At the outset, I want to make clear that the objective of this short piece is not to present a coherent upgrade of the current Western democratic system. Instead, it should be perceived as a wake-up call questioning the deep-rooted belief that the one-person, one-vote democratic system is the best we can hope for.

We should be able to ask this question critically. However, in Western-style democracies, it is considered problematic to publicly question the soundness of the electoral process and the one-person, one-vote principle. Westerners either ignore or scorn arguments that would expose this electoral system as fundamentally flawed. I experienced this disdain after I published the article “Chinese Capillary Democracy: What Can Western Democracies Learn from It?” in March 2016.

Rethinking our own systems does not mean imitating authoritarian regimes

In the article, I argued that Western democracies could be strengthened by modifying how their political leaders were elected and adopting a system that would result in more professional, meritocratic and stable governments. This new system could, in part, be modeled after the one that the Chinese have, although they have it mostly in theory alone. At no point did I suggest that the Chinese government itself is adequate for Western countries or that China has a real democracy.

Rather, I used the theoretical structure of Chinese local elections as an example. On the local level, one person, one vote could work, and promotions to higher levels could spring from local democracy. This is not how China actually works. Without a doubt, China is an authoritarian regime that is morphing into an autocracy under President Xi Jinping.

My article received numerous sarcastic comments, such as, “Mr. Meyer has sold his soul to the [Chinese Communist Party] on Alibaba,” “This is such a crap article. The [People’s Republic of China] is a mafia state,” and, “What a naive, narrow-minded, simplistic and ignorant piece of propaganda.” Numerous rigid beliefs and prejudices continue to hamper any attempt to establish a constructive conversation with Western-style democracy supporters.

Majoritarianism is wishful thinking

I agree that we should all be active members of society and participate in the nation’s decision-making process. However, no matter how extensive our individual knowledge and skills are, they will always be just a tiny fraction of what is needed to evaluate complex domestic and international issues. The assessment of the issues at stake — such as how to manage globalization or climate change, how to deal with China and Russia, or whether to bomb Iran or not — is far beyond the analytical reach of any single individual, including those with relevant expertise. This goes just as much for deciding who are the most capable leaders as it does for deciding which are the best policies.

When we are sick, we go see a doctor. When we want to build a bridge, we go to an engineer. When we want to invest, we go to an economist. When we want to find a cure for cancer, we go to scientists. All of them are experts. Also, it is interesting to note that no single successful private company is run as a democracy. Companies are run by teams of experts in the different areas affecting them. Yet managing a country is far more complex than any scientific endeavor or multinational corporation. Obviously, letting the general population decide how to do it does not make much sense.

Basically, a vote is the expression of a personal opinion and for it to be meaningful it must fulfill three preliminary conditions: gathering sufficient information about the issue under consideration, having the necessary background information and skills to analyze the gathered information, and spending sufficient time analyzing the information to, finally, draw sound conclusions. Only after these three requirements have been met can the individual form an opinion and, if he wishes, share it for the benefit of the community in the form of a vote. A common citizen is busy working to make a living and taking care of his family and his personal interests. This citizen cannot be expected to be able to have a working understanding of all the necessary geopolitical, economic, social, military, historical or legal dimensions to develop sound opinions on which to base his voting choices.

Hoping that a numerical majority of tremendously underinformed individuals in a country will make brilliant choices on extremely complex issues is simply an illusion. Or a delusion. Our incapacity is illustrated by the fact that even individuals with extensive relevant expertise are incapable of reaching a consensus on the best options in domestic and international matters. Individual experts frequently disagree and contradict each other and reach conclusions that are diametrically opposed. As soon as the issues go beyond what individuals can sufficiently grasp and relate to, the democratic voting system is ineffective and, therefore, popular voting to elect the leadership of a country is fundamentally unsound.

An editor at Fair Observer raised the objection that, while experts might very well know better than voters, they still should not make decisions for them, because experts can advise and inform elected leaders without overruling them. I do not believe that this holds water. At the end of the day, either experts or voters have to have the final say. If voters have the final say, nothing prevents their elected leaders from running into inadvisable wars, adopting irrational economic policies or ignoring the scientific consensus on climate change. We have all seen these things happen in living memory. As long as one person, one vote remains the rule, popular policies will overrule sound ones, experts be damned.

There is more than one way to do democracy

All this is not to say that people should not participate in a country’s political life. On the contrary, they should, but this should occur in a domain where an individual is capable of making educated, intuitive, critical decisions. For instance, individuals can sufficiently assess issues affecting their local communities and make educated choices in elections for their local representatives.

These representatives, elected by popular vote, would become part of the foundations of the national governing structure. This structure would predominantly consist of teams of professionals who aspire to long-term service in the government. Promotions within this governing would be based on a combination of performance (meritocracy) and internal elections. Ultimately, governing a country should be a long-term professional duty, not a temporal personal ambition.

Counting on the magic force of a numerical majority of fundamentally unqualified individuals to correctly elect the most adequate candidates to lead our nations through complex domestic and international matters is delusional. The West needs to take an honest and hard look at its obsolete democratic system and fundamentally redesign it to make it effective to overcome the challenges posed by the complex world we live in.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Questioning the “One Person, One Vote” Principle in Western-Style Democracies appeared first on Fair Observer.

There is a steady stream of Western academic research exploring, describing, and defending human rights. Western governments present themselves as the ultimate protectors of rights of all kinds and frequently introduce new policies and laws aimed at shaping society to reflect these rights. One might argue that the unconditional defense of freedoms and rights cannot go wrong. Or can it?

Rights cannot exist without duties

There is a deafening silence in Western education, social life, and political discourse about the need to first fulfill human duties if any rights are to be obtained. It is surprising and disturbing that there is no “Universal Declaration of Human Duties,” even though it is the fulfillment of duties, not rights, that provides the foundation upon which an individual can grow and a society can flourish.

The establishment of most rights is viable and sustainable only if a set of duties is first addressed. Rights are the spontaneous result of the fulfillment of a series of duties. 

To illustrate the pernicious consequences of unconditionally granting rights without first requiring the fulfillment of a set of duties, let me use the right to freedom of opinion and expression, one of the rights on the UDHR list and one of the most popular rights in the West.

Freedom of opinion and expression is one of the socio-political cornerstones of Western societies and is unconditionally granted to every citizen. Yet it is obvious that, in order for an individual to make a valuable contribution to society, he must first have a thorough understanding of the issues on which he is expressing an opinion. Therefore, to exercise this right in any meaningful way, one must first fulfill several obligations. These obligations include gathering sufficient information about the issue under consideration, having the necessary background information and skills to analyze the information and spending sufficient time analyzing the information to draw sound conclusions. Only after these three obligations have been met can the individual form an opinion and, if he wishes, share it for the benefit of the community. 

However, if these three obligations are not fulfilled first, the individual perspective cannot be considered an opinion, but rather mental noise, and its expression will be detrimental to the public understanding of the issue. This is truer today than ever, given the ease and speed with which (mis)information can be spread. Society, education and governments should therefore emphasize the obligation to be sufficiently informed and to understand the relevant issues before exercising the right to express an opinion.

How to achieve a proper emphasis on duties

By overemphasizing people’s rights and neglecting their duties, individualistic societies become fragile and prone to fractures between various self-serving, short-term values and goals. Western societies seem to have forgotten that most progress occurs when individuals focus on fulfilling their duties and that rights are the spontaneous outcome of this progress.

In the collectivist societies common in Asia, the interests and needs of the community come before those of the individual, and individual duties take precedence. From an early age, children are taught that they have duties to family and society and that they must sometimes sacrifice their personal interests and rights for the greater social good. Individuals are taught that they have a duty to learn, rather than a right to study, and that they have an obligation to work hard, rather than the right to a good job. 

Prioritizing duties also leads individuals to perceive authority as something legitimate and necessary, and, consequently, to be more inclined to follow its directives. Accepting authority and following its directives, even if one does not fully agree with its purpose, is fundamental for the effective management of societies, making them more prosperous. This does not mean that individuals in collectivist societies do not enjoy rights. On the contrary, they may enjoy more rights than in individualistic societies, but these rights are contingent upon, and the natural outcome of, the fulfillment of a set of duties.

Western societies should move away from ignoring the need for their members to focus on their duties. Instead, they must re-emphasize the vital importance that individual duties play in fostering personal growth and ensuring the well-being of societies. In this sense, the West can find inspiration in collectivist societies that prioritize the community over the individual and accept significant levels of authority. After all, personal growth and social prosperity can only be achieved if each of us focuses on fulfilling our duties. Rights will follow spontaneously.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Obligations, Not Rights, Are the Foundation of Growth and Social Well-Being appeared first on Fair Observer.

Why we need to change the focus of education from productivity to personal growth

The current productivity of developed societies is more than an order of magnitude greater than it was prior to industrialization, far beyond what is needed to provide a comfortable life to its members. Productivity has only continued to increase as technology improves. Today, automation and AI are rapidly rendering most human contributions to their own survival unnecessary, to the point that humans will soon no longer need to be productive anymore.

Because of this, the central objective of the education system no longer needs to be increasing productivity. Instead, we need to provide an environment in which each individual can explore their own interests and strengths. The problem is that the current educational system is still defined by the original productivity-oriented paradigm.

Despite living in hyper-productive and wealthy societies, outdated educational systems are impeding certain sections within these wealthy societies from improving their well-being to the fullest potential the developed societies can achieve. Schools in economically advanced countries continue to use the factory model of education. This model was developed over a hundred years ago for the needs of a society that was significantly less productive than it is today. This model stifles much of the personal growth potential of young people in order to assimilate them into a homogeneous, efficient, productivity-oriented society.

To remove the educational barriers to personal growth, it is necessary to create a new educational paradigm, one that empowers and motivates individuals to explore their potential at every stage of life. Describing how to accomplish this transformation of the educational model is a complex and lengthy task beyond the scope of this article. However, it is possible to explore what the goal of the new education model should be.

How to make the educational model transition

The new educational paradigm should provide the right environment to transform the powerful curiosity-driven cognitive and sensory explorations that are innate in young children into interest-driven ones in adults. Some argue that one should maintain curiosity throughout their life. But neurologically, this is not an option. Let me try to explain why this is the case by clarifying the difference between curiosity and interest.

Curiosity is an involuntary “state of increased arousal response promoted by a stimulus high in uncertainty and lacking in information.” Once “curiosity has been aroused, the organism engages in a process of exploration to reduce the state of arousal.” Curiosity is also triggered by uncertainty and is only maintained only until the uncertainty is resolved.

In contrast, interest leads to a voluntary, continuous engagement in the search for information in order to increase knowledge. Interest is also generated voluntarily and can be sustained even after the initial uncertainty has been resolved by engaging and re-engaging with relevant content over time. In summary, curiosity is dominated by a short-term effort to close a knowledge gap, whereas interest is a medium- to long-term “psychological state in which individuals are engaged in learning more about a subject in general.”

Curiosity-driven exploration is essential for young children to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to become independent individuals, and involves taking energy-intensive cognitive and physical risks. Once the individual has acquired the knowledge and skills necessary to survive, curiosity gradually reduces, most often in the late teens. Thus, to facilitate continued personal growth into adulthood, it is necessary to replace productivity-driven learning with interest-driven exploration that allows individuals to test their potential and lead more meaningful and fulfilling lives.

Therefore, in order to go beyond survival and achieve personal growth throughout adulthood, it is critical that the educational system nurture students’ interest in cognitive and sensory exploration, even as innate curiosity wanes. Because of the scarcity of resources, a century or two ago, people could only strive to survive. Today’s hyper-productive societies offer the vast majority of people unprecedented opportunities that go far beyond mere survival. 

In older times, the standardized curriculum of the factory model provided the knowledge and skills necessary for society to progress. Today, it unnecessarily inhibits personal growth throughout adult life. It is imperative that developed societies recognize the need to replace this outdated model with one that prepares the youth to explore the vast opportunities that hyper-productivity offers humanity. The education system should be fundamentally revamped to become the starting point from where innate curiosity-driven exploration is transformed into long-term interest-driven learning. This will not only benefit the individual, but society as a whole.

[Aniruddh Rajendran edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why We Need to Educate for Personal Growth, Not Productivity appeared first on Fair Observer.

The overarching purpose of Xi Jinping Thought, or Xi’ism, is “upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics to realize socialist modernization and national rejuvenation.” Xi’ism promotes 14 fundamental principles, which include “a people-centered approach,” “law-based governance,” “upholding core socialist values,” “ensuring harmony between humans and nature,” “upholding absolute Party leadership over the people’s forces,” and “promoting the building of a community with a shared future for humanity” amongst others.

While most of these principles seem worth pursuing, their implementation results in stringent restrictions on individual freedoms.

China’s ethnic policy

Western governments and media have extensively criticized President Xi and the Communist Party of China (CPC) for their forceful assimilation of ethnic Uyghurs, Tibetans and Mongolians into China’s majority Han culture. In recent years, Beijing has indeed intensified the pressure on Chinese ethnic minorities not just to integrate, but to fully assimilate into the Han culture. Those who resist are forcefully assimilated using any means deemed necessary by the CPC.

The West’s central contention is that ethnic minorities should be granted the right to preserve their distinct cultural, religious and social identities. They should be also allowed to manage their own regions as real autonomies, with only limited intervention from the central government in Beijing. While these ethnic and political rights are enshrined in the Constitution of China, the fact is that Beijing has ignored them for the sake of engineering a new Chinese nation.

What is less well-known in the in the West is that one central objective of Xi’ism is to assimilate the approximately 1.2 billion culturally eclectic ethnic Hans into a new Chinese national identity. The values, objectives and structure of this new nation are meticulously defined by Xi’ism and implemented in a country-wide social engineering program supervised of the CPC. By implementing this social engineering program, Beijing intends to strengthen the social cohesion of the 1.4 billion Chinese to ensure that the country will continue prospering as a nation-state. In turn, this prosperity should safeguard the legitimacy of the CPC’s absolute leadership in the eyes of the Chinese people.

Xi’ism has had its share of success

So far, the CPC leadership has been successful in turning a failed country into a prosperous one. As per the World Bank’s assessment, “Since China began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, GDP growth has averaged almost 10 percent a year, and more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty.” This growth continued under Xi’s tenure, which began in 2013. From 2013 until the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese economic growth averaged around 7%.

Without question, Xi’s program has restricted numerous individual and social rights, such as freedom of expression and assembly. Nevertheless, the CPC’s success in providing a prosperous life for most of the 1.4 billion Chinese cannot be denied.

It is Xi’s belief that one of the cornerstones on which to build this success is China’s social cohesion To achieve this, Beijing is implementing a social engineering program. Every society, in reality, is a construct. Still, the idea of socially engineering a society is not welcomed in Western societies. This is because of deep-rooted Western beliefs and values such as the assumption that each individual should be allowed to freely define his identity and choose his way of life. Still, much like any structure, every society has to be engineered.

Western societies are engineered, too. Otherwise, they would not be societies at all. An obvious fact showing that this is the case is the public education systems that for 15 years brainwash — benignly or not — our younger generations with homogeneous values, objectives and ways of thinking. Additionally, the fact that Western national or regional societies gravitate around common ideologies, values and objectives indicates that they have been engineered. So, the question is not whether it is necessary to social engineer a society, but how to do it to maximize its prosperity.

How can the West approach social engineering consciously and productively?

There are numerous problems with the current Western social engineering paradigm. Among them is the fact that Western political elites do not explicitly acknowledge the use of social engineering, making it difficult to engage in public and academic debates to analyze and improve it. Another problem results from some of the deeply rooted values and beliefs common in the West that grant almost unrestricted individual freedoms and the right to everyone to have a say in almost everything. Yet another problem is the common fallacy of attributing most of Western prosperity to freedom and democracy, rather than to scientific and technological development, discipline and commitment. These beliefs and values are not only weakening Western societies’ social cohesion and robustness, but are also masking the need for a fundamental change in the current social paradigm.

Guided by Xi’ism, the CPC is socially engineering a new Chinese national identity by forcefully assimilating ethnic minorities and homogenizing the eclectic Hans. This does not mean, of course, that the West should follow China’s lead and attempt to stamp out ethnic diversity. What it does mean is that the West needs to be open about the need to be proactive in socially engineering its own societies based on values and objectives that are not always popular.

It is time for the West to take a honest look at its current social engineering paradigm and fundamentally redesign it to build a society that will be in a strong position to overcome the challenges of this century and ensure the future prosperity of its peoples.

[Anton Schauble edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post How Xi’s Social Engineering Is Creating a New Chinese Nation appeared first on Fair Observer.

Given the time and access restrictions, this article does not intend to enter the discussion of whether Chinese policies in Xinjiang can be considered “cultural genocide” or if there is forced labor in the region. Neither does this article intend to explain why no women were seen to wearing the hijab, or the fact that only very few older men were seen to attend prayers. These radical changes can hardly be explained by natural and voluntary internal changes in the Uyghur community, but an objective assessment of these issues is not feasible with the available information. However, the information collected during the 7-day visit is sufficient to assess the validity of claims made by Western scholars and media regarding strict restrictions imposed on the use Uyghur language and the ubiquitous presence of security checkpoints in the region.

Where are all the checkpoints?

The Council on Foreign Relations, a reputed American think tank, states that, “In some cities, such as western Xinjiang’s Kashgar, police checkpoints are found every one hundred yards or so.” Under the headline, “The Police Region of Xinjiang: Checkpoints, Camps, and Fear,” the author declares that “an Uyghur I know was stopped 34 times one day.” In a similar vein, the Uyghur Academy states that “Each square has a police station that closely monitors inhabitants by regularly scanning their identification cards, taking their photographs and fingerprints, and searching their cell phones.” The New York Times’ piece “How China Uses High-Tech Surveillance to Subdue Minorities” affirms that “the online records indicate that a network of about 10,000 checkpoints in Urumqi made more than six million identifications in 24 hours.” 

These statements about security checks in Xinjiang are either outdated or grossly inflated. 

Indeed, what struck me the most on our first day in Kashgar was the total absence of checkpoints and paramilitary patrols on the roads and streets, which had been common during my last visit to the region in 2016. After landing in Kashgar, we drove to our hotel downtown and went to one of Kashgar’s night markets. To my surprise, there were no checkpoints at all, neither for traffic nor for pedestrians. In the following two days, we crisscrossed the city and went to the countryside several times. Not a single time had we to go through a checkpoint or saw anyone having to do so, no checkpoints or police patrols were visible and police presence on the streets was minimal. We only spotted one police van in a park where there was a large congregation of people dancing and a few traffic police cars on the roads. Moreover, this absence checkpoints continued for the whole 7-day trip to Kashgar, Aksu, Kuche and Urumqi, during which did not encounter or see a single checkpoint. 

So, at least in these four cities, there were no visible checkpoints and the police presence was minimal. The general atmosphere in the streets was relaxed, which was in itself a positive change from the situation we saw seven years ago, when interethnic tensions were obvious and extensive security measures were visible. Over the entire period of our visit, we didn’t see any security checkpoints at all and didn’t witness anyone having his ID checked in the streets, strongly undermining the Western media’s claim that checkpoints are omnipresent in Xinjiang.

Language issues

Another controversial issue discussed extensively in the Western media is that the use of the Uyghur is extremely restricted in Xinjiang. The United Nations Human Rights assessment from August 2022 found that some Uyghurs and Kazakhs “were not allowed to speak their own language.” The Uyghur Human Rights Project’s brief January 2019 piece “Assault on the Uyghur Language in East Turkestan” stated that “official policies discourage speaking and writing in Uyghur in public” and that “shops must clear the shelves of anything written in Uyghur script and Uyghur scrubbed from street signs and signboards.” 

The first hint that made me question the validity of these statements was the fact that the announcements on the plane from Urumqi to Kashgar were made in three languages: Mandarin, Uyghur and English. After landing in Kashgar, most signs in the airport were in Uyghur too. And most Uyghurs spoke to each other in Uyghur. While driving from the airport to the city, we tuned into different programs on the radio and we found that approximately half of them were in Mandarin and half in Uyghur. In the following days, we stayed in several hotels and the local TV programs were also half in Mandarin and half in Uyghur. 

Street and store signs were always written in Chinese characters and most of them had Uyghur, too. The font of the Chinese characters was larger, and sometimes the Uyghur script was not shown or not illuminated at night. From the observations I made over the 7-day trip, I gathered that signs are required to be written in Chinese characters and that people have the choice to add the Uyghur version. In predominantly Uyghur areas, the Uyghur script was practically always added.

Most Uyghurs talked to each other in the Uyghur language on the streets, in restaurants, aboard planes and in the countryside. School-aged children talked to each other in both Uyghur and Mandarin. It is relevant to mention that two of the Uyghurs we talked to (aged 30–40 years old) were unable to maintain a conversation in Mandarin, indicating that they had not spent time in the “vocational schools” or “camps.” Numerous Uyghurs we talked to had still very limited command of the Mandarin language.

Uyghur might not be taught in schools, but it seems to be the dominant language used among Uyghurs, both young and old, and the large majority of the signs seen were both in Uyghur and Chinese. Hence, the restrictions on the use of the Uyghur language are also grossly overstated in the West. Also, we didn’t see any indications that the use of the Uyghur language was restricted.

It is important that Western media and scholars adjust their claims to the current realities in Xinjiang, otherwise, they will strongly undermine their efforts to provide a credible perspective of the living conditions of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

[Anton Schauble edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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