Hidden Harmonies China Blog

One doesn’t have to be an expert in Shakespeare to see Donald Trump as a tragedy in motion. I was the only one in HH that liked Hillary over Donald before the election. I thought Hillary will manage the decline of American Empire in a more orderly way and Donald will be chaos causing unpredictable disasters for all, but the rapidity of the decline astonish all including myself. Certainly he’s causing pain for China with his tariff war and possible technology embargo, which I think most Americans don’t disagree with him at present. But now he has singlehandedly stirred the hornet’s nest , aka swamp in Washington DC establishment to a boil. It remains to be seen whether the swamp will swamp him with Mueller’s report and impeachment.
I dislike Trump intensely. For he represents the antithesis of Chinese traditional values. Honor, honesty, loyalty, and empathy. The lack of those values not only reflect from his behavior, but also reflect from his associates and fellow criminals, Cohen, Flynn, and Manafort. His slogan MAGA hides his real aim of trying to maintain and return America as a WASP country in imaginary Ayn Rand novels. Yet, I can’t really oppose his policies of dismantling the empire by withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan which I agree. Even his immigration policy while lacking in empathy I agree to a certain extent. I do think any country need to maintain border security and citizenship by birth is an anachronism.
The one positive outcome is Trump has managed to torn open the curtain of illusion which blinded those Chinese liberals of Western superiority, of sweet and clean air as spoken by that Maryland graduate rather than ashes from California fire or coal, the human rights as a shield against the inequality behind the curtain, or even the illusion the liberals in the West clothed on themselves about the ossified U.S. Constitution being real democracy. I do hope they can see behind the curtain of gerrymandering with 37% Republican voter control more than 50% of Wisconsin state legislature, or as Michael Moore call on people to rise up against electoral college, that if Trump got more than 3 million votes and lost by electoral college he would have call the people to the ramparts.

When I was growing up in Shanghai in 1950s, I like most young Chinese, have a somewhat romantic view of Uighurs. They dance and sing during holiday celebrations. The girls and women are beautiful, wearing colorful costumes and seem exotic and unapproachable. The limited exchanges with wandering Uighur merchants selling candies and warnings that any disputes with them will be ruled in their favor by authorities as they want to avoid any friction with national minorities. There was an unofficial policy to discourage any interaction or intermarriage with Uighurs. Unlike in Southern U.S. which consider intermarriage with blacks as miscegenation but more as to avoid friction with Uighur community. Today Western press seem obsessed with Uighur on whether China is on a path of genocide or concentration camp in Xinjiang. For someone like me in U.S. the question is laughable given the history of U.S. on extermination of Native Americans and slavery, not to mention Muslim ban of Trump’s policy on immigrants. For most Han Chinese, the change of policy from indulgence to more strict enforcement is way overdue. Due to sensitivity of Russia border area, Uighurs were left alone which turn out to be to their detriment as China has grown tremendously in economic, educational, and global commerce. It damages Uighur children for failure to learn Mandarin as much as fail to teach English language to immigrant children in U.S.. Due to the growth of internet it was inevitable extremist Islamic theology spread to Uighurs given the lack of economic development and corrective actions need to be taken. Economic forces with education and migration will eventually resolve it. I suggest the liberals would to better to expire their guilt by working in native American communities or soup kitchens.