This was originally posted on blogger.

I’ve been traveling in China for about a month, and have a couple weeks more in the country. Surprisingly, most people are willing to talk politics, in a large, outdoor space. It’s fascinating getting people’s opinions, and I have some of my own at the end of this post.

• A doorman in Lijiang, Yunnan calls out “hello!” to me in English. I answer in English, to the groaning of my friends who know I speak Chinese. I ask the man, “you are Japanese?” Obviously he is Chinese (it’s my idea of a joke). He says, “NOOO! I HATE JAPANESE”. He asks my friends Leon and Catherine to translate for him (they reply by telling him that I actually speak Chinese just fine). “Do you know about the Rape of Nanjing?” Then he explains that Japan fucked up China in World War II, and he hopes that America, great America, will launch another bomb on their homeland.
• On a hike, the Tiger Leaping Gorge, also in Yunnan. A man asks where I’m from, and I respond saying America in Chinese. He tells me something like this… “America is a great country. Actually, America has helped China a great deal. China was small and vulnerable before, a hundred years ago, but America lifted China up. It is to America that we owe lots of thanks. It is a pity, now, in the media environment, that the news outlets are out to criticize Japan and America. They want to paint an enemy.”
• At lunch on a group day trip. Emboldened by friends sitting nearby, I ask a man at our table: What do you think of America? “You want my honest thoughts?” Yes, of course. You will get my honest thoughts in return. “America is a a young, immature country. You see, China has 5,000 years of magnificent history. And the US? You have not even three hundred years.” I respond, if you are going to count age, you ought to use the same way of counting for both countries. The American system of government is 250 years old, the Chinese Communist Party is only 75 years old. So that makes the US several times older than China. (my American friends nod in assent). The man says, “No, I am talking about civilization. Civilization in China is 5,000 years old.” I tell him, but America has a vast history of indigenous peoples. You think that is not civilized?
• In Chengdu, I bump into a mob of college students trying to get photos of a celebrity (Karry Wang) leaving his residence. I talk to three college seniors, engineering majors. They are quite interested in American politics, and all have VPNs so they can get around the Chinese firewall. They ask me, “Do you support Donald Trump or Joe Biden? Isn’t it hard to choose between a liar and an old man?” Trump is a bigot and I don’t like him at all. I am with the Democrats. “So you just hate Trump, and would vote whomever the Democrats nominate,” they say, in a nod of recognition. I say basically, yes. Can I ask you some questions? You don’t live in a democracy. Isn’t it bad that more and more power goes to Xi Jinping? Don’t you feel like fighting back and making a truly democratic system? They say, “We have a form of democracy, we have representatives, but it is not one person, one vote like in the US. However, do you have real democracy? You say you don’t want to vote for either candidate, but you are forced to choose Joe Biden. So that is the same for us and Xi Jinping. And besides, we are happy with life in China. If there were a problem, we would revolt (well, maybe not us, but someone would). The system works, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I first went to China in 2019. That was a great experience, and I still have some good friends from that trip where I taught English at a summer camp, and went about for a week or two. I also went in July, 2023, by which point my Chinese had vastly improved. I also noticed certain things about China at that point: the immense proliferation of electric vehicles, the fantastic public transport systems, the safety and cleanliness of the streets.

This trip has been my most in-depth and about what I expected. The points about transport and public spaces remain true. Additionally, I’ve noticed that cost of living is remarkably cheap, including eating nice noodle, buying fresh fruit, and staying in a hotel (for context, I’m staying in Chengdu, a city of 20 million people, in a hostel for about 6 USD a night and spend about 10 USD a day on food). Oh, and also the payment system and transport cards within cities are entirely done via. scanning a QR code with your mobile phone. This is slightly annoying, if you’re like me and don’t like getting out your phone, but it avoids frictions eg. getting change on a public bus. And it means that shops literally just need a WeChat/Alipay account and a QR code for secure transactions.

The throughline of these strengths I believe is strong state capacity. The government in China – for all the foreign critiques – gets shit done. It builds high speed rail, it subsidizes EV, it makes housing a priority (after 1 month here, I can count the number of homeless people I’ve seen on one hand). The government (I assume) partners with companies like Alipay (which does payments and public bikes) and Didi (the Chinese Uber) and cTrip, the railway booking service. Or, these big businesses are so huge they act like public infrastructure for other businesses around the country.

Another strength of China is the national pride. In cafes and restaurants, you hear 95% of the time Chinese Mandarin locally grown music. Chinese people seem to buy into the fiction that the CCP has created. The fiction that China is great, that there is 5,000 years of history, that democracy in America has brought havoc and school shootings, that Taiwan will join the PRC in due time. I’m skeptical of these narratives, but they bring pride and meaning for people living here. After all, most people in China are stuck being Chinese, so they might as well be happy about it. Sort of a Brave New World-esque situation.

So in conclusion, China has a lot to admire about it. The housing and mass transit is a dream for liberal activists in the US, and I daresay there’s a lot we can learn from. I do think the nationalism and internal media landscape is a downside. But in general, the Western media landscape is certainly skewed against China, and rarely appreciates the strengths of the political system here. There should be some pressure on China to liberalize its politics, but also a healthy appreciation for what they’ve done for 1.4 billion people.