| A lot of what you are saying here is a fair opinion, if you have a strong belief in granting the government the power to try to shape a better society. What makes most countries in the world different from China is that the people have less faith that the government will do the right thing. It might be because freedom of speech and freedom of press allows other countries to better learn from their mistakes. Just as in China, countries around the rest of the world have a history of allowing the government control over some form of social organization, and then the government creates a very shocking outcome. For example, in Canada, for decades the government took indigenous children away from their native homes and families, and sent them to residential school. The idea was very similar to the idea today's China government has about how to manage Uighur population in Xinjiang - to educate them in the correct way to live, to help them become better citizens, and not live as some kind of savage. Nowadays, this is considered one of the most shameful parts of Canadian history, because we know that this destroyed people's families, it ruined the native culture, and these schools were places where a lot of abuse occurred. Fundamentally, it came from a mindset of "government knows better for you than you know yourself"... But government was wrong! There are also many embarrassing histories of this in other countries, a recent example is perhaps how America's strict criminal justice system and "war on drugs" resulted in million or more non-violent people in prison. These policies might come from a noble idea. The government always says it is trying to engineer a better society, but is it really better when so many people have their rights taken away? Of course, for the people who are in the majority, it might seem that life got better. But from the perspective of the people who are targeted by the program, it often seem like life got worse. Even if China minorities get some extra bonus on gaokao, or some extra money, this does not always balance out the other struggles they have in life. For example perhaps they do not want to go to work camp. They do not want to learn Mandarin. They do not want to install tracking app on the phone. Maybe they want to teach their children in local language, they want to keep their local religion, they want to be free to go out in the park for walk and not carry phone with them for checkpoint. For them, that life, that freedom is more important than harmonious society. If it is hard for you to imagine this is the case for Uighur people, or Tibet people, then even just think Guangdong people. Not minority group, no gaokao bonus, they are probably more rich than people from Gansu or Hunan, but still it is some kind of cultural loss for them to not be able to use local language in the school. Should the government make these decisions, or should each community be allowed to decide for itself how it want to live? This is one of the fundamental differences between very strong central government and ideological single party system like China, and countries which allow more debate and more autonomy in different regions. Does it make sense? |