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Why Chinese students in the US don’t support Hong Kong protesters

Inkstone

發布於 2019年09月20日13:09
Graduates wave Chinese national flags during a commencement ceremony at Columbia University in New York.
Graduates wave Chinese national flags during a commencement ceremony at Columbia University in New York.

Brian Shan says the way he views the world has been reshaped since he arrived in the United States to study seven years ago.

The 30-year-old Beijing native, working on a PhD in materials engineering at an Ivy League university, has come to accept that same-sex marriage is no different from men marrying women.

He gets news from both CNN and China's state-backed People's Daily and uses social media platforms both within and beyond China's Great Firewall.

His broad exposure to US culture has changed him in many ways: the biggest personal shift came in 2013, Shan said, when he became religious.

Even so, Shan doesn't support the Hong Kong protesters, whose months-long anti-government demonstrations have developed into a wider pro-democracy movement.

"Those who are brainwashed are them (Hong Kong protesters). They think they need democracy, but what they really need is to have a better life," said Shan, who became emotional when recalling a recent spat with a church friend over Hong Kong.

A pro-Beijing rally at Columbia University in New York on September 13.
A pro-Beijing rally at Columbia University in New York on September 13.

"If they can live a better life, who would bother to go on streets?" he asked.

In the censored cyberspace of the mainland, Hong Kong protesters are portrayed as rioting extremists, with state media coverage mostly focusing on vandalism as well as the damage done to the city's economy and reputation.

Perhaps surprisingly, many Chinese students overseas " even those with unlimited access to the internet who can read full coverage of the Hong Kong protests " still oppose them.

No comprehensive study has been conducted to determine the attitudes overseas Chinese hold about the Hong Kong protests. But at pro-Hong Kong rallies in Canada, Australia and Britain, overseas Chinese students have tried to voice their support for Beijing or shout down demonstrators.

The sentiment is also found on American campuses, too. Nathan Law, a Hong Kong democracy activist, arrived at Yale University this fall to pursue a master's degree in East Asian studies, only to become a target of online harassment.

On Friday at Columbia University in New York, after Joshua Wong, one of the key student activists in the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, finished a panel discussion to rally support for the protesters, several students stood up and sang China's national anthem to show their support for Beijing.

Social media critics of pro-Beijing students often dismiss them as "brainwashed" by Chinese propaganda or a predictable result of Beijing's long-arm influence. But the reasons, the pro-Beijing students say, run deeper.

If you grow up in mainland China for the past 20 years, you probably do think the economy is more important than politicsMatt Sheehan, author of The Transpacific Experiment

Their views reflect not only how they regard Hong Kong but, more importantly, how they view China " especially its political system and economic model, both of which are seen to be at odds with their Western counterparts.

Five mainlanders studying in the US interviewed by the South China Morning Post accepted the Hong Kong protests as a form of free expression " though four of them stressed a non-negotiable bottom line: that Hong Kong was and would always be part of China.

There are things they don't like about China " in particular, the state's censorship and the need to use a VPN to gain access to the internet outside the Great Fire Wall " but none of the five think the US governmental model is superior.

And three of the five, who range in age from 21 to 32, said that political stability is the most important value because it is the foundation for economic prosperity " and without economic prosperity there is no hope for other individual rights.

The students' preoccupation with economic concerns also raises doubts about a presumption American academics and policymakers have long relied upon: that once Chinese students are free to read and talk, once they learn the critical thinking skills offered by American education, they will be aware of the political repression in their home country.

For example, at a forum this summer in Washington, Marie Royce, an assistant Secretary of State, said she saw the 360,000 Chinese students in the US as having a bigger role to play than in purely economic terms.

"From a foreign relations standpoint, the friendships that are formed, the values shared and the networks created are even more important than the economic contributions of these Chinese students," she said.

But China's rapid rise as the world's second-largest economy has made a new breed of this younger generation of overseas students.

The 2018 Purdue Survey of Chinese Students and Scholars in the United States shows that 48% of roughly 1,000 respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that "China's current political system is the most suitable one for China."

That's up from 2016, when the survey result was 43%.

And a third of the responding Chinese students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that "social order is more important than individual freedom."

About 20% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, significantly lower than the 30% in 2016.

"If you grow up in mainland China for the past 20 years, you probably do think the economy is more important than politics," said Matt Sheehan, the author who has written about Chinese students in the US.

'I support their right of expression, but I don't support what they expressed,' one mainland student in the US said.
'I support their right of expression, but I don't support what they expressed,' one mainland student in the US said.

"What you have noticed the most in the past two decades are rapid economic changes. And the economic changes are mostly positive.

"In my experience talking to Chinese students on campus, the bigger change after arriving in the US is personal freedom " a life no longer dictated by their parents."

"Political freedom, such as freedom of speech, comes as a lower priority," Sheehan said.

To be sure, many mainland students in the US support Hongkongers exercising their free-speech rights.

But because of the increasing divide on the protests among overseas Chinese " and after unfollowing friends on social media and quarreling with families back in China " many have learned not to take a stand publicly on the issue.

One interviewee who declined to be named said she admired Hongkongers for their bravery in shouting their demands in the face of authority.

The Post interviewees sympathetic to the protesters declined to be named, worrying that their views could anger Beijing and lead to repercussions when they return to China.

But those who are pro-Beijing were also reluctant to disclose their identities, concerned about attracting attention that could result in trouble like visa denials " something increasingly common as the US government regards Chinese students and scholars with growing suspicion.

Five chapters of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at prominent American universities, including Harvard and Yale, did not respond to interview requests concerning the Hong Kong protests.

A high school student in Hong Kong holds a banner in support of anti-government protesters on September 19.
A high school student in Hong Kong holds a banner in support of anti-government protesters on September 19.

The mainlanders the Post interviewed felt the trigger of the protests was not the extradition bill, which has since been withdrawn, but the life challenges faced by Hong Kong's youth: low-paying jobs and unaffordable housing.

But the interviewees said they could not understand why the protesters were apparently trying to solve an economic problem through political means.

"I support their right of expression, but I don't support what they expressed," said Wang, an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who would only agree to give his surname.

"Their demand of universal suffrage already equals a call for independence, which completely crosses the line," Wang said, adding that his attitude towards the Hong Kong demonstrators has changed from sympathy to antipathy over the long summer of protests.

"Also, no economic prosperity can come with political turmoil."

Unlike older generations of Chinese students in the US, who struggled financially and experienced the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square crackdown or other dark moments of China's recent history, this new generation arrives in America largely better off and at much younger ages.

A pro-China supporter in Hong Kong is escorted out of a shopping mall by police while waving a Chinese national flag on September 18.
A pro-China supporter in Hong Kong is escorted out of a shopping mall by police while waving a Chinese national flag on September 18.

Indeed, most undergraduates were born after Hong Kong's handover to Beijing in 1997 and they don't understand the city's post-handover frustrations.

For many, Hong Kong is no different from other major Chinese cities except that its residents can use Instagram without a VPN.

The rapid emergence of China as a strong economic, military and political power has also boosted students' confidence about China's development model, which is increasingly no longer seen, at least in China, as inferior to the Western model championed by the US.

Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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