YONA SCHUSTER

DEMOCRACIAS GUIADAS
23 DE AGOSTO 2013
CHINA: AUTHORITARISM APROVED BY THE PEOPLE
China is a country that has evolved at a time where economic power is really important.
With a single-party communist state and a rapid economy, China has positioned it self as a
mayor superpower with high capability of influence in the rest of the world. However, this
increasing growth has happened in arrears of the opression of civil liberties and rights of
its population. The government controls excesively the daily lives of its citizens, permitting
them only to learn, read, write, or do what it only allows. With this, the purpose of this
essay will be to understand the reason for the kind of authoritarian practices the
government implements and its effect on the population, even if its positive or not. To
complement our arguments, an interview done to a Chinese citizen (to which we asked
questions about traditional values, government extremist policies, the Communist
government as a whole, the economy, and the educational system) will be used.

As we know, China has been a country whose values and principals have been an esential
part of its history and culture.This means that its values modify every single decision,
thought, and accion the individuals adopt in their daily life. According to our interviewee,
cultural values have been based on the Confucianism thought, making its government
and its citizens to mold its decisions around traditional values like
honesty,courtesy,benevolence, loyalty, but most importantly , to hershia. This last concept
is the core of Chinese traditional culture, and it refers to the belief of the importance of
harmony in our daily lives. It encompasses the principals of peaceful coexistence, nature,
society, and humanity to live a successful life.This means that to cultivate one´s morality,
protecting one´s family, or governing one´s nation and stabilizing the world we should
learn to adopt peacefulness, gentleness, concordance , and conscientiousness with our
relations between nature and humans. So,if the government functions accordinly, then
harmony will stabilize people and nature (Zhizen, 2015).

As a consequence, hershia explains the way the government functions nationally and
internationally.For example, our interviewee explains that the government has applied the
five principals of peaceful coexistance which are , mutual respect for territorial integrity,
mutual non agression, non interference in each others affairs, equality, and mutual benefit.
This is why the Chinese are reserved and agaisnt the West because they interfere in their
affairs and disrespect their sovereightnity when they force them to sign different treaties
that not always go along with the way the country works. Chinese feel that countries in the
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West want to change China to a way that benefits their economy, were any restrictions are
met (US HISTORY, 2016).They also feel that this treaties dont promote equality or mutual
benefit because in the mayority of cases the treaties are signed to promote one party´s
interest.This leads us to the concept of relashionship, where our interviewee insists that
apart from being strong and longlasting, they must not form from convinience since it is
irrelevant for their culture. Thats why they prioritize their relations with those countries
where they feel relashionship is trustfull and equally beneficial, where they have developed
a certain level of appreciation and respect for each other ,more than just been ¨friends¨ for
strategic reasons.

At the national level, according to our interviewee, China is a Vertical Meritocracy in which
democracy is supposed to work well under government levels.In this sense, China is a
democracy at a low level and a autocracy at a high level, where the government intervens
in every aspect of the society , the economy, and other aspects that are importante for the
country.Further more, China is a single party state, where Communism has reign for many
years. This party has imposed several politics that opress its citizens liberties such as
freedom of expression. One of the most known politics is censorship of information. This
means that every piece of information that is published online and physically must be
revised from the government to confirm that it doesnt promote any type of contradiction
with the Communist Party and the incentive to form rebelions to protest agaisnt them.
Today, China has its own program for internet research with only an specific amount of
information that can be searched by their citizens, not letting them connect to the outside
world.

However, when asked the interviewee about his sentiments towards censorship ,he said
that eventhough its not right to censor information because it violates the right if freedom
of speech, this hasn´t had any effect in his daily life, contrary of what the rest of the world
thinks. This is because the citizens technology has bypassed the government´s
technology, in the sense that many legal private networks are created with IP adresses
that allow you to search information anywhere around the globe. Eventhough, the
government knows they exist and has attacked this private networks, its something that is
impossible to block because of the high level of technological knowledge the population
has grown lo learn, so even censorship cant fully censor.This has preocupied the
government since their citizens are exposed to every type of information that can change
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the way they think and feel about their government.Personally, the interviewee feels that
since Communism is an extreme way of governing , especially at a time where democracy
and human rights movemement are playing an important role, the Chinese citizens will
think that democratic and liberal models are better that their type of government, making
them not to supporting it.

However, eventhough its hard for the government to control what their citizens search and
view online, they can control what they think, write, and say at the physycal level. In China,
authorities have shown little tolerance for people who speak wrong about their
government. This ¨traitors¨ can face severe consecuences such as encarcelation and
physical torture.This has preocupied the population since in many cases when people try
to speak up to try to help victims of the country´s flawed justice, health, and development
policies, they have been sanctioned in the worst possible ways. An example of this was
Cheng GuangCheng , a peasante who was beaten and jailed of causing criminal damage
for exposing the government of making women to have late-term abortions and
sterilizations.The worst part of it all, was that all of his lawyers were attacked and then
arrested (Telegraph, 2010). This proves the lenghts the government crosses to protect its
communist image and authoritarism.

On the other hand, the government´s control on the Chinese education has made its
citizens more educated, intelligent, and prosperous in their daily lives. However,
eventhough the population, including our interviewee, recognize that education is hard ,
this has made them better and hasnt affected their daily lives. Our interviewee explains
that its true every imposes certain a high, hard, and intense level of education tu their
students, this hasnt affect the people emotionally. Nonetheless, this high level of
acheivement comes at a price,several investigations haved prove that the Chinese
educational system is affecting the health of the country´s children. The government uses
radical confucianism to impose absurd policies that include long hours of study, material
from higuer grades to lower grades in school, competition between students, and other
policies that have affected the lives of citizens (Geraghty, 2014). An example of a policy
implementation of this sort is China´s National College Entrance Exam, also known ¨du
muquiao¨ (¨a single-plank bridge¨) where 10 million students compete with each other for
limited college places (Xinhua, 2010).This has ended in China having one of the higuest
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stress levels in the world , which can lead to posible debilitation of mental health for
students , including feelings of despair and anxiety.

Despite this, a national radom survey done to 3,763 Chinese citizens, it was found that the
average support for the actual government was 8.0 on a 10 point scale which proves a
high popularity rate of the Communist Party ,something that is very surprising (Lewis-Beck,
Tang, & Nicholas , 2013). Our interviewee explained that the party has been successful
because of the support it has from their people. Eventhough the Chinese government can
be controling, the population understands that the government does it to unite their country
from foreign threat and to protect their country. However, there are other reasons that
explain the population´s support for the Communist government.First, the people under the
actual government has felt their population more unified and safe (were there members
support each other due to the capability of the government to implement politics that
control such a diverse and huge territory).Second, Confucianism has played an important
role for the Chinese public´s increased level of confidence in the CPC because this
ideology offers an ethical guide of behavior that seeks obidience and hierarchy.In this
sense, the chinese have habituated both values in their lives so much that they feel
following orders from their government the best way to keep a good behavior and
order.Third, the increase of the economic growth , which has improved the living standards
of the population,has left those who had benefit from this (a high percentage of the
population)pleased and optimistic about the future of the country , which is why they do not
go agaisnt the government , they like what the CPC has done.

However, its imposible that the Comunist Government controls every part of Chinese
human life, and doesnt intervene in this type of matter. A high number of researchers
believe that the public polls arent accurate and controlled by the government, which
means that the polls may mislead favoring the Party when the results are not. The same
way, the opression and fear the government imposes to its people makes them too afraid
to tell researchers and polls what they really think about their government , there may be
serious consequences if the government finds out one of its citizens doesnt support the
Communist Party. Finally, the control and censorship of the media is another mecanism to
mobilize public support since the inhibition of free flow of information permits that only
positive information about the Party to be released, inableing diverse and critic opinions
about the government in websites, news papers, news , and other examples.
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Nevertheless, probably the best explanation to why people prefer Communism instead of
other ideologies is because this system has proved to be efficient in decision making
making processes. In China, one group decides every aspect for all the country, giving
them rapid consensus and instant solutions to about problematics that affect the country.
Chinese people,including our interviewee, believe that a democracy would bring caos to
their country due to its size and diversity, because in this type of government laws and
decisions go through a long process to be decided and implemented. A big and diverse
country like China needs a control and instant problem solving tecnic to bring and keep
stabilization in the State.Its important to remember that from 1912 to 1949 China was a
democracy, however the country ended in caos because of the inneficiency of the
model.In sum, like our interviewee argues every country has its dark side, eventhough
comunism may not be the best model it works pretty well in China, and people have
adapted to it, no one imagines a democracy in their country today, this would bring panic
and inestability to the population.

In conclusion, its clear that the Chinese government implements authoritarist policies to
the population. The government bases its policies in Confucianism to organize the
country.However, its clear that the government has taken Confucianism to the extreme,
especially the concept of hershia( just like some terrorist groups have taken Islam to the
radical extreme), where they interpret their ideolologies wrongly and as a consequence
end up adapting extremist policies that affect negatively the freedom of the people.The
government thinks that through the opression of civil liberties such as censoring
information and panicking their citizens for talking agaisnt them, they are going to reach
peaceful coexistance (principal of hershia) in China.Furthermore, what is more concerning,
is that since people have accustomed to Confucianism, they feel that altering the order will
be an act of desobidience, so in fact, permiting what the government does is considered
the right thing. And worst there is a majority that acknowledges the Party´s violation of
their human rights , but simply thinks that there is a higuer value to the positive benefits
delivered by the unquestioned rule of the government (Burch, 2015). This applies also to
the educational system, where Confucianist influence besides promoting obiedience also
encourages discipline and effort , where the government and the students have radicalized
this values to the point it has affected their health.In sum, as a personal reflection, is sad to
see how Chinese have repeat the same mistakes other countries and terrorist groups have
made radicalizing a religion or an ideology , meaning that they interpret something horrible
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that comes from something so beautiful. In this sense, we learn that we do not learn from
history and this is something the world needs to be aware of.

Bibliografía
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