How Revolution, Despotism & the rise of materialism present perplexity for President Xi

Because men are no longer tied to another by bonds of caste, class, guild, or family, they are only too apt to attend solely to their private interests, only too inclined to think exclusively of themselves and to withdraw into a narrow individualism that stifles all public virtue.  Despotism, far from combatting this tendency, makes it irresistible, for it deprives citizens of common passions, all mutual needs, all necessity to reach a common understanding, and all opportunity to act in concert.  It immures them, as it were, in private life.  They were already apt to hold one another at arm’s length.  Despotism isolated them.  Relations between them had grown chilly; despotism froze them.

In this type of society, where nothing is fixed, everyone is racked constantly by the fear of falling lower in the social scale and by the ardor to rise.  And since money, even as it has become the principal mark of class and distinction, has become unusually mobile, passing constantly from hand to hand, transforming the status of individuals, and raising or lowering families, virtually no one is exempt from the constant and desperate obligation to keep or acquire it.  The most common passion are therefore the desire to acquire wealth in any way possible, a predilection for business, the love of gain, and the lust for material comforts and pleasures.  These passions have spread readily to all classes, even those in which they were previously alien, and if nothing stops them they may soon enervate and degrade the entire nation.  But it is of the very essence of despotism to encourage and spread such debilitating passions, which help it achieve its ends.  They divert attention from public affairs, occupy the imagination of the people, and make them shudder at the very idea of revolution.  Despotism alone has the power to create the secrecy and the shadows in which greed can thrive and dishonest profits be amassed in defiance of dishonor.  Without despotism these selfish passions would be strong; with it they rule.[1]

Tocqueville, The Ancien Régime and the French Revolution (1856)

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[1] Tocqueville, The Ancien Régime and the French Revolution, ed. Jon Elster, tr. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 5, 6.  See the Forward.

The Coquitlam Confucius Institute is a pretext for “good will”

In an effort to eliminate “confusion” the Coquitlam Confucius Institute is now rebranding after dropping the name of China’s most famous philosopher.[1] Meanwhile, in another shell game, it is no longer affiliated with Hanban, a branch of the Chinese Ministry of Education but will be headquartered in Guangzhou at the South China Normal University in a so-called sister-to-sister relationship with School District 43. 

This is all sleight-of-hand. Consider the front page headlines from the Globe and Mail which raise specific concerns, as SD43 applies white-wash. [2] Children celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Confucius Institute in Coquitlam can be found in a YouTube video all synchronized and pumping their fists in the air while reciting “I am proud. I am Chinese”, lines from a patriotic poem which also praises the “five-star red flag” as well as the spirit of the Communist revolution.

SD43 Superintendent Patricia Gartland has also long claimed that Confucius Institute teachers are sourced within Canada and have undergraduate degrees or more.  But upon investigating LinkedIn accounts the Globe and Mail determined that “at least two instructors worked as teachers in mainland China shortly before beginning work for the Coquitlam Institute, which says it only uses local staff.”

On top of this there have been problems with educational materials in the form of textbooks from China which depicted Taiwan as a province and Tiananmen Square as sanitized.  Clearly SD43 has been less than truthful about the China’s influence, and Gartland and our Trustees should be held accountable.

But what is the true cost of doing business with Beijing? SD43 sees it as a boon with about 10 percent of its budget paid for by fees from overseas Chinese students, on average twice the rate of other school districts in the province.  Lest we forget, however, about the over 5,000 British Columbians who have died from overdoses of illicit fentanyl which derives from China. In today’s postcolonial world, it’s likely considered payback for that country’s national humiliation following the Opium Wars in the nineteenth century.

If we look at the controversy surrounding Huawei, Global News has reported on the link between that company’s sudden rise and the bankruptcy of Nortel, Canada’s telecommunications gem.[3]  Too interested in profit margins, Nortel failed to protect its own research and development as China-based military hackers downloaded and stole from executive accounts.  The Globe and Mail has also reported that listening devices were found in the former Nortel building walls.  Perhaps SD43 would consider this sort of information  as beyond its purview.

Myopia prevails at SD43. Speech is not free in China.  It’s a police state with internet firewalls, censorship in overdrive, intrusive facial recognition technology, and a pervasive social credit system to regulate its people.  There is no “public” in mainland China, a concept which suggests “openness” – something President Xi sees as a political enemy.  It also has an aggressive international agenda which should be clear to all.  In other words, the Coquitlam Confucius Institute is just a pretext for Chinese Communist Party “good will”.

Confused?  Beijing certainly is not – though it appears SD43 is muddled about which side of the Pacific Ocean it is meant to serve: China and its despotism, or Canada and its democracy? I know which I prefer.

 

 

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[1] “China has no influence on schools, say trustees, as they double down on Confucius Institute”, Tri-City News online, Wednesday October 14, 2020.

[2] “Beijing uses B.C. schools to push agenda”, The Globe and Mail, Thursday October 15, 2020.

[3] “Inside the Chinese military attack on Nortel”, Global News online August 25, 2020.