The final installment of impressions drawn from reading a series of essays on moral matters in China from Chinese graduate students at Sichuan University.
4.If I were an American politician, I would watch what I say
When people complain about a lack of bipartisanship in American politics, they obviously aren’t talking about attitudes toward China. Indeed, China bashing seems one of the few things Democrats and Republicans can agree on. Oddly, very little of it these days is on the one issue on which China can be legitimately bashed. Instead, both sides of the aisle seem obsessed with currency manipulation, unfair trade practices, and the sheer amount of our debt that China holds. Was it Nietzsche that said we hate those we are indebted to?
All of this trash talking is taking place against the backdrop of the Arab spring turned winter. If that turmoil teaches us anything it is the importance of winning the hearts and minds of a people, especially its young people. The irony is that while we probably have no prospect of this among the youth in the Middle East, our politicians seem to be doing everything possible to alienate the good will that Chinese youth have towards America.
Consider the attitude towards China that is emerging in the Republican debates. While Michelle Bachman dubs the Chinese “bad actors” and Rick Perry ruminates about placing them on the ash heap of history, the most likely Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, calls out the Chinese for stealing intellectual property, hacking our computers, and manipulating currency and threatens if elected to bring action against China to the WTO. Even former China ambassador Jon Huntsman offers advice on how to “take China down.” Someone who is seriously concerned about maintaining this good will among young Chinese would have to hope that the young Chinese, who in my experience have a genuinely fond feeling towards America, either aren’t listening to the beating their country is taking or that they don’t care.
While my experience in China during the run up to Olympics showed me clearly that Chinese students do care about how their country is viewed by the rest of the world, my experience in reading these papers drove home the point that these students are indeed listening to what is said about their country. In their papers, studies cited criticisms of China by people across the American political spectrum, from Paul Krugman to Mitt Romney.
We certainly shouldn’t hide the fact that we have policy differences in order to curry favor with a country. But OPEC treats us like shit, yet because we need the oil, we generally make nice. The fact is that the good will of these young Chinese is a resource at least as valuable as oil to our country’s future. Given this, would it hurt the politicians to tone it down a notch?
5. If I were gay and in China, I would be optimistic
Let’s end on a hopeful note. Although there is not the religious rationale in China for hostility towards homosexuality that there is in America, the importance given to carrying on the family name results not only in a notorious preference for male children but also in an historically negative attitude towards the gay lifestyle. The one-child policy has only worsened the situation, since a single homosexual child now condemns the revered family line to extinction. Hence, I was surprised as a Peace Corps volunteer to discover that my students' attitudes veered wildly from this cultural consensus. On a survey exploring student opinions vis-à-vis their American counterparts on a variety of social issues, roughly three-quarters of my Chinese students indicated that gays should be allowed to marry or provided with rights equivalent to marriage.
My graduate students this semester as will illustrated this positive attitude towards homosexuality. All of the five papers on the topic supported gay marriage, although it was not only on homosexuality that students demonstrated an open attitude. There were papers in support of group sex, watching pornography at home, and ending the cultural obsession with female virginity before marriage. In many ways, these students are echoing the thoughts of Chinese most famous and perhaps only sexologist, Li Yinhe. A professor at the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Li believes in decriminalization of orgies and prostitution, that monogamy should not be enforced by law and that homosexuals should be allowed to marry. She has introduced several unsuccessful resolutions on the last issue to the Chinese People Political Consultative Conference. Although this attitude must said to be a minority attitude in China, my experiences lead me to believe it is gaining a foothold in the minds of Chinese youth.
I love this sentence "The fact is that the good will of these young Chinese is a resource at least as valuable as oil to our country’s future."