China Meiguo

As China's economy has grown to be the second largest in the world, the media in the United States has paid greater attention to China and Americans are slowly becoming slightly more aware of China. However, after living in China for a while, on top of several visits prior to that and reading dozens of books about China, I realize that a lot of what Americans (and other Westerners) think we know about China isn't completely accurate (and is sometimes completely inaccurate). One thing that I find amusing are all the so-called (and usually self-proclaimed) China experts that keep cropping up in the media. The latest I've come across is actor Richard Gere. In an article entitled "Richard Gere Labels China the Largest Hypocrisy in the World," Gere labeled China "the largest hypocrisy in the world right now." Exactly how he came to that determination or what evidence he has to support it is unclear. I've lived most of my life in America, but the past few years in China and to be honest, I see hypocrisy in both places in somewhat differing ways, but maybe not to a dramatically differing extent. 

Gere also remarked: "China is a very difficult place to live if you are a free thinker, if you are an artist, if you are a religious person, but especially in Tibet." I consider myself to be a fairly free thinker and I haven't found my freedom of thought to be overly inhibited in China (although if I were to make statements highly critical of the Chinese government or advocate issues against China's interests, I might draw a little attention). From my experience talking to Chinese people, the vast majority don't seem to think freedom of expression is a major problem. Maybe they're somewhat conditioned to think that way or they have different ideas of the types of expression that should be allowed, but I'm not so sure Richard Gere is the authority to tell them otherwise.

Just what qualifies Gere to make these sweeping judgments in the first place? Well, maybe he spent many years in China observing all the hypocrisy he speaks of? Actually, it seems he only visited China once in 1993 to attend a film award show. Hhmm, I'm sure he got a completely clear and unbiased perspective about a huge nation with over 1.3 billion people from doing that. But there's more to Gere's qualifications - he's also a Buddhist and fan of the Dalai Lama. To me, there's nothing wrong with either of these things, but I'm not sure how that gives Gere any basis to make such generalized statements about a country that he otherwise may know little about. And while I admire some of the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the fact that Gere is a fan gives him an inherent bias since for various reasons the Dalai Lama hasn't had the best relationship with the Chinese government.

Clearly, there have been serious problems between the Chinese government and Tibet, but the roots of some of these problems go back for centuries and are probably much more complicated than people like Gere want to portray them. If Gere wants to voice his opinion, that's ok, but I hope people listening to him will consider the source and rather than blindly accepting inflammatory statements, think freely for themselves and try to become a bit more educated before accepting them as truth.