There has never been a shortage of controversies in the news—and there’s certainly no shortage of them now, in a contemporary political atmosphere that can be accurately described as a “fiesta” more with each passing day. Topics like gun control, discrimination, immigration, drug abuse, LGBT+ rights and climate change fill the news; and next to everyone has an unwavering opinion lingering in their throats that they’re itching to shout to the world. During my years in university, I’ve made my own cases about these American-centric social problems countless times — in writing, art and social science classes. Among the ocean of headlines, however, one stood out to me as not only a topic that I have not yet had the opportunity to explore in an academic setting, but also one that hit especially close to home. My selected article, hosted on a charmingly interactive webpage, is straightforwardly and aptly named “How China’s Rules Control Society: Opportunity, Nationalism, Fear”.

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Skimming through it, I was initially pleased to discover that it presented valid criticism, separated the ideals of the government from the people victimized by the said system, and included the accounts of a variety of Chinese individuals. However, despite making a visible effort to include all sides of view and supportive facts from experts of the subject, I believe that the authors of the article—neither of which having personally experienced the system they criticize—do not achieve their likely goal of representing the situation and attitudes of Chinese citizens accurately. Their shortcomings in contextualizing the nation's perspectives, societal norms, and political history may in turn mislead their audience — a majority of which is made of college-educated, affluent residents of America; and in a contemporary age of digital information where tensions are already high between nations, anything less than well-informed transparency from news outlets could be dangerously harmful.

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The article itself is one in five parts of an ongoing series called “China Rules”, each one labelled with a short hook: “They didn’t like the West’s playbook. So they wrote their own.” Each of these pieces analyze one aspect of life in China under its current political atmosphere, and my chosen article, as one might guess from its title, largely involves the analysis and criticism of China’s educational and socio-political systems — describing how academic excellence and misconceptions about upward economic mobility is used as a form of social control for the impoverished majority of working-class people. This, I believe, is a fantastic and accurate point. The authors begin the article with a common family situation in some of the poorer regions of China — a mother hauling herself to fetch water and do the chores while her husband is far, far away working for pennies to support his family. Their child studies tirelessly in hopes that they might get into a good middle school, then high school, then into the “good class”, then into a good university, and then into a good career, thereby bringing their family wealth and honor; a grotesque effigy of the “American Dream” that has mercilessly shattered the happiness and childhoods of countless children. The authors include interviews of various people, including said mother, professors from various parts of the world and scholars of the subject, business-owners, and everyday Chinese citizens; each interview opens a new section of the article, corresponding to the “opportunity, nationalism and fear” aspects of the title. Within select primary sources, the authors include specific details to shock the reader and truly drive home how extremely desperate those seeking social mobility are; for instance, "[Qiucai] attends classes until almost 10 p.m., with only a short break on Sundays, and lives nearby in a $32-a-month apartment with his mother[...]". In between the aforementioned quotes and personal accounts, the authors also include small sections of explanation for those who are not versed on the subject. After their first source, for instance, the authors explain the Western analytical perspective on China — they believed that "Chinese people, having endured years of hardship under Mao, [...] would demand political freedoms, too" — after which, the authors go to explain that the opposite has happened, and that power is still held by an authoritarian and corrupt leader.

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The eloquent text and analyses of these varying perspectives are enriched with heart-wrenchingly high-resolution photographs of everyday life in China, complete with gray-streaked dusty walls, tiny classrooms filled with children forced to read and memorize without rest, tricked into chanting propaganda with bright smiles. Looking at these powerful, captioned pictures, I was promptly transported back to my childhood in rural Tianjin; and I’m certain that for the vast majority of readers who have never experienced a life in communist China, these pictures would pique at least some form of intrigue in the even most uncaring individuals, and strongly enforce the authors’ criticisms of China for those invested in in the article’s contents. With these choices in syntax, design and diction, the authors make an excellent appeal to the Aristotelian modes of persuasion — factual primary sources, shocking pictures and the backing of scholars and experts of the subject. Without aggressively trying to make an argument, the article tries its best to represent Chinese culture, society and education in the context of social control — and to a member of the NYTimes’ audience, likely an educated individual from the Western hemisphere, it passably does its job in giving people, who might never have experienced these circumstances, a glimpse into what life is like for some who live across the globe.

The first reason why I was drawn towards this article is likely the same reason this article was so easily accessible on the front page of the NYTimes website: due to the current political climate, the United States’ relations with China have been hurtling towards an alarming low. Among the Asian community, there have been murmurs of fear — worry that America, in its determination to hurtle down the same paths that history should have taught us never to wander down again, might see a repeat of the massacres and incarcerations inspired by misunderstanding and hatred. At the same time, this misunderstanding may intimidate those living in the Western hemisphere as well; most are under the impression that China is rising as a global socio-political power, with the most blindly patriotic folk advocating that this is in some way a danger to America. At any rate, with Trump threatening to start a trade war that experts expect will get “messy” (x), it’s no surprise that rumors about China are rampant, sometimes plastered across headlines, sometimes filled with misinformation. This article in particular was a pleasant surprise. Not only was it criticism of the Chinese government — points with which I wholeheartedly agreed — it wasn’t mindless fear-mongering; it delved deep into and tore deeply flawed systems apart, gave voice to the people who were living under said government — often under hideous conditions — and separated the victims of the system from the perpetrators instead of haphazardly slapping a label on “China” being a threat, as an unfortunate amount of American-based pieces are wont to do.

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Of course, the imminent trade-war controversy aside, this article is also extremely relevant to me, personally — as a Chinese American who had spent all but six years of her life in East and South-East Asia; it’s delightful to encounter academic work or readings involving my culture — even if not written in the most “ethical” manner — as they’re fairly few and far-between. Having grown up under the same dusty sky, in the same cramped classrooms as the children in the pictures — having watched as, having heard of so many friends and neighbors being dragged out of their houses and incarcerated for "treason," horrors for which the article's throwaway line of "few dare speak out" does no justice — I am always intrigued to find news coverage of poverty and oppression in other countries amongst news outlets, most of which are extremely America-centric.

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However, upon reading further, the article contained some broad generalizations, imprecise assumptions and sizable understatements. I have little quantitative data to support my claims — unfortunately, when one spends a decade scraping by in a destitute district of Tianjin city, properly documenting one's childhood experience for future academic analysis is rarely a priority — so I will only briefly cover some problematic claims in the article before moving on to more factually-based criticisms.

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Firstly, the authors cite Western analysts in their explanation of the one-party, authoritarian Chinese government, pointing out that Chinese people, after "having endured decades of hardship under Mao, [... should eventually] demand political freedom." While "hardships" is objectively an understatement — anyone with a hint of education, especially teachers, were pulled onto the streets and violently murdered during the Cultural Revolution; casualties are estimated at almost 100 million — it astonished me that the article did not consider the fact that a majority of the Chinese (especially those who live in poverty and are unable to get an education to learn otherwise) believe this ordeal was a great and necessary phenomenon. Mao, the spearhead of the revolution, was and is still hailed publicly as a hero — millions attended his funeral, weeping and wailing publicly in the streets while clutching his portrait. After his death, there were feeble attempts made to undo the deeply damaged nation, but a combination of propaganda and a laughably biased curriculum ensures that each generation grows up hideously susceptible to a dictatorial, tyrannical system of government.

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The authors also continually reference education as a form of social mobility — criticizing it for forcing children to go through extreme measures to get good grades, and also for killing individualism among students by telling them "not to be different" — however, it does not address that upward mobility is next to impossible for most, no matter how one studies. The authors praise an interviewee for not "cozy[ing] up to local governments to gain advantages", but mentions not one word on how it is extremely difficult to start an entrepreneurship without doing so, and that some who do not quickly grasp the unspoken practices of business in China can find themelves and their families in danger of bankruptcy at best and "mysterious disappearances" at worst. (In fact, this middle portion of the article is quite an unorganized mess, but criticism of the authors' structure is not the aim of my paper.) They proceed to briefly mention a "bamboo ceiling" that Asian Americans often face in corporate America, yet offer no explanation, context or criticism against this incredibly relevant phenomenon — the fetishization, infantilization and underestimation of Asians, especially women, in the American workplace. The images provided are given captions that are not only difficult to read, but also vague and careless — children assemble nationally in the mornings to recite propaganda and pledge their allegiance to the government, but a picture of such an assembly is labelled a “motivational speech”. And perhaps most concerning of all: neither authors seem to show any concern towards protecting their sources, plastering their full names and quotes over the article, as well as pictures of their schools, company names, and the like. Even if their subjects had somehow, due to ignorance or carelessness, directly consented to this, both authors should have practiced caution in protecting their interviewees' safety. Considering that the current Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken serious offence against being compared to cartoon character Winnie the Pooh and banned the character nationally, and that just last week an activist was executed for being pro-democracy, it is not difficult to imagine the kind of actions his party would deem necessary against a citizen who would tell an American journalist "I don't care about the leaders and the leaders don't care about me", or against a scholar who would advise the party to "[open] up and [learn] from the West".

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These qualms, of course, prompt confusion: how might an undergrad writing student be able to point out unethical inaccuracies and faults in a paper co-authored by two professional journalists from one of the world's largest news outlets? It is unfortunately rare to find professional and academic pieces written by people who have gone through the experiences they are writing about; and this article is no different — I firmly believe this is a reason for its inaccuracies. It is arguably a testament to the imprecision of the article that halfway through my reading, I immediately sought to find the authors, their names written in tiny font under the beginning quote: Amy Qin and Javier C. Hernandez. The former is a Hong Kong-based reporter who grew up in Northern California. While the site offered little to no information on the latter, some research revealed the Hispanic reporter had covered metro news in New York City until 2014, after which he moved to Beijing for the first time — it therefore seems reasonable to infer that he had not grown up in China. This was disappointing but unsurprising to me; surely when writing a five-part in-depth analysis of an entire nation — especially its education system and everyday life within impoverished regions — a massive media company like the NYTimes could do better than entrusting the job to reporters who have only experienced life in China for recent professional endeavors. And if it cannot, perhaps it needs to consider greatly expanding their employment pool for a wider variety of experiences and insights.

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The debate regarding whether one — who has not lived through a certain suffering or oppression — has the right to write about these experiences and phenomenons is not a new controversy itself; and June Jordan's (an acclaimed African American author and activist) piece "On Listening: A Good Way to Hear (1967)" explores this well by firmly criticizing Jonathan Kozol for his attempt to portray, speak for, and write from the perspective of an African American character in his book, as well as white reviewers of said book for commenting on matters they were ignorant about. Far be it from me to imply that someone who has not personally experienced a phenomenon be forbidden to explore it in writing, and I am certainly glad that both authors are people of color; but in the cases of both Jordan's book and this article, it remains a fact that perhaps the lives of people of color should be represented not as "an imagning [...], the causality of gross misrepresentation, and grist for statistical games" and be written by those who have personally experienced that which they are hired to write about.

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At any rate, as critical as I am regarding some of their shortcomings, I sincerely commend the authors for their attempt at bringing to light the unethical social control that the Chinese government is partaking in, without plastering blame on the nation's people as a whole — and, in fact, raising international awareness for the marginalized and impoverished. It's not difficult to identify the article, and the authors' intentions, as "listening rhetoric" — as defined by Booth's "Judging Rhetoric". They made a sizable effort in choosing a variety of interviewees, listened closely and observed their lives, and transparently reported the information they received — although, as aforementioned, it may have been more ethical to be less transparent about their sources' real names and addresses. I believe that the NYTimes could have selected a better set of authors, simply based on personal experience on the written matter; but as it is, I am grateful for the representation of my culture, and for the attempt at a forthright exploration of the society where I grew up in — where most of my family still resides.

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Qin and Hernandez have, doubtlessly, helped non-Chinese readers contextualize the state of the nation while raising awareness about the impoverished and oppressed citizens — the tyranny of communist China has and will hurt them before it will ever threaten the democracy of concerned Americans. And for Chinese readers who encounter this article, sitting comfortably in America — thousands of miles away from that tired gray sky, from the smell of smoke pulsing from factory chimneys, from the parents who work hours for cents, trying in futile desperation to earn their children a better life — perhaps this will serve as a remembrance of our privilege. It certainly did for me — the sobering reminder has made me more determined than ever to hone my craft in writing and rhetoric; and perhaps one day utilize it to make a difference for the people I left behind.

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After all is said and done, it is critically vital, as writers of any sort, to be aware of ethical imperfections — criticizing them when they are found in others' work, and correcting them when they are in one's own; but it is also important to discern the intent of the authors' rhetoric, to commend the written word strong enough to bring about change, and to acknowledge when a stride in the right direction is made, especially where these steps are few and far between.

 

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Works Referenced

Hernandez, Javier C. “China Censors Winnie-the-Pooh on Social Media.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 July 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/world/asia/china-winnie-the-pooh-censored.html.

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Jordan, June. “On Listening.” Civil Wars, Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Booth, Wayne C. Rhetoric of Rhetoric: The Quest for Effective Communication, by Wayne C. Booth, Blackwell Publishing, 2007

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News, WGBH, director. Youtube Video. Beat The Press: Protecting Sources, WGBH News, 12 Aug. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HFcDD6c8PE.

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Qin, Amy, and Javier C. Hernandez. “How China's Rulers Control Society: Opportunity, Nationalism, Fear.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Nov. 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/25/world/asia/china-freedoms-control.html.

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Song, Yongyi. “Chronology of Mass Killings during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).” Portail Sciences Po, 25 Aug. 2011, www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/chronology-mass-killings-during-chinese-cultural-revolution-1966-1976.

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Tang, Paul. “Chinese Mourning Mao Zedong's Death in 1976.” ChinaSMACK, 21 Dec. 2011, www.chinasmack.com/chinese-mourning-mao-zedongs-death-in-1976.

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“The Raw and Half-Cooked.” The Humanities and Public Life, by Peter Brooks and Hilary Jewett, Fordham University Press, 2014, pp. 75–82.

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Tso, Tiffany Diane. “Asian American Women Are Hitting Both a Glass Ceiling and a Bamboo Ceiling in Their Workplaces.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 8 Aug. 2018, www.slate.com/human-interest/2018/08/asian-american-women-face-a-glass-ceiling-and-a-bamboo-ceiling-at-work.html.