More on 'Why I was wrong about China'
By William CordenI have lived within the large expatriate Chinese community,here in Vancouver, for the past 26 years, I have visited China for extended stays three or four times and during that time I have. . .
,here in Vancouver, for the past 26 years, I have visited China for extended stays three or four times and during that time I have developed a fairly good understanding (or at least I think so) of the Chinese zeitgeist. In the main they have no time for democracy because it allows unqualified people to run the show and they most definitely want case-hardened people in important posts. The odd incompetent slips through, but the rigorous internal process usually gets a qualified leader in any important post. They are appointed, not voted. Nobody gets appointed to National level jobs without being put through the mill of running a city of 10 or 12 million people, a process which exposes any cracks and weaknesses. The general population thus kowtows to a qualified leadership model. A friend who worked for a bank in Hong Kong highlighted the difference in thinking when he held one of those “brainstorming sessions. ” You know , the ones where no idea is stupid and they’re all written on a chalkboard. His predominantly Chinese audience responded with dead silence when he asked for input and after an uncomfortable few minutes, one of them piped up with;“Why should we come up with ideas? You’re the one who’s getting paid to run the show. Tell us how you want it done and we’ll do it, if we’ve got a new idea , we’ll use it for ourselves. ”That , in a nutshell, is the Chinese philosophy. There is a leadership class (not an aristocracy, I must stress. ) and the Chinese like it that way, from Confucius to Sun Yat Sen to Mao to Xi. Nobody gets into the upper echelons unless they’ve proved themselves in one way or another and the majority of the general population have confidence that they will run the country for their benefit. The alembic process of entry to the civil service sees to it that you have to be pretty smart to qualify. So in theory you only have the elite at the helm. Yes , some of the diaspora feel that it’s an evil dictatorship but the general feeling that I get in my interactions, is a real sense of pride in their native country and a belief that Xi’s way is the best form of Government.