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By Philip Moore
Class of 2016
Many of the blogs that my class has written focused on either the similarities or differences of China and the United States. While culturally China is vastly different, many of the things we do each day have a resemblance to our lives in the US. However, yesterday, I felt as if China was an alternate reality. We went to Tiananmen Square and were ambushed by Chinese men trying to sell us trinkets like watches, cards, and fans, which is a pretty common activity at tourist sites. This location was different though; each of these items featured Mao. When we looked over at the Forbidden City, the focal point of the Square, we saw a portrait of Mao, and when we turned in the opposite direction, we faced Mao’s mausoleum. This day presented a great contrast to my previous experience of China. During the first few weeks, I was repeatedly surprised by how open China was. When we were in class, we were encouraged to ask the Chinese students questions, and they also had questions for us. To me, it felt like a very free dialogue, and while no controversial questions were presented, we did speak on both the Chinese and American political system. I started to become comfortable and not worry as much about government censorship. I was encouraged to think that China has become more open and that individuals were given more freedoms. While there were still signs like not being able to access Facebook or Google, they were more just inconveniences rather than strict government regulation.That whole perspective changed during the day in Tiananmen. The Square was covered with police, both in and out of uniform, and surveillance was at the highest level I have seen it. There were various checkpoints along the way, and they prohibited people from bringing in a laundry list of items. At Tiananmen, China is a police state, and it represents the true fragility of China and the government’s fear of civil unrest. While day-to-day, everything is fine, and the China I have seen does not show many problems. Much pressure is buried beneath the surface, and the question remains will China remain dormant or will it erupt into a revolution against Mao and the atrocities that he committed against the Chinese people. It is a very delicate balance between the Chinese that see Mao as a demi-god and those that still remember the persecution and starvation family members and friends.
Perhaps, the most revealing element of Tiananmen though is not the portrait, the mausoleum, or the monuments to past soldiers; instead, it is found across the street. That illuminator is the Chinese National Museum, and in my opinion, it holds a key to understanding the Chinese government. From my experience, I believe that museum is meant to a symbol to the Chinese people of the Chinese identity. When it was being renovated, the architects ensured that it would become the largest museum in the world and only built it marginally bigger than the MET in New York City. In this sense, it shows the Chinese government’s focus on scale and worrying more about being bigger than being better. It was renovated before the Beijing Olympic Games, which was China’s debut in the international world, and this time frame also highlights the importance of the building for the government. In many ways, the Chinese government have wanted to engineer a nationalistic culture for its people; I will provide two examples to detail this point. First, China has an obsession with the Old Silk Road as the glory years of China, and relating this back to the National Museum, the bottom floor is dedicated to Ancient China, and many rooms feature China’s prowess during the time of the Silk Road. This obsession has become a driving force to create a New Silk Road in central and western Asia as part of its One Belt foreign policy platform. While the emphasis seems to be on energy, the economy, and security of the region, I see it a political maneuver to remind the Chinese of their great cultural history; however, it seems to lack feasibility in its current stage. Secondly, an exhibition titled “The Road of Rejuvenation” might be the most troubling. It is a combination of photos and text that illustrate China’s development since the 1800s. There is only one photograph with a very small text that discusses the Cultural Revolution or the great famine under Mao’s reign. It provides a very clear message that the Chinese government wishes to manipulate its history and how people remember Mao. It is afraid and unwilling to promote a free discussion of the horrors that occurred under Maoist China, and this propaganda has helped foster Mao’s status as a demi-god. While Mao might be dead, he still has a powerful effect on the government’s policies as they continue to use his fear tactics to threaten dissidents and prevent widespread understanding of the beginning of the Communist Party. It remains to be seen if the Chinese people will continue to allow the government to portray Mao in this manner and suppress their voices. Besides suppression, it does appear that President Xi Jinping is working toward the creation of the Chinese dream to idealize the progress of his country over the last 60 years, and it seems to be meant to stabilize the Chinese middle class as they recognize that vast improvements have been made
economically.
Philip Moore, of Louisville, Ky., is a senior McConnell Scholar studying economics, political science, Spanish and international business.