Chinese are smart people. There's no doubt about it. I wondered why the European civilizations and not the Chinese discovered America, and invented the airplane, the car, the computer and almost all the rest of modern civilization.
Whatever happened to "smart China?" I've lived in Taiwan for more than two years now and I think I've found the answer -- not from Taiwan, but from China, which looms menacingly over this free little nation.
This speak volumes about how China got to be so backward and why it may well fall behind again. To give an example, a Chinese official recently rejected reconciliation with Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp, saying it must first stop opposing Beijing's policies. The actual words of the official: "The premise for communication is not opposing the central government's policies."
In other words, "We'll talk to you if you say what we want." How familiar such nonsense is to anyone living over here in Taiwan. The Chinese put it this way to us, "We'll negotiate with you over your sovereignty only if you first accept you have none."
Such wording says everything about China's backwardness because it's a veritable mirror image of the contract those governing the country have with their own people.
The way the leaders of China operate is by not giving anybody a choice. This is the subtle logic to statements such as, "We'll negotiate only after you accept our position." They mean, bluntly, "You do as we say." These are the terms used by a tyranny.
The same goes for, "We'll talk democracy so long as you neither demand nor expect it." Such is the contract of a tyranny with its people.
Illogical though such a contract may be -- the billion-plus smart Chinese, their long and rich cultural tradition, and their large and diverse nation -- it makes perfect sense. With such stratagems as information control, for example, and the punishment of individuals who slip up in what they say or write, a handful of old men can keep over a billion energetic and smart people preoccupied.
To continue strangling that great nation and that great people, China's leaders make sure that, at least on some level, things stay in a confusing, undefined and undeveloped state. That way no one in the country has quite the time or energy to notice that the nation's leaders are robbing it blind. Whatever money, nice houses or prestigious positions those in power may be grabbing for themselves or their families, that they are indeed doing so is the least of their crimes and certainly of scant importance compared to the far greater evils they perpetrate.
The ultimate disgrace that can be stooped to by someone with a smart mind who has scratched their way to the top, is to deprive someone on the bottom who has so little to begin with and so much to offer. In doing this, China's leaders have not just robbed China, but they've robbed the world of China. How sorely the world needs China's vast intelligence, resourcefulness and imagination -- the genius of its ordinary people. When you look at all that tiny little Taiwan has achieved, you get a hint of what the vast China is capable of.
What's the use of being so smart if you don't have the sense to use that gift towards higher purposes?
I'd rather be comparatively more stupid than them any day, but have the foresight and breadth of vision to care about a government by the people, for the people and of the people -- and about mechanisms of accountability that periodically sweep the crooks out of office and therefore out of business.
The Chinese know they're big and they're smart and are convinced the future is theirs. But they could be wrong. The future does not belong to the big or to the smart, after all -- but to the free.
William Stimson is a writer who lives in Taiwan.
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
Most schoolchildren learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000km. They do not learn that the global economy depends on just 160 of those kilometers. Blocking two narrow waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait — could send the economy back in time, if not to the Stone Age that US President Donald Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran back to, then at least to the mid-20th century, before the Rolling Stones first hit the airwaves. Over the past month and a half, Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 39km wide at
The ongoing Middle East crisis has reinforced an uncomfortable truth for Taiwan: In an increasingly interconnected and volatile world, distant wars rarely remain distant. What began as a regional confrontation between the US, Israel and Iran has evolved into a strategic shock wave reverberating far beyond the Persian Gulf. For Taiwan, the consequences are immediate, material and deeply unsettling. From Taipei’s perspective, the conflict has exposed two vulnerabilities — Taiwan’s dependence on imported energy and the risks created when Washington’s military attention is diverted. Together, they offer a preview of the pressures Taiwan might increasingly face in an era of overlapping geopolitical
What began on Feb. 28 as a military campaign against Iran quickly became the largest energy-supply disruption in modern times. Unlike the oil crises of the 1970s, which stemmed from producer-led embargoes, US President Donald Trump is the first leader in modern history to trigger a cascading global energy crisis through direct military action. In the process, Trump has also laid bare Taiwan’s strategic and economic fragilities, offering Beijing a real-time tutorial in how to exploit them. Repairing the damage to Persian Gulf oil and gas infrastructure could take years, suggesting that elevated energy prices are likely to persist. But the most
RSS