Last week I went on my first ever trip to China -- just four days spent in a business conference in Shanghai. A few simple observations before I forget them:
Sitting through presentations on China's over 100 million internet users, a number growing by 400% a year, walking through shopping districts that are every bit as bustling and diverse as those of any middle-income European-style city, hearing about the billions of dollars in advertising spending being pumped into China, it is impossible not to wonder how long the government's control over dissent will last.
They may be barred from certain google searches, but China's fast-growing middle class can see -- and write and talk -- right over the fences the government has built for them. How long can China's zero-tolerance for dissent, a policy predicated on jailing those that dare challenge authority, be enforced across a population of 1.3 billion people and exponentially more emails, text messages, cellphone calls and blog posts? Yes, surveillance technologies are racing ahead too but a data-mining algorithm cannot find a man and jail him.
I discussed this with a leading American journalist covering the region who put it well: the Chinese authorities are going to have to keep pedaling awfully fast -- providing an ever improving standard of living, employment opportunities, and material and social goods -- to stay ahead of the forces of individual autonomy and freedom that education and interconnectedness are bound to feed. If growth slows, if a currency adjustment deals a big dislocation, if police overreact in a serious way and its caught on film, the forces unleashed could be hard to stop.
So while we worry about China pedaling fast to catch up with us, the other side is the 1.3 billion people with their feet at the wheels who -- if the momentum stops -- could veer off every which way never to get back on the same bike again.
One of the presentations I saw highlighted the "Backdorm Boys" -- two regular Chinese art students who made a crude home video lip synching to the Backstreet Boys. This caught on big time across China and won the pair endorsement contracts, TV appearances, etc. Like many I find something vaguely reassuring about the penetration and influence of American culture in this way.
Josef Joffee, in his new book Uberpower, points out that when it comes to American culture, familiarity and ubiquity are more likely to breed contempt than affection. But the evidence he adduces -- anti-Franglais backlash in France, for example, is more about elites than masses. Yes, governments and cultural guardians may resent the encroachment of American products and mores but is there really evidence that American cultural permeation breeds anti-Americanism among populations at large? Someone should ask the Backdorm Boys, but my hunch says that ordinary consumers gravitate toward what they like. If they disliked America, they would turn away from our films, books and music. If our films, books and music bred dislike, they wouldn't be popular for long.
In fact, watching the Backdorm Boys made me wonder whether the hundreds of millions of dollars in pirated media available on China's streets may not carry a silver lining. In failing to crack down on the unauthorized distribution of copywrited songs, movies, books, etc. the Chinese government has allowed the spread of Western culture far further and faster than would otherwise have been possible.