1 Why China?
A word of warning: I realise this piece may sound like a very pessimistic attack on the West, but I promise that won’t always be the case. In fact, as someone who’s pretty politically uninvolved (it scares me), this will probably be the last time you hear me speak about global affairs.
It would be pretty far from the truth to write that I’ve always had this fascination with China. Growing up, my one and only experience with China was getting a Chinese takeaway twice a year (I know - even that’s an incredibly tenuous link).
My interest really began after I stumbled across an article a couple of years ago mentioning that China has over 100 cities with populations of over a million or more, and 18 megacities with over 10 million people. For context, London has a population of 9 million. It made me think: how many cities in China can I actually name?
Beijing, Shanghai … Hong Kong?
A quick Google search (and later finding that Hong Kong isn’t technically part of mainland China, oopsie) made me realise just how little I knew. How was it possible to know so little about somewhere so big?
It wasn’t just this of course. Without wanting to sound too much like a whiny victim of the current media climate, there is undoubtably a hefty amount of anti-China rhetoric - or “china-bashing” - in Western media. When you really think about it, it’s rare to hear anything positive said about China. The common narrative seems to be that they’re a global threat, the CCP’s regime should be feared, and - most interestingly in my opinion - they should be blamed for almost every global problem.
Whilst I don’t doubt that there may be some elements of truth to some of these criticisms, I think the sweeping generalisations and fearmongering around China being an imminent threat is simply the West’s inability to accept that other nations have the same right to success and power. It seems that the West’s fear is less about concern and more about the fear of loss of control.
It’s pretty ironic that countries like the US and UK point fingers at China, when China hasn’t invaded another country in over four decades or imposed sanctions that have crippled millions in poorer nations. Meanwhile the US has directly led or been involved in seven invasions in the last 2 years alone. Now, that’s not to say China is perfect. We’ve all heard about the camps in Xinjiang, the military exercises around Taiwan and China’s treatment of Tibet, and these issues obviously shouldn’t be ignored. That’s not what I’m saying here at all.
But if we're talking about who’s really a threat to global stability, a superpower with a track record of invasions with an absolute nutter currently in charge, seems slightly more concerning. I mean, look at America today. They’ve currently got over 65,000 people detained by unidentifiable, masked “agents”, who appear to have the authority to shoot civilians in the face, be recorded doing it, and still be celebrated as heroes by the highest global authorities.
Even global issues like carbon emissions are almost entirely blamed on China (or India), and whilst there’s no denying that China’s C02 emissions are massive, it’s largely because of our demand for their cheap manufacturing. In fact, 20% of China’s pollutants have been linked with trade with the US alone, proving that even the emissions produced can be bridged with exporting to other countries. On top of that, with a population of 1.4 billion, of course their total emissions is going to be huge. However, a stat I found especially interesting was that if you look at emissions per person, the US actually ranks far higher than both China and India. In other words, the average American uses tons more emissions each year compared with the average Chinese person. So once again, we’re pointing fingers while ignoring our own massive role in the problem.
It’s hard not to see a pattern here. At some point, it starts to feel like all of this, whether political, environmental, or cultural, is rooted in something slightly deeper than just some sweeping generalisations. It’s interesting because the idea of China as a threat isn’t new. In prep for the trip, I read a LOT of books on China as I was essentially clueless.
To begin, I read Linda Jaivin’s The Shortest History of China in an attempt to educate myself slightly on the general history, and whilst a lot of it was lost on me (its history spans over 3000 years, with over a dozen dynasties, each with its own system and quirks), I clearly remember reading about the “Yellow Peril” narrative; a 19th-century Western trope that painted East and Southeast Asians as a danger to the Western world. Without really realising until I focused on it, Yellow Peril is clearly is seeing a huge resurgence. To me anyway, it seems that Western media doesn’t report on China with the same standards it applies elsewhere. If Xi Jinping (China’s general secretary) was saying even half the stuff that Trump has said over the last 10 years, I don’t think Western media would be nearly as willing to tone down or gloss over some of the more extreme statements that he’s made. And I have a funny feeling the West’s reaction would not be simply to write a couple of articles about it in the Sun and move on.
And so, in essence, I wanted to see the country for myself, because for a place that we hear about so regularly and rely on so heavily, China sure gets a lot of stick.
