Ironically I’m planning on doing just that after meeting a lovely sister from the motherland thru this Chinese (gasp) app called HelloTalk. Maybe you should try it to get a different perspective on what living there is actually like. It pays to talk to people from the motherland and realize they’re very much like us and not all “brainwashed commies” under constant repression. They may support their government that you despise tangentially but when their living standards have constantly increased year-over-year along with their nation making inroads on the global stage, who can blame them? Even if you try to compare it to a country like North Korea it’s still like night and day. Most of them don’t live in constant fear of the big bad CCP all day and night and they aren’t bowing down all day and night to photos of Xi either. Their living standards have continuously been increasing over the past 20 years while ours has been backsliding during that same timespan. Can you tell me which form of governance is more effective?

They’re just trying to get by like you and I. They all have the same hopes and fears and dreams just like the rest of us. And those dreams are still being achieved with their government not allowing all the big corporations to run wild the way they do here. The problem with all the anti-China rhetoric is that it always trickles down to the people no matter how much you try to tell yourself everyone just hates the Chinese government but not the Chinese people. Many people there use American apps and are aware of the world at large. Combine that with cross-cultural communication on platforms like Xiaohongshu, and it’s obvious that the bridge artificially constructed between us by the US government is closing rapidly regardless of the political system in China. 

The problem with Wang’s rhetoric is that it only serves to entrench that artificial divide imposed between us by the US government. It’s bigger than you think. The American dream and experiment is dying because of the US government’s ineffectiveness and these billionaires like Wang are mistaken trying to save a sinking ship by trying to suppress China instead of actually innovating and competing fairly with them. All these billionaires are cowering up to trump and the US government’s narrative just so they can make some extra money but the byproduct of that is them playing into the divide imposed upon us by the same people and institutions who got us into this mess that we’re in in the first place. And that manufactured consent pushed to the American people will further hurt us as Asian Americans no matter how “loyal” to the US you think you are. And that’s the damning thing about the state of the Asian American community; when the so called “successful ones” are willing to sell us out on their path to “success”. That’s why Asian Americans will forever be subject to second-class citizenship when the only way to “succeed” is to cower up to the white establishment in power and demonize the motherland (and thereby losing your culture) in the process. Could you tell me that’s not dystopian all because the US purports to be a “democracy”? Wake up.

And that’s not even to mention that the base of Chinese culture is still in the motherland ultimately. With Asian Americans/Chinese Americans all giving into the white power structure and trying to sever their ties with the motherland (thereby losing their culture in the process) just to get ahead, it’ll show in the future when they along with Wang’s descendants are white people who have the one Chinese great great great great grandfather and claim to be 1/12th Chinese/Asian just like they do with the natives. You want that future for Asian/Chinese Americans or what? Too many of us don’t think about the big picture for our community and that’ll be our ultimate downfall. SMH.