China, a retrospective

22 October 2014, Back to Stamper

It is time for a retrospective on China. We held back on openly criticizing the system in China as we were genuinely afraid that what we were doing online was being monitored and the officials might react to us personally. Most likely it would have been a withdrawal of our visa, forcing us to leave China early.

The ruling system is brutal in its determination to control the population. Part of this aggravated by fear of the rulers to loose control, in itself an indication that hat may indeed be the case. We see signs of economic instability in the huge housing bubble and the amount of construction standing empty without purpose, only continued to stimulate a slowing growth. About half the population we saw was living on very low wages and finding creative ways to earn a small amount. A relative large middle class enjoyed the riches of cars and was seeking fashionable clothes and other luxury while a small group of rich drives very expensive cars, party members place themselves above the law visibly by driving without a license plate. All this adds to instability. For us the most shocking aspect was the experience of being watched continuously: the many forms of police oversight, cameras, microphones and watchdog cars on all major intersections, the constant breaking of VPN connections and occasional interference in the memory of your private ipad are just the noticeable parts.

The normal people we meet are friendly and good humored, seeking pastime with dancing in the parks, playing music and practicing calligraphy and painting. This reminded me of Cuba where similar escapes from oppression happened. The regime in China is much more advanced and omnipresent in their ways. This society is far from stagnant, in many ways a modern technological state, people are well educated and capable. The communist party behaves inconsistently; the majority of reaction is old fashioned control and power wielding. We witnessed this in the Hutongs in Bejing when street-stalls were forcibly removed and on Tienanmen square when a protesting farmer was arrested. Allowing very critical art on the high brow art festival in Bejing, visited by the very rich in the capital, was and opposite reaction. A promising sign of the urge to change from a ruling elite? The president of China, Xi Jinping, after a week announced publicly that art should not serve decadent capitalism and be based on cultural values of socialism; internal conflict in the party?

China never experienced democracy. The communist party cleverly adopted the century old imperial power structure and intends to continue this well into this century. It has given China the advantage to develop very quickly to an economic superpower and also set out policies to counter environmental disasters at a pace unprecedented for democracies. Implementations of these policies still need to proof that an oligarchy can also execute this difficult task. The downside is the cleptocracy that the rich has become, placing themselves above the law. Compared to rising inequality in the USA and the disproportionate political influence of the very rich there: is there so much difference?