Playing with the fire of Chinese self-determination

“I will be angry if someone lists Hong Kong or Taiwan as a country ….” plainly said my colleague. I saw him getting pretty outraged. I tell you, One China policy is a very intricate topic to raise during a lunch break with my PRC colleagues, despite they are academics and educated people not living in PRC.

I am not writing “Chinese colleagues”; I have been doing this service to PRC government for ages, like many other westerners. We lump all Chinese to one Chinese bag which in today language means Public Republic of China (PRC) no matter if they have anything to do with PRC government nowadays.

Take Singaporeans. Noone here really likes to be called Chinese; it somehow implicates PRC. Around 77% of Singaporeans are of Chinese origin and arrived 100 years ago, or more. These people are Chinese but have hardly anything to do with PRC. Many of them don’t even speak Chinese, and if they do then not Mandarin but Hokkien. There was actually an appeal of PRC among Chinese Singaporeans in 1950s/60s, this eventually subsided after later revelations about the Great Chinese Famine after 1980. Surprisingly, the recent rise of China seem not to impress Singaporeans so much.

But it is very different in other countries where Chinese are a minority (although often a significant minority) — countries like Australia, Thailand, or Spain. A Chinese there is considered PRC Chinese and is treated as such. Despite he or she has lived in the country since 19th century. PRC government has good share of responsibility in this, in fact it is the ultimate PR move of PRC.

In fact, it is the the ultimate PR move of PRC.

Back home in the Czech republic, all East Asian are called “Chinese“— Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc. The ridiculous fact is that while we have only tiny Chinese minority we have a significant community of Viets.

Around 20% of university students in Australia are PRC (I was a little lazy to get the precise number with good source, I’ve read numbers ranging from 15% to 25%, in any way it’s pretty high number). Recently there have been clashes between the PRC students and the universities. In four incidents, PRC students recorded their professors denying in some way One China policy and these recording then became viral in Chinese media and this put pressure on the universities to give an apology and even involve the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs. This stirred an anti-Chinese discussion in Australia and made the locals turn their back on Chinese.

No surprise that Australians are suspicious about Chinese nowadays. Is Australia becoming China’s puppet state? Australia has had pretty delicate relationship with China. China is a huge customer for Australian natural resources and its food products — there is almost 1.5 billion Chinese and only 24 million Australians. Chinese population doubled in last 15 years to 1.2 million according to latest census in 2016. Also, China has made huge investments within Australia. And Australians are obviously worried about all these influences of PRC. Unfortunately, the Chinese who have been in Australia for more than century are also suffering from this.

Coming back to my PRC colleagues. I see the rise of the need to distinguish PRC Chinese and Chinese by origin. Survey in Hong Kong done in 1997 and 2017 if they see themselves as Hong Kongers or Chinese among young generation. Only 68 percent saw themselves as Hong Kongers in 1997 while in 2017 it was 93.7%.

From my experience, it is very different to interact with a Hong Konger and a PRC Chinese. Their world opinions are very different; I blame this on PRC schooling system impacted by the propagandist thoughts.

I always had troubles to get my mind around the One China Policy. But I think I understand now. I don’t think it is a cultural thing for all the Chinese to stick together, but it has been (very clever) move of PRC to unite all Chinese under one flag/government/nation state. And PRC often acts internationally like it owns all the Chinese around the world. They used the Century of Humiliation to make feel all Chinese as victims. We suffer as a nation not as an individual. We suffer, we are innocent. We suffer, we don’t have any responsibility.

It has allowed PRC to exploit Chinese almost as slaves working long hours for low salaries while closing their eyes on human rights violations. Meanwhile blaming the rest of the world for this exploitation. If a Chinese is working for a low salary it is not mistake of the Chinese who is employing him.

And I must admit it has been a success. China has grown, took many people out of poverty, and Xi Jinping might be very well the most powerful man in the world now. But for what price?

One take away thought. All Chinese are not PRC Chinese. Those who grew up in PRC have rather different values and have been hugely manipulated by the regime’s education system. We should not lump them together.