Or you might just… wake up dead:
Very few Westerners truly understand just how alien the Chinese mindset and culture is to liberal, secular, Western social democratic values. You kind of have to go there, or at least live in a society heavily influenced by Chinese culture, to get even the first inkling of how differently they think.
The first thing that you need to understand about the Chinese mindset is that the individual is rendered largely irrelevant.
This is generally true of East Asian cultures, though as with all generalisations there are exceptions to this rule. In East Asian cultures, the needs of the individual are subordinate to those of the group identity. And make no mistake – the Chinese have an extremely strong group identity.
The Chinese are a profoundly nationalistic and highly xenophobic people in many ways. They have little hesitation in embracing tactics that most Westerners would consider “unsporting”, to say the least, when it comes to pushing their culture ahead.
I’ll give you a very simple example. I visited Beijing just as they were beginning construction on all of the various sites for the 2008 Olympic Games. This was only a few months after they had won the bid for the 2008 Games, so they had almost a full 7 years to prepare.
At that time, there were signs all over the city that translated as, “Build New Beijing, Hold Great Olympics”. But it was hard to see how the city could possibly accommodate over a million new visitors given its already extremely congested, highly polluted, and generally rather unpleasant atmosphere. I fell sick almost immediately with a very nasty sore throat that did not go away until we had left China, and its abysmal air quality in the cities, far behind.
Fast forward about 7 years. It’s 2008, and the air quality in Beijing is still appallingly bad. International observers for the Olympics are wondering how the hell the Chinese are going to hold a proper Olympic Games, given that the smog is so bad that marathoners and long-distance runners would simply choke on the fumes.
What does the Chinese government do?
It simply orders factories all around the city to stop or dramatically reduce production, and orders hundreds of thousands of trucks and private vehicles off the roads.
That sort of top-down authoritarian approach is nigh-on unthinkable in the West – although Britain, which is probably a leading competitor for the title of “Most Dysfunctional Wealthy Nation”, apparently has no problem imposing all sorts of ridiculous and asinine burdens upon its people through its various directorates and bureaus of government.
But this approach has a serious dark side too. And that comes in the form of a blatant and complete disregard for due process, the rights of individuals, and the sanctity of life.
China’s government and many (though not all) of its people proudly proclaim that the Middle Kingdom will soon be restored to its rightful and proper place as the most powerful nation in the world. Remember that, as far as the Chinese are concerned, Western hegemony over the world is a 500-year aberration in their five-thousand-year history. To them, the utter dominance of the West is due to the fact – which is indisputable – that the Western powers stole many of China’s greatest inventions and then refined them.
The Chinese rate gunpowder, paper, silk, tea, and the discovery of ferromagnetism as among their greatest scientific and cultural achievements. And well they should. But they have never forgotten how the Western powers basically forced China open through humiliating military defeats and even more humiliating treaty “agreements”, which the Chinese were forced to sign more or less at gunpoint.
Add to this the fact that China has become an increasingly totalitarian police state, which watches over its own people and ranks them based on a “social credit score” for good behaviour, and you have a culture that is so different from Western norms as to defy comprehension for most Westerners.
There are a lot of things to like about the Chinese and their culture. But do not make the mistake of thinking that they particularly like you, or what you stand for. They don’t. They will take from what they can and what they need, and then refine it for their own uses and eventually turn it against you.
They see turnabout as fair play; after all, this is what the Western powers once did to them.
For that reason, and many others, be wary when traveling through China. You will see what they want you to see – I certainly did, when I was there, and I had a fantastic time. They will attempt to show off their country and culture in the best possible light, which is of course entirely their right. But always be aware that there are things going on underneath the surface in China which the government and the people absolutely do not want you to know about.
4 Comments
Didact,
the Chinese no longer have a 5000 year culture, they lost that under Mao.
Yes they're a very dangerous threat but that's because in reality they're dying and are mosre desperate than they let on. The Trump trade war is exposing the fault lines and the demographics are catastrophic.
More fundamentally, the chicoms are insufferable and unlikeable and thus alienate the whole world.
Eventually , the world will tire of the blustering and bitchslap the chicoms so hard that they be replaced by someone else.
xavier
Yes they're a very dangerous threat but that's because in reality they're dying and are mosre desperate than they let on. The Trump trade war is exposing the fault lines and the demographics are catastrophic.
True. That is why they are looking to export 300 million colonists to Africa – which in their opinion is ripe for the taking anyway, and which they think should have gone to them since it was their famous eunuch Admiral Zheng He who discovered large parts of it. And that's also why they already look at everything north of the Amur and east of the Urals as "theirs" – never mind what the Russkies think.
Eventually , the world will tire of the blustering and bitchslap the chicoms so hard that they be replaced by someone else.
Er… how? Who is going to put the bell on that particular cat?
The US Navy has seriously degraded its fighting capabilities in the name of political correctness and "progress". The ChiComs know that all they have to do is sink two aircraft carriers, and that is the end of American military hegemony in the Pacific. The naval-variant F-35C is utterly hopeless against even Chinese knock-offs of superior Russian naval fighter and fighter-bomber designs. And the Chinese have what is, as far as I know, the largest military in terms of pure numbers of any nation on Earth – over 2.1 million men at arms. America and Russia combined can barely field that many, and the American military is seriously compromised in ways that its Chinese and Russian counterparts are not.
The Chinese believe that the 21st Century belongs to them. They may well be wrong about this because of their demographics and social structures, which have some serious fault lines, as you point out. But I do not underestimate them or their ability to cause endless grief for the West.
Outstanding points Didact.
China is just going to do as it pleases and extract as much as it can for as long as can. No one can as you put bell that cat not that anyone wants too.
In all honesty the US can't afford to be the only game in town , we spend far more than we can afford on the military now even at 3.5% of GDP
we can't pass budgets , our culture and economy won't support more taxes and our infrastructure is falling apart.
In order to deal with China we would have to have allies able to chip in a lot as well and none of them can.
On top of that we'd have to have an economy that allows people to have children, a healthy political process and a culture that allows creativity and is military tolerant we have neither
Its bad enough that Google faced a mass revolt among employees when the company was offered contracts from the DoD.
So right now its a contest between two guys dying of some horrible illness and the question is who goes first and can either have a remission
Heck the US might get a civil war which I am sure is on the mind of the Chinese elite though whether they consider it a crisis or an opportunity is beyond me,. At least they can use the same character for both i guess
Didact,
That they'll cause grief is a given and we must plan and respond accordingly. commies only understand ONE thing: the unsentimental application of violence. It can take many forms but being Ceaseau'ed is the end game. That's how dangerous I regard them.
The Asian have been dealing with the Chinese for thousands of years. Bitchslapping doesn't need to take on a multinational alliance a la WW II pouring out arms and supplies all over the world.
It can take subtle forms like snubs that cause the chicoms to lose face without triggering war or hysteria from Global times but the commies get the message.
The smaller Asian countries could engage in some intelligence pooling here and there to find the pressure points ( a la acupuncture) and apply it when their interests are threatened.
Personally, if I were a PM or president, I'd legislate an effective cutting off of trade with China. The country isn't worth trading with them so why bother. It'd be the equivalent of sidelining them from the WTO.
As for Africa. Yeah they'll ingratiate themselves so well with the natives. Nothing like a mix of extreme racism coupled with insufferable entitlement and abysmal ignorance of the world (Marxism replaces reality with delusions)The Africans will look back and become misty eyed at Western colonialism.
xavier