China remained shrouded in mystery to the West from the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 until the 1970s. In 1972, US President Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing heralded the revival of the West’s political relationship with China, though it should be noted that Gough Whitlam, Australia’s Leader of the Opposition and later Prime Minister, also visited in 1971. Shortly after, in 1978, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping introduced his ‘Open Door’ policy which opened up China’s cities for trade and its borders for tourism.
Roughly 50 years later, China now wields great economic influence – which is reflected in our headlines, which are never short of something to say about China’s growth, tech, or politics – normally with a negative spin. Yet, is our attitude of suspicion towards China justified?
In August, I made a visit for a working holiday, and I was struck by just how ordinary much of it seems to be. But, from within, one can only see so much. China’s cities should be compared with its hinterlands, and with its actions abroad. What makes the key difference with China is the continued extensive power of the state in a country that has a patriotism far beyond our norms. This is reflected by the attempts of its government to promote positive narratives abroad.
The modern Chinese metropolis
China’s cities are incredibly economically developed. In a way, the cityscapes are incredibly similar, featuring immense skyscrapers with lights that glow into the small hours. Speaking to long-term residents of Guangzhou, a city known for its manufacturing prowess, it became clear just how much had changed in a short space of time in a megacity of nearly 15 million people that in 1950 had just 1/15 of this number.
Zhujiang New Town – what seemed to me like Guangzhou’s city centre – only started development in the 2000s. A flat expanse by the Pearl River has been transformed, hosting the 600-metre tall Canton Tower, which glows in rainbow colours in the dark, and a modern opera house designed by the late Zaha Hadid. It would not seem out of place to have a robot roam the streets – and they already operate as mobile vending machines in shopping malls and as deliverers of room service in hotels.
The Canton Tower
Moreover, the use of technology makes China’s urban areas incredibly easy to navigate: Google Maps might be blocked by the government’s ‘Great Firewall’ but AMap is a more than adequate alternative. In general I did not feel limited in spite of the blacklisting of most Western websites in China. VPNs act as a simple way to stay in touch with home, and I was surprised to find that a great deal of locals used them too, either for business, or to scroll Instagram. Another slight hill to overcome was to do with transactions. Cash is not king in China; essentially all payments are carried out from WeChat or Alipay at the scan of a QR code. As you sign up to these apps using your real identity rather than an alias, transactions feel more secure. In a similar way, train tickets are connected to either your passport or a resident’s ID card. Police booths are also a visible presence on most city corners. It does feel more authoritarian than British norms, but all these combine to make one feel incredibly safe, even on streets late at night. China’s crime index has been scored at 24.9 – for context, the UK ranks at 47.4, almost double (the lower, the better).
Day-to-day, with a healthy number of Western brands on the streets, it did not feel so much a foreign culture as an insight into what a safety-conscious Western city might look like in twenty years’ time. Chinese people are justifiably proud of what has been built here.
Beyond the cities
This safety does not necessarily extend to all, however. China has come under heavy criticism for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province. A campaign of ‘anti-terrorism’ has been used to justify the existence of detention camps that appear to hold Uyghurs for sometimes very innocuous reasons, such as a phone running out of credit, in order to ‘re-educate’ them.
‘Re-education’ has been reported to involve forceful methods. Former detainees have described being subject to sleep deprivation as a form of torture. Women have reported systematic sexual assault by guards. Tursunay Ziawadun, who spent nine months in a XInjiang camp, has alleged that masked men came to abduct women from cells night by night, marked by screaming. Qelbinur Sedik, who worked as a teacher in the camps, has told the BBC that a policewoman described to her how “rape has become a culture” there. Research suggested the prevalence of forced sterilisation in order to prevent the growth of the Uyghur population, claims that China has called “baseless.”
But tourism to Xinjiang has recently taken off, taking in an incredible 300 million visitors in 2024. This is encouraged by state-produced television shows that show off the region. What the West might see as an area to avoid is now a hotspot of Chinese tourism.
Meanwhile, there have been plentiful attempts to change the narrative surrounding this issue abroad too. The research of Professor Laura Murphy at Sheffield Hallam University, which looked into the situation in Xinjiang, was curtailed by the university following visits from Chinese representatives in 2024.
Intelligence
China’s foreign intelligence operations are indeed immense. An estimated half a million Chinese work in both domestic and international security. In the UK in recent years, Yang Tenbo, an alleged spy who had close contact with Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, and Christine Lee, an alleged Chinese agent who infiltrated Parliament, have been accused of sending intelligence to China.
Moreover, Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash, who were accused of collecting UK political information for Chinese intelligence agencies, have seen the charges against them dropped. MI5 have also issued warnings to MPs and Lords on the potential threat of spies using LinkedIn.
These problems, of course, do not just face the UK. The US has accused China of stealing its intellectual property, sometimes through individuals who marry their targets. This has been robustly rejected; the Chinese embassy said that “the Chinese government consistently requires Chinese nationals abroad to abide by local laws and regulations and to refrain from any illegal activities. We oppose some media outlets spreading false information to slander and smear China.”
National Spirit
Such accusations would understandably not be taken well given the incredible sense of national pride that courses through the Chinese. Tickets to visit the raising or lowering ceremony of the Chinese flag at Tiananmen Square seemed harder to obtain than those for Oasis. After the ceremony, an immense throng gathered in front of Chairman Mao’s portrait to take their photos with him.
At this time in mid-August, the Square was in the process of being made over for the Victory Day parade, which celebrates the end of Japanese occupation after World War II. You do not have to look very hard to find monuments honouring the Chinese resistance against their neighbour. In Britain, the service of soldiers against Germany is commemorated in monuments and Remembrance Day ceremonies, but defiance against the enemy seems to occupy an even more substantial part of the Chinese consciousness.
Victory Day this year was attended by numerous world leaders, but significantly Vladimir Putin and Kim-Jong Un. The planning was substantial; one afternoon I was even forbidden to leave my hotel near Tiananmen Square due to ‘traffic controls,’ which I understood as being caused by the movement of equipment via roads into the Square, or perhaps a rehearsal. This did cause a bit of confusion among locals at the entrance to the guarded roads, but in general people seemed accustomed to this level of disruption.
Meituan, a food delivery app, ensured that I would not starve, but even then, the motorbike was not allowed up the road, and I had to walk up to the roadblock under supervision from the hotel owner to pick up my bento box. I would have thought that there would be more annoyance at the disturbance to routines, but there is full buy-in into such national events, and people seemed willing to accept disruption for the day in anticipation of a tremendous spectacle.
Final Thoughts
There is, then, much we could envy China for in terms of its technology, efficiency and safety. However, China’s politics, organisation and global ambitions are considered threatening by Western leaders. Debate rages about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which offers loans to support infrastructure projects in developing nations. Research has discredited the idea that the Initiative is just a means to trap nations in debt, but you would be hard-pressed to find a Western politician in support of it. China’s tech dominance has made TikTok and Huawei into global brands, but TikTok’s status in America has been in legal limbo, and there is a complete ban in India. Meanwhile, the EU appears to be taking from the lead of the US and UK in considering removing Huawei infrastructure from its mobile network. Is there anything actually sinister behind these? It is difficult to say, but the continued use of China’s intelligence network and the enforcement of positive stories about the country – including the possible concealment of truth concerning Xinjiang – suggests that China would not admit to such a thing if it were the case. This is perhaps why the West has its suspicions.
The patriotism that China is built upon means that the state has incredible power over the public domain, and is extremely opposed to criticism, both internally and externally. China will likely carry on in a similar path for the foreseeable future, and many of its citizens, who have benefitted from its rapid development, will continue to pull in the same direction. In this way, China will be an economic and political force to be reckoned with for years to come. It will be no surprise if they displace America’s global hegemony.