Communism and Propaganda
People are People
The Chinese people I met were tremendously giving, able to make a joke out nothing, put up with all kinds of circumstances, and very down to earth. I firmly believe that the majority of Earth's citizens are followers and prefer to ride out any storms than take issues with their government. It is amazing what people everywhere will endure so long as they have food on their plates.
Like all systems of government, Communism is better in theory than in practice. Movies like "Erin Brokovich" and "The Insider" remind us that serious and lethal corruption happens in America, but in America there's that fascinating irony that you can experience both the corruption and the movie publicizing it. Every system of government suffers if its officials are immoral, and China's history of bribes stretches back long before the Communist take over of 1949. Their system still has little to offer in the way of checks and balances.
The party attracts well-meaning, healthy people who sincerely care about their country, but membership also tends to grease the rails for anything from job advancement to college admissions. Most college students are forced to take a test on party doctrine before a degree is granted. This wasn't a universal thing, however, and most people I asked about it were shy and elusive in their responses. I could not overcome the profound irony of a "People's" government and a "People's" congress where a handful of officials made god-like decisions from behind tightly closed doors.
Propaganda
It should come as no surprise that China is serious about propoganda. Those who endanger the power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are dealt with severely. As a foreigner, any infraction would likely result in mere deportation, but the penalty for Chinese citizens is much more strict. Foreigners of Chinese descent would also face harsher penalties because if you've got Chinese blood, you ARE Chinese. Racist? Yes, but one university student denied that China has any racism because "China has no black people."
Getting Arrested
The most memorable encounter I had with the CCP was the day before I left China. While I was in Beijing, North Koreans had stormed the Japanese consulate outside my apartment and declared asylum. Chinese guards illegally entered the compound (Japaense soil), and dragged them out. China said that they had been given permission from the Japanese diplomat and that they were preventing terrorists (it is possible that the Japanese diplomat allowed such a thing in an attempt to appease Beijing).
Whatever the reasons, it was caught on film, and the incident received much media attention (more info, including video...); when I returned from Inner Mongolia, the street in front of my apartment looked like the Berlin wall. Razor wire, concrete barriers, and marching soldiers cordoned off the consulates.
Only a week before, the embassies in Beijing had received "bomb threats," so most of them remained closed. In all likelihood it was the CCP who called in the threats to keep any more North Koreans from entering foreign compounds. Later that summer some North Koreans entered a middle school with the same political demands.
Stepping off the train into this madness, I took out my digital camera, snapped a picture, and I was immediately grabbed by 5 or 6 plain-clothes policemen who demanded my film. I quickly deleted the photo and argued with them that my camera had no film until armed soldiers escorted me into a dark room inside the compound. There an official interrogated me for about 20 minutes and went through all the pictures on my camera. Being a perpetual smartass, I asked him "What are you hiding? Are you guys scared of something? Why so many soldiers? Do you take in everybody off the street like that?" and I constantly reminded him that I hadn't taken a photo, which, digitally speaking, was now true. He was not impressed; unlike the hillbillies who had first grabbed me, he knew what a digital camera was.
The above picture of the Falun Gong sign got me into trouble, and he demanded to know why I had taken it. He, of course, was well schooled in art the propoganda. Eventually, he let me go, telling me he never wanted to see me again and shoved me roughly through the door, while the soldiers yawned from behind their rifles. When the Americans bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, you couldn't get enough TV crews around the embassy to film the evil capitalists, but when the Chinese wanted to deny that something had happened, this is how they did it.
The Necessity of Lies
I found that there were 2 kinds of people in China: (1) those who believed the lies of the CCP and (2) those who believed that those lies were necessary. Everyone else had either left the country or was planning to shortly. The party members I spoke with contended that lies are necessary to keep the peace: the chaos created by real information and freedom could cause war, death, and starvation on a massive scale. They have a point, but I am skeptical that the CCP puts the welfare of others above maintaining its own monopoly on power. This megalomania is the only reason that Falun Gong has been outlawed in China; it was extremely popular, even among party members. Because political uprisings in China have historically begun with pseudo-religious movements, the nervous Communists pulled the plug when the group showed signs of being politically organized. On the exterior, Falun Gong is nearly identical to the popular Tai Qi. The Chinese have been deprived of a religious compass now for over 50 years, and I think the results are showing in their declining sense of morality. It would be an interesting thesis to juxtapose corruption levels in a communist country with a ostensibly more religious one.
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The Amorality of Capitalism
Developed countries continually reach for a quick buck in China rather than hold them to moral standards. For example, John Howard, the prime minister of Australia, agreed to officially ignore the Dalai Lama's visit to Australia in return for a large contract to develop natural gas reserves in China. Thus Beijing's political motives were propagated by greedy foreigners.
You can bet that the CCP will exert more and more financial pressure on the U.S. over its stance on Taiwan. Many expats in China estimate that the mainland will attack Taiwan within 10 years. Some of our adult students happily testified that they worked for companies that were designing military equipment for this invasion. What is the U.S. going to do? Intervene on Taiwan's behalf or accept some lucrative business deal from Beijing as they beat tho$e bloody $eparatists into $ubmission?
Propaganda is not only on TV and in the papers: there are murals in many places that attempt to enforce ideals like the one child policy. I was fascinated by them, perhaps because they were some of the only examples of artwork I saw. Creativity was scorned; the Chinese teachers at school would trace the most simple of drawings while making flash-cards for their students rather than draw their own. The phone numbers spray painted over the murals were for obtaining forged documents: passports, diplomas, licenses and the like. One Chinese saying I heard was that "everything in China is fake except your own mother."
For those of us living in a democratic country, it's difficult to understand the freedom we have. For example, I can say in complete earnestness that George Bush is dundering warmonger and I don't have to fear disappearing into the hands of gestapo grunts who knock on my door late at night. I can choose what newspaper I read. I can even write an editorial for that newspaper. I can surf the web and read news from Johannesburg and conspiracy theories in Iceland. In China this is not possible.
To put things in perspective, think about the corporations in America and you will see that we are not free of dictatorships. Even Rush Limbough has to pause several times an hour to extoll the virtues of a certain shaving creme or internet service. Don't think for a moment that the freedom of speech extends beyond the corporations who finance the media. If General Motors helped sponsor a broadcast, that broadcast could under no conditions bring up GM's political maneuverings or the negative environmental impact of its product.
(more info...)
Internet Use in China
CNN, the New York Times, Alta Vista, Geocities: all of these are blocked
by the great Chinese firewall. MY site was blocked for a time, too. (more
info about Chinese internet blocking...) The English versions of Chinese
newspapers carry some watered down bits of news, but the Chinese versions
of the same papers omit or even contradict the attempts made at journalism
by their English counterparts. The big Chinese newspapers have Editorial Departments
where the opinion articles and letters to the editor are meticulously forged,
but few Chinese actually read newspapers; the parents of the children I taught
would congregate in the waiting rooms while their children were in class,
but they had far more knitting needles than periodicals. 
Chinese netbars are ubiquitous. Usually, users must sign in and present a photo ID to use the computers, but in practice admittance is seldom so strict. In Shenyang, you can surf for 2 or 3 Yuan per hour (about 25 cents US). In Beijing prices are higher. The CCP is terrified that China's rapidly growing population of netizens will gain access to "dangerous" information, but they have shown some signs of weakening their stance. Over the Summer of 2002, the government blocked the AltaVista and Google search engines, but after a din of public outcry, service to Google was quietly reinstated. On the other hand, however, the netbar in Beijing that burned down earlier that Summer could easily have been a government "hit" on liberal web surfing. Armed raids of netbars are not uncommon in political areas like Beijing; the CCP seems to use any excuse to nose around these places and check their browser histories.
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