Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
***Quick Intro*** (The interesting stuff follows below)
I'm Canadian, have been living/working in China since 1993. I live in Beijing, but have a non-profit organization that works with one of the most remote minorities groups in China (there's a separate topic discussing that minority, and our work with them, here). I have traveled around China extensively. I'm a successful businessman/entrepreneur (having started one successful company here, and in the process of starting my second), and have worked extensively with the Chinese government on issues relating to government, and the 2008 Olympic Games.
I state these things to establish certain credentials -- that I have been a personal witness to the changes taking place in China over the past 13 years; that I have personal experience of living in both the richest and poorest areas of China; that I am familiar with the tremendous diversity within China, and how issues affect people differently depending on where they live; and that I am fairly conversant with the political issues, and know some of the Chinese leaders personally.
This does not in any way render my opinions here as absolute, and I don't seek to claim that I'm right, and that anyone who disagrees with me is wrong; but rather to demonstrate that my opinions come from a basis of significant personal experience and knowledge, and that I would hope that people who have opinions or beliefs that contradict mine either have similar experience, or can cite documentation that supports them. I'm not seeking to shut up or dismiss those with differing opinions; it is just that, in my experience, every time I begin this particular discussion, I end up being inundated with condemnations and criticisms that are based on little more than propoganda from special interest groups, and almost no personal knowledge of what they're talking about.
***Human Rights in China*** (The interesting bit starts here)
These days, "China" and "human rights" seem to be practically inseparable in the media, and in public dialogue. It is almost impossible to read any news article in the North American media about the Chinese government, that doesn't reference the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. Human rights are regularly raised as prominent issues in any negotiation and relationship with China.
I do not in any way deny that there are significant human rights issues in China. Quite the opposite. I have close Chinese friends who have been directly affected by these issues. I've talked with literally thousands of Chinese all over China, listening to their stories of abuse, both past (Cultural Revolution), and present. There are abuses, and I believe very strongly that these abuses need to be stopped.
But I also think that there are far too many people out there who only take a snapshot picture of China, and react based on that. They look at China how it is today, compare that with their own country, and then render their judgements. Or they grab isolated instances from the past (like the massacre in Tiananmen Square) and use that to justify blanket condemnation of everything the Chinese government does.
I'm here to give a different perspective.
In the 13 years that I have been in China, I've witnessed phenomenal change...by far the majority of it being very positive. In 1993, I was not allowed to visit a Chinese person's home without police permission. Chinese who visited me more than two or three times were visited by the police and warned not to spend so much time with the foreigner. Interaction with the outside world was almost non-existent (there was no internet at that time; and the university campus where I worked had one phone for the entire campus that could make international calls, and those calls were monitored when you made them). Media control was extremely tight. Discussions of politics with Chinese (unless you said that you agreed with everything the Chinese gov't did) was a sure-fire way to get a one-way ticket out of the country. When asking Chinese for their opinions on almost anything, they either said nothing, or just repeated whatever the government said.
Today, in 2007, it is an entirely different country. I can travel freely around China (with the exception of a few 'politically sensitive' regions), stay with Chinese, with no difficulty whatsoever. Chinese not only don't have to be worried about being associated with foreigners, but today it is something of a status symbol to have foreign friends. Interaction with the outside world, particularly through the internet, is commonplace and normal (despite gov't efforts to censor the internet, the only real result has been to make Chinese computer users very tech savvy in figuring out how to get around those barriers). Media, while still subject to some government control, has significantly more freedom than it did before. Discussion of politics is frequent, popular, and very public. And if you ask Chinese for their opinions, you'll get a wide variety of opinions, many of them quite radically different from the standard gov't line.
My point?
China has problems, and abuses. But it is moving in the right direction.
Consider where the U.S. was 50 years ago, or 100 years ago. The U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, are two of the greatest documents ever penned by humans...yet despite those documents, the U.S. still had to go through a slow, very painful process of change and transformation before those rights were applied equally to everyone.
On the one hand, we have a country founded very recently, on the basic principles of equality and democracy, that nevertheless took over 200 years to reach the point it is at today. On the other hand we have a country with over 5000 years of history, that never at any time had concepts of equality and democracy, that is nevertheless apparently expected to change everything overnight.
I am not in any way seeking to justify or defend abuses by the Chinese government. Only to point out that such change, if it is to be meaningful and lasting, must be internally motivated, and must come as a result of a process of evolution, not revolution. In fact, for the first time in 5000 years of Chinese history, China actually faces the realistic prospect of transformation from one system of government to another WITHOUT an intervening revolution that tears apart the nation and results in countless deaths.
I do not advocate a policy of simply standing by idly and saying nothing; I believe that the international community has a responsibility -- even an obligation -- to promote and encourage the development of human rights. But I believe that an adversarial attitude, one that uses threats and ultimatums, is counterproductive. And I believe that expecting a complete, radical transformation from "the way things are now" to "the way we want things to be" is outright ludicrous, the product of a complete lack of knowledge or understanding of human nature and human history.
I believe rather that countries like Canada and the U.S. should engage in and encourage friendly relations with China; that they should build partnerships, and use those partnerships first to better understand the actual situation in China, and second to encourage development and growth in a positive direction -- in the direction that China is, in fact, already moving.
Nothing grates on me more than the condemnations of well-meaning but dreadfully ignorant individuals in the west, who seem to forget the long struggle it took to reach the point they are at today, and demand that China do the same thing overnight. In particular, I truly detest the way that these people, in seeking to "do the right thing", only end up hurting the Chinese people, and the course of development in China.
I will cite two examples of what I'm talking about.
CASE 1 -- An acquaintance of mine, an American businessman in China, feels a strong responsibility that if he makes money from China, he should return some portion of that money to help the Chinese people. Five years ago, he decided to open a factory in a very remote region of China, where standards of living and education were very low, and opportunities very limited. It was not a financially "sound" decision...although his costs for labor were much lower, the costs for training that labor, and for shipping the products, were much higher. From a purely profit-making viewpoint, he would have been much better setting it up elsewhere.
He offered people in that area salaries that were three times higher than what they made as farmers or laborers. And he set up a school where, if you were an employee of the company, your children could attend for free, and obtain a much higher standard of education than they would in any other school in that area.
It is hard to express just how much of a hero this man was to the local population. They knew that he did not have to do any of these things, they knew that his decisions meant that he actually had less profits than he could elsewhere; he did what he did specifically to help them.
Enter the human rights groups.
Somehow, someone in the U.S. found out that this guy had set up a factory in a remote Chinese province, where he paid them a pittance (by local standards, it was a lot; but by comparison with American standards, it really was very little). They immediately branded this as "slave labor" and a "sweat shop", a factory that profited from a "captive" labor pool who worked for him simply because they had no other choice. His products, which were sold almost exclusively in the U.S., were boycotted, and letters sent to key gov't officials, human rights groups, etc. Any attempts to defend himself were shouted down. And most certainly, nobody ever asked the local people what they thought of this.
The result? He was forced to close down his factory. What exactly did these "champions" of human rights achieve for these poor, undertrodden Chinese Chinese peasants? They managed to remove their primary source of income. They managed to close down the best school in the entire district. Hip-hip-hooray for human rights!
CASE 2 -- This one is even more personal for me. As explained above, I've started a non-profit organization to work with a Chinese minority group, the Mosuo, that lives in one of the most remote and least developed regions of China. Last year, I was approached by a documentary film maker who wanted to help us let people know about the Mosuo, and our work with them. It seemed like a great opportunity, so we invited them to come in, showed them around, etc.
When they returned to the U.S., the "documentary" they produced was nothing like what they'd told us it would be. Rather than a social commentary on the Mosuo culture, it was a political piece that used the situation of the Mosuo to highlight inequalities and abuses in the Chinese political system. It was a scathing condemnation of the Chinese government, that exaggerated abuses and blatantly ignored many positive developments, in order to paint a picture of a culture under siege from an evil, authoritarian government.
Since our organization had sponsored these people to come to China, the result was that the government sought immediately to shut down our organization. Only through very intensive efforts, and because of my past relations with the government, were we able to avoid that fate, but some of our activities have nonetheless been curtailed.
Again, we have people who had "good motives", but whose actions resulted really only in hurting the people they were claiming to be concerned about.
You are concerned about human rights issues in China? Great! So am I! So are by far the vast majority of Chinese people! So...come over here. Spend some time. Talk with the people. Take the chance to actually understand the whole situation, not just the snapshots presented in the media. Engage with the Chinese people themselves.
But don't mindlessly support or promote this endless criticism of China, just because it has the label "human rights" attached to it. Understand that there's more than one perspective, and that for all you may intend well, if you don't really understand the situation, the end result may be to do more damage than to actually help.
I'm Canadian, have been living/working in China since 1993. I live in Beijing, but have a non-profit organization that works with one of the most remote minorities groups in China (there's a separate topic discussing that minority, and our work with them, here). I have traveled around China extensively. I'm a successful businessman/entrepreneur (having started one successful company here, and in the process of starting my second), and have worked extensively with the Chinese government on issues relating to government, and the 2008 Olympic Games.
I state these things to establish certain credentials -- that I have been a personal witness to the changes taking place in China over the past 13 years; that I have personal experience of living in both the richest and poorest areas of China; that I am familiar with the tremendous diversity within China, and how issues affect people differently depending on where they live; and that I am fairly conversant with the political issues, and know some of the Chinese leaders personally.
This does not in any way render my opinions here as absolute, and I don't seek to claim that I'm right, and that anyone who disagrees with me is wrong; but rather to demonstrate that my opinions come from a basis of significant personal experience and knowledge, and that I would hope that people who have opinions or beliefs that contradict mine either have similar experience, or can cite documentation that supports them. I'm not seeking to shut up or dismiss those with differing opinions; it is just that, in my experience, every time I begin this particular discussion, I end up being inundated with condemnations and criticisms that are based on little more than propoganda from special interest groups, and almost no personal knowledge of what they're talking about.
***Human Rights in China*** (The interesting bit starts here)
These days, "China" and "human rights" seem to be practically inseparable in the media, and in public dialogue. It is almost impossible to read any news article in the North American media about the Chinese government, that doesn't reference the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. Human rights are regularly raised as prominent issues in any negotiation and relationship with China.
I do not in any way deny that there are significant human rights issues in China. Quite the opposite. I have close Chinese friends who have been directly affected by these issues. I've talked with literally thousands of Chinese all over China, listening to their stories of abuse, both past (Cultural Revolution), and present. There are abuses, and I believe very strongly that these abuses need to be stopped.
But I also think that there are far too many people out there who only take a snapshot picture of China, and react based on that. They look at China how it is today, compare that with their own country, and then render their judgements. Or they grab isolated instances from the past (like the massacre in Tiananmen Square) and use that to justify blanket condemnation of everything the Chinese government does.
I'm here to give a different perspective.
In the 13 years that I have been in China, I've witnessed phenomenal change...by far the majority of it being very positive. In 1993, I was not allowed to visit a Chinese person's home without police permission. Chinese who visited me more than two or three times were visited by the police and warned not to spend so much time with the foreigner. Interaction with the outside world was almost non-existent (there was no internet at that time; and the university campus where I worked had one phone for the entire campus that could make international calls, and those calls were monitored when you made them). Media control was extremely tight. Discussions of politics with Chinese (unless you said that you agreed with everything the Chinese gov't did) was a sure-fire way to get a one-way ticket out of the country. When asking Chinese for their opinions on almost anything, they either said nothing, or just repeated whatever the government said.
Today, in 2007, it is an entirely different country. I can travel freely around China (with the exception of a few 'politically sensitive' regions), stay with Chinese, with no difficulty whatsoever. Chinese not only don't have to be worried about being associated with foreigners, but today it is something of a status symbol to have foreign friends. Interaction with the outside world, particularly through the internet, is commonplace and normal (despite gov't efforts to censor the internet, the only real result has been to make Chinese computer users very tech savvy in figuring out how to get around those barriers). Media, while still subject to some government control, has significantly more freedom than it did before. Discussion of politics is frequent, popular, and very public. And if you ask Chinese for their opinions, you'll get a wide variety of opinions, many of them quite radically different from the standard gov't line.
My point?
China has problems, and abuses. But it is moving in the right direction.
Consider where the U.S. was 50 years ago, or 100 years ago. The U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, are two of the greatest documents ever penned by humans...yet despite those documents, the U.S. still had to go through a slow, very painful process of change and transformation before those rights were applied equally to everyone.
On the one hand, we have a country founded very recently, on the basic principles of equality and democracy, that nevertheless took over 200 years to reach the point it is at today. On the other hand we have a country with over 5000 years of history, that never at any time had concepts of equality and democracy, that is nevertheless apparently expected to change everything overnight.
I am not in any way seeking to justify or defend abuses by the Chinese government. Only to point out that such change, if it is to be meaningful and lasting, must be internally motivated, and must come as a result of a process of evolution, not revolution. In fact, for the first time in 5000 years of Chinese history, China actually faces the realistic prospect of transformation from one system of government to another WITHOUT an intervening revolution that tears apart the nation and results in countless deaths.
I do not advocate a policy of simply standing by idly and saying nothing; I believe that the international community has a responsibility -- even an obligation -- to promote and encourage the development of human rights. But I believe that an adversarial attitude, one that uses threats and ultimatums, is counterproductive. And I believe that expecting a complete, radical transformation from "the way things are now" to "the way we want things to be" is outright ludicrous, the product of a complete lack of knowledge or understanding of human nature and human history.
I believe rather that countries like Canada and the U.S. should engage in and encourage friendly relations with China; that they should build partnerships, and use those partnerships first to better understand the actual situation in China, and second to encourage development and growth in a positive direction -- in the direction that China is, in fact, already moving.
Nothing grates on me more than the condemnations of well-meaning but dreadfully ignorant individuals in the west, who seem to forget the long struggle it took to reach the point they are at today, and demand that China do the same thing overnight. In particular, I truly detest the way that these people, in seeking to "do the right thing", only end up hurting the Chinese people, and the course of development in China.
I will cite two examples of what I'm talking about.
CASE 1 -- An acquaintance of mine, an American businessman in China, feels a strong responsibility that if he makes money from China, he should return some portion of that money to help the Chinese people. Five years ago, he decided to open a factory in a very remote region of China, where standards of living and education were very low, and opportunities very limited. It was not a financially "sound" decision...although his costs for labor were much lower, the costs for training that labor, and for shipping the products, were much higher. From a purely profit-making viewpoint, he would have been much better setting it up elsewhere.
He offered people in that area salaries that were three times higher than what they made as farmers or laborers. And he set up a school where, if you were an employee of the company, your children could attend for free, and obtain a much higher standard of education than they would in any other school in that area.
It is hard to express just how much of a hero this man was to the local population. They knew that he did not have to do any of these things, they knew that his decisions meant that he actually had less profits than he could elsewhere; he did what he did specifically to help them.
Enter the human rights groups.
Somehow, someone in the U.S. found out that this guy had set up a factory in a remote Chinese province, where he paid them a pittance (by local standards, it was a lot; but by comparison with American standards, it really was very little). They immediately branded this as "slave labor" and a "sweat shop", a factory that profited from a "captive" labor pool who worked for him simply because they had no other choice. His products, which were sold almost exclusively in the U.S., were boycotted, and letters sent to key gov't officials, human rights groups, etc. Any attempts to defend himself were shouted down. And most certainly, nobody ever asked the local people what they thought of this.
The result? He was forced to close down his factory. What exactly did these "champions" of human rights achieve for these poor, undertrodden Chinese Chinese peasants? They managed to remove their primary source of income. They managed to close down the best school in the entire district. Hip-hip-hooray for human rights!
CASE 2 -- This one is even more personal for me. As explained above, I've started a non-profit organization to work with a Chinese minority group, the Mosuo, that lives in one of the most remote and least developed regions of China. Last year, I was approached by a documentary film maker who wanted to help us let people know about the Mosuo, and our work with them. It seemed like a great opportunity, so we invited them to come in, showed them around, etc.
When they returned to the U.S., the "documentary" they produced was nothing like what they'd told us it would be. Rather than a social commentary on the Mosuo culture, it was a political piece that used the situation of the Mosuo to highlight inequalities and abuses in the Chinese political system. It was a scathing condemnation of the Chinese government, that exaggerated abuses and blatantly ignored many positive developments, in order to paint a picture of a culture under siege from an evil, authoritarian government.
Since our organization had sponsored these people to come to China, the result was that the government sought immediately to shut down our organization. Only through very intensive efforts, and because of my past relations with the government, were we able to avoid that fate, but some of our activities have nonetheless been curtailed.
Again, we have people who had "good motives", but whose actions resulted really only in hurting the people they were claiming to be concerned about.
You are concerned about human rights issues in China? Great! So am I! So are by far the vast majority of Chinese people! So...come over here. Spend some time. Talk with the people. Take the chance to actually understand the whole situation, not just the snapshots presented in the media. Engage with the Chinese people themselves.
But don't mindlessly support or promote this endless criticism of China, just because it has the label "human rights" attached to it. Understand that there's more than one perspective, and that for all you may intend well, if you don't really understand the situation, the end result may be to do more damage than to actually help.
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) So, I'm stuck with finding other sources for my information.
