The Communist Party of China and the Idea of `Evil’

[Tom Paine 1949]

I have lived in China and experienced its contradictions, meeting common people, Communist Party members, even common people who are also CCP members. I remember when a friend of my wife, a carpenter, came to my shabby apartment in an all-Chinese neighborhood of Beijing and — sharing a few beers — showed me how to fix my kitchen cabinets, which were all falling off their hinges. My Chinese then was barely adequate, but we got along fine. I was surprised to learn later he was a loyal member of the CP. Like other ordinary middle-class people I knew in Beijing — Chinese and Westerners, students and diplomats and businessmen — the mystery and contradictions of living in a dynamic modernizing society run by an authoritarian party, were often hard to make sense of. Today, XiJinping has adopted a harder line domestically, even established a growing “cult of personality,” and Americans look to China’s Communist Party as its eternal enemy, even as “evil” incarnate.

I know the history of modern China and of its CP better than most, but I still found this article clarifying, so I provide this introductory quote and a link in the hope it will inform others ...

The Communist Party of China and the Idea of `Evil’

Over the last quarter of a century or more of thinking about, living in and engaging with China, it is a line I have often heard.... The Communist Party is evil. Chinese people are good. They are oppressed, downtrodden. It is easy to progress beyond this to the heroic statement that we, outside of China, with our enlightened ways are those who will be key in delivering this salvation....

Hermann Melville in his great novel `Moby Dick’ stated that the key point was not so much to think extensively, but with subtlety. When one sees such neat divisions between good and bad it should always arouse questions. How come things are so straightforward? The idea that the Communist Party of China is the source of all bad, that it’s removal would be the solution to all our problems, inside and outside China, belongs to this category of thinking.

Firstly, let’s start with what the Communist Party actually is. We may as well be clear about that before we condemn it. It is currently a membership organisation of 90 million people. It has existed since 1921. Over that period it has varied from a revolutionary party before 1949 to a governing one after that date.... Even since 1949 it has changed. From a predominantly quasi-military group whose members were mostly from the countryside, it is now made up more of urban, and college educated people. That is not surprising. This is the general story of Chinese social development over the last seven decades. The Communist Party has simply reflected the society it is in.

Alas, for the great supporters of a neat division between Party and population, the thorny issue is that the Party is part of society, and its members are, unsurprisingly, more often than not typical Chinese people....

[China Series #1] The Communist Party of China and the Idea of `Evil’ – OPR

 

[Gdjjr]

I used to be acquainted with a man who had his flooring product manufactured there. He spent a lot of time in China. He had all positive reviews, especially their education "system" which offered more than one way to become a productive member of their society.
China, like any foreign Country our representatives screw are evil and our enemies. It is that simple.
Hell, Stalin and Ike were buddy's until Dulles was appointed head of the CIA and all of a sudden communist were everywhere- the Communist (Russia) helped defeat not only Germany, but Japan as well-
I visited Hong Kong when I was in the Navy and we had dire warnings about going to Kowloon (just across the bay IMS) because it was "communist" and we would be- whatever they do to US Service Men- I never went there but I knew a few who did- they came back undaunted.

I know a man who visited China many times on business- he said they learned they couldn't out drink him.

People are people. Governments make enemies. Sheep follow leaders in this monkey see monkey do world.
Young men fight old men's wars. Poor men fight rich man's wars. Followers fight their leaders wars- yet we're told our "leaders" are to be trusted. They're just men- no better than any other man and arguably a lot worse than most. They sell their souls to the highest bidder and that bidders nationality or ethnicity or religion matters not one whit- until they get caught then they beg forgiveness and retire and draw their pension paid for by the sheep.

 

[there4eyeM]

One certain thing is that "evil" is a term applicable only to theological issues. Applying it politically leads to erroneous images and conclusions.
The Chinese people, the Iranian people, the Russian people all have much more in common with the people of America than they have serious differences.

 

[Olde Europe]

[China Series #1] The Communist Party of China and the Idea of `Evil’ – OPR

Thinking about this afterwards, I concluded that in fact nuance was the point. Especially with something as complex as the state of modern China, and its governance system. There are many things it can be labelled. Autocratic. Sometimes in its decision making inhumane. Too vast in scale. Too laden with history. But the idea that its millions of cadres and actors are busying their lives just working on doing harm is risible. Like government everywhere else, the vast majority most of the time are trying to do their best, for the society they live in and the people they live amongst. Nuance might not be dramatic, but recognising this prosaic fact must get us closer to a better view of the truth. Every. Single. Time.​

One might have thought - hoped, at least - there be some learning since the "Axis of Evil", and all that entailed. Turns out, there wasn't - to the surprise of exactly no one.

Who on here knows more than a few truisms about China? Autocratic, at times brutal and inhumane, and lifted more people out of dire poverty during the last decades than the rest of the world combined. Ingenious, diligent, persistent, given to meticulous long-term planning, and deeply, thoroughly corrupt, Xi's anti-corruption crusade (whatever its merits) notwithstanding. Autocracies generally have a problem not because everyone in government spends their days perpetrating evil, but because there is little incentive to care for, or even to listen to, those impacted by decisions taken high on above. Incidentally, that exact same accusation is routinely raised against the "evil" Federal Government. Funny how that goes...

Now, what we get to observe (as usual) is that for every ill there has to be someone to blame, and one ought not be overly picky about the target - be it witches, blacks, gays, Muslims, immigrants, and now the Chinese and their "China Virus". That has a function beyond ordering the world in an easily comprehensible way, it also provides the experience of a certain unanimity in condemning the (generalized) Other. We, the good guys, united, v. Those people. Of course, insisting on "nuance", as the author suggests, would immediately destroy that soothing experience. And thus, "Axis of Evil" it is, and will be, in slightly different shapes, but always accompanied by the exact same certainty and soothing, self-righteous unanimity.