The dark side of China

This is a commentary after reading Tim Swanson ‘s article , Should you leave the West and move to China? which was published on the libertarianstandard.com

To Tim :

Lots of expats have same feelings about China like you .

Before they came to mainland china , they often thought like this :

Although it is the developing country, China forgone the command economics and the communist doctrines now. The government had signed the treaty of WTO .They are on the way to embrace free markets  .

But unfortunately , China’s economic system is not capitalist .It is a crony and corrupt system. The rent-seeking of bureaucratic happened everywhere .It is not under the rule of law .The government policy are made or implemented, without considering how to keep private property right or other basic human rights intact , beforehand .For them ,it is not necessary .However ,the unspoken or hidden rules prevailed all over the country .

Some expats think most of Chinese people are atheists . So they must think more rationally than the westerners who worship GOD and favor the social-conservatives policy to intervene private lives. It is true that Chinese people do not believe GOD exists after accepting the materialism doctrines for decades. But they think government can play GOD. They want government to guarantee their happiness. In Weibo , you will find lots of people complained about government, which they think it is not too big, but too small .They desperately need the welfare system as most of western countries had .Most of them are collective thinking .When house price went up skyrocketly , lots of citizens call government to intervene the market .So the price control and trade control were implemented .

As you observed, there is a very strict censorship on internet by cyber policemen. If the internet companies don’t cooperate with the government or they do not have self-censorships ,they will be out of business soon .

Not only the central government can wield power as their wishes, but some local governments also have  too much power to regulated the local markets .Now the weird things happened in the northeast China .When the governments intervened in name of anti-counterfeit or crackdown on “poor hygienic conditions”, thousands private shops, restaurants and groceries closed their doors and suspended their business to dodge the bullets of heavy fines .I called it Shenyang Shrugged , the story as same as which was written in the novel ,Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand .

The U.S government regards China as a future enemy .Most of American Libertarians think it is a joke .They won’t take it serious . But China government ‘s propaganda , such as the newspaper the global time , have regarded U.S and Japan as potential or imaginary enemies for a long time .We are so frightened when China-Japan Island ( Diaoyu Islands ) dispute happened recently . A lot of citizens were instigated by jingoism of the state media. They went to street to protest .Some of protesters hold banners with such words as “Kill all Japanese “ or “I will fight until the last drop of my blood ” . The hatred is brewing in the minds of billions Chinese. I was often asked if the war between china and Japan is possible in the near future .I don’t know .

But the truth is that the island have been  in the hands of Japan before the PRC was founded .Japan got its jurisdiction back from US after the world war II was over .Some realists said Chinese need to be clear that China cannot retrieve the Islands now. This would mean a large-scale war, which is not in China’s interests.

 

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