Changes

In 2010 and 2011, English festivals were held on this campus.  Students created exhibits and skits in English after extensive research on the Internet. To me, the young people seemed different than those I had taught in 2006, more able to explore new ideas, more willing to question their teachers. Remembering the massacre on Tiananmen Square, I wondered if China was ready for them.

 China was indeed ready, but not in the way one would hope for.  Information control, i.e., censorship, is much stronger now.  Gone are the days when Facebook was visible, and one surfed the Internet more or less freely on Google as long as one avoided search terms like “China, June 1989.” Now, one must search using Yahoo, and 80 per cent of the websites are now blocked. Officials claim this is due to “technical problems,” and many Chinese whom I talk to believe this.  There are greater restrictions on religious freedom. Soldiers patrol the Beijing Airport wielding machine guns.

The recent waves of Uighur terrorism provide the government with a ready excuse for the crackdown, but the actual reasons are more insidious.  Much of the Chinese population has become well educated and cognizant of world issues.  There is less tolerance for authoritarian rule. Not all regions and ethnic minorities participate in the current prosperity. This government remains very strong and is determined to stay in power.

I tell myself I’m helping by teaching students to reason and analyze propaganda. A Chinese colleague, a veteran of the Cultural Revolution thinks is like tilting at wind mills. “Bringing this government down will take more than critical thought,” he said. I believe in the power of ideas, and I hope he is wrong. But this man knows China far better than I.