The
leadership of China often says that their method of Government is
superior to Western democracies and that ignorant people like me should
shut up and stop criticising China’s way of doing things.
Well
they may have a point, as I have never been to China, but based on the
fact that all the people of the world I have met, seen or read about,
have similar goals and drives in their lives, I assume that the Chinese
people have similar ambitions ie to live their lives peacefully, strive
for happiness, acceptance and wealth and continually improve their lives
for the benefit of not only themselves but their family, friends and
the society and environment they live in.
So why do I not
agree with and admire the Chinese authoritarian style of Government?
Well it is because the method it uses is not aligned to the reality of
basic human nature and to overcome this fundamental nature it needs to
use force in order to get people to comply to its methods and goals.
Because
human genes are constantly shuffled and mutated at birth, every human
being on the planet is biologically slightly different. Also, as each
person grows up, what they experience and learn is also unique, No two
people can live exactly the same lives at exactly the same place, time
and circumstances. (Even one identical twin will leave the womb before
the other and so have a very small circumstantial difference to its twin
). Therefore as each persons brain develops, the synapses connect in
different ways and the memories and learning stored internally are
uniquely personal and given different value and importance by the
thought processes (Evolution of the Sensitive Soul. Ginsburg, Jablonka
2021).
It is because of these biological and neurological
differences, that every single person will think in a different way,
have a different personality, different skills, interests, values,
motivations, creativity, and ideas on how they should live their lives
and what’s best for the future. It’s what makes people so special and
wonderful, we should celebrate and enjoy all the marvelous variety of
humanity and its different cultures. “Vive le difference” as the French
would say.
As everyone is unique and thinks in a slightly
different way, any system of organising society, which aims to increase
the happiness of the society it manages should acknowledge and
accommodate human nature, accept different ways of thinking and provide
an outlet for these views and resulting behaviours. It should allow
people to express themselves, to be heard, tolerated' It should then
debate and judge if their ideas are of any value. If these ideas are
widely accepted they can be implemented sensible policy or rejected as
folly. Obviously negative behaviours that affect other peoples happiness
must be enforced by the law, but the law is a human construct and
should also be discussed and changed as and when required by the society
to which it is relevant.
In my society in the UK, freedom to
think and express your own views is accepted, and after debating and
deliberating, a consensus is eventually reached and this usually arrives
at a good decision. Even if a bad decision is made this is highlighted
,challenged , reviewed and altered if necessary. Although to people in
China this may look like chaos and disorder. everyone can have their say
and so feels valued and a part of the whole. The differences of human
personalities are acknowledged and accommodated as the unstoppable,
changing world, increasing human knowledge and new technologies of
humanity demands.
However in China, the expression and debate
about different views only appears to take place out of sight at the
highest level of Government, and very recently only seems to take place
(if at all) by a very select few at the very top level . How these few
can know everything that is best for the other 1.4 billion people is
beyond me. Assuming they are just people and not all knowing gods (which
seems a safe bet ) they will not have perfect knowledge, wisdom and
predictive powers and so not all their decisions will be perfect or
correct. Like every one else they will make mistakes and lessons will
have to be learnt, as we often say in Britain. The current Chinese
system of government is based on fallacy, It assumes the leader(s) know
best, will make the correct decisions and that people can’t and don’t
think differently and if they do are automatically wrong. So as the
Chinese system of Government dose not accommodate people being who they
really are and goes against human nature the system has to be kept in
place by constant surveillance, policing, imprisonment, and force. This
method may bring order, harmony and peace, but does it bring happiness?
The evidence suggests not.
As China has no free and fair
elections, the views of the Chinese people are unknown. However there
is a way of judging what ordinary people think of how the Chinese
Communist Party runs China, and these are the net migration figures.
These are as follows (from macrotrends.net)
UK 1986 - 2021 always positive and currently +2.9 per 1000 ( i.e. more arriving than leaving)
USA 1950 - 2021 always positive and currently +2.8 per 1000 ( i.e. .more arriving than leaving)
Russia 1975 - 2021 always positive and currently + 0.9 per 1000 (i.e. more arriving than leaving).
China 1950 - 2021 always negative and currently -0.25 per 1000 (ie more leaving than arriving).
Therefore,
even with the recent Chinese (capitalist) economic boom, for the last
71 years more people have voted with their feet and decided that they
would be happier out side of China than within it. If the Chinese way of
doing things is so great, why are not people flocking to your shores
asking to live under the Chinese system? If it is the best way to
Govern why isn’t China's migration figures well into the positives
numbers? From the statistics, it would appear that people would rather
move to Russia than China!
I would suggest that the vast majority
of Chinese people are good hard working people (all those I have met
are), who, because of their Confucian culture of knowing your place in a
society and being ruled by wise leaders, they keep their heads down and
do not challenge the status quo for fear of their “heads being bashed
against the iron wall“. The Chinese communist party takes advantage of
this culture, and also China past history of massive tragic civil wars,
as an excuse to rule using lies and extreme force whilst living a life
of luxury, as has been done so many times in the past by other tyrants,
dictators and despots.
If Mr Desmond Shum (Red Roulette 2021) is
to believed, Xi Jinping is president not because he has been elected by
the people or is a competent politician but because he is the most
ruthless, and he is using the Chinese State for his own benefit rather
than for the good of the Chinese people. Well, I don’t know if this is
exactly true and I sincerely hope it isn’t, but from what I see reported
in the West, the Chinese leadership is trying to justify it’s position
by talking tough and “Making China Great” as fundamentally they have no
legitimacy. They are only sons of the original revolutionaries, (just
like the European Medieval kings who claimed divine right to rule) and
are using old 20th Century outdated ideology well into the 21st Century.
No wonder they hate the internet so much and have seized on the
pandemic as a way of shutting China off from the world.
How long
can the Chinese Communist Party keep their system going? How long can
they keep fighting against human nature, the modern world, the internet,
global trade and travel? Well no one can know that but such a system
is ultimately doomed to failure, it’s just a question of how may
millions of lives will be destroyed when it breaks down. However there
is hope, Russia’s Communist System fell apart with few casualties,
because the leadership controlling the guns faced up to the reality of
the day. Hopefully China’s leaders will act wisely too.
