David Shambaugh talks about the Chinese Communist Party and their role in creating and distributing propaganda throughout the country. He starts by declaring that there is currently a standoff between the requirements of a quickly modernizing economy and the desire by the CCP to continue to have absolute political power in the state. This contradiction highly affects the state of propaganda in China today. Compared to the earlier years under Mao Zedong, where propaganda was essentially thought control material meant to brainwash people, the role and impact of propaganda has diminished greatly in the modern age.

The increase in use and distribution of media, especially through the digital age, has made it pretty much impossible for the central government to control everything at once effectively. I was able to see this on a personal level, as the last time I visited China to spend time with family, my uncles kept discussing about the fact that they were able to “fan qiang”, which literally means “to flip over walls”, referring to their ability to bypass the Internet censorship and restrictions set in place by authorities. However, the central government is still capable of effective selective enforcement, censoring specific topics whenever it deems necessary. For example, in late 2010 and early 2011, there were pro-democracy riots and revolutions occurring in the Middle East; China naturally disliked this and worried its influence would potentially spread to its own land. As a result, the central government intensified Internet filtering to point where the key term “Egypt” resulted in few or no results.

Previously I posted about the trust between the people of China and the authorities. I mentioned that the citizens generally believed the central government was competent, but after reflecting upon the subject, perhaps this is only possible because of the CCP’s ability to selectively enforce what it needs to in order to maintain its political power. While this may not be as effective in urban cities where people use the Internet frequently, the farmers living in the rural regions may definitely have a manipulated, unhealthy positive view on the central government.

Being a Chinese American, I have extended family members in China and thus visit more often than most Americans. Last summer, I was in my father’s hometown of Chengdu with my parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. We visited many cities from there and explored many aspects of China that I had not known about before. However, one night at dinner I realized something. There seemed to be an underlying hierarchy system in the workplace, and it could easily be seen in places such as restaurants. Because my uncles worked in high positions at powerful businesses, my extended family could be considered part of the upper-class in China, and therefore took me and my parents to high-end restaurants to meet other important officials in their businesses.

At these restaurants, I noticed that the customers were rather harsh towards the waiters, waitresses, and other workers. They constantly demanded things while they raised voices and snapped there fingers as they called “fu wu yuan!” The workers seemed to just accept this and responded as if they were recruits at basic training (well, a little less then that, but still). As a person born and raised in the United States, and having been taught certain values about mutual respect, especially in the military, this environment seemed rather strange and I was kind of uncomfortable. When I placed my order, I did it calmly with respect and a smile, just like I would if ordering a burger from my nearby food joint; however, the waiter seemed a little shocked, much to my confusion and amusement.

My mother explained to me later that this was just a cultural thing, but this led to another discussion with her. We both had been noticing a much larger presence of Chinese tourists in foreign countries we have visited including Vietnam, Japan, France, and even Kenya, and of course the United States. I had been hearing stories about many natives of these countries disliking these tourists a lot. From personal observation, I strongly believe it is because the Chinese tend to bring their own culture with them while also ignoring indigenous traditions. Sometimes in certain countries, such as Vietnam, the Chinese tourists would treat the workers there with the same harshness as they would in their own country. This is probably a contributing reason as to why there is a large bribing issue with the Vietnamese customs at the border involving specifically Chinese travelers.

Tourists from China are also very concerned about spending money to buy items in foreign countries that otherwise would be expensive in their own nation. In France, my family stumbled upon a Chinese tour group at the Louvre during their own separate visit. They overheard the tour members all shouting to go to the malls and markets, but the tour guide responded with a hint of desperation: “Don’t worry, we”ll make sure that you’ll be able to spend all the money you brought here. But now that we’re here at this museum, you might as well take a look! Just a glance at least!”

As an American-born Chinese (ABC), I tend to react negatively to such behaviors, along with my parents (who have now lived here longer than they have in China since they immigrated) and the rest of my Chinese American friends, as it conflicts with many traditional American customs and culture that we have learned from birth. This is why it is easy to tell apart an ABC from a Chinese individual straight from the mainland, based on the way they act and interact. I tend to notice that many ABCs distance themselves from “authentic” Chinese people and interact much better with other ABCs, or even American-born Koreans and Japanese people; again, this is all just a cultural difference.

A reading written by Jie Lu discussed in class one day talked about the relationship between the people of China and its central government. It appears that there is high trust in the central government by the Chinese people, despite there being some negative reactions to certain unreliable and unfavorable aspects. However, even with its questionable nature, the Chinese national government is still about to create confidence from within the people, due to the fact that it is able to display an image of having good intentions for the citizens, and by acting like it knows the people well and that it is setting them up for success, this allows the general population to more likely evaluate the government as competent and trustworthy.

Of course, there are a number of environmental factors that have influenced the people’s ability to trust their government. Part of it is cultural; unlike Western states that seem to promote individualism, China has a large emphasis on collectivism, which results in more trust being easily gained, due to the fact that authorities really only have to fulfill the needs of the community, and not the more specific and difficult desires of each single person. Additionally, the national government and CCP control a large portion of the Internet, and thus can artificially alter the thoughts of the people about the government to an extent. Furthermore, since many parts of China are rural and distant from urban government areas, farmers and peasants, who make up a large portion of the Chinese Chinese population, are more inclined to give approval and trust of the government.

Despite the fact that China is a neoauthoritarian state, the idea of this article and overall situation can be applied to other states and forms of governance. China is a functioning and relatively stable country because even though the authorities have large control over the infrastructure, the people are in line with the government and believe the ruling party is competent. One speculated reason as to why democratic states work is because the citizens trust and cooperate with the government. As seen in developed nations like the United States, people generally accept the American federal government and have faith that it is genuinely doing its best to be fair and be concerned with the welfare of the citizens. However, countries like Venezuela have a very corrupt democratic government, thus people generally ignore and disobey the laws set in place by the authorities. As a result, the nation is very unstable and there are frequent cases of civil unrest, food and basic item shortages, and major economic problems.