Why "the West" gets China wrong

airsuperiority said:

If someone chooses to believe in their pathetic fantasy, why not let them?

I criticize bad behaviors by Chinese because I'm a Chinese (HK-Canadian), and I feel I'm obliged to whistleblow and call out on my own kind when they misbehave. I feel as me being from the ingroup, I possess the greatest credit and obligation to do such an action, because if we don't, no one else would. Idea being quite how the family member or friend of a misbehaving individual will have the most right to rein in the person. (note: I won't call them "Chinese bad behavior" because I believe our original culture is beautiful and taught us to act civilized and mannered, and what's currently happening in mainland is not something should be characterized as Chinese. Analogy quite like how a few Canadians being racist or doing cold-blooded things shouldn't then be used to characterize that as how Canadians are. You may say I'm being hypocritical, but all along my condemnations are directed towards those poor behaviors exhibited by those individuals, not the overall population they originate from.)

And as for how that's irony, I don't really get it. They can call out anything they want, because bias, prejudice, and stereotype are within people, and it's not our job to get rid of it in their systems. We can only do our parts to deny the reinforcement of these stereotypes, but ultimately it's up to them to change their attitudes. Some may and some may not, but either way they don't concern us, and it's not something we have the right to force them to see differently. Using the hot-headed approach will never get any struggles to far.

While on that, you brought up the concept of sticking up for oneself. While that is something I agree to, I disagree with your approach. You must see in yourself and must admit that your approach carries too much emotions(negative ones), bias, even hatred and anger, which I will say, will undermine the overall message and effectiveness it could've relayed. I agree with standing up for oneself, but there are reasons why MLK, Ghandhi, Mandela, are hailed as great people. They stood up for their people in the means of non-violence and wisdom. They eventually did bring out their struggles. For Asian Americans, Chinese, and any oppressed groups in the suffering of classisms, the first recognition towards making a difference is staying away from blood-drenched hatred. Hatred builds greater divide and hatred, and it won't get us anywhere. The Civil War ended slavery, but segregation and racial divide was still there. MLK and various Black Movements made the changes through peaceful civilized actions. (for my American friends, please forgive if I made mistakes in what I had written up there, as here in Canada we don't study American history all that much) Before I drag further, back to here it's the same idea. Struggles is a long road, and considering the population of Asian-Americans (1%) in the US, the struggle will require extensive time. Asian-Americans are the educated bunch, and often retaining our cultural values as well as Western individualism and understanding of the Western culture. That said, it's even greater in our part to bear the burden of behaving even more proper, as we are more understanding of racism and the need for relentless struggles than our folks back in Asia. Going on, it's true that many Asian-Americans also share the weakness of focusing on their own personal lives, but with proper motivations people will join a cause, particularly if they feel it is something which represents them.
In terms of perceptions towards China, let's not forget most people don't know China all that too well, and hence why they will speak stuffs like those. It will always exist, as there will always be people thinking MJ did surgery(when in fact he had skin disorders) We can defend or stand up for China by words of reasons, not relentless condemnations and even stretching it into other's religion(I personally think that's very insulting) Either for China or Asian Americans, it's right to stand up for oneself, but not in the methods of teeth-clenching blood hatred and anger. That's not going to get anywhere. And why I said this is because I sort of felt yours carry a very strong condemning tone, and often people who carry too much of such tone will blanket their original message. Next thing, criticisms. I think it's alright to stand up to oneself and defend with valid arguments, points, and messages, but when you begin to retaliate into calling out on their religion and various other generalizing stereotype, it just breed hatred, downturn the original purpose, and risk fueling a flame-war. There are reasons why even this forum encourages us to report misbehavior and not to retaliate with further immaturity. I think these are just common sense, and not something I had to really explain too much of.
Lastly, when you think that's how you "stand up" for your kind, the result is that not only people don't think you're telling them they're wrong, they're more likely to dismiss you and your points (no matter how valid they are) because they will think you are biased/brainwashed. You present to them as someone defending something, and defenders means they are biased towards the things they are defending. Someone who reasons will only speak what's true and factual, not taking sides, and primarily convinces by explanations. People say stupid things, and they don't always know they are. When they are corrected by provided the proper information, they are more likely to consider than blind defense, since such defense perhaps will appeal less to their cognitive sides.(Perhaps Superdog can verify if what I've just said is actually true. I just typed that stuff out as I was thinking and processing this "logic".) I'm sure you've experienced that before, and while you may think they are out to go against you, I'd say that it's extremely possible that you had committed yourself to a hole which you actually dug yourself because from your biased, senseless condemnation. By intellectualism, even people who refuses to acknowledge your point will have trouble denouncing you as biased/brainwashed/inferior because they have nothing to hold you accountable for. All in all, unless you're planning to genocide your opposition, "power grows from the barrel of the gun" and hatred-fueled condemnation and criticisms will rarely win the minds or earn the respect of the population that matters most; your opponents. Let's not forget Ghandi's "eye for an eye makes the world blind". Sure insults and attacks to our group happens a lot, but with proper civilized actions we can still present ourselves as strong power fueled by an unified legitimate message that forces the offender to apologize.

Finally, criticism is a very important thing in Chinese culture, don't you know? Confucius teaches humility and modesty, and part of it comes from being able to take criticisms. If all these pro-China people thinks every criticism(even the constructive ones with insightful advices) as attacks to their culture, and thus they have to go beserk and do everything to defend their title because they "think" they are "standing up" for their culture, including denying/ignoring the proper criticisms ones, bashing the critics, and blaming and saying it's just people being against China, then seriously I think these people have a very severe issue of cultural inferiority complex. They can complain about how others bash their own culture because of inferiority complex, but are they not even worse, by defending China irrationally every time? They are just as bad as those bashers, except worse, and just a different breed of the same thing. Them and their defence mechanisms. Unknown to them, those people always lose, even though they thought they won by being more aggressive than others.(Like the example you mentioned at the top regarding arrogant people) No one respects them, and no one thinks they won because they never brought out any real points to sweep the debate in their favor.

We Chinese with our 5000 years of history have a lot in us and should've taught us what a true civilization is, and so why are we now not behaving like we should?

And seriously, there will always be monkeys throwing feces everywhere. It doesn't mean we should follow suit.

I can understand the core ideas you're presenting and they're things I would agree to, but the problem is you shouldn't get them mixed, and with emotions. I'm going to be really dead honest with you here not because I harbor anything personal against you, but rather I want to point something out and hope my share are helpful.

You've presented strong arguments and points often in your posts, but hints of emotions displayed in your posts often work against the strength and the respect that your posts should've deserved.

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AssassinsMace said:

You're thinking is not unique and Asians still complain. Where did I suggest violence?

In my college years a couple friends and I were actually politically active. We weren't an organization or affiliated with one. I've mention this before that San Francisco's Chinatown use to be constantly under assault by animals rights activists for the sale of live animals for food. The reaction from Chinese community leaders followed much of your thinking. Then the animal rights activists tried passing a law to ban the sale of live animals for food in Chinatown. Problem was it didn't include any of the other parts of San Francisco that also sold live animals for food like Fisherman's Wharf.

I was a contributor to an English language Asian-American newspaper that allowed me to take on these animal rights activists and their arguments for this ban. The leader of the animal rights organization was personally using this newspaper in letters to the editor to give his rude opinions. I countered much like I do here. I pointed out every hypocrisy and flaw. And you know what happened? The newspaper and I got threats of being fire bombed if my editorials did not cease. The typical reaction from Chinese is that it was my fault and I brought this onto myself. But of course the newspaper and I understood our fundamental basic rights which many Chinese choose to forget. We did not cease. And guess what? No fire bombings. Then a journalist from the top newspaper in the city all of the sudden confronted the leader of this animals right organization that was leading this ban and asked the very questions I brought up including my conclusion this was all racially motivated which he did not answer when my questions were published. The truth exploded. The leader of the organization admitted that the Democratic establishment of San Francisco told him to only target Chinatown because if he went for a city-wide ban, he would get no support. Did this journalist read my editorials to then confront this leader who wasn't answering when I impose them? No one in the Chinese community ever approached my tactic. The editor of the newspaper I contributed to believes I can take credit. The move to pass this law lost steam as elected officials started to publicly go against the measure. After that no animals rights organization has said a word publicly ever since. Now since then I haven't seen live animals for food in SF Chinatown. Was there some agreement in the years afterwards made behind the scenes? I don't know but that's the way it should've been done in the first place and not the rude public display of racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia that was sought to be exploited to get support. And these people are Democrats and liberals. They would have never used those racist tactics with more politically vocal minorities groups in which some had public markets that sold live animals for food in their neighborhoods in San Francisco and weren’t subject to this ban.

Now during this process my friends and I got a lot of resistance from Chinese pretty much from people that take your position. I even took on one of the newspaper's columnists who was Filipino and an animal rights activist. He actively used his column to support this ban. But because I'm media aware, I knew a dark secret about this columnist. He would be used by radio talk show stations around California as a substitute fill-in. I've heard on more than one occasion where he would advocate legalizing eating dogs in the US. And you know why this animal rights activist would advocate legalizing eating dog? It was always because someone publicly, mostly comedians on TV, made fun of Filipinos eating dogs. So when it got personal with him, being a bitch was more important than the ethical treatment of animals. I revealed this information publicly but of course the editor was stunned and she had to confirm it with him before she published my revelation. Of course he had to admit to it. Now what would've happened if we chose to be passive and not confrontational with all these hypocrites pointing the finger at the Chinese?

I know Chinese like to be followers of what's successful. I'll give you an example from my experience. Back in college I took a class where I used basically the same tactics in discussion. From the start of the semester, the instructor loved it. But I got into an accident where someone hit my car while I was driving on the highway and I had to go through a little physical therapy where it interfered with my school studies. The instructor noticed it in my homework. So he called me aside and asks what was up and I explained what happened. He told me not worry about it and he was going to give me an "A" in the class and it was only a third of the way into the semester.

Here’s another story that didn’t have to do with same tactics but thinking out of the box which in the same vein. I took a Strategy and War class. The professor asked the class to write a strategy on how we would’ve conducted the first Gulf War from Saddam Hussein’s perspective. I wrote about how the first Iraq War was the first major military conflict the US has experienced since Vietnam. The US was still experiencing the Vietnam Syndrome which caused hesitation among Americans. If I were Saddam I would go all in and try to inflict as many casualties on Americans as possible in order to exploit the Vietnam Syndrome to make Americans turn against the war.

We finished writing and the class split into groups and we read each other’s strategy. A lot of students were writing tactics of warfare not strategy. Others were taking their personal beliefs and imposing them onto Saddam Hussein adhering to UN charters and resolutions and looking for Iraq to get out of its mess. I was hit with a lot criticism that I misunderstood the assignment. I even had someone offended that “I” would write something that advocated the deaths of Americans. After the group session was over, everyone had to read out loud their strategy to the class. Same thing was happening where mostly everyone wrote tactics or their own beliefs imposed onto Saddam Hussein. Then it was my turn. I was a little nervous because of the criticism. When I finished reading, the professor pointed his finger at me and said, “That’s what’s called strategy.” After that when it came to the turn of some of the people who criticized me, they changed what they wrote to make it more sound like real strategy.

I know it sounds like I’m tooting my own horn. But what I do is nothing special and everyone should be exercising critical thinking because that’s what it is. This thread is about why the West gets it wrong? Yeah that’s because there’s no critical thinking taking place. Do you think being passive helps in critical thinking? No, it makes the offender think they’re right and they continue on doing the same thing over and over again. Your position is nothing new to the Chinese and it’s gotten them nothing. The Chinese don’t get points for doing nothing and expecting respect from people who are out to offend is absurd. People who criticize Chinese bad behavior don’t see redeeming qualities from Chinese being passive. They see only the stereotype of bad behavior as the Chinese being uncivilized. So the idea of passivity as an act of civility is worthless.

I get the idea that you think I’m defending bad behavior of the Chinese. I’m sick of it too when it happens. I’ll advocate the death penalty for the kid that defaced ruins in Egypt. Even though I fight against animal rights activists, I’m for the death penalty for Chinese who traffic in endangered animals. But when I take a step back, I see “Chinese” who perpetuate the stereotype of Chinese bad behavior also happen to be the people trying to separate their identity from being Chinese. I see the same disgusting selfishness involved here that’s pointed out about bad behaving Chinese. In my eyes they’re all in the same mentality. Like you said about me, I don’t agree with your tactics. They have been proven a failure. The irony is the critics of Chinese bad behavior always use the West as some sort of model. But when it comes to the Western trait of confronting people when wronged, somehow we’re not supposed to embrace that part of the West.

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airsuperiority said:

Overall I'd say we are from the same camp, but have different approaches and viewpoints pursuing the same thing. I'd say neither yours nor mine are solely successful, and certainly can't achieve our greater aim without the effort from the other. It goes hand to hand because both soft and hard approaches are needed, although we must be really careful on who we use our approaches for. I believe people could be reasoned to a point provided their intentions are not malicious, while tougher nuts require your method to crack. Activism without mainstream behaviors to complement will not succeed, and people who don't stand up for oneself will also remain forever suppressed.

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airsuperiority said:

I do want to ask you, what do you think of the current stage of HK's identity? Also, as a psychology student attempting to minor in international studies, i'm inclined for a psychopolitical approach which i "propose", is to study/analyze a culture like studying a individual's personality, from its upbringing and backgrounds, as a method, to assist the current behavior and attitudes and cognition. What's your opinion in this approach as well? Of course I'm not isolating other variables, but rather to treat a specific culture like studying a person can perhaps assist in understanding its processes and personality.

Furthermore, I also am in the favor of seeing HK as the most individualistic of all the East Asian cultures, and wonder what's your take on that.

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Hendrik_2000 said:

This is important news that I thought worth posting. For years the west and their ilk has been praying and encouraging regime change in China coupled with disinformation news article about the impending doom and blaming CCP for everything under the sun hoping against hope the demise of CCP.

Well FAT CHANCE!. People doesn't go berserk and destroying everything if they have hope for better life for them and their children. Irrespective of ongoing problem
Unlike in Syria where they destroyed everything in the name of foreign ideology. What an irony when this come at 24th anniversary of Tian An Men incident. You be the judge

Chinese youth are some of the most optimistic people on this earth. This is correlate nicely with other finding of survey organization like PEW

Hang in there the best is yet to come China engine is firing on all pistons

China's Generation Y is optimistic, apolitical and eco-friendly, survey shows
Wednesday, 05 June, 2013, 3:20pm


China's millennials are among the world's most optimistic and conscious of the environment in a region where optimism is scarce and at a time when their counterparts around the world expect them to lead global economic growth.

These findings are the results of a survey of more than 12,000 people between 18 and 30 years old across 27 countries. The study, published on Tuesday by Spain's biggest telephone company Telefonica and the Financial Times newspaper, is the largest global poll among young adults.

Among those surveyed, most had college educations, jobs and no children.

Economic leadership

Asked which country would drive the world economy in the next years, 58 per cent pointed to China and only 31 per cent chose the US, currently the largest economy worldwide. China could overtake the US as soon as 2016, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report in March.

Almost all of the young adults surveyed in China, 93 per cent, said they were optimistic their country's best days were still ahead. In South Korea, only 77 per cent expressed the same sentiment. In India, 81 per cent did.

Pessimism dominates in North America, where only 47 per cent expect their future to be bright. In Western Europe, it's only 41 per cent and in Japan, the pessimists make up 81 per cent, the highest in the world.

Opportunities and values

Two-thirds of the Chinese millennials said they believed they had an opportunity to become an entrepreneur in their country. In South Korea only 56 per cent and in Japan, only 48 per cent said so.

Surprisingly, Saudi Arabia and India topped the ranking on entrepreneurial opportunities. Nine in 10 Saudis and Indians thought they had a good chance to start businesses in their countries, even though both countries don't rank high in the Global Entrepreneurship Development Index, a global survey on the ease of starting a business.

Only one-third of the Chinese millennials surveyed said their country did not represent their values and beliefs, whereas in Japan three-fourths and in South Korea two-thirds said they could not identify with their government.

Europeans were most critical of their governments. Nine in 10 Italians and eight in 10 Spaniards and Czechs disapproved of their respective governments.

Chinese concerns

Chinese millennials were, however, not blindly bullish about their future. Two-thirds thought that technological progress widens the wealth gap. Japanese and South Koreans were even more critical of technology.

Almost twice as many Chinese millennials, 67 per cent, said climate change was "a pressing issue" than their American counterparts did. Concern among the Chinese surveyed ranked higher than anywhere else but in Latin America.

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RahultheWaffle said:

Great article, can you give the link? Thx

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AssassinsMace said:

This is an interesting read. BTW, I'd suggest no one comment on this article since it deals with no-no subjects that are not to be discussed in this forum.

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Cyber-snooping only one side of the information war

by Gregory Clark

Jun 20, 2013

Revelations of the U.S. National Security Agency’s large-scale interception of Internet and telephone connections (PRISM) should not have come as any surprise. Estimates of NSA’s secret budget of at least $10 billion should have told us long ago it was involved in some sophisticated spying activities.

We knew some time ago about ECHELON — the global network linking the Anglo-Saxon nations in a decoding operation aimed at the secret diplomatic and other communications of other nations, including friends. That has been going on for more than 40 years now and many of those targeted — Japan included — have yet to realize how their codes can be penetrated.

But that is only one side of the information war. Efforts to find out what we are thinking are matched by efforts to tell us what we should be thinking. Programs to disseminate black or gray information have been around for a long time. Bogus news agencies (for much of the Vietnam War the British were running one called Forum Features), planted stories, biased or bought correspondents, academics and other pundits have combined to spread distorted information about imagined enemies.

The former Soviet Union used to be a favorite target. Recently China has come back into the limelight.

With India now being courted as a potential member of an anti-China club we are hearing much about China’s alleged 1962 border attack on India. Yes, there was a brief military action. The only problem with the black-information version is that it was India, not China, that did the attacking.

I was working in Canberra’s China section at the time and had access to all the relevant maps and documents. It was clear that the very limited Chinese attack had followed some very foolish Indian military incursions across a very generous (to India) line of control that China was scrupulously observing prior to a final border agreement (all this has been confirmed in former London Times New Delhi correspondent Neville Maxwell’s excellent book “India’s China War”). But that did not stop Canberra and others setting out to condemn China’s “aggression.” The black-information people have been hammering that line ever since.

That particular black-information success, which was to lead to the myth of China’s inherent aggressiveness, in turn led to the U.S./Australian decision to intervene in Vietnam to stop Chinese “aggressive expansionism.” A lot of people were to die as a result.

But the granddaddy of all the anti-China black-information operations has to be the false version of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square incident. For some years this version had us believe that hundreds, if not thousands, of democracy-seeking Chinese students were mowed down with machine guns in the square by a brutal regime.

When some foreign witnesses emerged to say they were in the square all that night and saw nothing, the story was changed to a massacre of students near the square.

Meanwhile, the true story, found in the messages from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing at the time and available on the Internet, is very different. This says that Beijing, having tolerated the student takeover of its iconic square for six weeks, had finally tried to send in unarmed or lightly armed troops to remove the remaining students peacefully, only to be rebuffed by angry anti-regime crowds that had built up on the roads leading to the square.

When armed troops were then sent in, the crowds attacked with firebombs incinerating many in their vehicles. Some rogue units then went on a rampage and the alleged “massacre” was in fact the revenge wreaked by those units on the citizen and student crowds still trying to block their entrance.

So whence the machine gun massacre story? Fortunately the former Washington Post correspondent in Beijing at the time, Jay Williams, has done the research, published in the Columbia Journalism Review, pinpointing its origins to a full-page article in a pro-British Hong Kong newspaper written by an alleged student participant. Front-paged by an unsuspecting New York Times, the “machine gun massacre” story rapidly criss-crossed the globe to become accepted as fact. An attempt by the New York Times reporter on the scene, Nicholas Kristof, to tone down the distortions was relegated to Page 13. Meanwhile the alleged “student participant” promptly disappeared.

As the Williams report points out, the irony in all this is that the world media managed to miss the much larger story — namely a mass revolt by citizens angered by decades of the Cultural Revolution and other ideological insanities still not fully corrected by the reformist Deng Xiaoping regime. This in turn explains why Beijing today is so anxious to have the world forget about the incident. No self-respecting communist regime can admit it was attacked by its citizens. But this then allows the black-information people to use Beijing’s silence as proof it lacks repentance for the massacre.

These people have since gone on to an even greater heights with the myth of Iraq weapons of mass destruction. They show little repentance for the death and misery caused by that success.

They are now involved in giving us the one-sided, gray-information version of the Japan-China confrontation over the Senkaku Islands. Here the key issue surely is Beijing’s anger over Tokyo’s denial of a verbal 1972 agreement to shelve the island ownership issue. Instead, we are told it is more proof of the Chinese expansionism that began with India in 1962.

We are told much about Beijing’s expansionist ambitions in the South China Sea. But it was the Republic of China regime, later exiled to Taiwan, that first made these claims, and they were reinforced by none other than Tokyo itself in its 1952 peace treaty with the ROC when it granted ownership of the two main island groups there, the Spratleys and the Paracels, to that regime.

Until very recently Taiwan showed much more zeal than Beijing in seeking to pressure Japan over the Senkakus; it was Taiwan in 1971 that successfully lobbied the U.S. to exclude the Senkakus from the Okinawan territories whose sovereignty was to be returned to Japan (the U.S. agreed only to the return of administrative control).

Beijing’s very limited revival of some other ROC territorial claims, toward India for example, are also portrayed as new Beijing expansionism. So the game goes on.

We still live in a world still highly vulnerable to black- and gray-information activities. It is this, far more than NSA snooping, that demands attention.

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