Absolutely not. We hold China up to the same scrutiny with which we view ourselves. This motivation is sufficiently legitimate and, what’s more, can easily be proven to be symmetrical in the way that China’s coverage of “the West” (for which you should read “those who get in China’s way”) is not. Should anyone doubt this fact, he’d only have to peruse China’s risible and deluded reports on “Human Rights Abuses” in the United States, wherein press-freedom infractions are cited *from American media sources*. The genocide of Native Americans, the failure of America’s heath care system which the author points to---these subjects receive exhaustive analysis in American discourse. The West ought to report on China as intrepidly as the West reports on itself. And the ultimate passive-aggressive implementation of the term “bashing”, which deflects legitimate criticism as merely a “hate crime” is preposterous. If our criticisms appear to “Chinese eyes” (note the normative ethnic insistence in Mainland Chinese people’s use of this term) excessive, much of this is due to the excessive praise they grant themselves in their domestic media. Try to excuse us if we momentarily disrupt your self-worship.

With respect to the government the issue of negative reporting is relatively straight-forward. When a centralized government perpetually justifies and further consolidates its power, promises comprehensive oversight, and even guarantees control over the heavens, it must be regarded, at minimum, tacitly complicit in all disreputable acts occurring within the sphere of its control and must be held responsible for any failures within the system it has established. That is the verifiable logic of a purposely comprehensive system. When Chinese generals speak in China’s domestic press about their willingness to nuke every major city in the United States in response to conventional military engagement, are we to believe such a statement was NOT tacitly underwritten by the entire state through (heavily regulated) domestic media? And should we countenance the arrogance of those who impute to us such artless simplicity? Surely if the government wishes to take credit for “lifting” hundreds of millions of people out of poverty (a thoroughly questionable claim that, nevertheless, has become ubiquitous in Western reports) it may also acknowledge its complicity in heinous acts.

I suspect that this argument will be unfortunately reduced to the right “proportions”. Are our criticisms disproportionate? Perhaps we should scientifically measure the proper allotment of praise they deserve. Perhaps we should offer equal measures praise and blame. Perhaps we should renounce evaluation and reduce our accounts to tit-for-tat reporting: you say nice things about us, we’ll say them about you. Wouldn’t that be sincere? Wouldn’t that be more comfortable for the Mainland Chinese? As Beckett states, “What an addition to company that would be!”

Didn’t we work so hard to make everyone happy? Why can’t you say you are happy and make us happy? Why do you need to speak about Dafur? Why? What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking. Think. Don’t you know speaking about the Sudanese suffering diminishes how much you should respect our suffering to please? Don’t you know we suffer more than the Sudanese?

It’s time we started recognizing that this “desire to be loved” has become a demand. Some might rightfully feel a stalking.

AristophanicBirdsforGovernment
yeah. way to address the problems of an unravelling superpower. just say the other guy is worse and that at least we 'talk' about our problems, just like we 'talked' about katrina while china 'acted' on its earthquake. try and eschew the nationalistic hogwash and take a good long hard look in the mirror.

have apparently affected Papillon's thought processes.

ABG didn't pretend he was "addressing" the problems of "an unravelling superpower" - he was discussing he process we use to address problems in the US and the democratic West and the fact that at this point, one cannot apply that form of analysis to the quite-sensitive Chinese government without being accused by them of imperialism, racism, or a myriad other crimes perpetrated by those "who would encircle China" and prevent her people (i.e., government) from achieving its rightful "place in the sun."

Putting aside the ridiculous "unravelling superpower" comment (are the barbarians at the gates? did they at least bring checkbooks?) the ability of Western societies to be self critical is their greatest stregth. This can sometimes be a source of short term, relative weakness (witness all the breast-beating on the Fray about how the US is somehow no "better" than Russia in Georgia because...well I can't remember why but we are somehow to blame) but it is also the source of the ability of progressive Western societies to continually reinvent themselves. It is not simply geography that made the US a powerful, rich nation.

On balance I am sure that I am quite pro-Chinese but ABG's comments about the Chinese regime and its over-sensitivity to criticism are in my view pretty accurate. The Olympics is being staged by the Chinese regime as a way to allow its people to congratulate it for its achievements. It should also be a time for the Chinese to realize that while most of us support and appreciate, even admire, the Chinese people, we do not necessarily love their regime. Making them understand this distinction between our desire for the well-being of the Chinese people and our feelings about their government is an early step in the gradually increasing political sophistication of the mass of Chinese people.

A word about the Chinese "economic miracle". This miracle is real, but should be kept in perspective (20 years ago the per capita GDP of China was about $100, today it is about $2000. USD GDP per capita is around $45,000). The Chinese dictatorship deserves a great deal of credit for this progress, but we shouldn't forget that what the regime has done, mostly, is to get the hell out of the way - and let the Chinese people get on with making a living. Taking away the Mao books, collectivization, and the backyard steel furnaces and allowing a people who have a great merchantile tradition to get on with their lives could not but have a positive effect. So in conclusion, the Chinese have a right to say to the regime, "thanks for getting out of the way. So, what have you done for me lately?" Just what an American would say.

Similarly, the relative rationality of the Chinese on the world stage - especially compared with the Russians - means that they are a government that can be expected to generally act in its rational self interest, and not irrationally, by, for example, starting a war in a small neighboring country. And of course, comparisons with regimes such as Burma or Iran don't even merit discussion. In the words of Maggie Thatcher, we can do business with the Chinese. But we should never forget that any government that does not represent the stated will of its people is in some sense illegitimate, should be subtly reminded of that fact. If that is "rude", well, so be it.

Papi,

My deepest and most sincere apologies. I thought this post concerned the relative ways in which China and the West addressed each other and themselves through media channels. Now that I’ve been suitably chastened, would you gently care to disclose how your comments relate to the original subject? Would you entertain the idea that action and dialogue can be concurrent? Perhaps you are beset by difficulties speaking and walking simultaneously? Your cure, if I may be so bold, is theater.

Were you in China at the time of the earthquake, or would you have even paid attention to their domestic media’s coverage of the disaster, you’d know the mainlanders did a considerable amount of “talking” as well. In fact, the manner in which they addressed the quake says as much about China (and yes, this means the government and “the people” as a mainland construct) as any federally organized assistance. Let’s note two points in particular.

1) The provincial and local governments were described as being remiss in several areas of preparation, disaster relief and aid provision. Of course. More federal government oversight and control was required and provided. Helicopters, I say helicopters(!), were utilized. The people learned (as they are so often instructed) they can’t trust local governments because of inveterate corruption; but they could trust the federal government to root out the source of that corruption and bring consolation to all. Never mind the fact that the provincial government was appointed directly by the federal government, I saw Wen JiaBao speaking with his finger pointing in the air! Many times. That’s leadership. As we all know, corruption is best battled from the top down.

2) Variety shows were required. Perhaps it would be best to call these anti-variety shows. On the promising premise of bringing relief to suffering, business representatives and government hacks were paraded across a stage to drop a significant amount of money into a transparent vessel. Just one of these shows lasted 5 hours (there were many). Throughout this spectacle a chorus of people, some wearing dashing military uniforms, belted out such appropriate and uplifting songs as “We are Chinese” and effusively praised the generosity of the Chinese people. Never mind that aid was also coming from overseas and Western businesses. Disregard the invalid point that China continues to receive more international aid than any country in the world apart from India. And surely neglect to observe that viral text-messages were sent out the following day decrying “Foreign Iron Roosters”, i.e. foreign businesses (no Chinese businesses were listed, sadly) mainlanders were encouraged to start boycotting—see, it’s not that they didn’t give (Iron Rooster); it’s that they didn’t give ENOUGH. Heck, they even let a farmer from SiChuan come on the show to say “thank you” to the by-then-sedated groupings of government officials and military higher-ups in the audience! His family probably didn’t need him, after all. That was nice of them.

Whatever the merits of the Chinese government’s response to the tragedy in SiChuan, and certainly one may find much that is praiseworthy, you can be assured that government “action” was thoroughly inflated by a domestic media which continued to talk and talk.

When I look in the mirror I try to remember no mirror is perfect. Is that worth hearing?

Free Trader,

I appreciate your clear-sighted response to Papi. Is it possible we’ve met before in some other fray at some other time?

Unfortunately I can’t endorse your bifurcation of the mainland Chinese people and the Chinese government. At this point you can’t pry them apart, nor should you expect to. The arrogance displayed in self-praise is as endemic to “the people” as it is to their government. Distasteful though it may appear to those who find the distinction useful or who fear the charge of ethnic bias, it’s time to hold the people accountable. There is something palpably malicious in a population which would march against, threaten and boycott at the least insistence even a country which had been consistently praised as a foil to American “hegemony” and a “great friend to China” (France), just as there is something decidedly vindictive in a population that made it clear they’d do the same to anyone who did not respond appropriately to their “invitation” to the games. Incest—intellectual, spiritual or otherwise—may derive from the father but its primary trajectory is fraternal.

ABG,

Yes, I think we may have traded posts in the past.

Your analyses were brilliant and funny and made me think, including your spot-on critique of my post.

The problem is that people like myself, self-described "friends of China" walk a delicate tightrope between bashing the regime and encouraging the Chinese as a whole as they make the 'long march' into prosperity, and hopefully, a more representative form of government.

It is true that xenophobia goes back a long way in China, and that many members of the government-orchestrated anti-foreigner mobs would probably be happy to bash any foreigner any time, just on general principle. But so would many people. A mob is just that, and not very rational. And that is currently the only outlet for political expression the Chinese currently have available. The Chinese aren't alone in generally portraying themselves as victims of a continuous foreign conspiracy; the Japanese, Koreans, and Russians, to name a few, have been doing it for years.

Two more, hopefully quick, comments:

Kevin Rudd, the Mandarin-fluent Australian PM, gave a speech in Beijing during the recent phony "Olympic touch" crisis. He started by pointing out that he was a "friend of China", but that among "true friends" honesty should prevail, including having open discussions about issues like human rights and Tibet. The Aussie press mostly slammed Rudd for kowtowing the the Beijing regime; while in China, no one outside the room he spoke in ever heard, or read, his words. Sometimes it really is difficult to be a friend of China.

One last comment: I noted your implied distinction between Mainland China and "other" China i.e., Taiwain. I hope that I am not naive in hoping that the example of Taiwan - a full on Chinese democracy with sex and corruption scandals and wild policy debates - may prove inspirational to the Chinese in showing that yes, Democracy and Chinese civilization can coexist quite well, even thrive. I hope even the thugs in the government will conclude that if they can survive Mao, they can survive a little political rudeness.