Can Foreigners Adapt to Chinese Culture?

[yonglin]

Okay...which of the following are objective facts?

Neither A nor B. Half of C.

A. That the Chinese went down the "wrong path" with regards to the "whole web of political and social relationships that surround you as you grow up, and partly make you tick the way you do" thing.

Firstly, I want to say that I'm not really keen on the whole "political culture" concept. In a first-year college course in politics, you learn why the entire concept is kind of flawed.

I actually had the same experience about China being democratic in a seminar for the above-mentioned politics course: a Chinese girl in my class was quite astounded to hear the tutor claim that China was an example of authoritarian rule ("What? You say China is not a democracy?"). Very diplomatically, he answered that it would not be considered democratic in the way Western academics define the term, since who can stand for election (and who can vote) is quite limited. However, he added that the Chinese government has seemingly done a lot of good for the Chinese people over the last decades. I think that in the West, we are indoctrinated from a very young age that democracy is perfect and that autocracy is evil. This is just not true. Although history tends to illustrate that democracies on average have done better than autocracies, that doesn't mean that it's better for every state at every time to be democratic.

Even if you argue that China has its own "political culture" (implying great difficulties in establishing democratic rule), you have no right to claim that that political culture is inferior to a Western one, or that China "went down the wrong path". I'm not a moral relativist, so I'm not going to do the "right or wrong is subjective" argument. Rather, I think it's quite obvious that some things are good for society and other things are not. For instance, security, stability and freedom could be deemed intrinsically good for all human societies on Earth, whilst crime, violence and a lot of people living in destitute poverty could be deemed intrinsically bad. I believe this is quite uncontroversial and that a lot of people are willing to agree on this.

By instituting its present political system, the Chinese government has put a very heavy emphasis on political stability (as well as economic stability - which tend to walk hand-in-hand). The means to doing this have often been regarded as freedom-oppressing by Western commentators, pointing out the quite severe restrictions on freedom of expression and organization. Does this mean that the Chinese way is bad? (After all, this means cutting down on the things we've agreed on are intrinsically good.) I would very firmly say no. The Chinese chose to give a higher priority to reducing social unrest (which would tend to lead to crime and violence) and relieving poverty (which - somewhat curiously - nonetheless increases people's substantive freedom, like the freedom not to starve, to go out to eat dinner, go travelling, etc.), which must also be regarded as intrinsically good things to do. In the Chinese case, one way in which social stability has been created is by indoctrinating young people with particular ideals (e.g., political apathy, not questioning authorities), a process which might be regarded as freedom-oppressive: many Chinese students are given insufficient tools to tackle difficult social and political questions, and do not get the opportunity to develop the critical thinking skills that would enable them to challenge authority. (Of course, we're indoctrinated in the West too, but most probably to a lesser extent.)

The obvious question is of course: Could the Chinese not have fostered the good aspects of society in a democratic framework, managing to provide all of the above-mentioned social goods (i.e., stability, security and freedom)? At least superficially, it seems like many Western countries have managed to do just this, which leads many people to conclude that the Western way is superior to the Chinese way. To this argument, you could put forward two main objections:

(1) Have Western countries really managed to provide all of these goods? For some countries, I'd definitely say "no". Violent crime and street violence, for instance, is a huge issue in many larger (and smaller) cities around North America (the US in particular) and some parts of Europe. To be knowledge, violent crime and street violence does exist in China, but is not really a major social issue. (To take an anecdotal example, I never felt unsafe in China when walking home from the internet bar 2 o'clock in the morning.) Maybe there is in fact an unavoidable trade-off between these different types of social goods.

(2) If it is the case that some Western countries have really managed to do this (more so Canada than the US for instance), then does it necessarily follow that China would have done equally well had they adopted a Western political system? I'd say "maybe, we cannot know", but would personally deem it improbable. I'm not very well-versed in Chinese history, but as far as I am aware (please correct me), the episodes without a strong authoritarian ruler (including the attempt at democracy), turned out extremely turbulent and unstable. This is were I would like to invoke the "historical contingencies" notion which I surreptitiously alluded to earlier: posing a question such as "if China had done like Canada, would it have been better?" is misleading. A more appropriate question would be "Given its particular historical context (think: civil wars, invasion by the Japanese, wide-spread poverty, etc.), would China have done better had it adopted the same institutions as Canada (or another Western country)?" The main point is (I'm getting lengthy now): you cannot claim that "Canada is better than China (they manage to provide more of the desirable things for society: both freedom, security and stability). This is due to the Canadian political institutions. Therefore, China would be better off if it were to adopt the Canadian institutions".

If we would compare China to countries with similar level of economic development (some Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Latin American and African countries spring to mind), China actually does extremely well in providing things which people would tend to value: e.g., security, stability, substantive freedom, health, a long life ...

B. That China going down said path was not an "inevitability" as demonstrated by the mere existence of Taiwan with a different culture (in the "2nd sense" of course).

Of course it was not an inevitability, but this is because I do not believe that history is pre-determined, and that what governments and peoples do actually can make a difference.

As far as I am aware, the comparison with Taiwan is quite irrelevant (I particularly dislike the "Taiwan is China made right" thing). Taiwan used to be quite an authoritarian, non-democratic state for a very long time. Only when they had reached a particular level of economic development did they start promoting democracy. China has not quite reached this point (think: the interior West). Once China has reached there, the comparison might make more sense. Maybe institutions more similar to those of Taiwan would be favourable for China in the long term, but you must not forget that the two countries are quite different, especially with regard to area and population. Modern history is quite different as well.

C. China's society would be "improved" if it became more like Taiwan, Canada, or Switzerland.

If you think that it is feasible to provide all of the socially desirable things, then maybe. If you think it's not possible (that there will be a trade-off), then not necessarily (depends on what you value more).

That's my humble opinion. This is what philosophy did to me, and if you managed to read all the way here, I'm impressed.

[shanghaikai]

Neither A nor B. Half of C.

Uh...how do you halve C? And...uh, which half would be the objectively true one?

Although history tends to illustrate that democracies on average have done better than autocracies, that doesn't mean that it's better for every state at every time to be democratic.

Just for the sake of argument, I'm curious as to how you calculated this conclusion. I mean, did you count how many democracies there has been versus autocracies or did you measure the amount of time each power structure persisted or what? It sounds like a rather ambiguous assertion, don't you think? Again, just for the sake of argument. I won't begrudge you your opinion of course.

Rather, I think it's quite obvious that some things are good for society and other things are not. For instance, security, stability and freedom could be deemed intrinsically good for all human societies on Earth, whilst crime, violence and a lot of people living in destitute poverty could be deemed intrinsically bad. I believe this is quite uncontroversial and that a lot of people are willing to agree on this.

Excellent, and as you go on to describe, what people end up arguing about really isn't between "good" and "bad" but between different "goods" that cannot always coexist with each other.

I'm not sure how "philosophy" resulted in you writing such a post (I would've thought political science, sociology, or rhetoric but not philosophy unless it was something like political philosophy) but it was very good nonetheless.

[yonglin]

Just for the sake of argument, I'm curious as to how you calculated this conclusion.

Well, look at the economically prosperous countries in the world: how many of them are democracies and how many are autocracies? I'm not implying that there is a causation here, just a correlation. If you are looking for something more theoretical, Mancur Olson has written quite a bit and very eloquently on why democracy is better for economic development than autocracy. (In essence, this has to do with providing checks and balances on the people in power, to make sure that their actions benefit the state itself rather than only the elite. For instance, you can show that the tax rate which would be optimal for an autocratic ruler (i.e., maximising his tax revenues) is quite different from the tax rate which would be optimal for society as a whole (i.e., which maximises overall prosperity).

At the same time, many attempts to establish democracy have resulted in chaos and regression. And many Asian countries have recently undergone great social and economic development under authoritarian forms of rule.

About C, about the inevitability thingy. In my world, inevitability in this sense does not exist. Therefore, it is vacuously true.

In philosophy, we mainly study arguments, i.e., what follows and what does not follow from the things we know. We also ponder a lot about "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong", etc.

[shanghaikai]

Well, look at the economically prosperous countries in the world: how many of them are democracies and how many are autocracies? I'm not implying that there is a causation here, just a correlation.

Again, just for the sake of argument, couldn't we look past the correlation in the here and now and analyze how power structures and economic prosperity both dynamically interact with each other, resulting in all sorts of fun questions about cause and effect? The point I'm trying to hint at is somewhere along what Marx and Engels were trying to argue, that economics and politics go hand in hand. Many, if not all, of these economically prosperous democracies evolved from autocracies. To what degree can we question whether economic prosperity stems from democracy or democracy stems from economic prosperity?

In admitting only correlation (not causation) and conceding economic development under autocracies, you undermine the conclusion I cited you for: that history demonstrates that democracies have done better than autocracies. Perhaps we can't really compare which has "done better" when history gives us no pure democracies (societies/countries that sprang forth into existence as democracies). It can be argued that democracy is a reaction to autocracy, and without the autocracy, there could be no democracy.

Let me try using an example: Imagine a society being a company. Imagine autocracy and democracy being managers, with autocracy being the company's founder, and democracy being the founder's successor. How would we go about measuring whether the founder or the successor "did better?" There are so many different variables we could consider, not least of which the consideration that the successor wouldn't be such were it not for a founder to hand down the business. And of course, as ever, how do we define "better" anyway?

Of course, this example isn't perfect, but I hope you understand what point and conundrum I'm presenting. I love philosophy.

About C, about the inevitability thingy. In my world, inevitability in this sense does not exist. Therefore, it is vacuously true.

Um...C doesn't have anything about "inevitability." Did you intend to cite B? If so, I still do not understand yet what you mean by "inevitability" in "your world."

[gato]

I'm of the opinion that is China would have been better off under "democracy" (even a very imperfect democracy along the line of India), but don't have time to go into that now. Here I'll just quibble with a few technical points.

(1) Have Western countries really managed to provide all of these goods? For some countries, I'd definitely say "no". Violent crime and street violence, for instance, is a huge issue in many larger (and smaller) cities around North America (the US in particular) and some parts of Europe.

Violence is much more a product of culture and social structure than of political structure. The U.S., for example, has much more violent crime than Canada; yet the two countries aren't that different in terms of political institutions. And within China, some regions have much more incidence of violent crime than others (e.g. Guangdong, parts of Dongbei); yet they are all governed by similar institutions.

As far as I am aware, the comparison with Taiwan is quite irrelevant (I particularly dislike the "Taiwan is China made right" thing). Taiwan used to be quite an authoritarian, non-democratic state for a very long time. Only when they had reached a particular level of economic development did they start promoting democracy. China has not quite reached this point (think: the interior West). Once China has reached there, the comparison might make more sense. Maybe institutions more similar to those of Taiwan would be favourable for China in the long term, but you must not forget that the two countries are quite different, especially with regard to area and population. Modern history is quite different as well.

I'm not convinced that a high level of economic development is a pre-requisite to democracy. If such economic pre-requisites exist, I think China has met them. Can we say that the Athenians 2000 years ago or the Americans 300 years ago were economically more advanced than the Chinese today? I'm doubtful. Cultural conditions are much more important, but culture is always a work in progress. People learn how to be democratic by practicing, that is, by living and participating in a democracy.

As for Taiwan, Jiang Jingguo -- rather than that it had arrived at a magical stage of economic development -- was the pivotal reason for its transition into democracy, just as Gorbachev was pivotal to the USSR's transition away from Communism (towards Yeltsinism and then Putinism). If 1989 had not happened and Zhao ZY had continued his leadership, China would have been a lot more democratic than it is today and, I would argue, that many of the socioeconomic and environmental problems you see today would not have been as severe as they are.

Wushijiao can give you a fuller argument about all this because he's actually read the books.