CLASS PARTICIPATION : Report from Beijing - teaching political philosophy in China

Commonweal, April 5, 2002 by Peter Phillips Simpson

Thanks to a Fulbright scholarship, I am teaching political philosophy at Beijing's Renmin (People's) University of China this year. My students are all rather silent in class. I attribute this mostly to difficulty in understanding English or diffidence with respect to speaking English. Among those students whose English is quite good, I think this diffidence has something to do with speaking one's mind in a country where people are understandably fearful of government surveillance and retribution. But it probably also has something to do with speaking with a foreigner, especially an American. Chinese students expect me to be biased against China. Whatever the reason, they only talk when one-on-one in my office or after class over coffee. When they get a chance to speak reasonably freely, they show themselves to be very bright and amusing kids.

Occasionally I try to get them to speak about life in China, but they are reluctant to do so. One-party rule inhibits discussion, but so does the traditional closeness of Chinese families. The parents of some of my students have sacrificed to enable their children to go to a good university and the kids are expected to repay the kindness by raising the family's status and economic standing. China does not have much of a welfare system and the old Communist system, where one's factory provided housing, medical care, and retirement, has long since gone. So if your kids don't help you out, who will? Of course, the kids are grateful to their parents and feel duty bound to them. Family pressures can force students to forgo further study, either in China or abroad.

Surprisingly, a form of Marxism is still a powerful influence here. It is taught in the high schools and universities and attendance at a certain number of classes in Marxist theory is compulsory. But it is taught mainly through textbooks, not from Marx's work itself. Consequently, what students know about Marxism is quite limited. When the subject has come up in class, I'm the one who introduces all the relevant concepts: labor theory of value, class struggle, proletariat, etc. Maybe the kids don't care about Marxism anymore or they've forgotten it or they don't trust me and just let me blabber on. I make no attempt to be cautious in what I say about communism, Marxism, or Chairman Mao. I imagine my students put up with this as the price to be paid to have free teaching (the U.S. government pays for Fulbright lecturers; the host university just provides accommodation).

Recently, I was giving an invited lecture on war and terrorism at another university in Beijing. In answer to a question about the Vietnam War, I remarked that it was in general a good thing to oppose communism and stop its spread. Since this occasioned some surprise, I explained that while communism professed noble enough aims (the improvement of the people, especially the poor), it actually produced greater poverty by means of brutal tyranny. My translator thought this too controversial and declined to translate (though some in the audience knew enough English to have caught on). I did not press him. After all, he has to live here; I can go when I please.

My translator was again surprised (though he did translate this time) when in answer to a question about Taiwan, I said that if China tried to invade, any American president who refused to defend Taiwan would face the wrath of the American people. The surprise for my translator was the word "invade." How could China invade what is, after all, its own territory? he reasoned. I hastily added that I was speaking from the American perspective and went on to explain the special relationship that has long existed between the United States and the one part of China that did not succumb to communism.

Whenever I challenge students to explain why Tibet or Taiwan should belong to China, or what is so important about such supposed issues of "territorial integrity," they respond with distorted history (Tibet has always been part of China and ruled by China) or tu quoque arguments (What would you do if Georgia broke away from the United States?). When I ask if they would be willing to accept the results of a referendum in either place, they are not at all keen to say yes. My guess is that students just repeat the party line, which no one has ever seriously challenged before in their hearing. I suspect that patriotism is also a factor.

I think the same patriotism is behind the generally favorable opinion that most people have of Chairman Mao. After all, Mao did preside over China's restoration to national independence and international prominence. That Mao was at least by one measure three times worse than Stalin (Stalin killed 20 million of his own people while Mao killed 60 million) and six times worse than Hitler (who killed 10 million) does not seem to matter. When I make this comparison, as I did on a number of occasions at the English Corner (which meets weekly for anyone who wants to practice English), the listeners gasp with astonishment, not unmixed with amusement (Did he really say that?). But the worst gasps, unmixed by any amusement, are reserved for any Chinese who agrees with me or voices the same opinion--which has, surprisingly, happened on more than one occasion.