What kinds of things do regular Chinese citizens think about the USA that isn’t correct?
Frank Langfitt:
Chinese know America much better than we know China and their knowledge is improving. One question i get a lot of in recent years is will the U.S. and China go to war. There is a fear that a conflict between China and Japan over the islands in the East China Sea will draw in the U.S. I’ve found this sort of talk really unsettling and revealing about how some ordinary Chinese sea the geopolitics of their country’s rise.
Question:
Do you think, China and Japan will go to a war of some type?
Frank Langfitt:
i really hope not. it would be a disaster. #2 and #3 economies at war in north asia. And #1 economy has defense treaty with #3. Yikes.
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Question:
What is the most disgusting thing you have seen in China (I heard kids take shit directly on the street)?
Frank Langfitt:
Not sure what is most disgusting thing i’ve seen, but kids do relieve themselves on the streets sometimes and this has become a really interesting phenomenon. As more Chinese travel, occasionally this will happen on a subway outside the country, say Hong Kong or Taiwan and it goes viral and creates a big controversy inside and outside the country.
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Question:
How bad is the smog really? Have you had to do a lot to adjust to it?
Frank Langfitt:
It depends on where you are. Beijing is at times not habitable for creatures with lungs. there is no way to exaggerate conditions there. Shanghai is much better, largely because we are on the East China Sea and the winds clear out the smog. We have lots of blue sky days and all the glass and steel shimmers and the city looks great. Back in December, though, we had terrible air and we stayed inside the apartment for four days and just blasted the air filters.
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Question:
Why does China’s ruling single party still call themselves Communist when they are so clearly anything but? They still have Mao on bank notes, yet their modern society is an ongoing contradiction of the values he espoused. How do everyday Chinese people and the elites reconcile their hypercapitalist current system with their “communist” party government?
Frank Langfitt:
Great, great question. The Communist Party knows it is not Communist, but can’t dump the name because it is key to its legitimacy. There is a story — perhaps apocryphal — in which the former premier Zhu Rongji asked an American politician what was the one thing the Communist Party could do to change its image in the eyes of Americans. The politician said: “change the name.” Zhu shook his head and said they just couldn’t do that. Chinese people are supremely pragmatic, much to their credit, and they are happy to take advantage of a capitalist-style economy that helps them improve their lives and are less hung up on what things are called.•
