Yes, you can say it We are proud, resentful and have a boulder of chip on our shoulder It's also a representation of the proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union That's a tempting thought experiment And I think the relationship between China and the US would have been a lot more flirtatious A question that I got asked the most when I was living in England was how do you feel about China’s CCP? And as a citizen how could you put up with a dictatorship and not want to do anything about it I always felt tongue tied at the question because I could totally see where people came from "The process of democratisation" "With Chinese leaders about our deep concerns" "over religious freedom and human rights" "The progress of those countries in the former Soviet block" "That embraced democracies stand in" "Clear contrast to those that did not" On an intuitive level, I just knew China was different but at the time I couldn’t put that in words other than telling people Well, I really wish you get to know China a little bit better And that's why in this video, I take it upon myself to explain why China's one-party authoritarian rule gained so much consensus among Chinese people And more importantly, why China seems so resistant to the criticisms from the West when it comes to its political system Before I do that, I just want to first point out the value and the thought tradition in the West because that is really important to understand China and why we have such a big difference Stay with me here it will get more interesting For those of you who live in a western, democratic society People tend to have a more independent and autonomous understanding of a person People are born with natural rights and they have all the freedom to pursue what they want to do Given that they don't harm the interest of other people If we dig a little bit further, this thought tradition can date back all the way to people like Hobbes As he famously argued in Leviathan Government exists out of consent from people who voluntarily give up their rights (of governing themselves) So that the government can protect their long-term interests And so, politics is about administering justice and securing human rights The West's concern with the legitimacy of government is furthered by liberal thinkers like Locke, and social contracts theorists like Rousseau and Toqueville These people provide a plethora of intellectual foundation to make sure that the state does not have absolute state power And that's why in the UK neither the parliament, nor the judiciary, nor the monarchy has absolute monopoly over political authority And in the America's constitution, the Bill of Rights It protects civil liberties like Freedom of speech, human rights, private properties and limit arbitrary state power Ok, here's the thing. In China, our political tradition and system remained pretty much the same until 1911 when the Qing dynasty fell apart That was only because Chinese people finally realise The Qing government could not defend China from foreign invasion For thousands of years, Chinese people had been living under an imperial system and an all-encompassing school of thought called Confucianism Back in the olden days, Confucianism is kind of like Christianity But nowadays in China, it is still permeating into every inch of the Chinese society including politics Unlike Hobbes and Locke, Confucius taught us to think of ourselves in relation to something else Our family, our society, our community and our country We have a moral code called 'filial piety' (孝） Under this ethical code Children are supposed to be obedient to their parents Wives to their husbands and people to their rulers People higher up in the hierarchy are considered as a 'benign authority' which means that they are meant to take care of their 'subjects' in terms of their wellbeing and happiness So that's why when it comes to the ruler of the state Naturally, the legitimacy of the government falls upon its ability To take care of its people It includes things like, economy, safety and livelihood If you look at the word 'country' in the Chinese language which consists of two characters, 'guo' and 'jia' 'Guo' means state and 'Jia' means family First, we have the state And then, we have families Without the state, families cannot survive And that's why culturally speaking Chinese people are so used to the idea of Knowing your places Instead of demanding equal political participation In a word, we don't have the tradition of Citizen participation and democratic ideals And that predisposes us to accept A strong authoritarian government that uses tradition to bolster its rule Okay, I know now you might be asking But, what about Taiwan? Taiwan is both Confucius and democratic So, they aren't necessarily incompatible, right? The second piece of the puzzle is found in the 20th century mainland China No people, no nation has been so cruelly suffered and shattered China is a land exhausted by battle Misery and hunger are everywhere And there's something really important to know After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 The time we called 'the century of humiliation' China's top priority had always been State building and fighting off the imperialist powers China at the time was still marred by territorial invasion from foreign powers Burdened from [by] all kinds of indemnities from the loss of wars Civil strife among the warlords And a raging inflation The Chinese dollar soared from a rate of 2000 to 1 American dollar in 1946 Eventually reaching 300,000 Then 6 million to 1 On top of that, China did not have a political system To protect its people and reunite the country We tried the Republic of China in 1912 We also tried constitutional monarchy in 1916 Both of these did not work Finally, we have two political parties with a bit of power and some vision to rebuild China The Guo Min Dang, the GMD And the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party Both parties favoured an authoritarian, one party government during the war But for the GMD, Guo Min Dang Its goal is to use the authoritarian government To rebuild the country and reunite people Before it transitioned into a liberal democracy And for the CCP, its goal is to Eliminate class struggle and create an egalitarian, classless Chinese society Both parties didn't like each other And didn't really put their hearts into building a coalition government So, they ended up going into a civil war after Japan was defeated Civil war spread throughout the country The GMD lost the war and fled to Taiwan Okay, this is the trajectory of China's politics China fell into the hands of the CCP who founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 At this point, you can safely assume that the direction China took had everything to do with the vision of the CCP The Party's leader, Mao Zedong, at this point was pretty much done with using democracy to save China And in his famous piece, On the People's Democratic Dictatorship You can see this attitude For him, yhe only path to restore China's greatness was to follow the path of the Soviet Union Mao comes for help to his old Soviet comrades He is a classic Marxist He wants Soviet money Soviet machines Soviet technicians A thirty-year friendship treaty has signed China gets a 300 million dollar loan Later will come machinery and advisers Through revolutions to create a classless society and eradicate all the imperialist powers inside China They portray Uncle Sam as their arch-enemy They appeals to their pride, their nationalism, their hatred In China's early state building, it basically copied The system of the Soviet Union, including its constitution One-party dictatorship The Leninist centralism to ensure the CCP control And the land reform to abolish the private property The rest is history China is the way it is not only because It has an intellectual foundation But also, it is a result of wars Trauma Self-determination and International influence It is also a representation of the proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union I know at this point you might want to argue with me and say Well, all the that doesn't quite excuse the fact that China has suffered so many catastrophes under the CCP government Things like the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution You know, things like that would never happen in a democratic country Because we have process We have system We have accountability That is a solid point And I won't even defend it, we have a very flawed system But we are only looking at how China came about And why it is still existing And how it makes sense to its people Which lends onto my last point, the reason China seems So resistant to the criticisms from the West when it comes to its policies in foreign affairs Politics and economy is because Chinese people share a very, very nationalist narrative towards the past Remember the term 'a hundred years of humilation' I talked about when I mentioned the Chinese history The time when China was invaded by foreign powers And was suffering from war That is a big, big part of our collective memory And how we remembered our solidarity It kind of goes something like this China as the 'Zhong Guo', the Middle Kingdom Had once fallen from grace And we Chinese people had struggled through the war Finally we achieved independence and supercharged our economy That kind of made us entitled to Having our own values, systems and ways of doing things It's the interplay of culture, of history, and national grievances that make up the consciousness of the Chinese people today And yes, you can say it We are proud, resentful and have a boulder of chip on our shoulder Are we biased Yes Is this emotional Yes Is this ever going to change I know some of you still have doubts and you might be thinking Well, I wish the Guo Min Dang won the war Then China would have been a lot different That's a tempting thought experiment And I think the relationship between China and the US would have been a lot more flirtatious But you know history has happened China is indeed a very lonely country I hope at this very end You've got to learn a little bit more about China And think about the country a little bit differently That is a short version of the making of the China today I hope it answered the questions I posted earlier in the video With the intellectual foundation of Confucius that predisposes the Chinese people to accept A strong, authoritarian government And with the "coincedence" of history that made China fell into the leadership of the CCP And, a collective memory that consolidated the Chinese's memories of the past and nation building All of these things added up together Makes up the consciousness the mind and the structure of the China today Finally, I am curious what you think of this video Write me a comment and let me know what you think and what you would like me to cover in the future And if you enjoy this video, I would really appreciate it If you could do the algorithm stuff by liking the video Or sharing it with someone you think might benefit from this But either way, if you are watching to this far Thank you so much for staying, I appreciate you I will see you in the next one, bye bye
