China¹s Loyal Youth

Source: NYT (4/13/08):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13forney.html

Op-Ed: China¹s Loyal Youth
By MATTHEW FORNEY

MANY sympathetic Westerners view Chinese society along the lines of what
they saw in the waning days of the Soviet Union: a repressive government
backed by old hard-liners losing its grip to a new generation of
well-educated, liberal-leaning sophisticates. As pleasant as this outlook
may be, it¹s naïve. Educated young Chinese, far from being embarrassed or
upset by their government¹s human-rights record, rank among the most
patriotic, establishment-supporting people you¹ll meet.

As is clear to anyone who lives here, most young ethnic Chinese strongly
support their government¹s suppression of the recent Tibetan uprising. One
Chinese friend who has a degree from a European university described the
conflict to me as ³a clash between the commercial world and an old
aboriginal society.² She even praised her government for treating Tibetans
better than New World settlers treated Native Americans.

It¹s a rare person in China who considers the desires of the Tibetans
themselves. ³Young Chinese have no sympathy for Tibet,² a Beijing
human-rights lawyer named Teng Biao told me. Mr. Teng ‹ a Han Chinese who
has offered to defend Tibetan monks caught up in police dragnets ‹ feels
very alone these days. Most people in their 20s, he says, ³believe the Dalai
Lama is trying to split China.²

Educated young people are usually the best positioned in society to bridge
cultures, so it¹s important to examine the thinking of those in China. The
most striking thing is that, almost without exception, they feel rightfully
proud of their country¹s accomplishments in the three decades since economic
reforms began. And their pride and patriotism often find expression in an
unquestioning support of their government, especially regarding Tibet.

The most obvious explanation for this is the education system, which can
accurately be described as indoctrination. Textbooks dwell on China¹s
humiliations at the hands of foreign powers in the 19th century as if they
took place yesterday, yet skim over the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and
¹70s as if it were ancient history. Students learn the neat calculation that
Chairman Mao¹s tyranny was ³30 percent wrong,² then the subject is declared
closed. The uprising in Tibet in the late 1950s, and the invasion that
quashed it, are discussed just long enough to lay blame on the ³Dalai
clique,² a pejorative reference to the circle of advisers around Tibet¹s
spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Then there¹s life experience ‹ or the lack of it ‹ that might otherwise help
young Chinese to gain a perspective outside the government¹s viewpoint.
Young urban Chinese study hard and that¹s pretty much it. Volunteer work,
sports, church groups, debate teams, musical skills and other
extracurricular activities don¹t factor into college admission, so few
participate. And the government¹s control of society means there aren¹t many
non-state-run groups to join anyway. Even the most basic American
introduction to real life ‹ the summer job ‹ rarely exists for urban
students in China.

Recent Chinese college graduates are an optimistic group. And why not? The
economy has grown at a double-digit rate for as long as they can remember.
Those who speak English are guaranteed good jobs. Their families own homes.
They¹ll soon own one themselves, and probably a car too. A cellphone, an
iPod, holidays ‹ no problem. Small wonder the Pew Research Center in
Washington described the Chinese in 2005 as ³world leaders in optimism.²

As for political repression, few young Chinese experience it. Most are too
young to remember the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 and probably nobody has
told them stories. China doesn¹t feel like a police state, and the people
young Chinese read about who do suffer injustices tend to be poor ‹ those
who lost homes to government-linked property developers without fair
compensation or whose crops failed when state-supported factories polluted
their fields.

Educated young Chinese are therefore the biggest beneficiaries of policies
that have brought China more peace and prosperity than at any time in the
past thousand years. They can¹t imagine why Tibetans would turn up their
noses at rising incomes and the promise of a more prosperous future. The
loss of a homeland just doesn¹t compute as a valid concern.

Of course, the nationalism of young Chinese may soften over time. As college
graduates enter the work force and experience their country¹s corruption and
inefficiency, they often grow more critical. It is received wisdom in China
that people in their 40s are the most willing to challenge their government,
and the Tibet crisis bears out that observation. Of the 29 ethnic-Chinese
intellectuals who last month signed a widely publicized petition urging the
government to show restraint in the crackdown, not one was under 30.

Barring major changes in China¹s education system or economy, Westerners are
not going to find allies among the vast majority of Chinese on key issues
like Tibet, Darfur and the environment for some time. If the debate over
Tibet turns this summer¹s contests in Beijing into the Human Rights Games,
as seems inevitable, Western ticket-holders expecting to find Chinese angry
at their government will instead find Chinese angry at them.

Matthew Forney, a former Beijing bureau chief for Time, is writing a book
about raising his family in China.

Of the 29 ethnic-Chinese
intellectuals who last month signed a widely publicized petition urging the
government to show restraint in the crackdown, not one was under 30.

but he didn't tell american people that those 29 ethnic-Chinese intellectuals are NED sponsored and have no weight among 99.99% of chinese population. they must say something in order to line up with their sponsors.

the whole article is based on assumptions 1)  that tibet is an "occupied country". 2) chinese young generations are "brainwashed". based on those, the writer then laid out the article.

never a second, he challenged his assumptions.