The Indomitable Spirit
By Rhodo Zeb. Filed in China |Tags: china.realities
Some people just can’t understand. Twenty years ago, they did not understand. Even today so many people just can’t understand.
If you treat someone without any respect, don’t be surprised when they react in kind. Like say you show up, unannounced, late at night and then you require someone to speak with you.
There is no legal requirement that they do, but you don’t give a rat’s ass about law. In your world, there is no law, only force and the will to use it.
Thank god for basic human decency, or where would we be?
Oh, you have the massive, undifferentiated and unrestricted force of the state behind you. That impresses you, doesn’t it? Makes you feel powerful, I would expect. That should be good for a little bit of intimidation, right? That plus the constant blog deletions. Certainly no one will dare to challenge you.
Except you are wrong. The natural reaction of a large group of people (non-cowards, if you will), is to challenge you in return. You want to intimidate someone? Well, I think the polite way to respond to that is a request to blow something out your posterior. With a bird or two on top of that.
You think this reaction, this defiance (as you see it) is ill-advised, stupid even. But you still don’t understand. This is visceral. It is in your spirit. Such a spirit cannot be dominated in this pitiful, ugly way.
And it is your illegal provocation that is ill-advised.
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When will the hard-liners learn? They tried their tactics in 1996 and it backfired. Some might argue, but I feel that the same strategy backfired back, 20 years ago. I, personally, look at today’s China and feel vey confident that I know who won that battle, and it is not the side that you might think. Look at the progress, look at the relative freedom enjoyed by a huge portion of the society. Who do you think won that particular fight?
Secret police without limitation on their actions is not consistent with a first-world economy. You cannot have a first-world economy until you grant basic civil rights to all people. I don’t know or care about ballots or representation, China will need to find its own way on those issues, and I believe the nation can and will address them, in due time.
But until these rights are acknowledged, China will be a poor country, unable to develop a high enough percentage of its populace. Oh, sure, there will be rich people, and maybe a few of them will not really be corrupt officials. But the country, as a whole, will never get there.
Why? Simple. Brain Drain.
I am going to tell you a little secret. Chinese people, all of them, love their country. But most of them know that stability is not guaranteed, and they know (and this is my personal interpretation, no one has directly presented me with this concept) that the most likely breakdown will be in the form of a large-scale crackdown on any dissent.
And once you realize that is a very possible outcome, you understand. Because game theory also would predict that people, confronted with this possibility, might well make plans for how to handle such a situation.