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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. Fi

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.
- camillomiller 6y ago
  Yes, of course it’s a generalization. And of course there’s plenty of exceptions like what you said. I also want to point out something that I wasn’t able to bring across. Chinese people are also generally able to criticize the party over many things, and they do. It’s just you don’t do that over overly-sensitive and controverse topics. Complaining about cultural decisions and mocking them? They do all the time, just be in Shenzhen for a couple of weeks and spend some time with locals... Criticizing the government over the HK situation? that’s a no no.

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.

camillomiller 6y ago
Yes, of course it’s a generalization. And of course there’s plenty of exceptions like what you said. I also want to point out something that I wasn’t able to bring across. Chinese people are also generally able to criticize the party over many things, and they do. It’s just you don’t do that over overly-sensitive and controverse topics. Complaining about cultural decisions and mocking them? They do all the time, just be in Shenzhen for a couple of weeks and spend some time with locals... Criticizing the government over the HK situation? that’s a no no.