This is what this blog is really about

When my wife and I were living in China and subsequently Hong Kong I intentionally self-censored myself, but here is the beginning of an essay I am writing about the real China-

China – what exactly is it and how does it work?

It takes time to understand the workings of today’s China, years in fact. I lived in Mainland China for seven years, the first in Beijing during the Sars crisis, which was grossly under-reported because of the lies spewed out by the Chinese “Government” concerning the fatalities. My wife and I were teaching at the time and one of our jobs was at a business English school that had been closed during the worst of the epidemic. When it re-opened we were reunited with our students who began to tell what was on the streets concerning Sars and not what the government edicts told. In addition to the thousands, not a few hundred, who died was the huge suicide rate. This was a revelation to us as nothing had been said of this phenomenon. What seemed to be very common was the sort of incident when one member of a family had infected the rest who had all succumbed, the poor person felt responsible and killed him/herself. These suicides were in the thousands, a statistic that was unpublished. It was about then that it really began to sink in what this “government” was all about – several years later, much research and reading, and we had really got a handle on what was happening and how this “government” worked.

Let’s go back to the Long March when Mao Zedong retreated to reform his troops before defeating the Nationalists in the Kuomintang. During the Long March over 8,000 miles, huge numbers of the Communist soldiers died from starvation and exhaustion. The women who gave birth during the march were forced to leave their babies at the trackside to die. Of the 90,000-100,000 people who began the Long March from the Soviet Chinese Republic, only around 7,000-8,000 made it to Shaanxi, but during that time the Chinese Communists won the support of the peasant population. Now, what is unpublished about Mao’s part in this march is that he actually didn’t march alongside his troops – he was carried in a litter for most of the way, eating well and having his concubines alongside. He didn’t exactly slum it! The main leaders of the march were later to become the core of the Communist “government” and subsequently the clique of families who now control the country. It is effectively a nepotistic hierarchy that splits the county’s wealth amongst itself – all done within the semblance of a communist regime. There is no communism or socialism evident in the way the governing classes behave - it is all for themselves. Now, when one of their group steps out of line, the heaviest of penalties are imposed. These can take the form of imprisonment and re-education, losing their citizens rights (effectively throwing the entire family on the street with no right to a job or housing/support of any kind) to total exile for the offender and his family or the imposition of the death penalty. The whole family will be disbarred from party membership for at least 3 generations as in also done in North Korea. During the Cultural Revolution, the “powers that be” examined everybody’s family history for three generations, expunging all those who didn’t fit the bill, expunging meaning torturing, killing or forcing suicide. It’s all still happening today! So this is the emerging super-power – pity help anyone who comes under its control.

Let’s jump to today and have a look at the way people in China behave towards Gweilos’s or “Foreign Devils” as outsiders are known. It has always been a trait in Chinese relations with people from outside the Middle Kingdom, or Centre of Civilisation, that they should be basically scorned and disabused at will. It comes from the fact the Emperors of old were deemed to be godlike figures on Earth and that, basically, they could do as they wished. Also, getting “one over” on your adversary was considered the only way to do business, either commercial or diplomatic. That attitude pervades China’s relations, both business and diplomatic, today too. Take for example the selling of China’s “new market” to western businesses needing new markets to sell to. Here were 1.3 billion customers waiting for your products, come and produce and market your goods here. In reality the market is at most 100 to 200 million of the newly created Chinese middle class. The others are either peasant farmers who exist on US$100 a month, if they are lucky – that is a family, not an individual, or workers in factories who live and work often in slave-like conditions. Most of the new middle classes have been indoctrinated by nationalistic propaganda to only buy or use Chinese products that are generally copies of western goods. Chinese reverse engineering is an art form so being able to recreate quite complex products is not difficult. The problem arises with the quality of the component parts. When metals that just look the part replace specific alloys, the device will work for as long as it takes the buyer to wear out the parts. Not exactly quality control, even in a copy, is it?

Cheating is commonplace, especially in universities where students buy others’ skills to sit their exams for them, even to the point, in my own experience, of a student trying to sit an oral language test with someone who wasn’t their own teacher!! Takes nerve to do that! Now, it also extends to business, especially when it involves foreigners. The Chinese believe strongly that in the past foreigners walked all over them and enjoyed doing it. So, they equally believe that it’s perfectly OK to do the same even though they are doing it all under the auspices of the WTO. If anything goes against them, they simply retreat behind the borders of China where their “legal” system blocks all attempts by foreign businesses to get any form of retribution. Common scams ar to get foreign investment in what seems to be a flourishing business. Factories are displayed and ideal working conditions are there for all to see. Even the workers dormitories, YES, they live communally in dormitories. Are air-conditioned and all the workers are happy. Oh wonders!! In reality the factory that will be doing the production is run down decrepit and the workers live in slave-labour conditions working 12 hours a day, seven days a week every day not being compensated for extra work and being locked in at night. Much of the work done in very “cheap labour” factories is in fact performed by people who have been dragged off the street and forced into 3 years re-education by labour by the police force who are being bribed by the local factory owners. It is perfectly legal for someone to “disappear” into the forced labour camps without trial or any kind of resistance. That’s one of the foundations of the Chinese Legal system.

This is what we in the west are dealing with, mostly with no knowledge of what is actually happening in China.

To re-iterate – I have the greatest respect for the desperate state-abused Chinese people who work diligently just to stay alive with little or no hope of salvation. Only the western powers-that-be can do anything for them by forcing a change in the government of China.

To be continued…