Thread by @GenevaTradeLaw

@BaldingsWorld Personal story involving mainland Chinese students (and their professor), trade law, and Chinese nationalism. Only a data point.

Over dinner, Chinese student studying trade law at a Western European university asked me: "Why is the West picking on China?" 1/

@BaldingsWorld When asked her to clarify what she meant, she and her collegue (and the professor, also Chinese), pointed to China's economic miracle and complained that the "West" wanted to impose "its values" and economic structures on China. 2/

@BaldingsWorld Long conversation ensued.

I specifically pointed to China's commitments in its WTO Accession Protocol (for example, an independent judiciary), as well as the WTO obligations itself: on transparency, a functioning market economy and so on. 3/

nytimes.com/2017/01/18/wor…

@BaldingsWorld There was not a whole lot of argument on the other side, other than the usual "China has different values" and "Western capitalism does not work in China" and so on. The crowning argument-at which point I ended the conversation-was, "Anyway, I LOVE MY COUNTRY." 4/

@BaldingsWorld The prof, who had begin similarly strident, was taken aback by this. After dinner, he said that more and more students coming out of China have a similar *argumentative disposition*: any criticism of China is existential; "love of country" overrides rational discourse. 5/

@BaldingsWorld My adolescence was spent battling revolutionary dogma even as I saw close friends succumb to it; I know how it works. External pressure-even rational argument-reinforces the under-siege mentality rather than shedding light on the contradictions of the dogma. 6/

@BaldingsWorld So my bet would be that they really mean it. Does not bode well.

/fin

@BaldingsWorld *begun

aaargh

@BaldingsWorld P.s. I avoid the term "brainwashed" because the line of thinking is not limited to Chinese students. Even the @ft sometimes falls victim to the "puw wittow China oppressed by neoliberal" narrative.

https://twitter.com/GenevaTradeLaw/status/1026386431370043394

@BaldingsWorld @FT P.p.s. Some additional context on China and the WTO (this is the substance of at least part of the conversation with the Chinese student).

https://twitter.com/GenevaTradeLaw/status/983965283521122304