What China Taught Me About Authoritarianism
Lessons from across the Pacific
In the fall of 2004, I was living in Lianyungang, China and working as an English teacher when George W. Bush was re-elected president. I was already in a sour mood about this when one day I walked into the faculty lounge and found Cindy, one of my Chinese colleagues, sitting on the sofa.
“How can Americans be so stupid?” she asked me. It was a rhetorical question. “You elected this horrible man as president, and then again? So stupid. Stupid!”
Of course, I didn’t disagree. But the idea that a Chinese person from a dictatorship would lecture an American from a democracy about politics was too much for me to bear.
“Well,” I said. “At least we had a choice!”
Bam! But Cindy only shrugged. I wonder what she thinks now.
The early 2000s was an era of democratic triumphalism in the United States, and the conventional wisdom then was that dictatorships were relics of the past. Political scientists believed that once a country grew wealthy enough, it would inevitably seek democratization. China would be no different. Plus, anyone could see that the country was booming. Even in sleepy Lianyungang, construction cranes dotted the sky and big black luxury vehicles cruised through the streets.
My boss, a New Zealander living in Beijing, advised me to avoid discussing the three “T’s” with my students: Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen. Everything else was fair game. And my students had a lot to say, it turned out. They had opinions about China’s then-president, the wooden and uncharismatic Hu Jintao, and would complain about local leadership. Moreover, everyone at the school had been aware of the recent U.S. presidential election and understood, more or less, how our political system worked.
But it didn’t mean that they harbored democratic aspirations for their own country. What my Chinese students, colleagues, and friends instead envied was America’s wealth. When I asked people which country they most wanted to emulate, they chose autocratic Singapore, not, say, Japan or South Korea.1 Their notion of liberty was less about freedom of speech and multi-party elections than in the ability to travel abroad and access foreign goods and services.
I don’t mean to slight the very real population of dissidents in China, who have shown more bravery than I can even imagine. And it certainly isn’t true that mainland Chinese people are docile. It was not uncommon to see protests during my years in China, typically against local corruption. Even in the Xi Jinping era, which, by all accounts, is far more repressive than the period before it, many Chinese people spoke out against the government’s draconian Zero Covid policies in 2022 at great personal risk.
But it just isn’t the case that most, or even many, Chinese people oppose Communist Party rule on democratic principles. Like people elsewhere in the world, the ones I met were far more concerned with whether their lives were getting better or not under the present government. And it was hard to argue with the CCP’s decades-long record of continual economic growth and no war.
I’ve been thinking about China a lot lately as the United States slides further into authoritarianism. Many Americans are watching with astonishment as President Trump and his consigliere Elon Musk dismantle the federal government, eliminate the professional civil service, and threaten independent media. One of our two co-equal branches of government, Congress, has abdicated its duty to check the president’s power grab. The judiciary, on the other hand, has issued several rulings against the Trump administration — but it seems unlikely that the president will abide by them. If he doesn’t, then the concept of separation of powers, a foundation of our constitution, will have completely collapsed.
So what might stop this? A sustained revolt by the mass public appears to be the only answer. But while Trump is doing this term vastly exceeds anything he attempted in his first term2 , the public’s reaction has been relatively muted. And the reason is that elite concern about institutions, norms, and procedures simply isn’t shared by ordinary Americans. During Trump’s first term, while the mainstream media obsessed over his appalling behavior in office and personal corruption, the American public provided Trump with his lowest approval ratings only when he attempted to gut Obamacare.
No one pays me for political strategy. But if I were asked for my opinion, I would advise opposition politicians in America to focus on the outcomes rather than the process. Trump’s dismantling of the civil service is, in my opinion, a terrible decision, but it won’t make political noise until it results in a tangible failure felt by the population. Otherwise, Trump’s supporters will conclude that this was just another hysterical overreaction by an elite class who can afford to care so much about high-minded principles.
Personally, I think more people should care about our system of government, and the fact that they don’t reflects a failure by our education system to teach fundamental American values.3 There used to be a shared understanding in the United States that our democracy was something to be proud of, and that our position as the “leader of the free world” was a core part of our national identity.
Now, that seems to have disappeared. The Trump administration seems to think that the public will rally around an imperialist adventure like annexing Greenland or recapturing the Panama Canal, and perhaps they’re right. People are looking for something to cheer for nowadays. But I don’t think that’s quite the same as the deep, national pride which used to exist in this country.
What do we stand for now? What are we defending? These questions used to be easy to answer. No more.
And that’s an area where America has lost ground to China. Ordinary people took evident pride in China’s rise from poverty and isolation and status as one of the world’s superpowers. During my years there, the lead item in the news, night after night, was the president expanding China’s diplomatic reach, forming alliances, establishing relationships, and tending to the country’s image. Chinese people have a confidence in their government that used to be commonplace here.
I don’t hold a lot of hope that Americans will rise up to defend governing institutions against Trump’s onslaught. But I do hope that more of us will feel a deep sense of embarrassment over this administration’s desecration of our country’s ideals — because they, ultimately, have to endure.
Lest you think this was a product of some Orientalist obsession with materialism, I found the same phenomenon when, years later, I asked hundreds of Saudi Arabians the same question. Their answer was always Dubai.
Up until January 6, of course.
This is an old man take, I know. But it’s not wrong!