China fear-mongering

In exchanging a couple of emails with alumni friends getting prepared to visit China this spring, I am reminded of some of the conversations I have with people new to China, or who ask me about my impression of the country. "What's it like?" many folks will ask hesitantly. "It must be a crazy place..." It is a "crazy" place: in urban Beijing, I tend to think of the striking mixture of the great trappings of mega-rich cosmopolitan Chinese alongside the rural traditions of recent arrivals and the migrant masses. But I get the sense that the "crazy" meant by friends and relatives who have not spent time on the mainland circles around other factors: the police state, politics, "big brother" looking over your shoulder.

I am not an apologist for this place. The China experience particularly of an American passport holder is very very different than the China experience of some other expat communities. The biggest "experience gap" is between expatriates and Chinese citizens. Human rights violations and legal abuses here are very real. China's "have it both ways" approach of asking for recognition as a "developed" country at global political summits, but a "developing" country with an evolving rule of law doesn't do anything to help get its domestic agenda accelerating to a more equitable legal and economic situation for the majority of Chinese people.

As a foreigner, unless you really screw up, the elements of the police state that you experience amount to a dismal amount of bureaucracy surrounding visa applications and housing registration and not much else. For the relatively few who venture into Chinese-language social media, there is a more day-to-day aspect of censorship that feels more immediate. VPNs are getting better and better and allow access to international websites and other opinions. I do think, however, that you can see an irrational "Great Red Terror" in many people outside of China when they remark on their imagining of what life must be like for an expatriate living in Beijing, a fear that is not backed up as you move through everyday life in this country, interacting with people and families on a 1-on-1, face-to-face basis.