Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 78 Editor's Choice: 28
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China politics boiler-plate, part 1
[Read the article: An Olympic disgrace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is my boiler-plate “observation” article which I will present on forum boards and websites in which I feel there is a lot of mis-understanding about what China and Chinese people are really like, what they believe, etc. Please feel free to help me improve the language, grammar, or content of this article
1. China is not a totalitarian state. It is authoritarian. The government will sometimes arrest people who publish or broadcast views which the government considers “splitest” or inciting anti-government rhetoric. However, the government does not care about or censor speech between individuals or generally insert itself into the private lives of its citizens (which is what Totalitarian governments do). Chinese people do not live in fear of their government. It is more appropriate to say the government of China is a “technocracy”, meaning, that the government derives its legitimacy based on how well it technically governs.
2. China is not a “Big-Brother” state. There is not propaganda all over the place. People are not brainwashed any more than anyone else in the world. In fact, there are way too few police officers on the streets. There is way too little government regulators around to enforce regulations.
3. The Chinese people and government greatly fear “chaos” and the breakdown of social order. This is not just government propaganda. Chinese people feel that when the government is not strong, society will fall apart. And when society falls apart, many people suffer greatly. When this happens, China invariably becomes a collection of warring states controlled by strong-men who don’t care about the common man. This view is informed from history: from ancient times (“the Kingdom coalesces, the Kingdom falls apart; that is the cycle” – Romance of the Three Kingdoms; 15th century) to the social upheavals of the 20th century (The Cultural Revolution).
4. Chinese people discuss politics. A lot. I hear people having discussions about current events and politics all the time on the street…much more so than in the United States. However, this may be because there are more Chinese people “on the street” and at train stations than in the United States.
5. In general, most Chinese people are very dissatisfied with their government. This quite possibly includes the people who work for the government. But they all feel that having a some-what repressive, over-controlling government is better than having “Chaos”. And chaos comes from letting the idiots and un-educated the ability to select who governs them.