Some thoughts on China

Man riding a bicycle carrying supplies in China. Photo by Marie-Claire Holmes.

On Monday, I began publishing a series of photographs chronicling everyday life in China. As the country is currently in the spotlight as Olympics host, I think it's good to put a more human face on the distorted image we in the West see from afar.

It is evident from comments about the first part of the series, that a lot of anger is directed against China. I, too, have wondered what the International Olympic Committee was thinking when they awarded the games to China - not so much because of China's abysmal human rights record, but because of the country's poor air quality and pollution levels.

The environmental consequences of China's growth are considerable. Some 26 percent of the water in China's largest rivers is so polluted, the rivers "have lost the capacity for basic ecological function," according to Pan Yue, deputy head of China's State Environmental Protection Agency. Yue was quoted in a July 24, 2007 Financial Times article by Jamil Aderlini and Mure Dickie.

I have written before on these pages that I do not believe sports and politics should mix. If we stop awarding Olympic games to countries because of their record of human rights abuses, there would be few countries left in the running - including my own country the United States, with its Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay abuses, among others.

I think it is usually a mistake to paint the government and the people with the same brush. The Chinese people are not the same as the Chinese government - just as the American people are not the same as the incompetent Bush administration. (But in the latter case, the people elected him, you might argue. Yes, many people voted for George Bush, but I would suggest that most were ill-informed or simply sleep-walking. And after eight years of calamity and disaster, many Bush supporters now regret their vote).

In contrast, the Chinese people have had little choice about their government. For centuries, they have suffered harsh conditions of daily life, with limited rights and freedoms. While they now enjoy more rights to work, own property, start businesses and - to a limited extent - worship as they please, government control remains firm. Freedom of the press, including the Internet, is an ongoing battle in China.

The Chinese government's untenable positions, not only about the human rights of its own people, but those of Tibet are simply wrong. The government has far to go, before meeting standards advocated by human rights groups like Amnesty International.

"The greatest problem China faces going forward is not that its government is incurably evil; it is the risk that its government will lose the ability to hold things together - a problem that encompasses, but goes well beyond spiraling decentralization," notes Fareed Zakaria in his book The Post-American World. "China's pace of change is exposing the weaknesses of its Communist Party and state bureaucracy. For several years, the government's monopoly on power allowed it to make massive reforms quickly. It could direct people and resources where needed. But one product of its decisions is economic, social and political turmoil and the insular and hierarchical structure of the party makes it less competent to navigate these waters."

Made in China

I personally am appalled at how so many Western manufacturers have abrogated the quality of too many goods by sending them to China for production. But it's the Western manufacturers who decide to accept the materials of inferior quality, because they are cheaper. It's their fault the goods available on department store shelves are not what they once were, in terms of quality. The Chinese simply follow the companies' orders, when producing goods.

For instance, Nine West once produced stylish shoes of good quality for reasonable prices. Most of their designs were manufactured in Brazil. Those shoes looked nice and proved durable; I still have a few pairs that I wear from time to time. But these days, if you take a look at Nine West shoes, you'll notice the majority are made in China, of cheap, inferior materials. The owners of that company have decided to sacrifice quality to quantity, while keeping their prices fairly steady. I find that unacceptable, so I no longer buy Nine West shoes.

Of course Nine West is only one of thousands of companies who've made similar decisions to continue competing in a volatile global marketplace. It's up to us as consumers to refuse to buy these inferior products. It's also up to us to view every person as an individual with his or her own beliefs, rather than assign blame to ordinary citizens for a government's wrong-headed actions.

This is the third in a series of pieces about China.

Comments

[Catalina]

I respect very much your opinion Tara. I have nothing against any people nor country. I just have to disagree about mixing politics and sport.

It's not mixing....Olympic games have been always politics as well...and if I understand that it is not fair for athletes that have been working hard to not go to the games, it doesn't mean that people who do sports shouldn't have a political opinion nor express it in some way.

I guess the problem was that they got the games...and that even if people from a country is not responsible for all things they government does they should be at least concern. Most Chinese people doesn't look concern, in general...and western positions are very "tiède" like: business with China yes of course...

[Catalina]

I respect very much your opinion Tara. I have nothing against any people nor country. I just have to disagree about mixing politics and sport.

It's not mixing....Olympic games have been always politics as well...and if I understand that it is not fair for athletes that have been working hard to not go to the games, it doesn't mean that people who do sports shouldn't have a political opinion nor express it in some way.

I guess the problem was that they got the games...and that even if people from a country is not responsible for all things they government does they should be at least concern. Most Chinese people doesn't look concern, in general...and western positions are very "tiède" like: business with China yes of course...

[jeanie]

This (and the others) are extremely interested and I'm so glad you've posted them. Very thoughtful and comprehensive, and certainly they fill me in on an area of which I know little. The accompanying photos are excellent, too. This really is fascinating and puts a different face on the people who live there and they world in which they live and work.

[Colette]

The fatal flaw is that they/the powers that be/whoever don't think of consequences. Consequences, that's the important word.

As for managing 1.3 billion people and how difficult it must be... they can let go of Tibet, and that will be less people to manage.

[Jeanne Rhea]

You wrote..."I think it is usually a mistake to paint the government and the people with the same brush. The Chinese people are not the same as the Chinese government - just as the American people are not the same as the incompetent Bush administration."

If only, if only more people understood this. I have friends from other countries and am often told that they are surprised to find that most Americans are not like our leaders. I rarely meet a person I do not like when I really get to know him/her. Once I know why a person acts the way he does, how he sees the rest of the world and I see the similarities---along with unique qualities---in all of us, I am even more puzzled as to why we all don't get along much better. But then I have to re-think it all and mostly it comes down to our leaders and what they are doing and have done and then I see clearly why we have so many problems. I'm all for making the leaders be the first to have to fight should they want war. Imagine Putin having to show up in this last conflict instead of being in China enjoying the Olympics. Bet things would be different.

[Kate]

So well written and I especially appreciated the note about taking care not to assume in this day and age that a government necessarily reflects the people. (And how sad that so many countries--the United States included--have moved away from that ideal!)

Thank you for such an informative and well-written piece.

[Kamsin]

Great to read your thoughts on China Tara! I have very mixed feelings about China and I think maybe it is such a big and complex place that it will never be easy to come to easy conclusions about. When I returned to England from spending the '99-'00 academic year working for a Chinese university the thing that struck me most about the whole freedom of press thing was that in the UK our thinking is shaped and coloured by the media as much if not more so than it is in China. It seemed to me that educated Chinese are aware of how one sided their media is whereas in England we believe we have a free press and are more blind to the extent to which our media controls much of our behaviour and thinking.
Anyway, I have many more thoughts on China, I remember editing several papers for professors (I taught English at a uni specialising in forestry) about the environment issue with regards to how difficult it was to balance the need to develop factories etc in an affordable way and also to implement energy saving and similar measures to cut pollution. The latter being often far more expensive and so unaffordable until companies had developed economically, but the environment suffered in the meantime.

[ophiesay]

As a Chinese-American, I have been to Asian many times and have even lived in Asia as a working adult. I too have many of the concerns that are expressed in this post, but none more than the lack of free press and access to information. As a blogger for more than 5 years, I have had to circumvent Chinese censors to post my blogs as blogger, yahoo, google, cnn, and many other media platforms are completely blocked by Chinese censors.

This I believe is the true tragedy of the authoritarian regime. Without access to information, multiple perspectives, honest dialogue, the Chinese have nothing to believe or heed than the central government. This impacts everything from business, pollution, human rights, individual expression, religious freedom, Tibet issues, etc...

But nonetheless, my expat friends in Shanghai and Beijing make a very good point. How else do you govern and manage a country of 1.3+ billion people, with the majority poor and uneducated? Former Tianamen square protestors that I know of tell me that democracy and freedom are great in an educated and knowledgeable society, but the educated and knowledgeable represent a VERY small percentage of the Chinese citizenship. So in their minds, they are glad that decisions are not made democratically, because the educated/knowledgeable would be quickly and decisively outvoted by the poor underclass. Btw, these elite college Tianamen protestors are now VCs, CEOs, investment bankers, McKinsey partners...

As with all issues, nothing is black and white.. all varying shades of gray.

[tangobaby]

Tara, this is an excellent post. I am not as widely traveled as I would like to be, but I know from my own experience that there are two types of diplomacy: the diplomacy between nations and governments, and the diplomacy between human beings.

For the most part, meeting foreign nationals only shows me more that people can and want to get along.

Like Yoli, I can understand completely the mental and spiritual shackles that governments can put on their peoples. I was married to a Russian national who later became a US citizen. But his spirit (and his family's) had been marred by growing up under communist rule. Coming to this country did not matter. The damage had been done.

All in all, I find most people to be fascinating. I want to know their stories, how they live, what they do. So that there is less of Them and just more of Us.

ps. I happen to be of the opinion that the US Supreme Court elected our president in 2000 so I can't say that the people of this country's vote actually counted in that year. As for the debacle of 2004, who can say?

[Yoli]

I have very mixed emotions about this subject. I know the Chinese people to be kind and hard working. I know that they have suffered much. I blame the leaders, not the people. I have two adopted children from China and they are my world. I have been twice to China and engaged with the people there. I have nothing but love for them. What the government is doing to them is not unlike what my country has suffered under communism. So yes, I love China but I am stunned at the human toll. I cannot be blind to the suffering.

[Marilyn]

So perfectly said, thanks for your insights. I use to work for an American company that produced in China. I was suppose to check quality at the beginning of development and was encouraged to accept things I didn't always agree with. I get frustrated at the influence of the stock brokers to constantly want more and more profits.

[devil mood]

I completely agree with you. The growth of China scares me immensely. Not that they shouldn't be allowed to grow, of course, but it worries me because of the growing levels of consummerism and pollution. We know very little about what is really going on inside it, in terms of human rights and environmental issues. I've seen the wreckage the western countries send over there, the huge amounts of technological litter. It's a huge country...and if it gets ruined by pollution, what to do?
Of course after the opening ceremony of the Games, what everyone talks about is the grandeur of the country forgetting Tibet and every other dark spot.

[Thea]

really well written, very clear and informative....i was also shocked to read that in order to clear way for the Olympic village buildings the Chinese government evicted homeowners, bulldozed their houses and put up the new structures in their places...unbelievable. I wonder did these people get relocated to their liking? (but who really wants to loose their home of many years?) were they compensated in any way by their government? China is one example of where the few are ruling the multitude...and like you, I try not to buy anything made in china (or india) which is not easy to do since most everything is from one of these places! I'm always thrilled to find labels saying Made in Italy, Made in Canada, Portugal, Brazil...U.S.A.

[kristen]

i have mixed emotions about china. being an acupuncturist, while i've longed to go study, i know that the lifestyle and the way food is kept prepared, would not be for me. fascinating and repugnant if that's possible.

[Di Overton]

I know so many people who have their products made in China and it infuriates me as much as the UK call centres that are based in India. Shooting Yourself In The Foot comes to mind

[Kay]

As always, good to catch up - very informative and a visual treat.