Although we usually hear populists in both camps saying, that the realm of good – their own – is facing that of evil – the other side, U.S. and Chinese students and scholars move effortlessly from one country to the other. After the Chinese conformed most of their institutions to the Western model, the similarities between them are significantly greater than anything that still separates them. „The Chinese now enjoy almost complete freedom of movement. They can buy a house, choose an education, start a job or a business, join a church (as long as it is Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism or Protestantism), dress as they like, openly express homosexual tendencies without ending up in a penal colony, travel abroad at their own pleasure and even criticize the party as long as they do not question its rule. So even lack of freedom is no longer what it used to be“ (Norberg). Meantime, however, these freedoms apply only to Chinese without negative entries on their social credit account that shows the balance of good behavior and negative marks for every citizen of the empire. Xi Jinping has succeeded in imposing the Orwellian vision of a perfect surveillance state on a nation of more than one billion people. Yet the 99 percent of obeying citizens have nothing to fear – instead they benefit from security, prosperity and advancement. It is the remaining one percent, those rebelling against the party’s regulations and leadership, who must reckon with suppression and persecution, up to and including physical annihilation. This applies to the Han Chinese themselves but much more to the subjugated Uyghurs and Tibetans. The party is convinced that it confers happiness on the people (and it has undoubtedly succeeded in a material sense). That is the reason why it does not shrink back from imposing happiness from above. An overwhelming majority – though certainly not 99 % – seem to approve of the system as long as it brings them and their country prosperity and visible power. In this perspective, the reckless persecution of opponents seems a small sacrifice.
In the West, politics and the public lean to the other side. We are dedicated to protecting outsiders, critics and even outspoken opponents of our political, social and moral system. With this attitude of tolerance, we are morally far superior to any surveillance state – but only as long as the freedom of critics and outsiders does not threaten the freedom of the community as a whole. If this balance is upset, states collapse due to internal resistance. Unfortunately, such process of inner corrosion is already taking place.
This can be seen in the response to the pandemic
Even though the government of China constantly trumpets its successes to the world for propaganda reasons, we must acknowledge that it has indeed taken and implemented the right measures to protect its people, while the West still fails miserably in this task. Vaccination against dangerous epidemics was once compulsory even in European countries and could be carried out without mass protests. In 1807, the Kingdom of Bavaria was the first German state to introduce compulsory vaccination, which was followed by other states in the following decades. Then, in 1874, all Germans in the German Empire were required by the Imperial Vaccination Act to have their children vaccinated against smallpox at the ages of one and twelve (repeat vaccination).
After the Second World War, there was a legal obligation to vaccinate in the GDR from 1953, which was successively extended until 1970: In addition to smallpox, vaccination against tuberculosis (1953), polio (1961), diphtheria (1961), tetanus (1961), and pertussis (1964, then in the form of the DTP vaccine) was mandatory; from 1970, vaccination against measles was also legally required.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, there was compulsory vaccination against diphtheria and scarlet fever from 1946 to 1954, and there was general compulsory vaccination against smallpox from 1949 to the end of 1975. The legal basis for the compulsory smallpox vaccination at that time was still the Imperial Vaccination Act of 1874.
Some of the most dangerous epidemics were completely or largely eradicated as a result, so that nowadays vaccination against them is no longer necessary – a life-saving medical success owed exclusively to the compulsory vaccination at previous times.
China, a nation of more than a billion people,
has achieved within a few months, what Westerners too were still able to do in the 19th century. Why are we no longer able to do this today? Why do a billion people in China suffer from no more than a dozen cases of corona per day (most of them introduced from outside), while we will soon have to accept the next killing wave? Certainly, the contrast between China and the West cannot be blamed on a lack of knowledge on our part. Our pharmaceutical companies and epidemiological experts are still superior to the Chinese. Nor can we simply explain the difference setting our Western freedom against Chinese autocracy. A jab in the arm that protects me and the persons I meet from possible death or probable illness is a much lesser encroachment on my liberties than, for example, the fact that in the leading Western power, the United States, anyone is allowed to get a firearm, thus massively compromising the safety of the community. Even taxes, against which the rich can successfully defend themselves with a variety of legal tricks, constitute a restriction of liberties, but they generate far less resistance than compulsory vaccination. Nay, I may say that even crosswalks noticeably restrict my personal freedom, since they forbid me to cross the street wherever I like. But apart from anarchists, whose highest value is their own unrestricted freedom, no one has ever seriously complained about this. Like in present day China, people in 19th century Germany still trusted science and the state that acted according to its precepts. If epidemiological experts (at least an overwhelming majority among them) are agreed that vaccination will safe a hundred times more lives than it may cost, then it was considered a foregone conclusion that it must be made compulsory for the benefit of the community. The opponents were rightly considered ego-hungry populists from a moral point of view, dangerous obstructionists from a political perspective, and poor lunatics (one could also say ignorant imbeciles) in the light of science.
Should the West lose the battle against China and other autocracies,
it is not because it glorifies personal freedom as an ideal – hardly could there be a more beautiful vision – but because it no longer understands the meaning and aim of freedom. Freedom gets confused with the empowerment of individual citizens to act at will against the interests of the community. As for the ownership of firearms, such confusion is obvious (to all but US-Americans). It makes no sense to preach tolerance towards egomaniacal populists, dangerous obstructionists and ignorant idiots, even if these people endanger the physical and psychological stability of society. At its peak, which, as we know, may reemerge at any time, the epidemic paralyzed Western societies in a way that usually only happens in times of war. If the leading medical experts can guarantee that a simple measure such as compulsory vaccination will effectively defeat the enemy (as it has successfully done in the past), then any Western state is behaving irresponsibly towards its citizens if it refrains from saving their lives by doing so. China has acted with great determination and success and by now almost vaccinated its entire population – more than a fifth of the world’s whole population. The communist giant pours scorn on the helpless West. If we do not understand that in a temporary state of war, the protection of the community takes precedence over the will of populists, obstructionists, poor lunatics and ignorant idiots, then we must be prepared that ever larger parts of the population will long for an autocratic regime that knows how to act in times of emergency.
The process is already underway, and it is so precisely among those people who we hear screaming the loudest, namely populists, obstructionists and lunatics.