Ooh I’ve been waiting for this question for awhile!
I’m actually a Chinese diaspora (hence my username, which stands for American-Born Chinese Marxist-Leninist). (For those who aren’t familiar, the term ABC refers to Chinese Americans who are born in the United States.)
In my experience, the more lib and anti-China the person is, the more cringe they get. This applies to Chinese, both mainland and diaspora. In general, if you meet Chinese abroad, they are more likely than your average person in China itself to be a liberal (due to all the normal reasons, such as being more likely to be of a bourgeois background, Western education, etc)
I’ve met some Chinese libs who glaze Japan and talk about how they hate the “CCP” 🙄 These people overall seem to lead unhappy lives given the amount of cognitive dissonance they have to deal with when trying to explain how it is China is able to have much better public transport compared to the US for example lol
The diaspora are not much better either. I have unfortunately never met another fellow ABC that actually has based politics on China. They overwhelmingly treat the CPC with contempt and complain about “authoritarianism” and how they are so glad their family left China and other weird stuff. Many of them in university joined the Taiwanese club or whatever since they felt ashamed to be descended from mainland Chinese immigrants 🤦♂️
Speaking of Taiwan, I’ve noticed that Taiwanese locals and diaspora almost universally have this anti mainland China attitude. I’ve met quite a few of them and when I asked them if they’ve ever been to the mainland, they all said no and all seem like they are quite scared of the idea of even doing so. They seem quite uncomfortable when I tell them they should and that mainland China is actually quite nice to visit.
Similar cringe comes from Hong Kong diaspora. I met one guy who was born and raised in Hong Kong until 2019, right around the protests, and his family moved to the United Kingdom after that. He could only complain about how bad life in the UK is and how he always dreaded having to go back home, but he still views China negatively. I honestly don’t know if I should feel sorry or if I should just laugh as these people increasingly feel “oppressed” about Hong Kong and its development.
Finally, the part where I talk about Chinese in China! While there are plenty of people who are not particularly political, there were some who were quite vocal about their views and were willing to discuss them with me. These people overwhelmingly supported the government and were not afraid of telling the truth on how they viewed China’s development. Unlike the other groups mentioned above, these Chinese locals that I talked to actually have nuanced and informed views on the CPC and China in general. Their support of the government is grounded in reality, contrary to the average liberal who wants to dismiss them all as “brainwashed by the CCP”, so conversations with them are actually normal lol. My enthusiasm and optimism surrounding China is actually matched here.
Another fun thing is watching other people being thrown for a loop when I tell them that I am a pro-China Chinese American. Many people falsely assume that I am Chinese Chinese when they first meet me and talk in a mildly condescending manner, only to suddenly realize I’m an American and switch to being more normal. Of course, at this point I know that they don’t view Chinese people with respect so the conversations become slightly tense and awkward, as well as being aware that they view me as brainwashed for having a pro-China view.
Of course, the most important thing to remember is that these are just generalizations. I’m sure there are plenty of ABCs who are like me, but refuse to speak up about their pro-China views for fear of being ostracized, just as there are probably plenty of cringe West worshipping libs living in China. At the end of the day, people have different opinions. Some are happy and have positive outlooks, others don’t.
All in all, I’m very happy that Chinese in China are able to appreciate the progress made under the leadership of the CPC. Given how isolated people like me are politically in the US, I think I honestly should just move to China in the future at this point and join my comrades but we’ll see I guess lol
Hello my fellow ABCml! I agree with your points about material conditions changing people’s perception of reality. A visit to China when I was younger was what really kicked off my disillusionment with liberalism and got me questioning my old anti-China views haha. There are very few instances of my worldview being so completely shattered by a simple visit, and China wasn’t even that developed back then. Goes to show you how strong the western media brainwashing is and how the manufacturing consent machine can ironically make Westerners much more ignorant of the world, unlike what the typical liberal view of there being “free and independent media” in the West. Curious if you also had a similar deprogramming moment or if you have always been an ML?
The other big part of whether one enjoys their visit to China is if they speak the language. By virtue of having a Chinese face, people are going to default to speaking in Chinese. I’ve met a few ABCs who don’t speak Chinese, so when they visited China, they felt very uncomfortable. I am definitely still working on my Chinese and wouldn’t consider myself fluent, but I can definitely say that as my Chinese has gotten better, my experience in China has improved too.
If there is one thing that I find weird, it’s that some people visit China and still leave convinced that the West and liberalism is superior to socialism. They have repeatedly visited, so it’s not like they can’t see the massive improvements in society, chalking it up to China adopting capitalism. Of course, these same people will blame anything they don’t like about China to communism, but I guess cognitive dissonance is the norm for liberals lol
One final big benefit of being a pro-China ML is watching China’s rise in recent years and actually feeling excited about it. Even though implementation may not have been perfect, broadly speaking Socialism with Chinese Characteristics has vindicated Deng Xiaoping’s claim on how socialism in the final analysis develops the productive forces more rapidly than capitalism. While there are obviously a lot of negative things going on in the world, China’s rise has not been one of them. It’s both hilarious and sad to see liberals be in full blown panic as capitalism runs into crisis and socialism has shown itself to be a superior mode of production. Chinese libs who spent a lot of energy sucking up to the West and trying to immigrate here for the “freedom” and who have spent a lot of time looking down on their fellow Chinese who are more supportive of the government are now realizing that the illusion of freedom in the West is just that, an illusion. At least some of them are slowly changing their minds, so that’s good I guess.
Overall, I’m optimistic for China’s future and the future of Chinese people all over the world. 中华人民共和国万岁！