International pundits chomping at the bit for something provokingly sensational to declare in past years have said that the 21st century would be China’s century. Power-hungry Chinese searching for the wish fulfillment of their dreams will champion this slogan. And even average Chinese long-suffering from their own self-inflicted humiliations will hopefully proclaim that yes, this is their century.
But it isn’t. In an age of global interdependence and instant news messaging, the 21st century belongs to no one, let alone the dreamers of China and their Taiwanese counterparts.
China will certainly self-destruct before it can claim a century. It is in their blood; it is in their upbringing, it is in their culture. They remain a nation of indoctrinated slaves, indoctrinated sheep. In the end, they will remain children of Bo Yang’s (柏楊) soy paste vat mentality mired in stagnant beliefs imposed by hierarchical paradigms. Just when they have a chance at redemption, the soy paste vat mentality will do them in.
What Lu Xun (魯迅) said nearly a century ago still proves true. Chinese history can be divided into two ages: “the age when the Chinese people wanted to be enslaved but couldn’t and the age when they were enslaved.” Which one they are in now, I leave for you to decide.
A half-century later, Bo Ren (伯仁) wrote to Bo Yang, “The Chinese people have never been able to think of themselves as the masters of China and hence have always acted like slaves. The message hidden in the soy paste vat tells them: China belongs to the emperor, the generals, the ministers, the heroes and the warriors; the common people are destined to be slaves.”
The only change that need be made in Bo Ren’s lines is to substitute the words Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) for emperor.
How do the slave mentality and soy paste vat combine to work together? Begin with a non-transparent, unquestioned government, then add the role of national face that both feeds on and feeds off of the slave mentality and thus perpetuates it. This recently played out in China’s hosting of the Olympics. China spent US$43 billion on the Olympics. Was it worth it? The rulers of China will say that it was and the people will accept this willingly. Then in Orwellian fashion the PSC will claim that it was they and only they that gave the nation face.
It is estimated that London will spend some US$12 billion on the 2012 Olympics. How can the British aim to spend some US$30 billion less than China? Does the UK have less face than China? Or is there something more beneath the surface?
Forty-three billion dollars is a hefty price tag for face, especially when an individual’s life is so cheap in China. If this is China’s century, why then does it need to buy face at US$43 billion? Do the people of China accept this price tag? Of course they do; they have been indoctrinated to accept it.
Take a different perspective. Some 70,000 people died in poorly constructed homes and schools in last year’s Sichuan earthquakes. The average family that lost children in such schools received approximately US$9,000. Is this a just compensation package in a country that can spend US$43 billion on face?
In a society that enforces a one-child policy, what satisfaction does US$9,000 bring when the family’s dream and pride is buried in crumbled ruins of construction that some politician got rich from?
Step to another scandal, the recent melamine poisoning; this time with fewer deaths, the families were luckier. They were awarded US$29,000 per child, but they too had to shut up afterwards. Those that disagree have to spend a year in re-education. US$29,000 is a lot more than US$9,000 but that is still a poor price to pay for a cherished child that is the hope of a generation. In all of this, where is the transparency and accountability?
After the earthquake there were huge pledges of time, goods and money for the victims, but how much of it actually ended up in the hands of those who needed it? What believable follow up was done? Foiled again by lack of transparency, but the slaves/sheep accept it. What choice do they have?
Revisit the Olympics. If you ask the average Chinese: Was the US$43 billion worth it to give the country face, most would agree it was. And what would they say to the bereaved parents of those who lost their children? That is a different story. Enter the soy paste vat.
The soy paste answer would come along the lines that it is regrettable that the children died, but the parents should be willing to sacrifice their children for the face of the nation. Is US$43 billion for the face of a nation, but US$29,000 or less for a child a just comparison? In the soy paste vat, as long as it is not my child that is killed, all can be justified.
This is not the thinking that will build a great nation; it may take place in the 21st century, but it is only the expedient thinking of slaves and sheep. The soy paste vat mentality continues to keep the Chinese from facing the truth. Don’t even ask about Mao Zedong (毛澤東). In this age of globalization, the hierarchy and power culture of China will preserve those in power but only them. The sheep and slaves will always be its willing victims.
Do Chinese writers and academics question this victim mentality? One could hope that the Charter 08 movement would provide new direction, but it will only be an academic diversion destined for stillbirth like the May 4 movement, which is nearing its 100th anniversary. Their thoughts are at heart anathema to what the sheep/slaves have been indoctrinated with and what the PSC holds dear. For this reason it will be impossible to learn from Taiwan, the one source of hope, or even from the straining of Tibet.
Both point to the way that freedom lies in the separation from, not union with, the central power. Size always betrays when individual rights and identity are concerned and ignored. Herein is the great divide that none can cross but revolutionaries.
This does not mean that China cannot or will not do damage within the century as its bombastic generals often threaten. The 20th century was not Adolf Hitler’s or Josef Stalin’s but Germany and Russia did do tremendous damage. So while the 21st century is not China’s it does not mean that the PSC will not do damage. The fact that China has already given the world SARS, bird flu and countless poisoned products is a small but telling indication of what lies ahead.
Finally we come to the nation of Taiwan, what do the people here think of this grasping, soy-paste neighbor across the Taiwan Strait? True thinkers in Taiwan have already had to deal with such a mentality in the transplanted Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the past. They know from bitter experience the suffering and deaths that it took to break free of the KMT’s one-party state. They know the long torturous struggle of their own people to create a nation from the injustice and lack of transparency of the past.
Yet ironically, as Taiwan seeks to free itself from its own sordid history, some fools think that Taiwan’s salvation is to link with the soy paste vat of China. Even now Taiwan’s rulers refuse to face the erosion of justice and human rights. Some even wish to change the name of Democracy Hall back to that of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
As for the rest of the Taiwanese, do they willingly wish to be sheep and slaves like those in China?
Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei
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