I'm well into my fourth year in China. I miss a few things about America. The NFL. A really good pizza or good burger. Not the standard fare of Pizza Hut or McDonald's variety. Low prices on electronics - and clothing that is inexpensive. Actually, I can watch the football games on the Internet.
Yes, it is true some websites are blocked and I have to use a VPN service to circumvent the Great Fire Wall. Too, I am conspicuous by my presence. An old white guy
There is one thing about America that I do not miss.
Fear.
In China, I have experienced a level of personal freedom that is not possible in the United States. Some will say my thinking is buggy and I am whacked out. Let me explain.
There are no guns available to the general public in this society. I have seen one rifle - permissible - in the countryside, to be used for hunting. Armored car - bank guards with machine guns. Military guard post personnel. That's it.
Never, as in not once, have I been stopped by the police. I'm very active. Out in the crowds for many hours each day. An old man with a salt and pepper beard riding a mountain bike, for much of the time, in all kinds of weather and traffic. Quite a sight, I imagine.
Inquisitive, that' me. Others say I am too damn nosy for my own good. I'm a mixer, I engage the people that I see. Exploring is one of my pastimes. There is not one neighborhood I haven't walked through or ridden my bicycle into. Try that in the states.
No, thank you. I'm not absorbed in nihilistic thoughts.
Read the article.
You decide.
by Doug Bandow.
Repeat after me: the People's Republic of China is an authoritarian country. Political leaders are not elected. Human rights activists go to jail. Religious persecution is real.
China is not free.
Yet to visit the PRC is to visit a nation that feels free. It's remarkably easy to get a visa. The consular office in Washington, D.C. is always crowded; pay an extra $30 and get same-day service. It's a lot harder for Chinese to get a visa from the U.S. government.
Blacklisting presumably occurs, but most vetting must be perfunctory. Given the time difference, the Washington consulate is handing out visas while the Beijing Foreign Ministry is sleeping. The PRC appears to have decided to err on the side of collecting U.S. dollars.
Beijing's spacious new airport has no forbidding security presence. Exiting health check, immigration, and customs is no more onerous than returning home to the U.S.
Most Chinese and foreigners saunter through the green "nothing to declare" customs channel. No one appears to be checked for anything. I could have carried in political or religious literature without incident. (Heck, some people might view the copies of two of my foreign policy books which I brought on my most recent trip as subversive.)
Presumably some people are discovered smuggling, but this isn't North Korea, where my luggage was carefully searched and I was questioned for bringing in a few copies of a benign volume on the two Koreas. The Beijing regime apparently has decided that it is worth accepting the risk of minor subversion in order to encourage large-scale business and tourist travel.
Once through you can fly anywhere in China. Temporary restrictions are imposed in crises, as during unrest in Tibet. But most of the country is open: the domestic terminal is full of Western passengers with no one in authority paying the slightest attention.
Finish the article at The American Spectator
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