Just How Free Is China Getting These Days?
If you ever thought that China might be a place that liberty-loving people might be able to land and do good business, think again.
If Chinese millionaires could get their money out out of the country, many of them would immigrate to the "land of the free" or Canada (programs for which often carry a price tag of over USD$440,000, my Chinese students say, to settle on Prince Edward Island); Trumptown never looked so good. Some of them would even consider immigrating to Chile if Spanish were not such a burden for them.
How do I know? One of my businesses is teaching (online) Chinese people to speak English via videoconferencing. As a consultant advising clients that are newcomers to Chile, I like to keep myself apprised of such opportunities and to pass the info along to them. ESL teaching is a great way for foreigners to make decent money while getting setup in Chile or elsewhere, prior to mastering the local language and seeking local employment. I do not just teach because it is "in my blood," or to garner information for clients, or even for the money. I also like to have a chance to talk with people in China about their lives there and to read classic literature with them, especially Orwell's Animal Farm.
One of my Animal Farm readers in China brought an article from The Economist to class yesterday. (Source: The Economist Expresso, cell phone version, February 1, 2018). You might find it of interest:
God-Fearing Politicians: Faith in China
Updated rules governing religion come into force today. The tweaks tighten the government’s control over religious content on the internet, make it more difficult for believers to attend foreign conferences or workshops, and introduce stiff fines for landlords who rent rooms to unauthorized religious groups, such as house churches. The motivations for this is growing anxiety within the officially atheist Communist Party about rising religiosity in China. Xi Jingping, the party’s general secretary, has warned that religion might be a conduit for “foreign infiltration”; lately officials have become fond of insisting that religions in china must be “sinicised”, whatever that means. [Note: a good friend suggested that "sinicised" might mean to be made or influenced to be more Asian (or Chinese) in culture.] Bigwigs already have plenty of ways to smite Muslim, Christian and Buddhist groups who show signs of growing too zealous, and it remains to be seen how strictly they will enforce the new regulations. But it probably soothes the party’s paranoia to increase the number of screws it can turn when required. /(Emphasis added)
While talking with another student, a related topic emerged. Check out this ad on the internet for BEIJING BAPTIST CHURCH:
A Gospel Centered Church WELCOME. Join us Sunday Morning at 10:00AM at the German Center in The Grand Summit Building. BBC is an international English-speaking congregation in Beijing, China. As an evangelical and reformed church, we are committed to worshiping God, nurturing Christ’s body, and bearing witness to the nations. Whether you’re looking for a church home in Beijing or are just passing through, we look forward to worshiping with you at BBC! Please note that due to PRC regulations, BBC is open to foreign passport holders only. Thank you./ (Emphasis added)
A number of my adult Chinese students, mostly Animal Farm readers (there are now 49 of them at various stages), have remarked that it is illegal for them to learn the true, plenary history of revered former Chairman Mao Zedong, or the fact that he murdered (by Prof. Rummel's estimate) 72 million Chinese during the 1950s and 1960s (mainly). They are shocked when I break the news to them and say that they always wondered but that there are things that no one dares to ask. It makes them hunger for more.
I do not run an indoctrination campaign with these students; I simply share historical facts, access to which people in the West take for granted. (Those Chinese students who do know about Chairman Mao have been overseas and have downloaded information while in the West.)
Animal Farm itself was banned in China until just two or three years ago, according to a couple of my students. Apparently, videoconferencing programs and Skype and other programs are still monitored by state officials. My close contact in Hong Kong says that fact is no news to him, since the Chinese communist party has "a million internet monitors who watch chat rooms, blogs, etc." Pretty amazing stuff.
There is still only one party in China, the communist party, and they own all the land under those Shanghai/Beijing skyscrapers and more. At least when Chinese go to vote on Election Day they know with 100% certainty that they will be voting for the winner.
So do not let the glitter, fireworks and awesome skyscrapers fool you. Not only to 90% of Chinese live in poverty, 99.9% of them live under social and political repression. China is hardly a friend of liberty, even if it is taking baby steps in the right direction. China might be a nice place to visit, but you should disabuse yourself of any notion that you might like to live there.
John Cobin, Ph.D.
Escape America Now
I have lived in Beijing for the past four years. When I first got here, China was inching, albeit slowly and awkwardly, toward being something that could almost be mistaken for an almost halfway quasi-semifree country. Then Xi came along, and... may I put a fine point on it?
Immediately it became the case that in China, everyone, be they citizen or foreigner, has exactly ONE right, and no others at all. The reason so many of us come here and stay is because that one right happens to be the one and only right we don't have back in the over-regulated and expensive West, and that is the right to control your own financial future. That is it, and that is all. You do not control what you say, you cannot freely move about, (even less so if you are a citizen, bound inexorably to whatever city your Hukou card is attached to), you cannot even freely access most of the internet without a VPN (which is of questionable legality in its own right), if you're a citizen you have to even obtain a "Family Planning Certificate" before even having a child, and to enforce this, women are required to report their menstrual cycles to the authorities for crying out loud.
And in the classroom, I've seen teachers dragged out in cuffs for even mentioning the South China Sea without using the words "China's Own" in front of it, and a colleague of mine was sentenced to five years for showing a video of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. His arrest was followed by the PSB taking over his former class for a day to explain in no uncertain terms that the video was Western Propaganda made by CGI (because yeah, we had that kind of technology in 1989, yup... sure).
The only right the Chinese authorities will avoid stepping on if they can help it, as I said, is your right to make money, and spend it pretty much however you see fit, as long as it's not sent overseas. If you want to send it abroad, that's when the walls start going up, and the Chinese know a thing or two about walls.
Niccolo Macchiavelli stated "Men will more readily forget the loss of their fathers than their land." I would opine that in this day and age you can replace "land" with "money" and it becomes true, and the CCP has learned that people will tolerate having their rights trampled on as long as they are able to make money in return, and that is one thing that's easy to do in this land of lazily-enforced business regulations. Then again, after taking a good, long hard look at the aftermath of the 19th Conference, I don't see that remaining the case for very long.
Thank you for that insightful remark that completely underscores what I have suspected all along. You did not mention lack of gun rights, lack of choosing where you want to live with hospital nearby.
Please upvote me here at escapeamericanow. I already upvoted your latest article.
Done. If you care to follow, you'll find that my blog is about 75% "call-to-arms to rise against China," with more on the way.