China: The Mob Rules

I tried to get it all in one phrase, but that's not so easy! So I'll do a few for you. These are all just my impressions. I hope to learn more abut this great country and people over the next few years.

China: The Mob Rules - One of the things I noticed the most about the history of China is how many things happen because of a "mob rules" type of social interaction. The Mongols, for instance, had a long cultural tradition of not letting any one person get too far ahead of the others. (The exception of course was the Kahns) When one leader got too far out ahead of the others, the others would drag him back into place. Everybody had to be part of the herd. Nobody should be too special than anybody else.

I believe this is one of the reasons why China to this day does not support the individual in the same way western societies do. It's all about the collective, the group. How do you fit in? What are the rules of social interaction? Indeed, a key component of Confucianism is how people relate to one another. This emphasis on social structure and herd mentality has held China back and made it take a different path than other cultures in the world.

Mao especially embodies this tradition. While he was a great leader, he was the leader of a mob of peasants. His power consisted of creating mobs with purpose. A recent example of this"mob rules" pattern was demonstrated during the spy plane incident in 2001. Large mobs of Chinese demonstrated against the "warmonger" American president GW Bush. This mob cohesion and cult-like phenomenon extends even to Chinese who live elsewhere. Chinese in San Francisco came out very much in favor of China in the spy plane incident, for instance, even though I believe the facts supported the US position better. At the end of the Hainan Island incident with the spy plane, the US said it was "very sorry" (presumably for flying in international airspace? For getting hit by a young hot shot?) and the Chinese let the plane and it's crew leave. The government got a bow from the mighty US, and the mob got to rally in the street. This incident had nothing to do with the United States -- this was about the Chinese political system mobilizing its people and mob opinion. As the strain on China grows from rapid growth, expect to see more of this mob-baiting. Americans will probably be a favorite target. In a large sense, the Chinese government has to take opposing positions to the US in world matters for purely internal political reasons. I'm not so sure this is a stable system of governance, but it might work for another 50 years, so it matters little to people alive today one way or another, right?

As a side note, we see even this year the Chinese using mobs of thugs to run people from their land so they can build on it. Small villages are seeing an explosion of rioting against central leadership, and police are quelling thousands of local riots. Lethal force is used without much penalty against unruly Chinese citizens. This is not a good sign, but it is the way of China.

China: The Country Nobody Wanted - Again and again China has been defeated by outside powers who then had little desire to lead or take over. Even the Mongols, who ruled China with an iron fist, just assimilated into the culture. Some of the Mongols preferred going back to their nomadic existence. The Chinese like to look at this as assimilation -- groups of outsiders melting into the Chinese culture. But looking over a long view of history, to me it looks like nobody really wanted to rule the Chinese, including the Chinese who were their leaders! This may have been due to the concept of the shi tradition -- a large bureaucratic class of people who administer the state. It's one thing to conquer the Chinese. It's quite another to run the state. The bureaucratic class will just eat up a new Napoleon arriving on the scene.

When the western powers kept defeating the Chinese in the 19th century they didn't want to take over the country; they wanted to sell stuff. (Ironically, they wanted to sell drugs). You can find pictures on the web of the western military surrounding the imperial palace. We put down the boxer rebellion and effectively took over the country. But we didn't want it. It wasn't worth conquering. We just want to buy and sell trinkets. It's strange that the west has spent so much energy in trying to sell things into China! We're still doing it today.

China: Asleep at the Switch - Again and again, the people ruling China seem to be asleep at the switch. It's so easy in a country that doesn't regularly change leaders for the leading class to pull back and disengage. China is an oligarchy, and it has been for a very long time. Why the Chinese people put up with this is a very complicated matter. The pattern is very clear, however. The ruling class just wants all the money and power and wants the peasants to stay in their place. This was easy to get away with in the year 1500. But now with the internet telling the world what happens everywhere? I just can't see it continuing. The poor people in the countryside can see what they are missing. The poor in the cities can see what the rich and powerful is like. Even worse, they can see what the poor are treated like in other countries. China never changes ruling parties -- it's always going to be the communist system. Their way of life is being "asleep at the switch". It's all they know.

China: Numerous and Unimaginative - I always heard that the Chinese invented all kinds of neat stuff: writing, explosives, civilization. But I think there is a great disservice in those statements. Yes, the Chinese invented a bunch of things, but they never applied them. If you invent gunpowder but never use it as a weapon is it really invented? I guess so, but it seems to stretch the point. The whole usefulness of invention is the purpose of inventing, not simply putting the pieces together. China has many, many people and has had a fairly stable history. Western civilization was not like this. We were violent and chaotic. So the Chinese, simply by virtue of their huge number of people and stability, thought up a bunch of stuff. But it was just stuff. The Europeans, on the other hand, not only invented things, they maximized their potential. Part of the reason this happens so much may be Chinese culture.

The Chinese also seem to be nature's first process experts. They were always trying to measure human output and plan from a central point. It never worked, of course, central planning is an idiotic idea. But the Chinese keep on trying. If they can just make the system complicated enough and measure the right performance variables they believe the state will function better. Good luck to them.

The Chinese, by having the traditional bureaucratic class, has a long history of having the "smart" people run the matters of the state. Indeed, for a long time the examination system gave smart people access to this ruling class. Simply being a member put a citizen in a higher level of society. The Chinese are all about groups of smart people ruling the rest. They're always trying to find the right people, and always trying to measure and rule the unwashed masses. Even when there were kings and emperors, the ruling class kept the books. They have a stable ruling caste of powerful, smart people that has been in place for thousands of years. This is a strange concept to outsiders. We're always mixing things up. We view running the government as everybody's business, not just a privileged few.

I've done a lot of posts that mention China. I think it is very important place, people, and culture, and I respect them enormously. I understand that it is very popular in China to view the west, and the United Sates in particular, as hegemons and imperialist powers. But we all know those days are long gone. Such thinking only serves to keep the mob energized -- which is the whole point. Sometime, however, the gig will be up. Mobs are very hard to centrally plan. The Chinese people will figure it all out. We've just always wanted to trade, and the Chinese leaders have always been aloof, corrupt, and unable to handle the future. That's just the way it has been.

In a lot of ways China is more capitalistic today than the rest of the world. I don't mean this post as a critique -- I just wanted to write down what I think I know today about China. I certainly wish them the best.They are proud and capable people. I am not as optimistic about China as I am about India, however. China is going to have to come up with a system where they can make mistakes and learn quickly. You can call that democracy, or you can call it roast beef. In the west every few years we change up ruling parties, ruling people, AND ruling ideas. The society is built from the ground-up by personal property rights. It's not like that in China. And this is a big problem. Good talk doesn't cook rice, and good communists aren't going to help China to be as much as it can be. I hope they can learn that peacefully over time.