pro-western bias. Yes China has done many terrible things, but so have all those European countries.
China is continuing to do many terrible things.
America is too
American didn't magically turn into the land of rainbows and unicorns as soon as the cold war ended. We've continued fucking shit up all around the world. So far about a million people have died since the Iraq war started, and there's no end in sight to that. I really don't understand why people think that the US is some sort of moral paragon, and that the rest of the world is better off just letting America rule it with supreme force.
Yes that is kind of a given.
But this quote tree was based on internal conditions. America by and large has strong and intact human rights. So do most of the western European countries. China does not.
That's why I don't want china being a world military super power.
Also we didn't annex Iraq and then ship people over there to displace the locals.
Nor are tea partiers being send to iron mines in Manchuria.
The thing about human right is... it's easy to enjoy them when you're rich and secure. Not so easy when your country is on the brink of starvation, and under constant threat of invasion.
China's human rights record is bad, but at least it's getting better. America's is getting worse.
Again, I'm not saying that I want countries to be run by China. I never said that. But I would prefer a military standoff between China and the US that allows countries to run themselves, rather than giving either side control over 3rd world nations.
Which some people have addressed. I focused on more domestic aspects of its ridiculousness.
Internationally it's hard to argue that the US' policies have become that much worse either (even with fluctuations between presidents). If someone thinks things are bleak now with criticisms like "The US blindly supports Israel!" and "The US bombs other countries to get oil!" I'd love to know how how they look on things like the Monroe Doctrine. Or how about the Spanish-American War? How about fomenting a revolution so that the US could build a public works project? Or the USA's part in Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War?
You mean the intervention no one outside the CIS countries knows about? Not an exaggeration, I have not encountered a single American textbook that has ever mentioned this--and the situation isn't much better in other countries, from what I've heard. I'd love to be wrong.
Honestly, I have to say, just because the United States has done things dramatically more upsetting in specific regards, I don't see how that negates the current criticisms of the country. At all. Aside from an unfortunate unfamiliarity with history, it doesn't diminish the initial complaint any further than, "Yeah, but, hey get a load of this..." Fun for discussion, sure, but not meaningfully changing of the charge, I think.
Just to give an example: "What China is doing with dissident voices attempting to publish work is a travesty, but at least they're not firing missiles into every country they've got some problem they want to resolve. That's America's job."
The counter could be, "Yeah, but if you think that's messed up...America spends half the world's military expenditures. They could be sending twenty times as many rockets! Do you have any idea how much ordinance was dropped on Vietnam alone?"
That's perhaps the case, but I don't think that diminishes the value of the initial complaint. As you said, this is a trend that doesn't just change with presidents changing office--not in a life-changing way, anyway--this is something that's been going on for decades, and historically, isn't limited to any particular country. It's just the United States exercises missile diplomacy often times alone now--either in practice or perception.
I want to say "No one else gives a shit about America's transparency of government besides Americans", but that isn't true. But when you make a complaint like that, and as complaints go, just like those about China or America or any country, they're not going to be totally rational and will reflect the person making them, they still carry some weight, and they're not uncommon. I've started to ramble, but to put it more simply, I don't think people are exclusively going "Sure, China's got an iron fist, but have you seen America in this day and age?" I think as many--perhaps more--are going "Sure, China's got an iron fist, but America's got a love affair with the aroma of a ship-launched guided missile, and those things seem to grow like daisies over there!" I guess the other person going "Whoa! That's fucked up! But what they're doing today still sucks!" I mean, you could do the same about China, albeit on a much longer time scale...consider the concept of suzerainty over China's neighbors for several centuries, and I doubt it'd make anyone feel any less sympathetic towards the government's crack down on people who take the step from just talking to broadly presenting information through some medium or another*.
But, maybe I'm speculating incorrectly. I'm just going based on what I've observed in a part of the world that has an admittedly complex relationship with China anyway. I can't even be certain myself that China is "freerer" now than it was three years ago--I would say there's a long term trend towards an American description of freedom, in many respects, but narrowing it down? I don't think I could say the same thing with certainty about Taiwan either.
Plus, I could be misunderstanding what you're getting at Rex. It's 1:30 AM where I am, and I've been sleepy all day.
*On a sleepy side note, where I am we get the New Tang Dynasty Channel--apparently, parts of China can get this to, periodically, when they fail to block it out. Sort of comes off as a Radio Free Europe circa 1980 or so, but as a television network. Every morning it seems, they broadcast "Nine Critiques of the Communist Party of China", which would probably be a lot more effective if it weren't for three things:
1. They didn't use as much footage from movies placed back-to-back, with very little editing distinction, with historical footage. You can tell the difference, and that's part of the problem for their message.
2. They didn't cite the Black Book of Communism. There's plenty of ways to get anti-communist message across--governments through the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia were doing it for years without relying on a "Magic Bullet" style catalog book.
3. It wasn't so commonly known that the network was owned by Falun Gong Businessmen--I think they came right out and said it. This would probably be okay in the US, where I've heard Senators have actually come out criticizing the government in Taipei for not endorsing the network, but in Taiwan, where the Falun Gong is seen by a lot as being political troublemakers in a state that is not historically tolerant of them, and committing a Taiwan first of abusing the protection afforded them to the law--correctly or incorrectly--it's probably costing the network some potential converts.
Plus, their occasional fetishism of Chiang and his ilk, while pretty rare, I think, borders on the creepy and disturbing. It's like putting Mussolini up on a pedestal, and then saying he had lovely hygiene to boot. The Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall's more subtle at times.
I think the more relevant point is that anyone who thinks the US's record on human rights or anything like that is getting WORSE is smoking some fine shit. The US is getting BETTER on that front. It's just we all hear more about it.
I think the more relevant point is that anyone who thinks the US's record on human rights or anything like that is getting WORSE is smoking some fine shit. The US is getting BETTER on that front. It's just we all hear more about it.
Yeah, I probably could have made that clearer--basically, I don't think people outside the United States are complaining about the country's respect for the word of law and rights of citizens. I think they're complaining, as people complain about distant places they have an opinion of, about what they perceive as year after year of cruise missile diplomacy.
It's a bit hard for me to put in words without rambling.
I think the more relevant point is that anyone who thinks the US's record on human rights or anything like that is getting WORSE is smoking some fine shit. The US is getting BETTER on that front. It's just we all hear more about it.
Yeah, I probably could have made that clearer--basically, I don't think people outside the United States are complaining about the country's respect for the word of law and rights of citizens. I think they're complaining, as people complain about distant places they have an opinion of, about what they perceive as year after year of cruise missile diplomacy.
It's a bit hard for me to put in words without rambling.
These are roughly the same things though. Unless you are specifically confining "respect for the word of law and rights of citizens" to only refer to internal matters.
Because generally people's complaints about "cruise missile diplomacy" is also a complaint about the lack of respect for international law. People complain not about distant places, but about those distant places bombing them.
Anyone really getting the shitend of the american foreign diplomacy stick isn't in a position to give a shit about american domestic policy. Or, for that matter, Chinese domestic policy. That's confined to people in first world countries who have the time, information and safety to start giving a shit about people in other random countries and how they are treated.
I think the more relevant point is that anyone who thinks the US's record on human rights or anything like that is getting WORSE is smoking some fine shit. The US is getting BETTER on that front. It's just we all hear more about it.
Yeah, I probably could have made that clearer--basically, I don't think people outside the United States are complaining about the country's respect for the word of law and rights of citizens. I think they're complaining, as people complain about distant places they have an opinion of, about what they perceive as year after year of cruise missile diplomacy.
It's a bit hard for me to put in words without rambling.
These are roughly the same things though. Unless you are specifically confining "respect for the word of law and rights of citizens" to only refer to internal matters.
Because generally people's complaints about "cruise missile diplomacy" is also a complaint about the lack of respect for international law. People complain not about distant places, but about those distant places bombing them.
Anyone really getting the shitend of the american foreign diplomacy stick isn't in a position to give a shit about american domestic policy. Or, for that matter, Chinese domestic policy. That's confined to people in first world countries who have the time, information and safety to start giving a shit about people in other random countries and how they are treated.
No they're not. I mean, there are similarities, but they're not "roughly the same", especially in the minds of those making the complaints, I think. I think there's a difference in aggression that's considered--though twisting intentional law is part of it, I think the appearance of warmonging or warlike behavior by itself, and the violence carried by it, can be repulsive enough and garner a lot of criticism. I'm sympathetic to both complaints--though I think it's worth examining the situation in a wider context, and I know I haven't followed the issues as closely as I could have--but I think people dislike the idea of countries firing missiles and bombs for reasons very much other than "their are agreements that say they shouldn't."
I have to disagree with you as far as "People complaint not about distance places, but about those distant places bombing them." I am not talking about the response of people in Pakistan concerning missile strikes in Pakistan. This may be shocking, but people talk about this in Taiwan, in France, in any number of countries. They talk about it in a different context, certainly--not a "my house might blown up" context, but still an accusative one, which is what I felt Rex was addressing. Why wouldn't they? While their concern probably doesn't compare to someone who is worried their house might get blown up, their dismay or anger certainly is there. Are they all going to declare a vendetta against the United States? Of course not, but the complaints are there, even if in small numbers (I'm in no position to measure them per capita or anything like that, I'm not the Pew Institute), and I think the distinction is worth making. Are other countries doing violent things on an international level? Of course. Are people in those countries complaining? I would certainly expect so, but repudiating the violence of others is frequently easier.
I'm reluctant to call Taiwan a first-world country, especially since my most recent return--but frankly, that's in part because I think the whole "worlds" system is shit as a descriptor, and I've said that on this forum in the past--but people here certainly complain about it. And yes, the likelihood of people voicing a complaint does relate to their ability to survive and their standard of living in a country, but so? Even if it was "confined" to the elite few, they're still complaining about it--returning to my original point, I don't think they're complaining about the US because of perceived failure of human rights.
(because a lack of government transparency and occasional corruption is totally worse than butchering millions of Indians and imprisoning Japanese people, yo)
:?
Are you seriously going to compare the entirety of the history of the US to your apparently limited understanding of China's recent issues?
I still don't grasp the concept of applying stuff from, you know, close to 200 years ago to whether or not a country is getting better or worse today. Maybe I'm totally insane, but I'd probably just judge how a country acted within my lifetime. Would you honestly insist your country wasn't going down the shitter if it started doing awful things, just because those things weren't yet on par with the trail of tears?
Hey guys, Israel is great with human rights and super peaceful. You can tell, because they totally haven't pulled off genocide since the Canaanites.
This is totally aside from whether or not that I agree the US is getting worse in the short term (I'd say I don't, the Patriot Act still sits really badly with me, but compared to some of the shit done during the cold war? And precision drone strikes seem pretty tame.) But the logic being used here is goosery, at best.
Was extremely common for the Soviet Union to waste their (rapidly diminishing) resources on pretending to produce useful goods.
They really worked to spread the disinformation that their economy was booming, when in fact it was collapsing in on itself.
Would be shocked if China was growing nearly as fast as their ghost-town-building communist regime claims.
Not a particularly good documentary. They just show you some video of empty streets and then tell you that its a "ghost city."Although, the South China Mall thing was actually a disaster and has been reported on many times but I'm pretty sure that was built by a private company which just chose a terrible location for a mall. Dongguan is very close to Shezhen, Guangzhou and Hong Kong so there are like easily 40+ million people in that area. A mall of that size could have been viable had it been located near actual major highways and easily accessible by public transit.
But if you were too look into this "ghost city" segment you'd find out that Zhengzhou is actually the capital of Henan province and has like 7 million people. As I said before in a previous post tons of new neighbourhoods like this are built in China every year. We are talking about a country that is undergoing a massive migration of people into urban areas on the scale of tens of millions. Right now still only 46% of the population lives in cities. China literally needs to build the equivalent of several New York City's a year just to accommodate for the growing urban population so the government needs to plan ahead and build new developments like this one so that there is adequate living space. Of course the transition is not going to be entirely smooth, it would be much worse to only build when there is immediate demand so instead they build in large discrete increments to ensure that there is no overcrowding.
The reason the newer developments look so empty is because the entire thing is built up simultaneously with the residential buildings all being put up first. It takes time for people to start moving into them and businesses and commercial activities to start moving into the city. Its nothing new and the fact that this network did such a report on it makes me believe that they just don't really understand China. It just seems strange to outsiders because a country of this scale hasn't grown at this kind of rate ever before.
As for the Chinese fabricating their economic growth like the Soviets I think its probably not true. The USSR was much more closed off to the rest of the world where as China is the world's largest exporter by goods by monetary value as well as one of the world's largest importers. That's something that you can't fake. Chinese companies are also widely traded on foreign exchanges and have some of the largest market caps in the world such as PetroChina, China Telecom, China Unicom, Haier, Lenovo etc. PetroChina is even the worlds largest company by market capitalization. The Chinese economy is also much different from the USSR's in that its a free market economy in a country run by a single authoritarian government and not just a straight up command economy that is extremely inefficient in allocating capital and determining market demand and supply. If anything the central government has been much more afraid of economic growth being too fast resulting in excessive inflation and further fueling housing price speculation.
The housing price bubble is a serious problem though. Prices in all of the major cities like Shanghai have literally been doubling every 5 years for the past couple decades. Its a really difficult situation to evaluate though because of private property markets are still not very mature in the country after only beginning economic reforms and moving towards a market economy in 1978. Property laws are also different in China and I definitely do not claim to be an expert on them. To my knowledge you are effectively leasing the land from the government for 70 years rather than outright owning it.
They were only claiming that an extensive new suburb of Zhengzhou contains virtually no residents, not that the entire city of Zhengzhou was newly manufactured and vacant. That aside...
...in that its a free market economy in a country run by a single authoritarian economy and not just a straight up command economy that is extremely inefficient in allocating capital and determining market demand and supply.
What does this mean? Specifically, what is "a free market economy in a country run by a single authoritarian economy"? I've never heard an economy meaningfully described with those terms.
Is it a free market where the government reserves the right to exercise command of the economy when they see fit, or what?
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Though actually what first popped into my head on reading what you quoted was something Homer said in the simpsons episode where they go to China and Lucy Liu does a guest-voice.
They were only claiming that an extensive new suburb of Zhengzhou contains virtually no residents, not that the entire city of Zhengzhou was newly manufactured and vacant. That aside...
...in that its a free market economy in a country run by a single authoritarian economy and not just a straight up command economy that is extremely inefficient in allocating capital and determining market demand and supply.
What does this mean? Specifically, what is "a free market economy in a country run by a single authoritarian economy"? I've never heard an economy meaningfully described with those terms.
Is it a free market where the government reserves the right to exercise command of the economy when they see fit, or what?
Woops, meant to write "government." Pretty much the government is communist in the sense that they are the single party and have the final say in all decisions with regards to foreign policy and any domestic issues. The Chinese economy however is just like any other capitalist country however maybe without the same level of property and copyright protection yet, more government regulations and lower institutional quality compared to the US's SEC and other regulatory agencies.
The intro to that documentary is misleading though since they say "It's estimated that 10 new cities are being built every year" and "These are satellite images of one of China's newest cities." Again, its not out of place to see developments like this be relatively vacant at the beginning.
(because a lack of government transparency and occasional corruption is totally worse than butchering millions of Indians and imprisoning Japanese people, yo)
:?
Are you seriously going to compare the entirety of the history of the US to your apparently limited understanding of China's recent issues?
I think he's arguing that lack of government transparency and corruption - e.g. current issues of U.S. government, are not as bad as it's past issues - in other words, genocide and unlawful imprisonment.
Hence, United States are getting better, not worse.
Posts
I'll wait until the 2012 election before I totally believe that's totally the case. But so far the American political situation looks quite grim. The entire reason why it looks grim? Those social groups are indirectly manipulating the media and doing their level best at messaging on a national scale. They are trying to embrace a type of collectivism and tribalism that galvanizes people.
That's why I say media control is the central issue. They're watching China to see how it can stymie, halt or even maybe reverse the flow of social progress all through careful media control. Obviously the exact same approach won't work here for reasons you just mentioned but the fact is that right now in America we do have the danger of our social institutions being entirely undermined by a single political party that has shown no compunctions about taking the world economy hostage to meet its demands.
Such a power is no doubt carefully watching all nations for how they pacify and control their people. That's why I bring up China specifically because on all other accounts it is an absolutely massive nation, it may have a lot of rural areas and rural poverty but it also has a huge amount of cities and an educated middle and upper class. It embraces technology and all modern things except for cultural change or progress. China is the textbook example of how to do this because compared to the USA China's got problems on a far larger scale and yet is far more effective at dealing with them.
There was a time where being strictly anti-abortion, anti-gay, and pretty pro-intolerant was not seen as being hugely invasive to the average person's life. These are relative statuses afforded by social conditioning. We believe entirely different now. THAT is where the danger lies. If you can take people who thought it was and convince them it isn't/wasn't again you have a recipe for reversing social change. If you can isolate and make people apathetic about social issues and slow or even reverse taboos in the name of "traditional" or "stable" culture then you can undo social progress. The fact that the Chinese do not see the government as being invasive is EXACTLY the point, China's fighting to keep it that way despite the fact the rest of the world sees what they do as horribly invasive and yet the Chinese people welcome it. Again, people around the world are watching with eager eyes to learn these secrets.
That may be the one possible reason why it wouldn't work elsewhere. If China's still got a huge amount of ethnic/racial homogeneity then it may be easier to sell these concepts. That's one of the things American politics do predict over time is that the changing climate here might end up working against the forces I described above. Whether that works or not I guess we'll see at a later date. (Election day)
To the external observer they still appeared to be moving on roughly the same track as other nations. I do know gender roles in Asian countries are definitely something that will take longer to reach Western levels. If these are indeed bigger problems there then I've been hearing about I may concede that point, although amend it with only that it makes me worry that much more in general about the east versus specifically China.
Well, you definitely provide much more food for thought for someone from the west to consider. Although I still have very hesitant attitudes. Our current political shift in the USA honestly has me worried. More specifically because of the entire debt ceiling debacle and how the U.S. may end up defaulting on its debts to the world (a lot held by China, ironically
So seeing any nation stand as an example of being able to do that worries me for the fate of my own country. There are sharks out there, so we don't want any blood in the water politically, so to speak.
Any that's just one of many reasons to be terrified of them gaining military super power status.
Building ghost cities to maintain artificial growth rates says hi.
Especially with ths Men/Women ratio now...
You do realize that we do the same thing in the US, right? We just use zoning, building codes, and various municipal laws to do it via artificially constrained supply and barriers to entry rather than with a direct permit system. Thanks in no small part to the fact that our entire population is China's census' margin of error.
I'm just not seeing it. But then I seem to be coming at this from a different angle than most other posters, aside from EnlightenedBum as usual.
Let's be fair though, you'd get the same proportional response to that question if you posed it to Americans. (Though it might have to be reworded so that interventionist conservatives who profess to hate "Big Government" wouldn't accidentally give a misleading answer.)
I think fears of a belligerent China are much exaggerated. The absolute last thing the Chinese government and people would want is for some sort of war to interfere with economic development. I'd like to see actual proof that the Chinese people are some kind of war mongering society and need to be feared. China has constantly maintained a stance that they don't believe in getting involved in the domestic affairs of foreign countries. I'm sure there are people in many countries that are just as afraid of the US military power as a growing China. And lets not get ahead of ourselves China is easily at least 30-40 years behind the US in military capability and isn't the country that spends more on its military budget than the entire rest of the world combined.
Its been said that China and America are too different to ever truly be friends but too important to ever truly be enemies. I honestly wouldn't worry too much about any sort of proxy wars or anything breaking out between the two.
Reports like that are also exaggerated. I've seen some of these "ghost towns" the news likes to report on in person. Its usually they build an entirely "xing qu" which translates directly into new neighbourhood. The reason it appears empty is because they build so many things simultaneously and often the residential buildings are put up first way before businesses and other commercial activities start moving into the area and there are a ton of rich property speculators who will swoop in first and buy up houses and condos just cause there is a big housing bubble in China right now.
China is a place where the government literally has to build several New York's every year just to accommodate for the growing urban population.
Well they're phasing on the Tibetan people. But you're missing the point. A country where the people knowingly accept what ever their government is doing as long as the money keeps flowing shouldn't have super power status. There simply isn't enough accountability.
I mean yeah I can cultural relativity with the best of them, but its a hard argument to make the argument that democracy isn't the objectively best form of government we've found so far.
The PRC has shown that they don't have any interest in interfering in other countries domestic affairs though. This has also been a bad thing however as you see them giving loans and developing infrastructure for corrupt African nations without demanding they do anything to fix issues they have with their countries. But I think it shows that China doesn't have ambitions of getting into conflicts with other countries. The Chinese people wouldn't be very supportive of the CCP if they got bogged down in war like the US has in Iraq. The people there want the same thing as the average American does, a bigger house, a nicer car and to be able to send their children to a good school.
The CCP and China right now have no incentive in rocking the boat by getting involved in any conflicts and I think that by the point China reaches actual "superpower" status decades from now it will have also gradually liberalized and opened up to a level where it won't be as scary a boogeyman for America to bring up whenever someone starts ranting "Oh no America is in decline!"
Yeah, exactly. I would obviously rather live in a world run by America than I would the current PRC but the fears of China are unwarranted. They've constantly maintained a stance that they don't believe in tampering with other countries domestic affairs and are too integrated into the global society to have any incentive to start a conflict. By the time China achieves military parity with the US, if that even happens, I am almost certain it will be a much, much more free and open society than it is now.
Yeah, I did not look at their specific survey design for this study. The point was rather that the Chinese probably think the government is more good than bad whereas Americans and other Westerners probably think the Chinese government is more bad than good because of differing societal views on how much more important civil liberty is than economic development.
Please re-read the red text, then re-read the italicized subset of text, then re-read the bold subset of the subset of text. Do you still want to make the assertion that you are asserting with that line?
I'm not contesting your people's support of their government or even the effectiveness of your government's policies versus someone else's government's policies, but that line coupled with one from earlier where you specifically said "white people think this about my Country" has me questioning your motivation for your extremely spirited defense of policies and practices that can be argued by some to be worrisome.
there's also two troublesome ideas I've seen in this thread a few times already that I think geese need to be called out on. The first is the idea that arming a second bully as a check/balance against a first bully will somehow reduce bloodshed. If you and I are in conflict and only one of us has a gun then we can force coercion from the unarmed person with only the threat of using the gun, but if we both have a gun then wouldn't we be more likely to call each other's bluff? Wouldn't the one who previously had more power try to get a bigger gun to reacquire the superiority they once had?
The other is the idea that somehow a government that has no accountability can simply give us their word that they'll listen to our needs and wants and that's enough justification for its state of affairs. I'm really supposed to believe that a government who can do what they want, when and how they want to will actually do what the people want if there's a disconnect between what the people and what the government want. Scout's honor is not a good enough policy for me, and it's certainly not a good enough policy for domestic or foreign affairs.
edit: and just so we're clear I am probably a communist
I'm not sure I completely understand what you are trying to say. Are you calling me a Chinese nationalist? Because I've lived in Canada for 17 years. I'm pretty sure that I didn't call it "my" country, although maybe I shouldn't have used the term "white" people. But if you mean that I am culturally biased well I think having been born in China, living in Canada most of my life, visiting about 10 states in the US and 15 other countries I have probably a better perspective on the world than the average person.
I think you are probably misinterpreting what I mean by that one line. I'm not asserting that the idea of democracy is a solely American/Western concept that is forced upon other people. It's more that a lot of people probably think all countries that are not democracies must by nature be extremely discontent with their government and the only thing keeping them from overthrowing it is because of oppression. I mean if you look at a place like Singapore it is hugely authoritarian but there is not significant civil unrest. Its that the principles such as rights of self determination, democracy and freedom from government intervention are core, core American values more so than many other first world nations even. Americans get scared at the idea of universal healthcare and anything that could be viewed as "socialist" much more than Canadians or Swedes or British would be.
I'm also not necessarily "defending" the policies and practices of "my" country. I'm trying to explain an extremely complex and complicated country and culture that I think a lot of people have a misinformed view on. Yes, I think China should be a democracy. But the key is that this must happen gradually. Right now there is a choice between instability that could severely hamper economic growth or lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and having to live with the fact that some are undoubtedly getting stepped on. Neither choice is ideal but I think maintaining the status quo is currently the best realistic option. China is a huge country with a ton of social, demographic and economic issues it has to deal with on its way to becoming an industrialized country. If we were to look at a country with similar problems like India I would argue that China's government has allowed it to increase overall civilian welfare more than India's has. The morality of this is what is questioned but I think the actual pay offs are clear cut. Chinese society will become more and more free and the general populace will desire more and more of a say once standard of living rises and an increasing number of basic needs are met. We saw the same kind of transitions in countries like South Korea and Taiwan. The difference here is that instead of dealing with small countries with 50 million and 20 million people we are talking about a place where that number is a rounding error in census reports.
Well, of course democracy is less efficient than an authoritarian system. A democracy gives regular people some say in how things are run. It's bad that the Chinese government can simply throw up infrastructure programs as it sees fit, with little or no input from the citizenry.
Rigorous Scholarship
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that the government controls people at the level of the individual, such that they approve of the government against their will to a Pew poll?
It's bad for who? Who is it good for?
The citizens of a country thinking their government is great doesn't make that government great.
Is "great government" even the question? I would assume this is a reflection of confidence in and general favorable view of government, if Pew Research is worth a shit. Hell, people in a single American city aren't going to have consistently similar expectations of government, much less people in the United States and China.
A large part of that 88% supports their government simply because of pro-government propaganda feeding blind ultra-nationalism.
I used to date a Chinese girl, and she would not accept even the simplest criticism of China in general and the Chinese government in particular. Even on matters of foreign policy, where China has a horrendous reputation, she wouldn't budge - for example, she would say that the monks in Tibet are barbarians who kill people on sacrificial altars and drink their blood, and therefore the Chinese government has to go in and stop their evil.
I know plenty of Americans and Chinese people. In this respect they seem very similar.
/anecdote
Did you ever actually spend time away from the affluent areas?
Nope!
My friends were a mix of the super-rich and the "middle class" as it were (teachers and other such people).
They are right here. From July 2008.
(PDF with more information including methodology is in the top right).
A few things to be aware of:
One should be wary of applying the entire study's results to all of China. Not only was it taken just before the Olympics (although there was also an regional disaster from an earthquake that year, too), but it does not fully represent the Chinese population.
Furthermore, some basic responses show a lack of international knowledge (or a lack of empathy) representative of a misinformed or misguided public (although to be fair China also registered highest in "least individualistic" in Pew's 24-nation study). As examples:
(Maybe no one is telling them how dumping factory waste in their rivers is causing a bunch of disease and turning rivers into toxic sludge?)
And so on. Actually, I recommend downloading the PDF and browsing through page 38 onward, which has the individual questions and the percentage of responses.
Random opinion: these attitudes seem very similar to 1950s-era US to me.
I'm inclined to say, if we're using the United States as a basis, this would make a big difference.
Want to see some opinions of the state, the country, and other countries, that would sound "less rational"? Go the impoverished (or even just moderately 'poverished') South, or even just the somewhat less affluent rural areas. I suspect something could be found in certain urban areas--I just have a lot less experience with it than I have with rural ones as a consequence of having lived in the American South where rural life is seemingly everywhere.
Also, I suspect "occasional failures in government transparency" are not particularly vigorous complaints of the United States outside the United States. "Using missile-armed drones to solve long-standing diplomatic and security concerns," is, I bet. I haven't conducted any studies, but sitting here in a ex-police state, the average Taiwanese complaint about the United States--if someone is complaining, which is not always the case--is not "occasional failures in government transparency." It usually has something to do with "bombs", "oil", or "international monetary fund."
Logical? No, but that's how a lot of people feel, I suspect.
Which some people have addressed. I focused on more domestic aspects of its ridiculousness.
Internationally it's hard to argue that the US' policies have become that much worse either (even with fluctuations between presidents). If someone thinks things are bleak now with criticisms like "The US blindly supports Israel!" and "The US bombs other countries to get oil!" I'd love to know how how they look on things like the Monroe Doctrine. Or how about the Spanish-American War? How about fomenting a revolution so that the US could build a public works project? Or the USA's part in Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War?
Honestly, I have to say, just because the United States has done things dramatically more upsetting in specific regards, I don't see how that negates the current criticisms of the country. At all. Aside from an unfortunate unfamiliarity with history, it doesn't diminish the initial complaint any further than, "Yeah, but, hey get a load of this..." Fun for discussion, sure, but not meaningfully changing of the charge, I think.
Just to give an example: "What China is doing with dissident voices attempting to publish work is a travesty, but at least they're not firing missiles into every country they've got some problem they want to resolve. That's America's job."
The counter could be, "Yeah, but if you think that's messed up...America spends half the world's military expenditures. They could be sending twenty times as many rockets! Do you have any idea how much ordinance was dropped on Vietnam alone?"
That's perhaps the case, but I don't think that diminishes the value of the initial complaint. As you said, this is a trend that doesn't just change with presidents changing office--not in a life-changing way, anyway--this is something that's been going on for decades, and historically, isn't limited to any particular country. It's just the United States exercises missile diplomacy often times alone now--either in practice or perception.
I want to say "No one else gives a shit about America's transparency of government besides Americans", but that isn't true. But when you make a complaint like that, and as complaints go, just like those about China or America or any country, they're not going to be totally rational and will reflect the person making them, they still carry some weight, and they're not uncommon. I've started to ramble, but to put it more simply, I don't think people are exclusively going "Sure, China's got an iron fist, but have you seen America in this day and age?" I think as many--perhaps more--are going "Sure, China's got an iron fist, but America's got a love affair with the aroma of a ship-launched guided missile, and those things seem to grow like daisies over there!" I guess the other person going "Whoa! That's fucked up! But what they're doing today still sucks!" I mean, you could do the same about China, albeit on a much longer time scale...consider the concept of suzerainty over China's neighbors for several centuries, and I doubt it'd make anyone feel any less sympathetic towards the government's crack down on people who take the step from just talking to broadly presenting information through some medium or another*.
But, maybe I'm speculating incorrectly. I'm just going based on what I've observed in a part of the world that has an admittedly complex relationship with China anyway. I can't even be certain myself that China is "freerer" now than it was three years ago--I would say there's a long term trend towards an American description of freedom, in many respects, but narrowing it down? I don't think I could say the same thing with certainty about Taiwan either.
Plus, I could be misunderstanding what you're getting at Rex. It's 1:30 AM where I am, and I've been sleepy all day.
*On a sleepy side note, where I am we get the New Tang Dynasty Channel--apparently, parts of China can get this to, periodically, when they fail to block it out. Sort of comes off as a Radio Free Europe circa 1980 or so, but as a television network. Every morning it seems, they broadcast "Nine Critiques of the Communist Party of China", which would probably be a lot more effective if it weren't for three things:
1. They didn't use as much footage from movies placed back-to-back, with very little editing distinction, with historical footage. You can tell the difference, and that's part of the problem for their message.
2. They didn't cite the Black Book of Communism. There's plenty of ways to get anti-communist message across--governments through the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia were doing it for years without relying on a "Magic Bullet" style catalog book.
3. It wasn't so commonly known that the network was owned by Falun Gong Businessmen--I think they came right out and said it. This would probably be okay in the US, where I've heard Senators have actually come out criticizing the government in Taipei for not endorsing the network, but in Taiwan, where the Falun Gong is seen by a lot as being political troublemakers in a state that is not historically tolerant of them, and committing a Taiwan first of abusing the protection afforded them to the law--correctly or incorrectly--it's probably costing the network some potential converts.
Plus, their occasional fetishism of Chiang and his ilk, while pretty rare, I think, borders on the creepy and disturbing. It's like putting Mussolini up on a pedestal, and then saying he had lovely hygiene to boot. The Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall's more subtle at times.
I think the more relevant point is that anyone who thinks the US's record on human rights or anything like that is getting WORSE is smoking some fine shit. The US is getting BETTER on that front. It's just we all hear more about it.
Yeah, I probably could have made that clearer--basically, I don't think people outside the United States are complaining about the country's respect for the word of law and rights of citizens. I think they're complaining, as people complain about distant places they have an opinion of, about what they perceive as year after year of cruise missile diplomacy.
It's a bit hard for me to put in words without rambling.
These are roughly the same things though. Unless you are specifically confining "respect for the word of law and rights of citizens" to only refer to internal matters.
Because generally people's complaints about "cruise missile diplomacy" is also a complaint about the lack of respect for international law. People complain not about distant places, but about those distant places bombing them.
Anyone really getting the shitend of the american foreign diplomacy stick isn't in a position to give a shit about american domestic policy. Or, for that matter, Chinese domestic policy. That's confined to people in first world countries who have the time, information and safety to start giving a shit about people in other random countries and how they are treated.
No they're not. I mean, there are similarities, but they're not "roughly the same", especially in the minds of those making the complaints, I think. I think there's a difference in aggression that's considered--though twisting intentional law is part of it, I think the appearance of warmonging or warlike behavior by itself, and the violence carried by it, can be repulsive enough and garner a lot of criticism. I'm sympathetic to both complaints--though I think it's worth examining the situation in a wider context, and I know I haven't followed the issues as closely as I could have--but I think people dislike the idea of countries firing missiles and bombs for reasons very much other than "their are agreements that say they shouldn't."
I have to disagree with you as far as "People complaint not about distance places, but about those distant places bombing them." I am not talking about the response of people in Pakistan concerning missile strikes in Pakistan. This may be shocking, but people talk about this in Taiwan, in France, in any number of countries. They talk about it in a different context, certainly--not a "my house might blown up" context, but still an accusative one, which is what I felt Rex was addressing. Why wouldn't they? While their concern probably doesn't compare to someone who is worried their house might get blown up, their dismay or anger certainly is there. Are they all going to declare a vendetta against the United States? Of course not, but the complaints are there, even if in small numbers (I'm in no position to measure them per capita or anything like that, I'm not the Pew Institute), and I think the distinction is worth making. Are other countries doing violent things on an international level? Of course. Are people in those countries complaining? I would certainly expect so, but repudiating the violence of others is frequently easier.
I'm reluctant to call Taiwan a first-world country, especially since my most recent return--but frankly, that's in part because I think the whole "worlds" system is shit as a descriptor, and I've said that on this forum in the past--but people here certainly complain about it. And yes, the likelihood of people voicing a complaint does relate to their ability to survive and their standard of living in a country, but so? Even if it was "confined" to the elite few, they're still complaining about it--returning to my original point, I don't think they're complaining about the US because of perceived failure of human rights.
Thought this deserved more attention.
Was extremely common for the Soviet Union to waste their (rapidly diminishing) resources on pretending to produce useful goods.
They really worked to spread the disinformation that their economy was booming, when in fact it was collapsing in on itself.
Would be shocked if China was growing nearly as fast as their ghost-town-building communist regime claims.
:?
Are you seriously going to compare the entirety of the history of the US to your apparently limited understanding of China's recent issues?
Hey guys, Israel is great with human rights and super peaceful. You can tell, because they totally haven't pulled off genocide since the Canaanites.
This is totally aside from whether or not that I agree the US is getting worse in the short term (I'd say I don't, the Patriot Act still sits really badly with me, but compared to some of the shit done during the cold war? And precision drone strikes seem pretty tame.) But the logic being used here is goosery, at best.
Not a particularly good documentary. They just show you some video of empty streets and then tell you that its a "ghost city."Although, the South China Mall thing was actually a disaster and has been reported on many times but I'm pretty sure that was built by a private company which just chose a terrible location for a mall. Dongguan is very close to Shezhen, Guangzhou and Hong Kong so there are like easily 40+ million people in that area. A mall of that size could have been viable had it been located near actual major highways and easily accessible by public transit.
But if you were too look into this "ghost city" segment you'd find out that Zhengzhou is actually the capital of Henan province and has like 7 million people. As I said before in a previous post tons of new neighbourhoods like this are built in China every year. We are talking about a country that is undergoing a massive migration of people into urban areas on the scale of tens of millions. Right now still only 46% of the population lives in cities. China literally needs to build the equivalent of several New York City's a year just to accommodate for the growing urban population so the government needs to plan ahead and build new developments like this one so that there is adequate living space. Of course the transition is not going to be entirely smooth, it would be much worse to only build when there is immediate demand so instead they build in large discrete increments to ensure that there is no overcrowding.
The reason the newer developments look so empty is because the entire thing is built up simultaneously with the residential buildings all being put up first. It takes time for people to start moving into them and businesses and commercial activities to start moving into the city. Its nothing new and the fact that this network did such a report on it makes me believe that they just don't really understand China. It just seems strange to outsiders because a country of this scale hasn't grown at this kind of rate ever before.
As for the Chinese fabricating their economic growth like the Soviets I think its probably not true. The USSR was much more closed off to the rest of the world where as China is the world's largest exporter by goods by monetary value as well as one of the world's largest importers. That's something that you can't fake. Chinese companies are also widely traded on foreign exchanges and have some of the largest market caps in the world such as PetroChina, China Telecom, China Unicom, Haier, Lenovo etc. PetroChina is even the worlds largest company by market capitalization. The Chinese economy is also much different from the USSR's in that its a free market economy in a country run by a single authoritarian government and not just a straight up command economy that is extremely inefficient in allocating capital and determining market demand and supply. If anything the central government has been much more afraid of economic growth being too fast resulting in excessive inflation and further fueling housing price speculation.
The housing price bubble is a serious problem though. Prices in all of the major cities like Shanghai have literally been doubling every 5 years for the past couple decades. Its a really difficult situation to evaluate though because of private property markets are still not very mature in the country after only beginning economic reforms and moving towards a market economy in 1978. Property laws are also different in China and I definitely do not claim to be an expert on them. To my knowledge you are effectively leasing the land from the government for 70 years rather than outright owning it.
What does this mean? Specifically, what is "a free market economy in a country run by a single authoritarian economy"? I've never heard an economy meaningfully described with those terms.
Is it a free market where the government reserves the right to exercise command of the economy when they see fit, or what?
Which in fairness is a good way to look at China. I mean, they're nothing like the USSR under the 5 year plans.
Hrrrm, Wikipedia has an article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy
Though actually what first popped into my head on reading what you quoted was something Homer said in the simpsons episode where they go to China and Lucy Liu does a guest-voice.
Woops, meant to write "government." Pretty much the government is communist in the sense that they are the single party and have the final say in all decisions with regards to foreign policy and any domestic issues. The Chinese economy however is just like any other capitalist country however maybe without the same level of property and copyright protection yet, more government regulations and lower institutional quality compared to the US's SEC and other regulatory agencies.
The intro to that documentary is misleading though since they say "It's estimated that 10 new cities are being built every year" and "These are satellite images of one of China's newest cities." Again, its not out of place to see developments like this be relatively vacant at the beginning.
I think he's arguing that lack of government transparency and corruption - e.g. current issues of U.S. government, are not as bad as it's past issues - in other words, genocide and unlawful imprisonment.
Hence, United States are getting better, not worse.