
Three Common Misconceptions About China - Thevet
https://supchina.com/2018/06/25/kuora-three-common-misconceptions-about-china/
======
stephengillie
The misconception I carry is that the Rule of Law[0] doesn't hold the same
weight as in America or Europe, due to extreme Selective Enforcement[1] -
basically the person in power can arbitrarily apply the laws against those
they personally dislike. This leads to the dependence on guanxi[2], where your
families have been so close for generations that you're like siblings - who
will arrest their own brother or sister? And people who can't leverage these
guanxi relationships have barely more social leverage than a foreigner - so
they diasporize.

And leveraging a Chinese person with few guanxi relationships is a common
mistake of companies doing business in China.

[0][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law)

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement)

[2][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi)

~~~
arandr0x
How is this different from networking in the US? don't most American companies
hire e.g. account managers or business development folks with long lists of
industry (and in specific industries, government) contacts? Is it just the
case that the implied "guanxi" relationship has to be deeper than the
circumstances in which an American would say "I know a guy who"?

~~~
Retric
It's more a question of degree.

"I know a guy" might get you a job or back stage passes for a concert in the
US.

"I know a guy" can get you off of vehicular homicide in China.

Granted, the US still has an occasional taste of the second, but it's far less
common.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Being a relative of a cop in the jurisdiction in which you ran someone over
will prevent you from ever being charged with it the US (they'll probably give
you some slap on the wrist charge though).

Being good friends with the right folks at city hall will make sure your
company wins the contract to do the landscaping at the city park.

Knowing the right people will generally get any permit you need expedited or
at the very least it won't be delayed.

If special treatment is corruption then corruption is very much alive and well
in the US. The difference is that the image of corruption is corruption is
much less tolerable. If the details of the story of you running over someone
makes the news or someone points out the conflict of interest of the person
awarding the contract the corruption won't happen in that case. "I'm sorry I
can't do that" is a much less common phrase than "I'll put in a good word for
you".

Corruption in US (federal, state and local) is a lot like the restaurant that
only cleans up its act for the health inspector. Government is the restaurant
and publicity is the inspector. When there's a spotlight on the problem
everyone plays by the rules. When nobody's looking it's business as usual.

Acts of obvious corruption (trading favors, bribes, etc) is rarer in the US
than some other countries but leveraging relationships for special treatment
is just as common as anywhere else, we just keep it under the table.

This isn't an attack on government but government is certainly not the
consistent and impartial organization that some people seem to think it is
(though I think that's a good goal to have).

Edit: I find it odd/interesting that whenever I say something that isn't
positive about government it gets up-voted a couple times then down-voted a
couple times. I really should write a script to track it because I have a
hunch that the timing follows a particular pattern.

~~~
westiseast
In my experience, it honestly isn't even close. Think about it this way:

In the US, you have an army of groups who will actively/passively work against
a corrupt person: free media, lawyers, civilians with strong rights, judges,
police, opposition politicians, civil liberties groups, government oversight
committees, industry regulators, consumer groups, and generally speaking, a
law-abiding and non-corrupt population.

In China, you have none of those.

However bad you think corruption in the US is (and I believe you when you say
it's bad), it's degrees worse in China.

------
cttet
For the first part, I still think that Chinese culture is quite special with
culture that passed on for that long.

As a normal Chinese with standard Chinese education till 10th grade (then move
to a foreign country), I can understand fragments of writings carved in stones
1500 years ago in museums, which I felt quite amazing.

~~~
pdpi
> As a normal Chinese with standard Chinese education till 10th grade (then
> move to a foreign country), I can understand fragments of writings carved in
> stones 1500 years ago in museums, which I felt quite amazing.

Is this unusual, though? Fairly certain most romance language speakers can
understand at least some latin if they put their minds to it.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
It pivots on what we mean by "understand fragments".

The average English speaker cannot make sense of Latin prose. Picking out a
few words here and there, isn't the same thing.

"Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur."

All but 'Latine', and perhaps 'dictum', is gibberish to the average English
speaker.

~~~
padthai
English is not a Romance language. It is Germanic.

~~~
monocasa
Even Old English is pretty much unreadable by most speakers of Modern English.
They still used runes rather than Latin letters 1500 years ago, but even
transliterated you'd have a hell of a time.

First stanza of Beowulf in Old English, transliterated into Latin characters:

> Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas
> ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum,
> meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden, he
> þæs frofre gebad,weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, oðþæt him æghwylc þara
> ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning.
> ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned, geong in geardum, þone god sende folce to
> frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat þe hie ær drugon aldorlease lange hwile.

~~~
padthai
It seems painful. I feel that in Romance languages is easier to identify the
roots.

Now that I think about it, I have never read Romance text written before the
XIII century: Cantigas, Dante, etc.

------
RobertRoberts
Is it odd that I have never heard of any of these misconceptions?

Are these common for any "westerners" to have even considered?

~~~
jpatokal
If you have even a casual interest in China (say, read the international
section of any major newspaper), you'll almost certainly run into them. Random
samples from the New York Times:

" _China is home to the longest continuous civilization in world history_ "

[https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/q-and-a-
will...](https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/q-and-a-william-c-
kirby-on-can-china-lead/)

" _For three millennia, since 1000 B.C., the Chinese had been supremely
confident that they were the center of civilization, the Middle Kingdom..._ "

[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/opinion/13iht-
edgardner.1...](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/opinion/13iht-
edgardner.1.13693509.html)

" _China insists it has no fights to pick. Its evolving foreign policy maxims
-- principles of peaceful co-existence, peaceful orientation, peaceful rise,
peaceful development -- have the same emphasis._ "

[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/weekinreview/the-two-
face...](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/weekinreview/the-two-faces-of-
rising-china.html)

~~~
stephengillie
Referring to a group of 1.4 billion people, the economy, the government, the
economic pressures driving each of them, et cetera as a single entity can
reveal a level of ignorance about these components of a society.

~~~
RobertRoberts
Doesn't that apply to every single modern country right now? Why do you think
it's ignorant to view China the same as every other country?

~~~
stephengillie
The ignorant probably do view all countries through this same lens.

------
dalbasal
I think one piece of Chinese narrative history that's curious and possibly
relevant is: the "line of civilization" bit.

The Anglo-American "history of civilization" traces itself back through
British, Roman, Greek periods. It's self aggrandisement and bias, but it
demonstrates how hard it is to have a totally nationally centered history of
urbanism/civilization if you want to go back a few millenia.

From at least the early bronze age (5000 ybp), the other great urban eurasian-
african cultures had a lot of contact. Hindu Valley, Hittite,
Persian/Sumerian, Egyptian, Mesopotamian. Their "suburbs" stretched into
Greece on the edge of Europe, half of Africa...

China had the silk road and were aware of these distant consumers, but
civilisational rivalry isn't a big part of the story. The important rivalries
are either internal or "barbarian" facing. Everything was invented in China.
There is no Plato (for example) sharing knowlesged sourced from india.

China was always a great power, but they were never a world power (until now)
because there wasn't a world, in a sense.

~~~
torstenvl
_Everything was invented in China. There is no Plato (for example) sharing
knowlesged sourced from india._

Buddhism was _absolutely_ sourced from India, and had a profound impact on
Chinese culture, spirituality, and political thought. The _Lieh tzu_ adopts a
lot of Buddhist thought and adapts it into (already Confucian-influenced)
Taoist thought.

~~~
dalbasal
Good point. I suppose my points are less valid, the closer to the present we
get.

------
ConfusedDog
"the Xin dynasty, set up by a usurper named Wang Mang who might have made a
decent emperor but had absolutely shit luck with natural catastrophes." I like
the writing style...

------
wenc
Somewhat off-topic but peripherally related to misconceptions about China: In
the U.S. we are conditioned to think that Amazon is the most innovative/out-
of-box-thinking retailer in the world. But there are some new ideas out of
China in the retail and surveillance spaces that are pretty impressive/scary,
beyond anything we've seen from Amazon so far. There's a bunch of
articles/videos/images on this Twitter feed [1].

I like the idea of the compactible smart locker [2] though.

Also, the parking garage gate that scans your license plate [3] and
automatically raises the barrier arm -- it sounds like an invasion of privacy
except (1) apps like Spothero already know my license plate number; (2)
license plates are visible publicly.

On that note, some misconceptions that we have about China's innovation
mindset are addressed here [4].

[1] [https://twitter.com/conniechan](https://twitter.com/conniechan)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsuDDBcJ18c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsuDDBcJ18c)

[3]
[https://twitter.com/conniechan/status/990730265239654406](https://twitter.com/conniechan/status/990730265239654406)

[4] [https://a16z.com/2016/02/16/mindsets-for-thinking-about-
inno...](https://a16z.com/2016/02/16/mindsets-for-thinking-about-innovation-
in-and-competition-from-china/)

~~~
Aunche
That's not exactly a fair comparison. China is the largest country in the
world. Amazon is just a company. There's plenty of innovation coming from
drone delivery and checkout-free grocery stores.

~~~
wenc
China is a country that many of us believe is only capable of copying and not
innovating, hence the misconception.

Size doesn't really come into it. If it did, we would expect similar outcomes
with with other large countries like India (which is innovative in its own
way, but not to the same extent), Indonesia (large market, but little visible
innovation), etc.

------
poutrathor
The 2nd point is indeed a view I hold (held?). Interesting though I need more
proof to change my knowledge.

But first and third points are dispelled just by reading the Wikipedia article
on China history.

------
baxtr
There are great TED talks (generally not a big fan because too sensational) to
learn about China and Asia in general. For example this one:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_jacques_understanding_the_r...](https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_jacques_understanding_the_rise_of_china)

------
sli
This article reminds me of a line from Bojack Horseman: "Uh, this is _general_
knowledge?"

------
Pica_soO
I had the impression when going there- that many of the misconceptions where
copy pasted from the Japanese stereo type of mid 80s fame.

At the southern coast, china actually has a Mediterranean, Italian/Cote d
Azure flair- and the people seemed to have a similar relaxed attitude to live.

------
eternalban
If you haven't seen it, recommend watching 'The Emperor and The Assassin":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_and_the_Assassin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_and_the_Assassin)

------
personalite
Four current common misconceptions about China.

1.) China is a communist

China is now a dictatorship. China added term limit for its president in 1982,
after mao's disastrous rule as a dictator. However, the parliament voted to
remove the limit in may - giving xi jing ping 2958 votes and only 2 votes
against 3 sustained - giving the president the ability to rule for life. xi
jing ping has been adding his own thoughts into the constitution, making him
as powerful as mao.

2.) China will overtake US as the most powerful country of the world

That might have been slightly remotely possible in 2008, when US suffered the
great recession and the world saw China's economic growth faster than US.
However, nowadays, with dollar still the hegemony, US has bounced back from
the recession to have healthy jobs rate, gdp growth rate, investments rate,
etc. Meantime, China's economy has stalled, its gdp lauded as fake, it
suffered stock market crash, capital outflow, huge shadow debt, middle income
trap, yuan depreciation, and foreign direct investments decline. With
dictatorship came extreme censorship, concentration camps, social credit
score, and public monitoring. Its per capita gdp has stalled at around
$8000/year, nowhere near US's $56000/year.

3.) Chinese citizens have high savings rate

"what do we actually find when we look for the mythical Chinese saver in the
real Chinese economy, rather than in the macroeconomic assumptions? Bank
balances offset against enormous, rapidly rising, bad debts, a property bubble
out of all contact with reality, a closed capital account to prevent money
draining overseas while it still can, and an unregulated shadow banking sector
where vast pools of notional value endlessly gyrate on air currents of
uncertain origin"

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasbulloch/2017/04/26/the-m...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasbulloch/2017/04/26/the-
myth-of-chinas-excess-savings-is-weighed-down-by-excessive-debt/#1aa15b40458a)

4.) China's peaceful rise

South China Sea, island building, arming the islands with military weapons,
threatened invasion of Taiwan, harsh crackdown of democratic demonstrators in
Hong Kong, concentration camps in XinJiang, controlling buddhism in Tibet,
interference with Australian and New Zealand politics, strong handed approach
to other countries airlines in changing the official names of Taiwan, one belt
one road as a way to finance dictatorships around the world and also bankrupt
countries and steal their vital ports and infrastructures.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
With regards to your first point, that doesn't make China a dictatorship,
although it could evolve that way. The US didn't have term limits for its
President until 1951 (22nd amendment) and we were still democratic.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
We didn't, because FDR was the first president to break the two-term
precedent. Immediately thereafter (in constitutional terms) came the amendment
to say that nobody could ever do that again.

China created their two-term limit rule (not just precedent, if I understand
correctly) after the experience of Mao. Xi repealed it. That raises the kind
of red flags that would be raised if Trump had the 22nd amendment repealed. It
doesn't make a dictatorship, by itself, but it's a step along the road...

~~~
jeffreyrogers
Sure, and that's a troubling change. But I would rather have debate involve
facts rather than hyperbole and appeal to emotion. As far as I know China
still has elections every 5 years. There are plenty of real facts about China
that are concerning. Let's focus on those rather than invented ones.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Sure, they have elections. And the probability of Xi losing is exactly 0% -
and not because the people love him so much. "Democracy without a choice"
isn't democracy. It's a favorite trick of dictators to make themselves look
like they are democratically elected.

Now, if I understand correctly, local elections in China are much more real
elections. But for the national leadership? No.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
I didn't claim China is a democracy. I said it's not a dictatorship. The
elections for president are by senior party members, not like the local
elections. It's a hierarchical system.

I'm not defending the Chinese system of government. I'm saying that criticisms
of it should be accurate, and there are plenty of legitimate things to
criticize. Calling it a dictatorship is an exaggeration, at least at this
point in time.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
It's... kind of a dictatorship? But not so much of a man. It's a dictatorship
of the party. Does that count as a dictatorship? Maybe, depending on your
definition...

------
Bromskloss
Are you sure these are actually common?

