Dear Tony,
Happy Fourth of July! Celebrating the birth of a country founded on the principles of freedom as a Christian-God given right to all white, land-owning, educated English colonialist men in America in the 18th century.
It’s important in today’s narrative to address that America was never perfect in giving rights to all humans equally. It’s a founding principle that we are still extending to many groups and we aren’t even close. [Native Americans Tribes are still consistently swept aside in the conversation.]
Look. We’re not perfect. We are working on it, and I sincerely believe the Millennial and Gen Z generations will oversee massive steps towards to equality, social justice, and necessarily environmental sustainability.
But it’s also important for a global context of our struggles.
Traveling in China has once again reiterated this to me:
China is a totalitarian government.
And it’s scary. It’s scary how well it works. It’s scary how effective they are. It’s horrifically terrifying in a Black Mirror sort of way how accepting the people are of the realities of the situation. And collectively it makes for a stark reality that in 2019 an entire 1.7 BILLON people are under the whim of a few hundred Party members.
See let me outline: First there is a Chinese Identification card. This card is given by the Government and identifies people with a number, photo, and fingerprints.
This card must be present at buying nearly anything official; train/plane/bus tickets, loans, hotels, highway tolls, opening bank accounts, tours, government business, moving, housing, etc.
It’s also linked to your bank account and your cell phone.
And both of those are linked to your mobile pay and social media applications.
Then there are the cameras; lined 8 in a row, every four hundred meters on the roads; including the sidewalks. Subway stations, stores, banks, staircases, parks, museums, everywhere. They flash, either taking pictures or warning you that they are powered. They compile massive stores of facial recognition data.
Shutter as that facial recognition is able to pay your bills, identify your address, affirm that you are who you say you are at check points.
Watch bus advertisements for the security forces.
Obey airport level security checks for all bags, all waters, all persons as you enter nearly anything of official importance, including subways and monuments.
Scoff at the ridiculous display of man power with human soldiers on guard duty. All the puffiness of British guard shifts with none of the cultural or historical significance. Merely another show in a long line of power displays.
And then despair when you realize this system isn’t unique to China, it’s just the most in your face. It’s where the tools all advance governments have are displayed in their final forms; abrupt and used excessively; not only as a way to “keep summer safe” but also as a deterrent to even try. A reminder that the power does not rest in the individual but entirely in the state. That you are tracked too closely to warrant even attempting to step out of line. They know. They will know. They will make your life hell for even trying.
There is no freedom here. There is safety; your fellow man is not going to rape you or murder you. The cameras know too much to get away with a heinous crime like that.
Yet something is strange; the idea that everything is safe only because the biggest bully is keeping it safe.
And that might be the reminder that the People’s Republic of China wants you to know.
As a foreigner you are mostly except from the system. Your passport is a poor replacement for the identification card that all citizens are mandated to carry. But it also bars you from the mobile payment system, card and mobile scanning, and many other conveniences.
This is a brave new world, as power-driven as Oceania but with people as accepting and oblivious as in Fahrenheit 451.
It’s working. But Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong show there’s still hope yet.
Tony. America still has a long way to go to fulfill the ideals that our Founding Fathers conceived but couldn’t comprehend.
But at least we’re trying. At least we can protest, we can vote, we have art and media and music and the free internet to show our voice. When that voice gets loud, we celebrate it instead of monitoring it or putting it in a black jail, never to be heard again.
[Ask Ai WeiWei, the Dali Llama, the Nobel Laureate, Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia]
China [and Russia to an extent] are trying to change the geopolitical landscape. Their systems are effective, powerful, and dystopian. As America shrinks back on its alliances and its global influence; China is stepping in. The world is changing and fast.
The Party is using its power and wealth to build spheres of influence with shady economic deals around the world. Using their massive market and global power to essentially dominate trade agreements. A new age colonialism bound by economics and law contracts instead of outright war and military domination.
But this is should not be the time of Pax Middle Kingdom. We cannot let a totalitarian system rise so high; on the backs of people who are so merely content.
Tony, I believe in America. Her promise has been golden to millions of immigrants; my parents being one of them and I the unworthy recipient of their hard work. We have hope; I have hope. Younger people all over the world are becoming more global, more active, smarter. We can build a new world. But first, we must remember where we come from; what we’re fighting; and exactly how bad it is everywhere else.
Happy Fourth! Enjoy the holiday, the time off! I will try to find some BBQ!
Winston
[P.S. Fun side note: no photos because all my photos are on Google, and I can’t access them without a VPN; making downloading and uploading very difficult!]
