10 ms·

How is it that many Chinese students are schooled in the west, and have access to all these books and thoughts, but then they don't exist when they go back home

How is it that many Chinese students are schooled in the west, and have access to all these books and thoughts, but then they don't exist when they go back home. There must be some significant cognitive dissonance between the two situations. I don't see how they can keep a lid on this long term.

arkades 6y ago
As a Russian, seeing how Russians perceive things, which I imagine is something of an analogue: They don't believe our internal propaganda. That's why Russia and the like spend so much time hyping up where we don't live up to our ideals - it lets them sell the line that we're just as bad, just as corrupt, just as etc. but we either mouth the propaganda trying to get by, or we're dumb/gullible enough to fall for the propaganda. My understanding of Chinese culture suggests there's also a strand of "they'd love us to be hamstrung by falling for their bullshit, so we don't seize our place in the world."
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  interesting, but Russians afaik don't get schooled overseas too much, like so many Chinese students spend years at overseas uni's, you'd think some of it would seep in. If not I'm very disappointed with the universities. Edit: a world without dissent seems so ... pointless
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    Don't forget Kim Jong Un was educated in Switzerland
  - sand_castles 6y ago
    I am not Chinese, but studied at a top College in the West under Stanford / Berkeley profs. My view on the West was much more "enlightened" and envious before traveling and living in the West. I used to be a Capitalist and then turned full Maoist Communist, after my experience. I became convinced the only way for the global poor to get a say in world affairs was to take up arms against G7. Not that I advocate for it or want it to happen, because my life is quite comfortable.
    - Proven 6y ago
      Why should the global poor have any say in world affairs? I certainly wouldn't want them to in anything that matters to me. Just like I don't want anyone else. Enough with collectivism.
    - mchusma 6y ago
      I'm not sure how to best say this within the bounds of Hacker News guidelines, but you come across as Chinese intelligence, posting to reduce fear of China. Or satire? If you have more nuanced discussion of why you turned Maoist, would be interested to understand. Also, people still relate to Mao in the west? I thought that would be similar to saying "Stalanist".
      - sand_castles 6y ago
        You should read some of Stalin's writing , and also Mao's, not what western writers write about foreign revolutionary leaders. Why do you think only the most paranoid communist ideology survived ? What happened to the peaceful Indonesian Communist ? What about Salvador Allende in Chile ? What would be your recommendation for the Vietnamese Communists ?
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > Chinese students spend years at overseas uni's, you'd think some of it would seep in. If not I'm very disappointed with the universities. Don't you think that a big number of them go to the West with full knowledge of that? Western education is still only affordable to a fraction of 1% of Chinese population, with many of them being CPC members themselves. I had a curious case when I was studying in Canada: one very quiet girl, always wearing a tracksuit, always telling everybody her being a daughter of ordinary daylaborers who saved all their life to send her to the West. She was one of few Chinese students we actually believed being who she claimed she was, and not a son/daughter of some elite, concealing family background. Then, by an accident, some son of a Chinese military officer outed her as a daughter of a 2 star general when he made advances on her.
  - arkades 6y ago
    I live in a country where political affiliation has become so central to personal identity, and so bound up in our perception of "good" vs. "bad" morality, that you can't take a dissenting position on anything - not even for fear of government censure, at this point, but for fear of social censure. It's not even fear of current social censure - it's become clear with people willing to dig up old transgressions that you have to protect not only against currently popular ideology, but anything that might become ideology in the future.[1] I happen to agree with you. I'm just responding to the subtext in your post that seems to imply that we still have freedom to dissent.[2] [1] This is my reminder that I'm running late on my regular purging of social media accounts. To try to at least vaguely preserve my sense of anonymity, which I'm sure is much more illusory than real. [2] I have to point out, given that this current strain of criticism is also politically polarized, that I am a liberal. I just happen to be of the generation of liberals for whom phrases like "free speech extremist" are a betrayal of so much of what we stood/stand for.
    - chadcmulligan 6y ago
      I think I live in a different country from you, though there is some of that here to, but yes democracy is going through a rough patch in spots, but it's better than the alternatives imho, you need a system that allows different points of view, there are a lot of them, and thats the only way things will improve, sure there is one system that is good at making factories and widgets, but its a pretty empty life imho. There was a series of books I read many years ago - The Dorsai by Gordon R Dickson, in that humanity split off into a bunch of extremists and we all flew off to our own planets, religious extremists, scientists, soldiers etc, I keep thinking of that more lately, maybe we'll just have to wait for Musk, Bezos and Branson to build some more ships.
  - derefr 6y ago
    The Chinese social-credit-score system (where people are, among other restrictions, not allowed to travel outside the country if they’re e.g. anti-authoritarian) is a formalization of a long-standing practice. Over the years, many mainland-Chinese university students (and tourists!) have been granted the funds and visa-arrangements to visit these other countries, specifically because they were known to be “patriots” of China—and moreover, to demonstrate “faith” in the Chinese government in the face of evidence against its character. Until recently, you could spot tour-buses of these folks often in Hong Kong tourist destinations. The tours were always led by mainland-Chinese tour-guides, never locals. I imagine the same applies to foreign University programs, but with even stricter selection criteria, such that the students won’t need a handler. (The “nice” thing about the social-credit-score system is that it replaces all this manual background-checking work with a default-allow system with continuous blackballing. China can now portray itself as a country that allows its citizens to travel freely, while only restricting “those with criminal intent”—while in practice allowing only the same people to travel that it otherwise would have under manual background-checking.)
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > like so many Chinese students spend years at overseas uni's, you'd think some of it would seep in. If not I'm very disappointed with the universities. A Chinese friend of mine has said that, nowadays, most of the overseas Chinese students are rich kids who didn't make the cut in the Chinese education system. They're less curious about the world than previous generations of Chinese students, and have more to gain from the current Chinese system, too. My friend comes from one of those previous generations, was more curious about the world, and it still took her many years to get over the propaganda.
catalogia 6y ago
I once asked a Chinese citizen I was working with this question. The response was that it's important for the Chinese government to censor the internet for the masses because the masses are dumb and will believe anything they read. However it wasn't important to censor the internet for smart people because smart people aren't susceptible to harmful information. So when he was in the west on uncensored internet or at home using a VPN, that wasn't a problem for China because he's smart.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. Healthy discussion leads to good governance leads to wealth, power, and status. China believes freedom of speech is just a leaf on the tree. Wealth, power, and status are the roots of a society that can weather the chaos of dissent. Dissent is like a source of entertainment to keep people distracted to be sprinkled strategically where people are too well fed to uproot the system. So of course wealthy and tech savvy costal urbanites are given more leeway on censorship than a poor farmer in the interior.
  - dgellow 6y ago
    > Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. That’s not the case for all western societies. Talking for the ones I’m the most familiar with, neither Germany, nor France, nor Switzerland is based on freedom of speech as the root of what is good and they have a good amount of legal and social rules regulating speech. As far as I’m aware only the US, and maybe British classic liberalism are that focused on freedom of speech as the most import concept. As a free speech advocate living in Europe I can tell you that’s not really something people embrace easily in that part of the world.
    - the8472 6y ago
      The free exchange of ideas is still held as enlightenment value. Having some limited exceptions to the rule does not negate that. The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. Freedom of thought and expression are articles in the charter of fundamental rights. Arguably the tradeoffs made when different fundamental rights conflict are different, but they're still held as fundamental rights.
hkt 6y ago
I imagine the effects will take some time to filter through, but yeah, a generation of the Chinese elite being schooled in the west seems likely to have a pretty profound impact. I suppose this is part of the west's gambit in being so open to international students generally. On the other hand, the Chinese community at universities in my city includes many who don't speak English or try to interact with the locals. There are paper mills designed to get people through the English language requirements if they can pay the right price, the worst of which appear to do nothing but basic hellos and thank yous. It seems unlikely that the majority of Chinese students will have westernised to any great extent, going on what happens here.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  The British and German elite also intermingled because the world wars, it's not enough. Basically, if the masses don't know about the either country, and the elites are tempted by power (it's nicer to make the propaganda than receive it, plus their economic prospects are better in China) and knowing they don't have to fight in wars themselves, it's not good enough. Also, as much as I truly believe in the west's values of free speech and democracy, one needs to understand the fundamental pessimism and decline of the US vs the optimism and ascension of China. Oh, and the use US absolutely could not win a non-nuclear war against China, for example.
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago
    There are other democracies besides the US, and they're all doing fine in general. Our PM recently pointed out in a speech [1], that maybe the US couldn't beat them alone, but Aus, Japan, Phillipines, India, Indonesia, Korea and the US could probably have a good shot at it, all countries China is picking fights with, not that I think its likely, just saber rattling - there's no profit for China in a war, just loss of customers. [1] https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/we-will-never-surrender-scott-morrisons-deliberate-words-of-war-during-defence-boost-speech/news-story/fa78d11c4a09a60dbc910d1611d861e5 https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/we-wi... Edit: personally I think it more likely they'll just raise the bamboo curtain again - they don't seem very interested in any sort of cultural interchange.
magicsmoke 6y ago
It's hard to reconcile the words in a textbook that says an authoritarian society is doomed to fail, then go home and watch rice paddies turn to skyscrapers in a generation. In a competition between academia and the real world, the real world always wins out.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  I don't remember reading that in any textbook. I'm not sure potential failure is the problem we've been taught to have with authoritarianism.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  Your comments are interesting (in this and other threads), as others have mentioned - authoritarian societies are good for those in authority - less so for the others. If the authoritarian society is so good, why is it necessary to disallow conversation? Surely if everyone was doing well, conversation would be encouraged - because everyone would be saying how well things are going. The assumption of any reasonable person is, that if conversation and dissent is not allowed then there must be a reason, otherwise what are they scared of?
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    The issue is that in China's case, authoritarianism has been good for both people in authority and the majority, as evidenced by increasing economic growth and standards of living. You could make a theoretical argument that if China was democratic, then everyone would be even better off. But people in China use India as a mirror since both countries had massive populations, were underdeveloped, and gained independence at roughly the same time. That's not a flattering comparison. As for suppression of free speech, the attitude in China is much more pessimistic about the ability of free speech among the public to produce good governing decisions. There is a difference between speech that can be used to gauge public opinion, and speech that seeks to spur the public into taking rash actions. Currently, governing decisions are made behind closed doors by a group of elites that carefully deliberate their choices after taking public opinion into account. Free speech that attempts to sidestep this process by not just allowing people to air their grievances, but tries to rally people into pressuring the government and seizing the decision-making levers directly are suppressed. At the end of the day, it is an authoritarian system to tries to keep the existing holders of power entrenched. But when the current philosopher kings are doing so well, only a minority of people on the margins of society really want to rock the boat. At the end of the day, every society limits free speech in some way. The US sets that limit at threatening physical harm on specific individuals. China sets that limit at upsetting the status quo without going through the proper channels.
iforgotpassword 6y ago
Because they see things from a completely different angle, different cultural background, and obviously pre-seeded with what the CCP wants them to see as the truth. Because really, consider in how many ways the west does not practice what it preaches. Look at how big corporations abuse capitalism, work against customer rights through lobbying. Look at the whole "right to repair" debate. There is plenty of stuff you can pick out and primarily report on on Chinese news. For example, every time there is even just a small protest of black people somewhere in the US, you can be sure it's on CCTV. Then consider that most Chinese students going overseas are from the big cities, often from families doing well. There are government programs that sponsor studying abroad for students from rural areas, but they make up for only a small share. So you have students from the big cities, living a modern and happy life. And they get here and see that in some areas of everyday convenience, we've already fallen behind. They see China making progress every day, while the west is stagnating, having a lot of obvious internal and structural problems. They see the most powerful country in the world lead by a crazy orange clown being the main source of entertainment on Twitter. Not the prime example for the pros of a democracy. And then you show them all the stuff that's censored in China, and how the CCP is evil, and how you got freedom of speech and they don't, and they look at how everything is going well back home and just shrug. So you might conclude they are just brainwashed and don't realize it, but they pretty much think the same about you. The image of China we get presented in mainstream media is horribly biased as well. In general you need to realize that most people from most countries are pretty content with how things are going. Even though it's not perfect, it's what you've accepted as being normal, since you grew up with it.
- corey_moncure 6y ago
  Speaking as charitably as possible, comments like these indicate to me that the poster has never been to China and has no idea about the actual conditions there. If you just step outside the select few favored economic zones you will see a very different, much lower, standard of living that accounts for the vast majority of the land area. Granted the last time I was there was about eight years ago, but taking a bus from Taicang to Kunshan for instance, on the Eastern coast just out of Shanghai, I rode through villages that didn't even have electricity. People were carrying jugs of water on their heads and walking barefoot through dirt roads like it's 1200 BCE. I doubt much has changed for those people in eight years. Even in the cities, is it safe to drink the water yet or use ice cubes? Or are we still having a refreshing cup of boiling hot tea at lunchtime on muggy 35 degree summer days? Is there toilet paper in the public restrooms yet in the tourist districts in Nanjing? Please let me know if things have changed so I can update my image of China that's informed by direct first hand experiences. It's absurd to suggest that everything is just hunky dory in China or attempt to establish an equivalence between living conditions in China and the United States, or any developed Western nation; so much is obvious to anyone who has spent even one day in a representative median location in both. When videos depicting the real situation are easily available to view on Youtube, it crosses the line into irresponsibility and maybe even propagandism.
hkai 6y ago
Oh, not just students. Most of my colleagues are ethnic Chinese folks who were born or raised in the West, schooled there and then they returned to China. On a few occasions that I have a chance to talk politics with them, they says that democracy to them means gridlock, racism, Trump, Brexit, white supremacy. They support the Singapore / China model because of the apparent stability, wealth, getting things done quickly, and various other reasons, such as feeling more "at home" among the Chinese community. They still keep a UK/US passport though, just in case.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  Tragedy of the commons. It's perfectly fine when an authoritarian government makes other people sacrifice for the good of the nation I associate with. But when I have to make sacrifices suddenly I'm not home. Very human thing to be.
kohtatsu 6y ago
Yang Shupin is a good example of this happening. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/chinese-student-apologizes-for-fresh-air-and-freedom-comments-during-graduation-speech-05232017113138.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/chinese-student-apolo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_speech_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_spee...
LatteLazy 6y ago
The people schooled in the West already have power, democracy would weaken their positions not strengthen them. Plus democracy and other Liberal institutions (rule of law, equality, education, social engagement) are basically collapsing throughout the Anglo-sphere. Touring the ruins of the coliseum doesn't exactly make you want to live in antient Rome...
microcolonel 6y ago
I once tried having a conversation with a girl from Beijing, while in Canada, about political freedom. She told me that China is "too big" for democracy or federalism, and that they wouldn't be able to "control" the people. I think the cultural valley is deeper and wider than you could imagine; at least when it comes to the wealthier people who get to travel for school. Then beyond that, there is Chinese exceptionalism, far more fervent and irrational than any common form of American exceptionalism, and good old cynical greed (or the equally-pernicious, but less cruel, wishful thinking).
- ardy42 6y ago
  > I once tried having a conversation with a girl from Beijing, while in Canada, about political freedom. She told me that China is "too big" for democracy or federalism, and that they wouldn't be able to "control" the people. IIRC, that's one aspect of the anti-democracy propaganda: democracy's great but the Chinese people aren't ready for it, so the firm hand of the CCP is necessary to keep the country from falling apart.
camillomiller 6y ago
You’re applying the wrong Western categories to Chinese people. People think Chinese don’t have a religion, but they actually do and the God is China itself. First, they all believe China needs to step up to its role in the World stage. Second, the social pact in China is quite straightforward: you give up some useless rights that only weak westerners seem to be overly attached to, and you get in exchange growth, stability, safety, work and riches. Chinese people that live by this social pact are genuinely happy people. They know about the data collection, they know about the limitations to the information but they don’t care as long as they feel safer, richer and on a prosperous path. Which, sadly, has been true for a while now, if you consider how many trillions of dollars the country has invested in R&D in the last 35 years. All this while America has been gradually renouncing to their international role, or while even allies have come to reckon the instability America has been unleashing on so many regions of the world just by pretending to operate by the failed credo of “exporting democracy”. Mix this and what the Chinese believe about their country’s place in the world and you’ll understand their perspective better. The US and the US way of life are not the center of the free world anymore and haven’t been for a long time. As a European, living in Germany, my only hope is in a third European way. Quite sad that Angela Merkel will be stepping down, she would have been the right leader to manage this for the entire EU.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > People think Chinese don’t have a religion, but they actually do and the God is China itself. There's a word for this: nationalism.
  - m463 6y ago
    I still remember playing those old command and conquer games and when you would click on each unit, it would say something amusing. one of the units would say "Nationalism will bring us victory!" I think it was a chinese unit.
- moonchild 6y ago
  > they all believe ... Over-generalising, much? :) I went to school with a lot of chinese people. Some of them went to school in the US full-time, and some of them just transfer students for a single semester. The latter group was much more likely to express nationalistic ideals. One girl told me that she didn't want to visit her aunt, who lived in the US, because the aunt supported the HK protesters. The former group didn't tend to have strong feelings one way or another; one person complained that there are no good horror movies from china because the chinese government has outlawed ghosts (and made fun of how ridiculous that was), but also used a VPN to get inside the GFW (yes, it goes both ways). But even this bit of nuance I presented is a generalisation. It's vitally important, when speaking of trends in a group of people, to avoid superlatives. Because even if you're conscious that you're making a generalisation, other people might not be, and such statements have a tendency to radicalize people.
peruvian 6y ago
The people that come here are usually well-off middle class to wealthy elites and keep to their own groups. Based on this year alone they probably go back thinking China's model is better.
kabacha 6y ago
Because they're rich.

arkades 6y ago

As a Russian, seeing how Russians perceive things, which I imagine is something of an analogue: They don't believe our internal propaganda. That's why Russia and the like spend so much time hyping up where we don't live up to our ideals - it lets them sell the line that we're just as bad, just as corrupt, just as etc. but we either mouth the propaganda trying to get by, or we're dumb/gullible enough to fall for the propaganda. My understanding of Chinese culture suggests there's also a strand of "they'd love us to be hamstrung by falling for their bullshit, so we don't seize our place in the world."

chadcmulligan 6y ago
interesting, but Russians afaik don't get schooled overseas too much, like so many Chinese students spend years at overseas uni's, you'd think some of it would seep in. If not I'm very disappointed with the universities. Edit: a world without dissent seems so ... pointless
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  Don't forget Kim Jong Un was educated in Switzerland
- sand_castles 6y ago
  I am not Chinese, but studied at a top College in the West under Stanford / Berkeley profs. My view on the West was much more "enlightened" and envious before traveling and living in the West. I used to be a Capitalist and then turned full Maoist Communist, after my experience. I became convinced the only way for the global poor to get a say in world affairs was to take up arms against G7. Not that I advocate for it or want it to happen, because my life is quite comfortable.
  - Proven 6y ago
    Why should the global poor have any say in world affairs? I certainly wouldn't want them to in anything that matters to me. Just like I don't want anyone else. Enough with collectivism.
  - mchusma 6y ago
    I'm not sure how to best say this within the bounds of Hacker News guidelines, but you come across as Chinese intelligence, posting to reduce fear of China. Or satire? If you have more nuanced discussion of why you turned Maoist, would be interested to understand. Also, people still relate to Mao in the west? I thought that would be similar to saying "Stalanist".
    - sand_castles 6y ago
      You should read some of Stalin's writing , and also Mao's, not what western writers write about foreign revolutionary leaders. Why do you think only the most paranoid communist ideology survived ? What happened to the peaceful Indonesian Communist ? What about Salvador Allende in Chile ? What would be your recommendation for the Vietnamese Communists ?
- baybal2 6y ago
  > Chinese students spend years at overseas uni's, you'd think some of it would seep in. If not I'm very disappointed with the universities. Don't you think that a big number of them go to the West with full knowledge of that? Western education is still only affordable to a fraction of 1% of Chinese population, with many of them being CPC members themselves. I had a curious case when I was studying in Canada: one very quiet girl, always wearing a tracksuit, always telling everybody her being a daughter of ordinary daylaborers who saved all their life to send her to the West. She was one of few Chinese students we actually believed being who she claimed she was, and not a son/daughter of some elite, concealing family background. Then, by an accident, some son of a Chinese military officer outed her as a daughter of a 2 star general when he made advances on her.
- arkades 6y ago
  I live in a country where political affiliation has become so central to personal identity, and so bound up in our perception of "good" vs. "bad" morality, that you can't take a dissenting position on anything - not even for fear of government censure, at this point, but for fear of social censure. It's not even fear of current social censure - it's become clear with people willing to dig up old transgressions that you have to protect not only against currently popular ideology, but anything that might become ideology in the future.[1] I happen to agree with you. I'm just responding to the subtext in your post that seems to imply that we still have freedom to dissent.[2] [1] This is my reminder that I'm running late on my regular purging of social media accounts. To try to at least vaguely preserve my sense of anonymity, which I'm sure is much more illusory than real. [2] I have to point out, given that this current strain of criticism is also politically polarized, that I am a liberal. I just happen to be of the generation of liberals for whom phrases like "free speech extremist" are a betrayal of so much of what we stood/stand for.
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago
    I think I live in a different country from you, though there is some of that here to, but yes democracy is going through a rough patch in spots, but it's better than the alternatives imho, you need a system that allows different points of view, there are a lot of them, and thats the only way things will improve, sure there is one system that is good at making factories and widgets, but its a pretty empty life imho. There was a series of books I read many years ago - The Dorsai by Gordon R Dickson, in that humanity split off into a bunch of extremists and we all flew off to our own planets, religious extremists, scientists, soldiers etc, I keep thinking of that more lately, maybe we'll just have to wait for Musk, Bezos and Branson to build some more ships.
- derefr 6y ago
  The Chinese social-credit-score system (where people are, among other restrictions, not allowed to travel outside the country if they’re e.g. anti-authoritarian) is a formalization of a long-standing practice. Over the years, many mainland-Chinese university students (and tourists!) have been granted the funds and visa-arrangements to visit these other countries, specifically because they were known to be “patriots” of China—and moreover, to demonstrate “faith” in the Chinese government in the face of evidence against its character. Until recently, you could spot tour-buses of these folks often in Hong Kong tourist destinations. The tours were always led by mainland-Chinese tour-guides, never locals. I imagine the same applies to foreign University programs, but with even stricter selection criteria, such that the students won’t need a handler. (The “nice” thing about the social-credit-score system is that it replaces all this manual background-checking work with a default-allow system with continuous blackballing. China can now portray itself as a country that allows its citizens to travel freely, while only restricting “those with criminal intent”—while in practice allowing only the same people to travel that it otherwise would have under manual background-checking.)
- ardy42 6y ago
  > like so many Chinese students spend years at overseas uni's, you'd think some of it would seep in. If not I'm very disappointed with the universities. A Chinese friend of mine has said that, nowadays, most of the overseas Chinese students are rich kids who didn't make the cut in the Chinese education system. They're less curious about the world than previous generations of Chinese students, and have more to gain from the current Chinese system, too. My friend comes from one of those previous generations, was more curious about the world, and it still took her many years to get over the propaganda.

catalogia 6y ago

I once asked a Chinese citizen I was working with this question. The response was that it's important for the Chinese government to censor the internet for the masses because the masses are dumb and will believe anything they read. However it wasn't important to censor the internet for smart people because smart people aren't susceptible to harmful information. So when he was in the west on uncensored internet or at home using a VPN, that wasn't a problem for China because he's smart.

magicsmoke 6y ago
Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. Healthy discussion leads to good governance leads to wealth, power, and status. China believes freedom of speech is just a leaf on the tree. Wealth, power, and status are the roots of a society that can weather the chaos of dissent. Dissent is like a source of entertainment to keep people distracted to be sprinkled strategically where people are too well fed to uproot the system. So of course wealthy and tech savvy costal urbanites are given more leeway on censorship than a poor farmer in the interior.
- dgellow 6y ago
  > Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. That’s not the case for all western societies. Talking for the ones I’m the most familiar with, neither Germany, nor France, nor Switzerland is based on freedom of speech as the root of what is good and they have a good amount of legal and social rules regulating speech. As far as I’m aware only the US, and maybe British classic liberalism are that focused on freedom of speech as the most import concept. As a free speech advocate living in Europe I can tell you that’s not really something people embrace easily in that part of the world.
  - the8472 6y ago
    The free exchange of ideas is still held as enlightenment value. Having some limited exceptions to the rule does not negate that. The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. Freedom of thought and expression are articles in the charter of fundamental rights. Arguably the tradeoffs made when different fundamental rights conflict are different, but they're still held as fundamental rights.

hkt 6y ago

I imagine the effects will take some time to filter through, but yeah, a generation of the Chinese elite being schooled in the west seems likely to have a pretty profound impact. I suppose this is part of the west's gambit in being so open to international students generally. On the other hand, the Chinese community at universities in my city includes many who don't speak English or try to interact with the locals. There are paper mills designed to get people through the English language requirements if they can pay the right price, the worst of which appear to do nothing but basic hellos and thank yous. It seems unlikely that the majority of Chinese students will have westernised to any great extent, going on what happens here.

Ericson2314 6y ago
The British and German elite also intermingled because the world wars, it's not enough. Basically, if the masses don't know about the either country, and the elites are tempted by power (it's nicer to make the propaganda than receive it, plus their economic prospects are better in China) and knowing they don't have to fight in wars themselves, it's not good enough. Also, as much as I truly believe in the west's values of free speech and democracy, one needs to understand the fundamental pessimism and decline of the US vs the optimism and ascension of China. Oh, and the use US absolutely could not win a non-nuclear war against China, for example.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  There are other democracies besides the US, and they're all doing fine in general. Our PM recently pointed out in a speech [1], that maybe the US couldn't beat them alone, but Aus, Japan, Phillipines, India, Indonesia, Korea and the US could probably have a good shot at it, all countries China is picking fights with, not that I think its likely, just saber rattling - there's no profit for China in a war, just loss of customers. [1] https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/we-will-never-surrender-scott-morrisons-deliberate-words-of-war-during-defence-boost-speech/news-story/fa78d11c4a09a60dbc910d1611d861e5 https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/we-wi... Edit: personally I think it more likely they'll just raise the bamboo curtain again - they don't seem very interested in any sort of cultural interchange.

magicsmoke 6y ago

It's hard to reconcile the words in a textbook that says an authoritarian society is doomed to fail, then go home and watch rice paddies turn to skyscrapers in a generation. In a competition between academia and the real world, the real world always wins out.

DangitBobby 6y ago
I don't remember reading that in any textbook. I'm not sure potential failure is the problem we've been taught to have with authoritarianism.
chadcmulligan 6y ago
Your comments are interesting (in this and other threads), as others have mentioned - authoritarian societies are good for those in authority - less so for the others. If the authoritarian society is so good, why is it necessary to disallow conversation? Surely if everyone was doing well, conversation would be encouraged - because everyone would be saying how well things are going. The assumption of any reasonable person is, that if conversation and dissent is not allowed then there must be a reason, otherwise what are they scared of?
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  The issue is that in China's case, authoritarianism has been good for both people in authority and the majority, as evidenced by increasing economic growth and standards of living. You could make a theoretical argument that if China was democratic, then everyone would be even better off. But people in China use India as a mirror since both countries had massive populations, were underdeveloped, and gained independence at roughly the same time. That's not a flattering comparison. As for suppression of free speech, the attitude in China is much more pessimistic about the ability of free speech among the public to produce good governing decisions. There is a difference between speech that can be used to gauge public opinion, and speech that seeks to spur the public into taking rash actions. Currently, governing decisions are made behind closed doors by a group of elites that carefully deliberate their choices after taking public opinion into account. Free speech that attempts to sidestep this process by not just allowing people to air their grievances, but tries to rally people into pressuring the government and seizing the decision-making levers directly are suppressed. At the end of the day, it is an authoritarian system to tries to keep the existing holders of power entrenched. But when the current philosopher kings are doing so well, only a minority of people on the margins of society really want to rock the boat. At the end of the day, every society limits free speech in some way. The US sets that limit at threatening physical harm on specific individuals. China sets that limit at upsetting the status quo without going through the proper channels.

iforgotpassword 6y ago

Because they see things from a completely different angle, different cultural background, and obviously pre-seeded with what the CCP wants them to see as the truth. Because really, consider in how many ways the west does not practice what it preaches. Look at how big corporations abuse capitalism, work against customer rights through lobbying. Look at the whole "right to repair" debate. There is plenty of stuff you can pick out and primarily report on on Chinese news. For example, every time there is even just a small protest of black people somewhere in the US, you can be sure it's on CCTV. Then consider that most Chinese students going overseas are from the big cities, often from families doing well. There are government programs that sponsor studying abroad for students from rural areas, but they make up for only a small share. So you have students from the big cities, living a modern and happy life. And they get here and see that in some areas of everyday convenience, we've already fallen behind. They see China making progress every day, while the west is stagnating, having a lot of obvious internal and structural problems. They see the most powerful country in the world lead by a crazy orange clown being the main source of entertainment on Twitter. Not the prime example for the pros of a democracy. And then you show them all the stuff that's censored in China, and how the CCP is evil, and how you got freedom of speech and they don't, and they look at how everything is going well back home and just shrug. So you might conclude they are just brainwashed and don't realize it, but they pretty much think the same about you. The image of China we get presented in mainstream media is horribly biased as well. In general you need to realize that most people from most countries are pretty content with how things are going. Even though it's not perfect, it's what you've accepted as being normal, since you grew up with it.

corey_moncure 6y ago
Speaking as charitably as possible, comments like these indicate to me that the poster has never been to China and has no idea about the actual conditions there. If you just step outside the select few favored economic zones you will see a very different, much lower, standard of living that accounts for the vast majority of the land area. Granted the last time I was there was about eight years ago, but taking a bus from Taicang to Kunshan for instance, on the Eastern coast just out of Shanghai, I rode through villages that didn't even have electricity. People were carrying jugs of water on their heads and walking barefoot through dirt roads like it's 1200 BCE. I doubt much has changed for those people in eight years. Even in the cities, is it safe to drink the water yet or use ice cubes? Or are we still having a refreshing cup of boiling hot tea at lunchtime on muggy 35 degree summer days? Is there toilet paper in the public restrooms yet in the tourist districts in Nanjing? Please let me know if things have changed so I can update my image of China that's informed by direct first hand experiences. It's absurd to suggest that everything is just hunky dory in China or attempt to establish an equivalence between living conditions in China and the United States, or any developed Western nation; so much is obvious to anyone who has spent even one day in a representative median location in both. When videos depicting the real situation are easily available to view on Youtube, it crosses the line into irresponsibility and maybe even propagandism.

hkai 6y ago

Oh, not just students. Most of my colleagues are ethnic Chinese folks who were born or raised in the West, schooled there and then they returned to China. On a few occasions that I have a chance to talk politics with them, they says that democracy to them means gridlock, racism, Trump, Brexit, white supremacy. They support the Singapore / China model because of the apparent stability, wealth, getting things done quickly, and various other reasons, such as feeling more "at home" among the Chinese community. They still keep a UK/US passport though, just in case.

magicsmoke 6y ago
Tragedy of the commons. It's perfectly fine when an authoritarian government makes other people sacrifice for the good of the nation I associate with. But when I have to make sacrifices suddenly I'm not home. Very human thing to be.

kohtatsu 6y ago

Yang Shupin is a good example of this happening. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/chinese-student-apologizes-for-fresh-air-and-freedom-comments-during-graduation-speech-05232017113138.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/chinese-student-apolo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_speech_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_spee...

LatteLazy 6y ago

The people schooled in the West already have power, democracy would weaken their positions not strengthen them. Plus democracy and other Liberal institutions (rule of law, equality, education, social engagement) are basically collapsing throughout the Anglo-sphere. Touring the ruins of the coliseum doesn't exactly make you want to live in antient Rome...

microcolonel 6y ago

I once tried having a conversation with a girl from Beijing, while in Canada, about political freedom. She told me that China is "too big" for democracy or federalism, and that they wouldn't be able to "control" the people. I think the cultural valley is deeper and wider than you could imagine; at least when it comes to the wealthier people who get to travel for school. Then beyond that, there is Chinese exceptionalism, far more fervent and irrational than any common form of American exceptionalism, and good old cynical greed (or the equally-pernicious, but less cruel, wishful thinking).

ardy42 6y ago
> I once tried having a conversation with a girl from Beijing, while in Canada, about political freedom. She told me that China is "too big" for democracy or federalism, and that they wouldn't be able to "control" the people. IIRC, that's one aspect of the anti-democracy propaganda: democracy's great but the Chinese people aren't ready for it, so the firm hand of the CCP is necessary to keep the country from falling apart.

camillomiller 6y ago

You’re applying the wrong Western categories to Chinese people. People think Chinese don’t have a religion, but they actually do and the God is China itself. First, they all believe China needs to step up to its role in the World stage. Second, the social pact in China is quite straightforward: you give up some useless rights that only weak westerners seem to be overly attached to, and you get in exchange growth, stability, safety, work and riches. Chinese people that live by this social pact are genuinely happy people. They know about the data collection, they know about the limitations to the information but they don’t care as long as they feel safer, richer and on a prosperous path. Which, sadly, has been true for a while now, if you consider how many trillions of dollars the country has invested in R&D in the last 35 years. All this while America has been gradually renouncing to their international role, or while even allies have come to reckon the instability America has been unleashing on so many regions of the world just by pretending to operate by the failed credo of “exporting democracy”. Mix this and what the Chinese believe about their country’s place in the world and you’ll understand their perspective better. The US and the US way of life are not the center of the free world anymore and haven’t been for a long time. As a European, living in Germany, my only hope is in a third European way. Quite sad that Angela Merkel will be stepping down, she would have been the right leader to manage this for the entire EU.

ardy42 6y ago
> People think Chinese don’t have a religion, but they actually do and the God is China itself. There's a word for this: nationalism.
- m463 6y ago
  I still remember playing those old command and conquer games and when you would click on each unit, it would say something amusing. one of the units would say "Nationalism will bring us victory!" I think it was a chinese unit.
moonchild 6y ago
> they all believe ... Over-generalising, much? :) I went to school with a lot of chinese people. Some of them went to school in the US full-time, and some of them just transfer students for a single semester. The latter group was much more likely to express nationalistic ideals. One girl told me that she didn't want to visit her aunt, who lived in the US, because the aunt supported the HK protesters. The former group didn't tend to have strong feelings one way or another; one person complained that there are no good horror movies from china because the chinese government has outlawed ghosts (and made fun of how ridiculous that was), but also used a VPN to get inside the GFW (yes, it goes both ways). But even this bit of nuance I presented is a generalisation. It's vitally important, when speaking of trends in a group of people, to avoid superlatives. Because even if you're conscious that you're making a generalisation, other people might not be, and such statements have a tendency to radicalize people.

peruvian 6y ago

The people that come here are usually well-off middle class to wealthy elites and keep to their own groups. Based on this year alone they probably go back thinking China's model is better.

kabacha 6y ago

Because they're rich.