say no to china bashing and blindly supporting china!
Here is my bias: my parents came from Taiwan, a small democratic island nation off the cost of China. My ancestors were the "yams," the people that had lived on Taiwan since the early days of colonization and were probably around when the Dutch were in Taiwan and it was called Formosa. If I lived in Taiwan, I'd be 10th generation Taiwanese, which is a lot more Taiwanese then most Americans are American. Thus, my ancestors weren't treated so nicely by the Guomingtang people and don't especially like them. But of course, we don't like China even more. I am biased against China, though I try to defend the country against xenophobes I sometimes find in UA.
While studying in ESL, I've had many interesting experiences. One of them was political debating. In ESL, it's easier to find people with primary loyalties towards countries other than the US. A few months ago, I had a conversation with two Chinese boys (born in China, immigrated to the US). It was primarily about whether Japan should be a permanant member of the UN Security Council, but the issue of the Japanese textbooks slowly whitewashing what the Japanese did to the Chinese during WWII was brought up. There were also anti-Japan protests in China at the time. I was reading news websites and talking about how Japan should be a permanant council member. I'd also like to say that I have serious issues with what Japan did in WWII, but I don't believe that China has moral superiority either (i.e. work camps for dissidents). I don't believe any country is morally superior over all. The two boys didn't seem to understand my argument that China was in no way morally superior to Japan, and one of them was just spouting rhetoric about how China was a rising power.
My paradigm
1) I recognize that China will someday surpass the US in some areas
2) I loathe what the Japanese did
3) I loathe China's current human rights record
4) I believe that the Security Council doesn't reflect world power
Japan is the second largest GDP. China will someday surpass Japan, the boys argued, but I argued back that we're talking about now. One of the boys mentioned that if Japan entered the council, it would always support the US. By that time, I was totally baffled by the nationalism I was sensing in the two, and couldn't come up with anything else to say. If you're wondering, I believe that Japan wouldn't always support the US.
I don't like China's government. I've made that clear. But I have to wonder if it's possible for a Chinese and Taiwanese to argue about international politics without getting emotion in the way. I've softened on my anti-China stance as I've grown older, but I just can't see how someone could unabashedly love the country. It's probably because I wasn't born there, and as a result, I see the two Chinese boys as completely and utterly brainwashed. Nationalism affects people, and more than I thought. I had wanted to give people credit for being able to recognize something when evidence when it's put in front of them, but I hadn't anticipated that I'd be completely blocked out.