Everything we think we know is wrong: the various China whispers that have warped how we view the country and its people
Ben Chu is Economics Editor of The Independent. His book 'Chinese Whispers: Why Everything You've Heard About China is Wrong' is published on 10 October by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
China is the world's oldest civilisation
The myth: Open any travel guide, history book or newspaper that takes China for its subject and one will read the same assertion: this is a country with "5,000 years of history".
Why we think it: Romanticism. In 1922, the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell wrote: "Since the days of Confucius the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian and Roman empires have perished; but China has persisted". We seem to find appealing the idea that the people of an ancient empire are still walking among us.
The truth: The claim that China has 5,000 years of history is predicated on the existence of a so-called Yellow Emperor, a god-like founding father who is supposed to have taught his people how to grow crops, domesticate animals and even to clothe themselves. There is no evidence for the existence of such a figure. It is the stuff of legend, not history.
The claim of 5,000 years of history is also relatively recent. Until the late 1990s, the Beijing authorities tended to talk of 3,000 or 4,000 years of Chinese history. But when former president Jiang Zemin went to Egypt, he found a state that could claim even more venerable origins. So Chinese leaders unilaterally awarded their own country an extra thousand years of history in an act of international one-upmanship.
MYTH #2
The Chinese have an indomitable work ethic
The myth: In the 1930s, Carl Crow, an American journalist and entrepreneur, described China as a "land of unremitting industry". He went on: "If it is true that the devil can only find work for idle hands, then China must be a place of very limited Satanic opportunities.
Why we think it: Because we seem to see the evidence. Visitors to Chinese cities are often astonished to see construction crews working through the night. Newspapers show images of workers napping at their positions on the production line during a brief break on an 18-hour shift. Chinese immigrants in the West also seem to be frighteningly hard workers.
The truth: Working hours in China are nothing remarkable by the standards of other developing nations. Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Social Development think tank (OECD) show that Mexicans do slightly more paid work per day. Other data suggests the Chinese work fewer hours than Bangladeshis, Thais, and Indonesians.
MYTH #3
China has an unstoppable economy
The myth: "The 19th century belonged to England, the 20th century belonged to the US, and the 21st century belongs to China. Invest accordingly," argues Warren Buffett.
Why we think it: Because the story of Chinese growth over the past three decades is awe-inspiring. In 1979, the economy was smaller than Britain's. Since then, it has doubled in size roughly every eight years and is now 22 times larger than when it began its reforms. In 2009, China overtook Japan to become the second biggest economy in the world. It is expected to surpass the US in 2017.
The truth: In order to continue growing, China needs to enact fundamental economic reforms. That means a massive expansion of public health care and pensions. It means land reform, to prevent farmers being swindled out of their rightful profits. It means a liberalisation of the financial sector. It means higher wages and an end to the one child policy. Every one of those reforms will be fiercely resisted by powerful vested interests. And it is far from certain that the reformers will prevail.
MYTH #4
Chinese students are the cleverest in the world
The myth: According to the British Education Secretary, Michael Gove: "Schools in the Far East are turning out students who are working at an altogether higher level than our own".
Why we think it: Because we see so many smart Chinese children coming to Western universities. And also because the statistics seem to back it up. In 2009, 15-year-old children from Shanghai came top in reading, maths and science in the international standardised tests run by the OECD. They outperformed children from richer nations such as the US, Britain and Germany.
The truth: The OECD tests were also taken by children in nine provinces across China. Yet the Chinese government has not permitted the OECD to publish the full figures, casting doubt over how representative the Shanghai results really are. Some Chinese are also voting on China's education system with their feet. A 2012 survey by the magazine, Hurun Report, found that around nine out of 10 wealthy Chinese intend to send their children to universities abroad. A third also want to send their children abroad for high school.
MYTH #5
The Chinese all speak the same language
The myth: "Chinese, regardless of whether they live in China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, are essentially the same," according to the Shanghai-based advertising executive Tom Doctoroff.
Why we think it: Because it makes this vast and complex land feel easier to understand and perhaps less intimidating. Also, the Chinese regard linguistic unity as one of the pillars of the country's modernisation. The father of the Chinese republican movement, Sun Yat-sen, proclaimed that the Chinese have a "common language, common religion and common customs".
The truth: Hundreds of millions of Chinese cannot speak to each other in a common tongue. China's education ministry reported in 2007 that only around half of the country's population could communicate effectively in standard Mandarin. The figure in cities was 66 per cent, while in rural areas it fell to just 45 per cent. Most Chinese use local dialects, and even different languages from Mandarin, for everyday communication.
MYTH #6
China is buying up the world
The myth: According to the Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo, China is winning the global "race for resources". She argues "other countries seem to be asleep while China is making a concerted effort". Others claim that China is engaged in neo-imperialist behaviour in Africa.
Why we think it: Because China's economic growth has truly shaken the world. The country is the world's largest importer of copper, rice and (pretty soon) oil. China is also now a considerable lender to African states and is attempting to use its $3.5 trillion war chest of foreign exchange reserves to buy up companies in the West.
The truth: China's investments in the developing world are straightforward transactions: they build roads and factories in return for long-term commodity contracts. And China's mountain of US foreign exchange reserves are signs of weakness, rather than geopolitical strength, since these investments are gradually falling in value as the Chinese currency gradually appreciates against the dollar.
MYTH #7
The Chinese are a biological race
The myth: The late Sinologist, Lucian Pye, said that it was "self-evident that the Chinese people share the same blood, the same physical characteristics, the same ancestry".
Why we think it: It appears obvious since many Chinese people share phenotypical trait such as black hair and high cheekbones. And the Chinese do nothing to discourage it. One of the most popular Chinese pop songs of the past 40 years is Hou Dejian's "Heirs of the Dragon" with its lyrics: "Black eyes, black hair, yellow skin, forever".
The truth: There are at least 56 different minority 'nations' who live mainly in China's borderlands. These range from the Mongols of the grassy steppes, to the Manchus of the Korean border. Like 'Anglo-Saxons' or 'Hispanics', the Han Chinese constitute a purely imagined biological community.
MYTH #8
China is a dangerously nationalistic power
The myth: The political scientist Robert Kagan tells us that China is "filled with nationalist pride, ambitions and resentments, consumed with questions of territorial sovereignty".
Why we think it: Because we assume that a rising China will behave like Western states did in the 19th century. Also, China itself sometimes throws off belligerent signals. In 1996, a group of Chinese academics produced a collection of polemical essays entitled China Can Say No. In its pages they argued that China was sufficiently economically developed to start imposing itself on the rest of the world.
The truth: Popular nationalistic sentiment in China is often the flipside of the political reform movement – and a source of deep concern for the ruling Communist Party. One nationalist blogger, Li Chengpeng, wrote recently of how he became disillusioned with his own government when he learnt that schools that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, killing hundreds of children, had been constructed to poor standards due to the corruption of local government officials. Li called for a new kind of patriotism, one that put political reform at home first. "Patriotism is about allowing people to move freely in our country and letting our children study in the city where they wish to study," he said. "Patriotism is about speaking more truth. Patriotism is about dignity for the Chinese people."
MYTH #9
The Chinese are all Confucians
The myth: "It is still impossible to understand modern China without understanding Confucius," according to the BBC journalist Andrew Marr.
Why we think it: It makes China feel more comprehensible. And Confucianism is still certainly a strong influence on China. In 2007, a book called Confucius from the Heart by a Beijing University literature professor, Yu Dan, shifted more copies than any printed work since Mao's Little Red Book.
The truth: There is, actually, a long Chinese intellectual tradition of repudiating Confucianism, stretching back to the radical May Fourth Movement of 1919. The Chinese writer Jiang Rong, in his bestselling 2004 novel, Wolf Totem, contrasted the traditional values of China unfavourably with those of the nomads of the Mongolian steppe.
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