Everyone outside the imperial core is subjected to the American/European outside observer, the least you can do is return the favor.
Maybe it’ll stop some people from going “China bad this. China bad that” when they haven’t read a single letter from someone who lives there.
That’s essentially what the author is complaining about when he says the U.S. doesn’t function because “ethnicity, blood, land, language, culture, and history are not key factors” in its national identity.
Why to willfully misinterpret what the author is saying there. This is not a complaint but an observation plainly stated. It’s to draw a contrast between his assertion that US identity is based on “political values” instead of “ethnicity, blood, land, language, culture, and history are not key factors” because it’s a nation of immigrants. You can disagree with him on the claim but you can’t say he is saying that that stuff has to exist because he never says that.
The section is headed “Why Can’t America Criticize Its Own System?”, with the clear argument that the centrality of political values to the system (as opposed to China’s “national identity based more on culture and language”) makes our system of government less effective and unable to respond to crises like COVID-19. That’s a bad take. I believe you don’t need a national identity based on a specific culture and language to create a successful political system capable of systemic self-critique. You’re welcome to disagree, of course, but I encourage you to keep your eyes open against the influence of nationalism in any left movement–Chinese, American, or otherwise.
I don’t think America’s identify is centrally based on political value alone but that’s a point I’m not interested in discussing.
I’m objecting to you quoting the author and misscharacterizing his arguments based on the out of context quotes. The author is writing for a Chinese audience and it’s natural he would emphasis the Chinese situation. It’s also undeniable that the American discourse never entertains a systemic critique and takes the American and by extension the post-WWII Western system of governance a priori as infallible. It’s well within reason to want to interrogate why that is.
I don’t believe I"m mischaracterizing his arguments, but agree to disagree.
I guess in general I just wonder at the value of this kind of discourse. American media does China dirty all the time, making gross generalizations about a country of a billion plus people. The proper response to that is not to, in turn, make gross generalizations about a country of 300+ million (i.e. “American discourse never entertains a systemic critique and takes the American and by extension the post-WWII Western system of governance ipso facto as infallible”). Instead U.S. and Chinese leftists should be writing about each other’s work, learning from each other’s struggles and supporting each other’s efforts. Dismissing BLM in the way this author does is not constructive to an international left project.
