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Thursday 9 February 2012

Authoritarian? China’s not a patch on Britain

The People’s Republic of China seems to be morphing into a New Labour-style nanny state, says Brendan O’Neill. But at least the Chinese stand up to their regime

The 60th birthday celebrations of the People’s Republic of China seemed to confirm that, for all its embrace of Western-style capitalism, China remains a faraway place where they do things differently. Can you imagine young female soldiers in powder-blue mini-skirts and go-go boots goose-stepping through the streets of London? Or 8,000 soldiers marching in military precision followed by 500 tanks and 18 vehicles showcasing brand-new giant nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles? Poor Brown can barely raise a smile among delegates at his annual party conference. Yet as China’s 60th birthday celebrations began, there was President Hu Jintao speaking authoritatively to 200,000 of his fawning citizens in Tiananmen Square. The message to the world seemed to be not so much ‘Wish us happy birthday’, as ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’. For many Western observers, such garish, North Korea-style displays of military might confirm that, while China may have become a land of big cities, banking, Coca-Cola and consumerism, it remains, at heart, an old-style Evil Regime. We saw China’s ‘true colours’, said one British commentator.

Really? Having recently returned from Beijing, I say don’t be fooled by the red-tinged razzmatazz. Behind the 1970s displays of big guns and bombs, behind the girlish, go-go militarism, modern China is actually not that different from Western nations — and from Britain in particular. Indeed, as she turns 60, the People’s Republic of China seems to be morphing into modern Britain, developing a spookily similar nanny-state outlook that seeks myopically to monitor and control people’s ‘bad habits’. Today, Chinese authoritarianism springs not from Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, but from Chairman Brown and Chairman Blair’s ‘Little Miserabilist Book of Behaviour Modification’, giving rise to a new nation that actually feels a lot like New Labour’s New Britain. But with one important difference: where a majority of us Brits have tended to roll over and allow New Labour to police our personal antics, people in China have been far more sceptical and rebellious, even forcing the mighty Communist Party of China to backtrack on some of its nanny-state ambitions. We might learn from them.

More articles from: Brendan O'Neill | this section

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