Control

Despite the obvious fact that I observe every day the rigidly regimented and conformist nature of this society, it never ceases to surprise me the lengths the government will go to in order to stifle any sort of "unrest." In reality, this "unrest" is what we might refer to as freedom of speech, or the pursuit of justice. For instance, one might seek compensation for property destroyed in a natural disaster, or taken by the state for reasons of imminent domain, etc. One might seek legal dispute resolution, or perhaps protest against corrupt officials in one's hometown. These small issues, when brought before the government in large numbers, are simply too many to handle, and protests of this nature must simply be crushed en masse.

And then, of course, there are issues like separatism in Tibet and Xinjiang, freedom of religion, the Falun Gong, media censorship, etc. These large-scale, high-visibility issues generate many protests, all harshly stifled. For instance, read this article about protests in Tibet in anticipation of the 50-year anniversary of the Dalai Lama going into exile, and the state of martial law that has been imposed in most of Western China. Next, read about the "black jails" that exist in Beijing for the express purpose of illegally and silently detaining any would-be protesters for indefinite lengths of time. Note that these jails generally hold people who are looking to solve small problems. "The party official of our town is extortionist;" "I lost 10 mu of land when the local government decided to build a new dam;" etc. However, the government can't afford to have issues like these raised on are large scale--they are simply too numerous and would crush the system with their weight if all were filed and heard. I think it's most interesting that these detention centers were most robust at the time of the Olympics. It just reinforces the fact that the face China showed the rest of the world during August 2008 truly was a farce, brilliantly organized (to the last detail) and perfectly executed (to the last man--no pun intended). It artfully concealed completely the less appealing aspects of society and the problems boiling just below the surface in this nation of 1.4 billion and rising.

My point is that this is a modern society in so many respects, or at least one that in almost all aspects is rushing to catch up (and surpass) the rest of the world. So it is so baffling and frightening to realize the level of control exerted by the government on everything, great and small, and the absolute powerlessness of the people to act--or even think--out of line.