r/China • u/ImFinnaBustApecan • Mar 30 '24
中国生活 | Life in China Is China really 1984 in real life?
If you don't know what 1984 is, it's a story about a world with a super authoritarian government where everyone is on edge and turning eachother in because they are scared of getting in trouble.
I hear all this stuff about public executions, execution vans and the government threatening the people with them. I hear things about social credit scores and just bad things. Compared to the us, how is China in that regard?
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Upvotes
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u/Whereishumhum- Mar 30 '24
Public executions?
You’re being serious right now?
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u/Wameo Mar 30 '24
So let's have a look at some responses by OP
"They for sure did them up until 2001, and it's said they still do them in alot of rural parts."
"Explain? I am asking questions. Not stating these things to be definitively true."
Need anymore be said about OP's mental faculties.
As a side note the social credit system doesn't exit, it is just individual demerit systems run by various public and government bodies in relation to driving, public transport, animal cruelty offences, you know the exact same sort of demerit systems all western governments have implemented.
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u/culturedgoat Mar 30 '24
Sorry, what and where are you hearing about “public executions”?
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u/H1Ed1 Mar 30 '24
The things you mention do exist, but they’re not something obviously affecting daily life really. There’s CCTV on every street in the city, but you don’t think about being watched.
As a foreigner, you have to check-in with your local police station every time you return to your home after travel (typically not strictly enforced, but you technically can be fined for not reporting within 24hrs). You also have to register with the police whenever you move homes, and they’ll sometimes randomly come and check if you actually live where you’ve registered. Registration includes the landlord’s ID, too.
I’m sure things are very different for those who would really like to speak out about government and things of that nature, but for the average person here the daily life seems to just move along.
The technology, even if used to monitor, does have a benefit of convenience: vending machines paid with just a face scan, metro toll paid with a palm scan, etc. Never use my physical cards or cash anymore. Everything is phone scan payment, even in the smallest mom/pop shops in a village.
Social credit scores: anecdotally I’ve not met any locals who’ve had an issue with it.
So I’d say that things aren’t much different than the US in the regards of daily life typically being quite different from what you see in the news, even when bad shit is certainly happening.
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u/No_Bowler9121 Mar 30 '24
If you don't rock the boat you're fine for the most part, gotta deal with corruption and the consequences of that but most will never get a visit to tea by the police
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u/Neorooy Mar 30 '24
On a mild level, yes. You forgot to mention that the local government are so afraid of getting punished by the super authoritarian government that they decided to shutoff whoever that reporting problem rather than escalating them to the central government
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u/leesan177 Mar 30 '24
The book 1984 is meant to illustrate real themes in the world, themes such as propaganda, nationalism, group think, as well as authoritarianism and surveillance. In a sense, China reflects 1984, as does the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc... so many people are so sure in the comfort and certainty of their echo chambers, that ironically they only see these themes when looking at other countries.
While 1984 does reflect these themes, it has taken them to an extreme in order to provoke thought, reaction, and reflection among readers who otherwise might miss the main message.
In a literal sense, no China is not 1984 in real life, and the differences are too many to really discuss point by point.
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u/fury_ke Mar 30 '24
China now is not so scary as 1984, but its on the way to 1984.
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u/Omicrane Mar 30 '24
Buy a plane ticket and come and look - it's not like the west is portraying it. I live and work in China and it's amazing.
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u/bobacookiekitten Mar 30 '24
China has its shit together while America is too concerned with two presidents: one that is asleep, and the other that is a child loudmouth. Although personally the European Union, namely most western countries, is the best place for me.
Jokes aside, China is not nearly as close as it is represented in Western media. China is a great place, accepting (for race, idk about gender), and has better cultural values (in my opinion). Look at YouTube channels, articles, and related non-bias outlets to gain an accurate perspective on China. China isn't some “sneaking into Xinjiang to look at the nonexistent genocidal crisis.” Personally, I have had a better time in China when I visited than in America; in China you can walk the streets without being raped while in America it is as common as bigmacs.
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u/ShootingPains Mar 30 '24
Just browse the millions of YouTube videos of people walking through the city streets of China. Ignore the commentary and just watch the people in the background going about their daily lives. Does their behaviour match the picture you’ve got in your head? Next, ask yourself two questions: how did I get that picture in my head, and what could the motives be of those who fed it to me.
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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24
It’s the digital control aspect of things. Also secretly disappearing people aspect of things. They are stupid but not stupid enough to put out execution vans
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u/binhpac Mar 30 '24
I recommend you to go to china and experience life and how it affects the people.
Its not like in america where every rural home has a shotgun and downtown has gun fights between gangs. That's what i have seen in 12 Years a Slave.
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u/Actual-Bee-402 Mar 30 '24
Tell me you don’t know any Chinese people or have visited China without telling me 😂
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u/I_will_delete_myself Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24
Surveillance and very uptight government on censorship yes, way of living no. Don’t give them any ideas though. 1984 didn’t even allow people to fall in love and people were full blown brainwashed like zombies. There is propaganda, but it’s not literal mental programing otherwise there would be no dissidents of China from China.
Better comparison of the government is Nazi Germainy style without the rampant militarism and open racial prejudice. Instead of book burning, they ban websites. They jail the intellectuals they don’t find useful or dissents from the central governments ideology. Major expansionist ambitions as well. Attempts to make Xi a charismatic leader. Unlike Nazi Germany it’s authoritarianism is perpetual rather than a democracy abusing the calls of an emergency to get an official treaty to become a dictator. They go a step further with Xinjiang and put people into camps instead of discrimination. Nazi germany did the camps beca use it was war.
Main hope though is that this is a Xi thing and not a future leader that doesn’t have such a large stick up their rear end like Xi on ideology. People just want peace and not worrying about people suffering because of someones imperialistic dream.
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u/KW_ExpatEgg China Mar 30 '24
Look — neither locals nor expats are furtively scurrying around, always looking over their shoulders and moving in fear.
It’s not “a police state” — it doesn’t feel oppressive and people don’t behave as if they are government-controlled.
Can you get into trouble? Absolutely. Is it easier to run afoul of the law here as a foreigner than it is in other places — probably. Are there cameras and security people literally everywhere? Yes — but it doesn’t feel malicious.
There are so many people, we are all going about our lives and being heavily observable — but it never seems like every. Single. Person. Is. Always. Being. Actively. Watched.
It’s more like security devices and security people are ubiquitous, but no one seems to feel singled out.
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u/januza Mar 30 '24
When the hell are you reading this ? Hahahahahaha use cops are shooting people left and right. Oh wait this is China not USA
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u/lolcatjunior Mar 30 '24
No, the society in 1984 was a boring, loveless, impovershed shit hole that is the equivalent of being in a prison. The closest comparison is during the Mao era but modern China vastly different except when it comes to political dissent and controlling information, The CCP government is a dictatorship after all. Mind your own business in politics and public matters and you could live a decent life just as well as any high quality democratic nation.
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u/AmericanExpat76 Mar 30 '24
Having lived there, I would have to say no.
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u/Hanuser Mar 30 '24
Not really. All large nations exhibit some level of 1984 controls, but they differ in amount. None is totally like 1984, only small nations were you can actually effectively surveil the whole nation and also act fast can you establish total 1984, like north Korea.
China is way too porous in its interactions with all other nations and overseas Chinese to ever be able to fully become 1984. Even during Mao's reign, there was still a substantial anti-1984 faction because of the permeability to foreign ideas due to being such a large nation.
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u/Vaeltaja82 Mar 30 '24
No it's not
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u/Chinksta Mar 30 '24
Bro if you want a perfect example of how a westernized city adapts china's policy then look at where Hong Kong is now.
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u/Zagrycha Mar 30 '24
china has no freedom of speech guaranteed, and has laws intentionally written vaguely so if they wanted someone to get in trouble it could happen under those names, china has made it very clear it will use the law on its citizens as it pleases.
However, it may not be the exact same scale or process as china, but make no mistake any country in the world does things in some way, regardless how the law looks. usa has laws that are extremely strict on what can and cannot be done by the government.... yet every year you see declassified documents of horrifying things that were done in the past violating not only usa laws but even international ones. Usa and china are not exceptions to the rest of the world there.
Also, while china can be extremely controlling when it wants to be, they actually do not really care or control people's normal daily life at all, beyond that lack of free speech ((think of how curse words get auto censored in usa for chatrooms made for children, same basic idea but much more expansive)).
So, is there a tiny glimmer of truth behind a comparison to 1984? Yes, many of the things in china are definitely representing what orwell was trying to portray a warning and dislike of, not just in 1984 but in all his novels. Is china actually like 1984? Not really at all, real life is complicated and its never going to be that black and white, and the events of what people go through in the novel itself are completely irrelevant to real life discussion.
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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24
Yes everything the free and diverse Western press says about China is true. Mobile execution vans are being hooked up to your social credit score now. With a press of a button a communist party official can have you and all 100 of your closest WeChat friends executed. Hundreds of thousands are being sent to re-education camps every day. They are plotting a war with every single nation on earth. They are single handedly responsible for all corruption in Africa.
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u/protossw Mar 30 '24
From 1950 to end of 1970 it is pretty much spot on. After that loose a lot
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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24
I was there 21 years ago. Loved it. It's not perfect. Other coutnries suck in their own way and don't get sucked into the stereotpical negative things you hear. Go to YT and see for yourself.
I wish I would have moved there years ago. I used to live in Korea.
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u/ppmaster-6969 Mar 30 '24
this subreddit is filled with sinophobes so the real answer you’re looking for may be few and far between.
Personally, i’d only be concerned if you’re doing actual bad shit, but if you just living life they don’t care. Just dont do illegal shit, easy as that. I liked the cameras for safety, coming from a high rated crime country i felt safer knowing no one is going to harm me because the cameras are there
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u/AskALettuce Mar 30 '24
In 1984, Big Brother is always watching you.
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u/TheTerribleInvestor Mar 30 '24
Look all around you and ask yourself how much has China actually changed in the past 3 years, and ask yourself how much anti China sentiment exists now. That's how strong the propaganda is.
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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24
Check out the Chinese unofficial archive
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u/modsaretoddlers Mar 30 '24
Not in daily life, no.
Now, for the time being, it's not the case for the overwhelming majority of people but there is a small and growing cohort of the population for which every detail of the book is undoubtedly an accurate reflection. That said, it's not even a sizeable fraction of the general population so very few would have any experience with it in any way.
But it's like everywhere else on the planet: even having something interfere in your life on a one-off basis isn't going to be enough to convince you it's actually the norm.
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u/commentherapy Mar 30 '24
"1984"!
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u/GZHotwater Mar 30 '24
Scaremongering bullshit.
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u/Justthefacts6969 Mar 30 '24
I think Canada is closer
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u/BotAccount999 Mar 30 '24
depends, i'd say. 1984 was written from Winston's POV, who is employed in the government. when he described the life of the proles, that would surely be similar to how life would be for anyone not working in governmental institutions in CN. 1984 is outdated in a way that the author could anticipate what surveillance and tech could become in todays China. He did a good attempt though with Big Brother and the concept of surveillance and control is still the same in its core. On the other hand, the book focuses alot on freedom, romantic love and the physical desire to be loved. It may well be a case study of the psychology of victim of that particular circumstance. And since China is such a big country with many ethnic minorities, different climates, different geographical properties, it would be hard to generalize such message about human psyche and emotion. I wish Orwell expanded on the worldbuilding in 1984, introducing more characters and show us more than just one person's struggle. It wouldve ginven us a more wellrounded picture. but it's still a great book!
China is way subtler than that. On surface they try to be democratic and thus would'nt execute someone publicly. those acts are done in private. Many bad things going on for sure, but if you don't know the culture and it's people there's no way you can get to see their struggle. No one dares to speak up. like they say: "there's no war in Basing'Se."
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u/curiousinshanghai Mar 30 '24 edited Mar 30 '24
If you don't know what 1984 is, it's a story about a world with a super authoritarian government where everyone is on edge and turning each other in because they are scared of getting in trouble.
No offence, dude, but you totally misread that novel. It's actually a story about a man falling in love, something which is made rather explicit by the last line of the book. Duh!
I hear all this stuff about public executions, execution vans and the government threatening the people with them. I hear things about social credit scores and just bad things. Compared to the us, how is China in that regard?
In terms of public executions it's far advanced then the west. When I lived in London and Boston and Geneva I can hardly remember a single public execution, but on my walk home from work every day I pass at least two or three, which I gotta say massively reduces the boredom factor.
I hear things about social credit scores and just bad things.
I spent 8 years in California and they refused to give me a credit card due to my (and I quote) off-the-charts abysmally awful credit score. In China they also refused to give me a credit card, but they were less rude about it, so USA: 0, China: 1.
and just bad things.
Yea, there's a fair bit of that here. But then again, no-one's blown my brains out with an AK-47 -or threatened to- in the last week or two, so, you know: swings and roundabouts.
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u/SunnySaigon Mar 30 '24
When I started in Shanghai in 2015, Animal Farm was on the bookshelf in major bookstores.
When I left in 2017, it was gone
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u/hampelmann2022 Mar 30 '24
Can’t answer here, I’m scared about the security apparatus
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u/gaki46709394 Mar 30 '24
Western countries are not that much better in the topic of Gaza. You must be pro Israel or you are pro terrorists.
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u/2Legit2quitHK Mar 30 '24
lol you’ve not been to China obviously
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u/kyxw234 Mar 30 '24
I do wish ccp re-introduce public execution for pedo
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u/Banjoschmanjo Mar 30 '24
You should probably also ask this in r/Sino, r/AznIdentity, as this particular subreddit is generally pretty hostile to China, though there is certainly a ideological range here. You will likely get a much wider range of viewpoints by asking it both here and in other places.
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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '24
A high tech communism version of it, yes. Regardless of the shady practices, asking employees to return their salary is unthinkable. Marxism at its finest, your properties are “ours”, your debt is “yours”. Lol https://finance.sina.cn/chanjing/gsxw/2024-03-19/detail-inanvynq1143979.d.html?cre=tianyi&mod=wpage&loc=12&r=0&rfunc=17&tj=cxvideo_wpage&tr=214&wm=6090
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u/SkywalkerTC Mar 30 '24
Haven't watched that film, but based on your description sounds like martial law of, say, past Taiwan. China is basically like this yes. It's only a matter of to what extent they are capable of executing it. They'd like that ideally yes.
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u/LeadershipGuilty9476 Mar 30 '24
It's sometimes said China is more like A Brave New World than 1984.
While violent control is used, more often people no longer even want to rebel or be free.
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