The Great Firewall of China

Why do the Chinese think the world loves them when they don't? Blame the Internet firewall. Or so a misguided Op-Ed in the Washington Post this morning would have us believe.

At issue is a recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey. According to the poll, the Chinese are the most contented people on the planet. They're mostly satisfied with their country's overall direction and think the world likes them. Of course, attitudes toward the Chinese aren't so rosy in the other countries polled. China's "unfavorable" ratings are high in Japan, France, India, the U.S., and Russia.

Why the disconnect? The firewall has very little, if anything, to do with it. Major news sites may be restricted in China, but China ain't North Korea. It's not a hermetically sealed bubble.

For one thing, China's Internet security apparatus, like its manufacturing sector, is mostly people powered, not technology powered. They've got thousands of snoops who pad around the Internet looking for trouble makers. But this method is woefully inadequate to monitor a cell phone and Internet user base that is larger than ours. Via text messaging and the blogosphere, memes and information from the rest of the world spread like wildfire among China's digital users.

It's easy to wish away China's intense feelings of nationalism by saying the Chinese are in an information bubble. They're not. Something else is at work here.

Part of the disconnect is in the eye of the beholder. We see China as a juggernaut about to roll over the next century. The Chinese do not see themselves this way.

They see a country with over one billion desperately poor people. They see a country whose skills and capabilities still lag decades behind the West. They see a country with half its population living on the size of the state of Texas, surrounded by mostly unarable land and a sinking water table. The Chinese remember poverty. They remember famine. Many remember Mao and the millions who died. We see China's startling economic boom. We see them as a superpower. They see themselves as a "poor superpower."

The problem with measuring attitudes is that you're measuring attitudes -- in short, rumor and opinion. The world was wrong about Japan's world domination. So polling people's attitudes toward Japan in the 1980's would have been largely unhelpful. Today, the world is still mostly in the dark about China. Holding a mirror up to our own attitudes doesn't move us any closer to reality.

Comments

[Rule Of Law]

I think it was Pavlov who did studies with dogs in cages with electrified pads in the open end. Each time the dog tried to leave he got a severe shock. Pretty soon he was "content" to stay in the cage--even after the electricity was turned off.

[technomist]

Your analogy is out of date. The Chinese middle classes travel to Europe as readily as Americans these days (if not more in your country's risk averse state). Of my wife's family, who are Chinese, I can think of only two people who have not traveled outside of China. Two in their teens and twenties have been abroad for extended study periods of several years, and of the others most have been abroad for period of a couple of months or more. Many thousands of Chinese people travel to and from Europe every month.

[Rule Of Law]

It's not geography, my friend--it's the mindset.

Also, checked your bio page--another of those identities born just in time for the Olympics. Interesting.

[KillTheMessenger]

Thanks for the insight.

I would add one more point: we should all ask ourselves one thing: if we were in the shoes of the Chinese, having to feed and advance over a billion people with their resources, how would we do it? Given the woeful state of government in our own country, can we even hope to measure up to a project the size of China? I honestly doubt it. Well, the Chinese do measure up. Not in an ideal way, of course, and by no means without enormous sacrifice of humanity, nature and values. But I doubt the world can afford the Chinese experiment to fail, on any scale. And the best way to make sure that it doesn't, is to let China solve its own problems in its own way. That probably includes rather sparing criticism of their internal affairs, as hard as that might be for people like us who know everything better. On the other hand, nothing stops us from extending a helping hand (not a meddling one). And once we do that, China and the world would be doing even better.

[Michale32086]

Why are the Chinese so content??

That's easy...

If they say they are DIScontent, then they disappear for "re-education" until they ARE content. Or at least until they SAY they are content...

By the by, Mr Haft. Has anyone ever told you that you look EXACTLY like David Duchovny?? At least, in your HuffPo pic..

Every time I see your commentary in HuffPo, I think David Duchovny has posted something. :D

Michale.....

[KillTheMessenger]

That is an overly simplified explanation. China is not a Russian Gulag by any means.

So why are the Chinese content? Because they are looking at a bright future. It is not hard to look at the 21st century that way because from where China comes, an inferno of epic proportions thanks to a century and a half of foreign meddling and one of the most brutal invasion and regimes that have ever terrorized people (the Japanese), things are getting better. A lot better actually. And if you happen to look at a Chinese city with shopping malls bigger than anywhere else, the materialist side of mankind can only be pleased. And Chinese are, by their own account, some of the most materialist people in the world.

You could have seen the same phenomenon in Germany after WWII. Germans cared woefully little about what the rest of the world thought about them because their bellies were full. It took another generation before Germany actually managed to overcome its image of the ugly Germans (or "Boches" as the French used to say, aka "Krauts", "Fritz", "Mof" etc. in other parts of Europe).

And another thing: the Chinese are looking back at a cultural history that is longer than anything we have to show for. So let's not get arrogant about it and pretend that we are the ones who brought civilization to China and that our opinion about the Chinese has to count for something.

[Michale32086]

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That is an overly simplified explanation. China is not a Russian Gulag by any means.
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Yer right... China has thousands of years of barbarity that the Russian Gulag never had..

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And another thing: the Chinese are looking back at a cultural history that is longer than anything we have to show for. So let's not get arrogant about it and pretend that we are the ones who brought civilization to China and that our opinion about the Chinese has to count for something.
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No one is claiming that "we" brought the Chinese ANYTHING...

The simple fact is, if you try to tell the truth about the Chinese government in regards to being content or not, you are an enemy of the state and are treated as such...

China epitomizes the novel 1984 and no amount of liberal smooozing will change that simple fact...

Michale.....

[KPinSEA]

The sobering thought for the rest of the planet is that lengthy cultural history didn't help China prevent the brutality of the People's Republic, or the insanity of the Cultural Revolution. It didn't even keep them from surrendering the ideals of the People's Republic that were used to justify the brutality, as now the apparatus of the police state doesn't even blush that it's primary purpose is to create a rich and powerful elite on the backs of a billion peasants.

China is not in a race to catch up with the West ... it's in a race to reform its corrupt and ideologically irrelevant government before the masses that send their sons to the People's Army decide they need another revolution.