The Perils of Being Associated With China
You Know This
Most people in the West assume that there is a natural order of man that sees white man’s civilization at the top of the ranking while all colored ones stack down to the bottom.
Asia has shown precious little to convince them otherwise, with the sole exception, perhaps, of Imperial Japan which had earned the West’s esteem due to its fierce competition with the powers during the age of colonialism.
China, on the other hand, has not taken on much of a fight, notably, because it never showed any aspirations to confront Western dominance outside its borders.
We may refer to this humbleness by what the cultural master Gu Hongming called the meekness of the Chinese people. [Old Gu always cited Western authorities, not Chinese ones, so he got famous.]
The Chinese came to accept Western cultural superiority unquestionably, with the pervasive result that they divide intellectual people in China into roughly four classes:
At the top we find the “authentic” white foreigners that are treated preferentially, followed by the Chinese who were taught by white man’s culture (overseas Chinese, or holders of Western degree); next are the local Chinamen themselves. The lowest class, however, lower than even the common Chinamen, are the white people who were educated in China. Let me explain this.
The very idea that someone from—in their view—superior culture voluntarily descends down the ladder and permanently lowers his status is met with irritation, suspicion, or even contempt.
Chinese society is not prepared for even the possibility that white people should live among Chinese on the same existential level; they’d always assumed that Westerners deserved better.
Can you imagine a white Westerner slaving away together with Chinese migrant workers for $80 a month on a construction site? Or getting a Chinese education?
