A Humble Programmer

This is from my post in an email discussion with some coworkers, edited for a more general audience.

Many Americans believe that people who grow up in China have been brainwashed. There were many times during the torch relay event that the phrase “because you are brainwashed” caused a conversation to end abruptly. Back when I was a college student in China, I disliked the government as much as any of you here do, probably more. The same is true for many other students. If the government intended to brainwash the students, then I can assure you it wasn’t very successful. I was thoroughly disgusted by many things, and I used to organize protests against the school authority. Then I came to the US, both because the US has some of the world’s best universities and because I disliked the Chinese government. I studied for 5 years in a PhD program here and have worked for less than one year. During these 6 years, my attitude toward the Chinese government has been gradually changed and I started to understand why things are that way in China and found many of the things I hated become understandable, not because the Chinese government can remotely brain-wash me from the other side of the ocean but because there is comparison. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that China is better than or anywhere close to the US. But I do see many of the things I disliked in China happening here, sometimes in more subtle ways, sometimes to a lesser extent. Seeing that with the abundance of wealth and resource, a relatively small population, the strongest military force, and strong international influence, the US still have so many problems, it seemed to me that the Chinese government had been doing a decent job managing the country. There are plenty of Chinese people who support the government on many issues and policies, and believe it or not it is most likely because their lives are improved rapidly, not because of government propaganda. Sure there are a lot of propaganda on the Chinese medias, but they are so superficial and obvious that they largely get ignored or made fun of. From this aspect, I would argue that the US has a more powerful propaganda machine to serve its interests and ideology (it probably started influencing me back when I was in China).

Many people I know have similar feelings. Many of those who went to San Francisco to protect the torch were also on the Tian’an Men Square in 1989.

I think it is unfair and impractical to expect China to do the same things that the US does now w.r.t. to issues like human rights, freedom of speech, etc. China has a long cultural history, but as a modern country, it has less than 60 years of history, while the social, governmental, and legal systems in the US have evolved for hundreds of years, not to mention China’s huge population and relatively small farmable land. Whenever a problem about China is discussed, there is always someone who comes out and say “Simple. Why not just let people vote for a decision?” It’s not that simple. Our laws have huge holes; Different ethnic groups can have serious conflicts because of religion and cultural differences; Our government is immature and afraid of uncertainty; Our whole social system is too fragile and don’t have enough buffer to survive instability. Fixing these problems takes time, and we’ve come a long way. Voting is not a trivial process, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many debates in the US about the procedure and machinery of voting. Other governments can easily point fingers at China only because they don’t have to solve China’s problems. One example comes to mind — the one-child policy. It had been criticized for a long time by westerners for human rights violation. Reagan questioned that policy when he visited China, but the conversation ended when Deng said the restriction could be lifted if the US could help by accepting 10 million Chinese immigrants per year. In the city where I grew up, I know a number of families who had two or more kids. They paid a fine, and did not get the monthly single-child stipend from the government. It’s simple. But it does not surprise me if there are government officials in certain places who enforced this policy in ways that violated human rights and created tragedies. In the 80s and 90s, even now, the low-level government officials in some rural areas didn’t get chance to receive much education due to the cultural revolution. It’s a tragedy of that whole generation, a tragedy for both the victims and wrong-doers. In the same way, I don’t doubt there are many Tibetans whose families suffered great pain and loss in certain periods, just like many people in other parts of China. They have my greatest sympathy. However, such tragedies are usually exaggerated to sound like systematically planned crime in order to serve political goals.

I grew up in the Yunnan province (next to Tibet), where many Tibetans live, so I’ve visited some Tibetan monasteries. My wife travelled a large region in Tibet - from Lasa all the way to the Everest, talked to many Tibetans, lived in Tibetan homes. I don’t want to bring up too much opinion. Let me just say that from our experience we do not think the government is against the Tibetan culture or has any plan to reduce the Tibetan population — Tibetans don’t have to pay tax (although many of them still choose to contribute much of their wealth to the monasteries); Large amounts of money is spent maintaining the monasteries; Tibetans receive enough stipend so that they can have a decent live without working (such social benefit doesn’t exist in other parts of China); Tibetans can have 3 children (or more for a small fee) instead of one. My wife also got warned when entering Tibet that if she got involved in any kind of conflict with Tibetans, most likely the local government and police will not help her, to avoid stirring up the tension between different ethnic groups.

We all agree that China has problems: human rights, freedom of speech, etc. But I don’t believe there is such a thing that one country or government helps to improve human rights in another country. A country only helps itself. The US government only supports freedom and self-determination when it serves its national interest. I’m not accusing the US, this probably applies to all governments. I have a pessimistic view of international politics, so when a government is paying money for something happening elsewhere, I always doubt its intention. From unclassified US government documents, the Dalai Lama had been on CIA payroll until the mid 70s when the US and China establishes foreign relationship, then he got transfered to another organization with the phrase “human rights” in it. The same set of documents also show that the US had been training a Tibetan army in Colorado and dropping them back to Tibet as gorilla fighters. “Human rights” sounds so good and is so widely applicable that it is the most convenient phrase to use when a government needs to explain to tax payers why their money is used to help overthrow another government. Yes, there are problems in the Chinese government, we all acknowledge that. There is no incentive for a Chinese to hide the government’s shortcomings, after all, a better government means a better China and better lives for Chinese. However, I believe the Chinese people have enough wisdom and courage to solve their own problems. We know the US government’s capability of “introducing” democracy into another country — there are plenty of examples to look at. Thanks, but no, thanks. China is unique, and there is more than one way to democracy.

I hope people from different nations don’t accuse each other of “brain-washed” simply because they have different opinions or they are not expressing their opinions clearly due to language/cultural barriers.

I believe most Americans who support “Free Tibet” have good intentions and have very good reasons for their attitude. But be sure to do enough research to make sure your good will is not misused by others. (Note that this is a suggestion, not an assertion.) I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinion, just want to let others know what people with similar backgrounds with me might think.