Standing Strong in China
We are all familiar with the iconic picture of the unknown “Tank Man” standing in Tiananmen Square, blocking a column of tanks in a student-led protest for more civil liberties in China. The result was thousands of deaths and arrests of Chinese citizens in the ensuing days of protests. It was a threshold for the world, but less so for China, itself. I saw a BBC piece where a reporter tried to show people in Beijing the iconic picture and ask their opinions of those events thirty years ago. Most of the people (students often) simply ran away, scared about the consequences of talking to the foreign press about something that does not formally exist in the Chinese history books. Clearly these people knew enough about Tiananmen Square and what it meant to know that to speak about it would imperil them and their families. There was one picture of the BBC reporter trying to speak with a young lady while a Chinese policeman was inches away photographing her up close. It may be the quintessential shot of Big Brother oversight of the actions of people in China. I’m sure that the Chinese citizenry knows enough about the workings of the totalitarian state to know that they don’t have to drag you off to prison to get even with you. The state permeates so many aspects of Chinese life that they need only not offer a job or a loan to an otherwise worthy “unpatriotic” person to keep that person down in a perverse Darwinian sense.
I am reading about these new protests in Hong Kong by thousands of people fighting against a Hong Kong legislature move to allow extradition and exile of Hong Kong residents to mainland China at the whim of the state. Hong Kong passed over to China from Britain in 1997 after a 99-year lease ran out. This jewel of Asia faced that transition with great trepidation, with any Hong Kong residents with the wherewithal “buying” citizenship to Canada, Australia and the U.S. by whatever means they could. There was great fear of what would become of capitalists (and Hong Kong was capitalism on steroids) in a powerful, centrally-controlled communist state.
The Chinese have proven that they are both brilliant and patient in how they deal with geopolitical issues. The transition came off seamlessly and the impact on life as Hong Kong knew it was minimal. Nothing to see here. Life went on as the Mainland Chinese machine slowly took over the majority of the seats in the Hong Kong legislature. I am certain that these folks get a strategy lecture regularly that they are like hummingbird catchers, they must make only small, imperceptible movements until they have the bird completely surrounded and helpless and then and only then will they pounce. Well, it is now over twenty years since the hand-over and the inevitable move for the hummingbird to be captured and eaten is here.
Every person on earth should be wary of China and how it will impact our lives in the not-too-distant future. I say forget about the textbook definitions of the isms involved. This is not about communism, socialism or capitalism. I’ll bet that zero time is spent in the Chinese Central Council discussing ideology. Just think about their form of government versus ours. We have the checks and balances of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. That would be the President, Congress (House and Senate) and the Supreme Court. Hold off thinking about the current breakdown of the barriers and battles we are undergoing with this system. China has a three-part approach as well with the Council, the Party (yes, Communist) and the Army. These are clearly less intended to be a balancing acts like the U.S. system, but rather a building triumvirate of a partnership. The Party controls membership in the Council and leadership of the Army. I’m sure there are power cliques within each of the branches that are more or less powerful and that there is a natural ebb and flow of power among them, but ultimately, they all three support each other with less balancing and more supporting going on.
If we are measuring pure effectiveness of a system, few could argue that the Chinese triumvirate is more able to get stuff done as they wish. Such is the nature of pure power. Few argue whether Mussolini could make the trains run on time. If timeliness of the trains is your ultimate measure of government, go totalitarian. But ask the protestors in Hong Kong about how they feel about train timeliness versus personal freedoms and their independence from the reach of Big Brother Beijing. This is a canary in the coal mine to us all.
Our fracturing republic should sit up and take big notice of these Hong Kong protests and the flurry of rubber bullets that are flying on the streets of one of the most sophisticated cities of the world. The causes are different from the yellow-jacket protests in Paris, but the significance is very related. The power of the people cannot be ignored. You can argue the issues about these two movements on opposite ends of the earth for many hours. One relates to personal freedom and one relates to economic parity. Both speak to
The government of the respective place not representing the true interests of the masses. Both speak to the way power is wielded. Both make us want to stay home and stay safe from a world gone mad.
Interesting to note that since the China trade war has heated up, Chinese tourism to the U.S. has fallen off dramatically. It turns out that we are scaring them as much or more than they are scaring us. We need to be the beacon of freedom that we have always been. Think about it. For 250 years we have been a symbol for personal freedom and economic prosperity. China has lots of prosperity. France has lots of freedom. We have had both and we need to keep having both to remain the beacon for the world. We are risking our attractiveness to the world if we do not keep balancing freedom and prosperity. Trump only thinks about prosperity and totally ignores personal freedom and the value of the balancing act that goes on with our three branches of government. There was brilliance in our formation and our balancing act. Let us stand strong in America to keep that program in place. Let China stand for what it wants and to the extent that over-emphasizes prosperity at the cost of reduced freedom, take heed. America will lose great value if it goes that way, the way Trump wants to “Make American Great Again”. I’m betting more Chinese want to immigrate to the U.S. than vice versa…at least until they get a close look at Mr. Trump and the MAGA hats.