The oxymoron of Chinese democracy

Recently, I have had much discussion with my friends about Ai Weiwei and the aftermath of his detainment by the Chinese Government. I consider myself as an artist and a designer, I have a natural tendency to empathize artists who are restrained to express their artistic ideas. However, the huge stir that Ai Weiwei’s detainment caused in the western media is what I want to talk about today.

 In case you have not heard of this incident, here is some background:

 Ai Weiwei is a well-known Chinese contemporary artist, designer and architect. His has held exhibition in Tate Modern, London, and was the design consultant of Beijing Olympics Stadium – “the Bird’s Nest.” He has long been an activist and a critic that expresses his opinions about government policies and corruptions through social media like Twitter. On April 3, he was arrested by the Chinese government and is now under investigation for “economic crime.”

To quote the Wall Street Journal, his disappearance caused an “international storm.” The western media has described him as courageous, and somehow heroic. As I read people’s comments on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and TED.com, I started to feel that I needed to stand up and express my own opinion about it.

 First of all, I absolutely admire Ai’s work. I think they are interesting, thought-provoking, and beautiful on its own. As an artist, Ai Weiwei is one of the most talented, intelligent, and brave artists that I have ever seen. By gradually gaining international recognition and support, Ai Weiwei then used his influence to express his opinion on human rights, government corruption and Chinese politics. While I agree with him on many levels, I was not surprised to see him being taken in by the Chinese government.

Ai Weiwei and his Sunflower Seeds installation at TATE Modern, London
These 100 million handmade porcelain seeds are thought to express Ai's concern for individuality.

After reading many angry comments that western readers made on the news webpages, I feel that many comments are made by people who are very idealistic, and do not understand the complexity of China. I was born and brought up in China, and I have lived in England for four years, and now United States for three years. I was well aware the difference in the value system of the east and the west. I have to say that many of the reporting and comments I have read so far from the western media are inevitably written from a westerner’s perspective.

 For example, many have stressed the value of “freedom of speech.” They believe that Ai should not be detained because he was brave enough to speak up his mind. They also talked about human rights, which is long an issue with China. They feel angry that a person can be arrested simply because he says what he thinks. And for that reason, the Chinese Government should be criticized and blamed by the West. Here, I want to say that China is not like the west, and will never become like the west. Our current situation is not solely the result of the Communist Party’s ruling, but is a complicated compound of the values, systems, and problems that were embedded in our 5000 years of history. China was never a "democratic" society, and our people are molded to become comfortable of having someone above them telling them what to do - there is even a word in the Chinese language to describe this characteristics of the Chinese people - "servility." Although China is slowly opening up and the new generations are becoming ever more independent and empowered, our demographics are still not the same as the west. What worked in the west may not work the same in China, and may even cause greater problems that are in the opposite direction of what we hoped.

 We cannot just simply conclude that “freedom of speech” is a great concept, and therefore must be immediately applied to the Chinese society. The reality isn’t that simple – there are many things that need to be in place, such as education, open-mindedness, and awareness of cultural diversity, before exercising the so-called “freedom of speech.” China just pulled a majority of its people out of extremely poverty, is “freedom of speech” really needs to be our next step? If the public is not educated enough, how do we make sure that our public discourse promotes greater intellectual conversation and critical thinking? A large percentage of Chinese people are still under-educated, which means that they might have limited ability of critical thinking, and can be easily aroused by emotional appeals that may lack of critical reasoning behind it. Therefore, I strongly believe that the first thing that we need to do is to invest in and develop our education system, to make sure that more and more people can make rational choices by engaging in critical thinking. Only when that happens, can we further promote freedom of speech and democracy.

 I am not disagreeing with the western media in firing at the Chinese government about their approach to freedom of speech. However, I do want to assert that we should not only assess a situation from a westerner’s perspective. We need to acknowledge that China has a long and a drastically different history from us, which resulted in the social situation that they are in now. Simply take what we have here and impose on them is not only unfair but also unhelpful. We need to analyze China for what it is, and then think about policies and strategies that can really help the society thrive, grow, and become more free and democratic.