China Law Blog

On the other hand, what he said is not actually that different to the official position of the CCP. The fact that he was applauded, and that Wen Jiabao was attending, is definitely instructive.

I don't think he's racist, he just has the attitude many rich Chinese do. They know better than ordinary, poor/working class Chinese - the latter must be controlled by the former. I think this is why those business reps apparently applauded him.

Or, perhaps even worse, he doesn't believe it but as TUT suggested he said it to get support from the censors to further his career.

Either way, he's a jerk and along with his other political drivel should be ignored.

"he's a jerk and along with his other political drivel should be ignored."
So we're suggesting that he has too much freedom to speak and therefore should be censored and controlled?
It's not necessarily the attitude of many rich Chinese. It's a typical attitude of any polituburo minded elitist of anybody of any shade of color.
We're not upset because he might actually be right are we?

I don't think "chinese" is a race. I think it's a nationality. Maybe you should call Jackie Chan a nationalicist.

Odinga,

Are you nuts? Do you really believe that my suggesting we ignore someone is the equivalent of calling for that person to be censored? If you do, I have a 1st Amendment I suggest you read because you could not be more off base.

The government in Taiwan seems relatively good to me. Examples of corruption being exposed and prosecuted are signs of a healthy democracy.

If I could bet money on which government would be more stable and responsive in the long run - Taiwan or China - I'd bet it all on Taiwan.

This sentiment is common in China and lots of other places as well. Far from only being an idea supported by the wealthy, I have heard many working class Chinese express similar €sentiment. Many people view democracy as chaotic and rife with disaster, and in fact support for "la mano dura" (the iron hand) is gaining a bit of ground in places where just a few decades ago, dictators held sway.

If you substitute Bolivia or S. Africa for China in his statements, you will have a sound-bite version of a lot of what passes for academic and think-tank theory these days as well.

I don't agree with Chan, but I do know that a lot of people do, and perhaps it was his wording that bothered some people.

There's no question that we need some kind of authority to protect everyone's freedom. In a free society, yes, everyone can do whatever he/she wants to do, but he/she just has to live with the consequences, like going to jail or paying a fine. That's the notion of freedom in a nutshell.

I respect Chan a lot as an actor and director, but not as a human being. Chan himself "has reaped the economic benefits" of a relatively free society/market. Moreover, he "himself has enjoyed" the freedom that came with his "achievements" and his superstar status, not realizing that not everyone is as talented and smart and as lucky as he is.

In an totalitarian society, those being controlled are the majority and those controlling others are the minority. Those being controlled would either want to move up the social ladder to become the controller in the long-run or develop some kind of "guanxi" with the controller, as is happening in China. This would actually create more chaos underneath the calm surface, again, as is happening in China. This chaos is sometimes associated with corruption and injustice, among other things, once again, as is happening in China. Maybe we can never get rid of this chaos, but we can certainly minimize its ill effects on the society.

Last but not least, I am a Chinese and I do not want to be controlled involuntariy. I would live a middle-class life in a relatively free society rather than lead a super wealthy life-style in China. I like to see everyone respected and have a reasonable amount of freedom and be happy, not just the rich and the powerful.

Jackie Chan’s comments about China addressed to a mainland Chinese audience cannot be construed as “racist”, the comments are similar in attitude to Zhang Yimou’s epic “Hero” as apologia of Chinese authoritarians, and despite some published objections to Jackie Chan his opinion is rather commonplace among Chinese in Asia. As example, why not look to Singapore’s PAP and the Lee family dynasty's rule by law?

Always a pleasure to see the familiar knee-jerk "It's a CCP conspiracy!" posters strutting their stuff.

It was interesting that he characterized HK and Taiwan as "chaotic." I did not hear the speech (have only seen English reports), but my guess is he used the word 乱 in his description. I would say that at the highest levels, the PRC is not particularly 乱, but where the rubber meets the road in enforcement and execution of the law (especially far from the capital) the PRC Gov't is the very definition of 乱七八糟 (utter mess). Mr. Chan should stick to the 武打片 and stay the hell out of politics.

Did enjoy his "Drunken Master" films though.

And yet not one poster here excepting the tenth commentator LaiSik implied or inferred "it's a CCP conspiracy".

I'm a chinese here, and i'm trying to employ my words in English, so forgive me if they are strange.

What Chan said is something I was told thousands of times since I was born, but the unusual point this time is that he is a celebrity and he is from Hongkong --the freest area in China, but also the most colonial area in Chinese history (Maybe that's why it sounds somewhat racist to western ears).

He said: "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we are not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

Yes, people should be controlled (by what?to what extent?), or they'll just do what they want -- but the government should be controlled also, or it'll just do what it wants too. How sad is that only the former half can be told, and can be said.

Btw, this part of Chan's speech wasn't reported by mainland China's media. He was again reported as a patriot, telling the young people to love China and to be proud of chinese culture, not the foreign countries'. The power just doesn't like anyone talking about anything related to politics.

My wife (from mainland) thinks he is, basically, more correct than not. She feels that holding up Taiwan as an example of a successful democracy is a stretch and feels that Hong Kong is as solid as it is because of the legacy left by Great Britain. "Someday China will be ready but not now" is her sentiment (and she's not wealthy or an entertainer... she's a former journalist who is now a college professor in the US). She also thinks he is making these statements to ingratiate himself with Beijng but still feels he has a point.

"...but where the rubber meets the road in enforcement and execution of the law (especially far from the capital) the PRC Gov't is the very definition of 乱七八糟 (utter mess)."

Probably why he's calling for more control. The problem is he never specified what "more control" or elaborated on what "too much freedom" meant.

Seeing your post in my RSS reader was pretty much the last straw for me, and prompted me to write a post over on CNR explaining why I think this presentation of Jackie Chan's comment is Western media sensationalism. Chan's comments were poorly translated or distorted. Whether this is intentional to fit the stereotypical China narrative or just sloppy journalism is another matter. Either way, it is pretty ridiculous.

Upward trends in sentiment for Iron Hand rule in countries that were formerly under the rule of a dictator are very much linked to the severity of life under that dictator.

Propaganda education under dictatorial regimes instilled, on some level, a belief that the dictator is a God-like figure. And the effects of this education run several generations.

Then there is the inevitable fall out in society after a dictator steps down from his post. Often, the fall out precipitates in civil conflict.

The sentiment for Iron Hand Rule is a reaction born of a damaged, brainwashed, and selective social conciousness, that rightly remembers how times during the dictatorship, before the civil unrest, were better than they are now.

However, this does not mean that a dictatorship is a great thing for the society that calls for it. Lets not forget the reason a dictator most often falls is linked to how unhappy and repressed people are while he is in power.

I say this having been born during the post-Tito transition period in the Former Yugoslavia. At the time a weird sort of euphoria mixed with melancholy took hold of the country, because people were so happy at his passing - it meant, in theory, no more secret police and, most importantly, an opportunity for Yugoslavia to turn into a powerful capitalist force.

But, because Tito had also had cultivated a sort of cult worship society while in power, the same people that rejoiced at his death also mourned his funeral for days.

In the end, the struggle for power that occured between the leaders of the six Yugoslavian republics destroyed the country. Despite all that people wished for after the dictators death, they were powerless to prevent what happened because his death lad left such a large power vaccum that sucked in the souls of power hungry and corrupt politicians used to a one party system.

After the wars ended in 1996, some 300,000 people dead and countless more scarred by broken families and lives. Then, a poll was taken in Sarajevo around 1999. It asked whether life was better now or under Tito - 95% of respondants, who numbered in the tens of thousands, said under Tito. The only reason that a country like Bosnia has not gone back down the road is due to EU oversight.

Jackie Chan is a product of a system which at the time of his childhood some fifty years ago, cultivated the cult like worshipping of a party. But unlike Yugoslavia, the focus of that worship is still in power and times for him are good.

Although Mr. Chan has his considerations as a businessman which might have influenced his Ta1wan tirade, he also might be looking at what happens to other countries that have gone from dictatorships or other 'iron hand'-type regimes and be shuddering at the thought.

If he had simply focused on the transitory effects of going from iron-hand rule to democracy he might be right; unfortunately, he has mistaken the damaging, often chaotic, aftermath of post-iron hand regime instability for an intrinsic characteristic of democracy.

For this it is easy to call him names, but there is probably little he could do in the way of reasoning to speak differently.

I feel the average Chinese person needs to be provided with better education.

Without reasonable education they become adult-children.

As adult-children they need a parent.

Jackie Chan expresses what many Chinese people in China feel to varying degrees, not because Chinese people are somehow inherently incapable of democracy (This argument has been used in the past against Germany, Eastern Europe, etc.), but rather for 2 reasons: 1. The spectre of China's humiliation and weakness of the last couple centuries still haunts them (such that the Chinese will prefer stability over chaos at the cost of "some freedom"; and 2. It is difficult for Chinese to escape its autocratic dynastic past psychologically. (The paternalism, the family-run business, the term "little emperor" are all reflections of that). Of course, Jackie Chan, like other successful HK people, profited and built their wealth under British rule. Others, like those in Taiwan, hold US or European passports. The road to Chinese democracy will need further improvements in education and changes in political and social attitudes (note the rejection of democracy as "too western" or the paternalism towards so-called hoi polloi), that is, a further break from China's traditional past.

"Someday China will be ready but not now" is a statement I've heard all too often from my Chinese friends. Implied in the statement is that certain amount of wealth causes democracy. This statement is problematic.

First off, I have lived in rural China for one year. Most of the people I saw had food to eat, roofs over their heads. I don't think I had seen people running around naked. To me, China is now ready to embrace democracy. So my question to my Chinese friends is where is that threshold of democracy?

Secondly, if you turn the argument around (democracy causes greater material wealth in the long-run), it's just as valid. Do you see my point?

I don't think there is one man in this world that can say with certainty that "yes, I'm fully ready to be a dad." Likewise, I don't think there is one country in the world that can say with certainty that "yes, we're fully ready to embrace democracy." It's just not a matter of readiness. We are all learning to be good dads and moms as we go along. Do you see my point?

Isn't Chan a "citizen" of Australia??

What a pompous ass.

Too bad people hate the truth.

Chan has courage.

It;s true, too much freedom and people don't know what to do with it.

The freedoms people abuse that has a lead to the modern day social problems that exist in our society.

I never really liked Chan before but it seems he has gotten smarter.

It's all an illusion.
Real freedom is not democracy but in fact anarchy, no law binding on humanity at all.

And you know that can be disastrous.

He's intention is good, don't forget that.

How can he be racist? doesn't make sense he is a proud Chinese.

Did someone change the definition of racist in the dictionary overnight without telling me?

Or did the world turn super dumb overnight and stopped using the dictionary?

I am certainly disappointed with his paradigm. Living in Taiwan and being a part of the presidential change it has certainly flourished as of late. He has in one fell swoop lowered the amount of respect that I had for him. His talents I will still applaud as it has its own sense of genius, however it is not personnafied when it comes to public speaking.
"Odinga,

Are you nuts? Do you really believe that my suggesting we ignore someone is the equivalent of calling for that person to be censored? If you do, I have a 1st Amendment I suggest you read because you could not be more off base."

Odinga, I would have to say, I agree with Gree Ree on this one. That was an uncommon way to percieve what he was talking about. Perhaps you misread something.

The actions we have taken to protect our economy and security have crossed the ideological lines we have been preaching for decades. In the eyes of many the US has lost the moral and logical high ground. It will be quite a while before we can return to the bully pulpit on human rights and/or capitalism.

In the meantime the resulting vacuum has, and will, invite comments and doubts, rational and otherwise, about the systems and ideologies we advocated. While many may not agree with them, I doubt that reacting to them with derision and school yard name calling will do much to advance the debate.

Was anyone expecting Jackie Chan to give an in depth philosophical discourse on the finer points of modern social, political and economic development and practice? But,if he is expressing popularized doubts about perceptions of something we believe in, shouldn't we be responding to the underlying issues behind the comments rather than the comments themselves?

The fact is that many people outside and some within the western world are revaluating their social, economic and political views based on the apparent success of China vs. the missteps of the US. Can we blame them, after years of preaching the Puritan code, that the grace of God is evidenced by earthly success, have we fallen victim to our own standards? We know that success is ephemeral, the muddle of our past testifies to that, and the only certainty is that tomorrow will bring new challenges and new popular favorites. what seems to be a constant is the need to have institutions and systems which can encompass the complex contradictions of human nature; our needs as individuals vs. the needs of the collective.

The unfortunate reality is that when we are confronted with new paradigms which challenge our notions of order and certainty many of us grasp for straws of certainty regardless of their rational substance or in other cases respond with knee jerk defensive reactions.

Rational beliefs should be a precursor to our actions, often they are not, but even when they are, the wisdom of history has shown that we can not be certain that our good intentions will translate into good consequences. Circumstances dictate the need for action but perhaps we should we be more open and circumspect when forming our beliefs?

In the vast scheme of history, the development of the nation state and the ideologies which followed are only 250 years old and still developing. In a world of over 6.7 billion people of different ethnicity, language, culture and belief, the idea that there is one correct path while possible does not seem probable.

I guess I am a bit disappointed; I would have expected a more persuasive and nuanced discussion of the changing world views rather than a verbal smack down.

I should think ' Regulations ' would be a much appropriate word

Even the dogs do not like to be controlled not to mention human beings

I first read Chan's comments in the South China Morning Posta and found them wholly unremarkable, even typical. During the 1960's mainstream commentators like Samuel Huntington thought that Americans suffered from an "excess of democracy," and I am sure this view is commonplace among members of America's elite. No ruling class relishes the spectacle of commoners running amok in politics. The Chinese have about as much freedom to choose their leaders as Americans. Powerful interest groups trot out a handful of safe, non-threatening candidates, and the people, in a series of primaries, vote them up or down. How is that different from the actions of a politburo? Chan was simply pointing out obvious truths, as most Chinese I am sure would agree.

what he said was fine, given china's history ... if you don't control the masses you can lose your ..

the reaction of the western(ized) minds is pretty interesting ... and sad, a bit

Watch as everybody blows something out of proportion, hating a celebrity because they think it's cool.

So he supports one system over another. It's just someone expressing their view, and I doubt it was a view that was as hard and extremist 100% that you guys are taking it as. Anybody bothered to look up charities that he donates to and causes he helps, before judging him based on one comment? Anybody bothered to find an in-depth discussion on just exactly what he might have meant, in all its nuances?

Nope.

I have heard two Chinese friends(one from the Mainland and one from Taiwan), echo the same sentiment, that China is not ready for democracy. They did not say this out of racism or elitism or not wanting China to be democratic, they said it out of pure rational/realistic analysis based on China's history and its current social economic situation.

Mind you, these two are not business elites, they are both intellectuals whose grasp of Chinese history is probably deeper than all of us here combined. They thought about what would happen to China if it becomes "democratic" at this moment. They believe most likely, the current business and political elites will continue to be the ones in power, and they will simply use different means (vote buying etc) to manipulate the masses to maintain their position in power. They also believe the immediate outcome will be chaos not unlike the warlord ruled post Qing period. My friends do not believe presently the Chinese masses have the requisite education or analytical ability or political consciousness to support a functioning healthy democracy.

I confess that I too was so flabbergasted by blatant disregard for traffic regulations in China once that I thought to myself: they cannot have democracy until they learn how to cross the road properly. I wasn't trying to be elitist or racist, I just thought practically, hey how is voting going to work for a population of 1 billion if people cannot even follow basic traffic regulations.

The one thing that celebrities are very good at is generating publicity; Mr Chan has generated a huge amount of publicity through his comments.
Maybe, we should wait a little while - see what transpires - before judging him - Sāi Wēng Lost his Horse...

Jackie Chan is playing to communist in Beijing and the pro-business elite who like progress and growth only in business but not in human rights. If he wants Chinese people to be controlled why don't he let the Chinese government control all his money. Let's see if he would allow that! :)

What's really at play here is a battle of idealogues. The western mind feels their values are universal which you can see from comments here that measures progress in China only when it embraces western values and is attacked when they move in a different direction. While the eastern mind wants to create their own system that incorporates things such as freedom but that differ from western influence.

What Jackie Chan said isn't that unusual among Chinese, which opens up the question of whether it makes sense to impose a democracy if many or most of the people in a society are skeptical about it. I mean, there are two very ironic statements that I've heard in relation to democracy

1) You *must* be a democracy regardless of whether you want it or not.

2) You *must* support democracy, and if you don't you are obviously a "know-nothing self-loathing racist" (not my words).

These two statements don't sound particularly "democratic" to me, and I really wonder sometimes what democracy supporters actually support since it has nothing to do with what I think of as democracy.

If you are not careful, you end up with people in power that are "democratic" and feel it necessary to impose their force of "democracy" by force and then shut up and ignores anyone that doesn't agree with "democracy." Which is what happened in the 1950's.

People that support "democracy" often have a surprisingly difficult time dealing with people that disagree with them.

Useless Tree: Of course, it is far from empirically clear that all migrants really do have access to farmable land.

They do under Chinese law. If you are a rural resident, you have a right to arable land from the local government.

Useless Tree: People in the cities are stereotyping migrants ("they all have land") in a way that will facilitate their exclusion.

It's not a stereotype. The government has had policies in place to insure that migrant workers have farm plots that they can go back to if the urban economy goes bad. Trying to keep a safety net has been one of the most tricky parts of rural land reform.

Useless Tree: The PRC, since 1949, has never had a moment of meaningful, institutionalized electoral contestation.

This also isn't true. Hong Kong is part of the PRC and has regular elections that run very well.

Useless Tree: I have more faith in the average Chinese person than does Chan.

There is no such thing as the "average Chinese person". There are lots of different Chinese people that think and believe different things. Also it is ironic that in a post about "democracy" that there is so much assuming of what people believe, rather than just asking them.

Also the arguments that Chinese have raised against democracy aren't that different from the one's that Alexander Hamilton outlined in Federalist Paper #10 (http://federali.st/10).

The US government is not a pure democracy, and Hamilton argued in Federalist Paper #10 that a too much democracy is a bad thing for exactly the reasons that a lot of Chinese are skeptical of democracy. This is why the US is a republic with some *extremely* anti-democratic elements to it.

Trying to create a working republic that moves between the horrors of both anarchy and tyranny is quite difficult, and China has been trying to get the balance right for the last few decades.

What do you say I control you, Jackie, because you are Chinese and Chinese people need to be controlled?

Oh, wait a minute, you are not Chinese, you are Australian by citizenship.

Oops... My bad. I will spare you my iron hand because you are not Chinese.

Einar Tangen, Twofish, well said.

According to himself, Chan holds PRC HKSAR passport. His son who was born in the US gave up his American citizenship and acquired Chinese citizenship (presumably with Hong Kong residence). That was touted by Chan as a patriotic move, but to me that was probably a smart estate tax-related move first and foremost.

When you are at Chan's net worth level, Australian or American passports aren't that appealing, if not outright baneful.

I think that Jackie Chan is trying to persuade the Chinese people to start developing their own political style(In the light of the failure of the Western economic system recently and the danger of abusing power that democratic countries are used to such as launching atomic bombs).

In line with Chinese culture which encourages discipline and a no-nonsense attitude, it is fitting that Chinese people should avoid the democratic model, which functions based upon the verbosity of media outlets.

It's foolish to think that he is racist.

I do not think Jackie Chan is a racist or

self-loathing whatever....

Just like myself, I was born in Hong Kong in

1958 and left for the US in 1978. I have

been fortunate enought to do fairly well on

both sides, across Pacific Ocean.

I am certain what Jackie meant is not

insulting at all.

We have to understand that democratic values

and principles have been abused elsewhere..

all around the world.....not only in China.

So some types of self-restraints and controls

among the citizens are necessary. Otherwise,

we will see many riots and protests everyday

and do not see any positive outcomes...

more violences on the streets...

We have been so sorry to see some riots and

protests have been over-acted and manipulated

by some special sectors, if not gangsters..

Thanks for offering me a space to share my

opinions ..

Regards,

Daniel

A lot of westerners don't like what Jackie Chan is saying because it isn't what they want to hear (myself included), but, living in the San Gabriel Valley, near L.A., with probably the highest proportion of Chinese immigrants anywhere outside of East Asia, I can tell you that practically every mainland Chinese immigrant here I've spoken with agrees with Chan. It's the Taiwanese and HKers who don't. I think it's partly an identity issue--the Chinese are desperately trying to create a "Chinese identity" separate from the west, and partly that so many Chinese value freedom--if they value it at all--as a means of unleashing economic forces, of catching up with western prosperity, not as an end in itself. Especially if they see the west stumble economically, they are ready to jettison "too much" freedom at any time in the interests of "prosperity", "harmony", or some such thing. I believe that if you don't understand this--like it or not--then when you discuss any important issues with a Chinese, you will find yourselves talking past each other (or you'll just end up shouting cliches at each other, as usually happens)...

He is telling the truth. Chinese people are inferior people and need to be controlled. The fact that HK got owned by the Japanese, British, and Chinese in one generation says enough.

The Chinese should focus on smoking opium and eating dogs. As for HK, it should beg the British to take them back. However, the British would not want to associate themselves w/ such ugly, short people.

And what Chan says is fully justified. There have been cases when cell phones and electronics in China have exploded.

where to begin?

1) how does one recover from being labeled an orientalist? Or a racist for that matter? I think you mistake a generalization you disagree with for some sort of racism. Perhaps "mistaken sociologist" would be more apropriate? With orientalism and racism there needs to be some sort of agenda and Chan is lacking there. Patsy of the orientalists? Well, the 19th century ones are all dead so...

2) when you get into a brawl in China, someone inevitably and early picks up a beer bottle and breaks it. If there's anything left of his hand after he does that, then he starts cutting people with it. He does this because he saw it on TV. In a movie made in Hong Kong. Jackie's recent movie was banned for this reason. Argue what you like about what should and should not be, but the reason for a ban on violent movies by as popular an icon as Chan is clear. You cannot say it is clearly wrong-headed.
3) the historical analyses of the broad spectrum of political realities and possibilities in China doesn't often focus on what the Chinese government is faced with today: an uneducated mass of seething humanity used to indoctrination and party lines, and one which watches and emulates TV.

We cannot discuss a group of people or objects without making generalizations. Making generalizations about the character or aspects of a society is necessary and appropriate. Only an idiot labels those he likes as sociology and those he dislikes as racism. Tell me why "Chinese people are so happy" is okay and "Chinese people need to be controlled" is not. We're not talking about individuals here, we're talking about a rather large group and that group needs to be led, needs to be provided some direction and focus, and needs to be protected from harm - just like every other group we call a country.

I guess the debate is over just how authoritarian the government needs to be in China. If we view it in terms of order/chaos, we can probably all agree that going from zero to sixty on the freedom scale overnight would result in chaos. So, yeah, Chinese people need to be controlled. I happen to believe they need to create an ever-increasing amount of freedom in their society, but that's up to them, now, isn't it? Or is it? Now who's the cultural imperialist?

I think Chan's distinguishing his own violent film from Hong Kong and Taiwan films by saying that he is not a proponent of the type of gang warfare violence and, if you will, "thug life" sort of message found in many of those films. You must realize that this gang violence is a reality in much of China, and that it epitomizes Hong Kong lifestyle in the minds of many mainland Chinese.

I get annoyed everytime my Chinese friends bring up words like "harmony" and "prosperity" when discussing world politics as if these values were uniquely Chinese. I think it doesn't do justice to the non-Chinese because these are more like universal values that we all work hard to attain. What separates the Chinese and the non-Chinese is, more or less, the means to achieve this end. If democracy is better, embrace it. If not, don't embrace it. It's as simple as that. Don't give me that crap about "we think democracy is good but we Chinese should develop our own version of democracy and not copy from others." Democracy was actually widely discussed during the Spring and Autumn Period in Chinese history by people like Mozi and Menzi. They are more Chinese than you and me. Learn your history, my Chinese friends.

To my Chinese friends rooting for totalitarian:

Please get this right.

The question is not whether we need authority or not. We've gotten past that. The deeper question you need to ask yourselves is, rather, how to choose and who gets to be that authority. Once chosen, how to enforce that authority.

Here are some questions for you to think about:

Do you let a few people to do the decision making? Or do you let the whole population?

If only a handful of people are allowed to decide, who should they be? How do you find these people?

Should a smart person be counted as two people when it comes to voting?

How can you ensure that smart people are also morally righteous people?

What are your priorities? Is justice and harmony on the top of your list? Or is it something else, say, economic prosperity?

If economic prosperity is on the top of your list right now, not justice and harmony, then how do you go about ensuring a sustainable economic growth?

Don't just stop at "Oh, we need some kind of authority." We have already gotten past that stage in world politics. Now think DEEPER, my friends.

Oh, by the way, just thought you might like to know, I'm Chinese.

What about economic freedom? That's another form of freedom too - if you subjugate a people to an oligarchy, what if that oligarchy decides that free markets are bad, as was the case for China for 30 years? Seems to me Jackie Chan lacks the ability to think rationally - but then again, what do you expect from someone who only has a 3rd grade education?

Wow...it seems that do nothing liberals also troll these sites. Seriously! Do you guys even know of any quality Chinese electronics brands? No...so why are you guys so upset at Jackie Chan. Regular people should not look to celebrities for guidance. If that was true we would be sleeping around with everyone and adopting every kid we see. Oh wait. That has already happening. You guys should consider yourselves lucky that it wasn't someone respected like Chow Yun Fat, Jet Li or Andy Lau who had said it.

@ Jake,

"Do-nothing liberals," ha! That's a good one. No wonder the GOP is the unstoppable juggernaut that it is today. Those dang liberals and their do-nothingness!

Anyway, as for the quality of Chinese electronics, pretty much every electronic device you own (including that ipod on which one can listen to Boss Limbaugh's pod casts about how terrible the trollish liberals are) is made in China. The company I used to work for produced lighting equipment that was entirely made in China. Very good stuff. The batteries, resistors, switches and other components were also all made in China. They passed UL testing and QC every time.

Dog food and milk products, that's another story...

Just have to respond to LaiSik's post: " why I think this presentation of Jackie Chan's comment is Western media sensationalism. Chan's comments were poorly translated or distorted. Whether this is intentional to fit the stereotypical China narrative or just sloppy journalism is another matter."
This post is utter rubbish.
Pray tell me, was LaiSik there at the forum in Boao ?
I was there!
Mr Chan's complete answer (to a question on regulation of the film industry in China) was recorded (he spoke in Mandarin); and, to keep up with Mr Chan, I listened to the simultaneous translation.
Mr Chan's comments were NOT distorted; both Chinese and western reporters listened carefully to the MP3 recordings to verify what was said; So you are WRONG to say that Mr Chan words were poorly translated, distorted or that there was sloppy journalism at play.
Much earlier, Mr Chan spoke about how Chinese products can be very good - especially those that are exported. He was critical of Chinese products in the domestic market. The subtext was simple: China can be creative, can produce very good products...so efforts must be made to cut out the problems.
Of course, his reply, during question time near the end of the forum, was not well thought through - it came over as a stream of consciousness. But it was crystal clear that he has a problem with a Chinese society that is too liberal, that he considers Hong Kong and Taiwan to be chaotic.....
The western media certainly picked up on this story - but the reporters who crowded around Mr Chan at the end of the forum, asking for further clarification, were Chinese - from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
BTW: At the start of the forum, Mr Chan joked with the audience that he was more scared when speaking in public than doing his stunts !

Jackie Chan, incidentally, graduated from a Peking Opera school. So it's not true to say whether he's in his job by choice, becoming an adult movie star and then a comedic martial arts actor does not indicate he sacrificed other career options to take up acting. Aside from this, many actors lack either a bachelor or master's degree, so that they can be said to be relatively uneducated. Regarding Jackie Chan's statements, I think he's pretty representative of Chinese Laobaixing, just as Fox News makes its revenues off American Laobaixing.

Aside from that, autocracy incidentally was the most common form of government since the agricultural revolution. You ended up with a king of some sort, who cultivated a cult of personality with divine right and divine favor. This dictatorship thing (isn't China a party-state, run at its head by a 20-some member politburo with a 9 member central committee?) isn't some new abomination but instead is the natural evolution of the previous system of government. Whether it's any good is debatable, but it makes no sense to blame the Chinese Communist Party for causing the pre-modern political awareness of the Chinese people in general. For perpetuating it, you may have a case.

I do not support Jackie's wording, however, I support Jackie's personality.

Jackie take the courage to speak out his true feeling. Don't you agree that we Chinese world (except Singapore) were carrying a "messy" image to the western society! Can't you see the fighting in the "highest temple of democracy" in taiwan! Can't you see nobody lines up when use the public utlities in taiwan and china! Can't you see the corruptions in taiwan's former president and his "team"!

Why only Chinese world in those region appear so "messy" than other region's chinese world?

I think we Chinese has 8000 years of glory history. We can do better, can't we! Jackie just use the layman's term of messy. Because he did not mention that the package of freedom also comes with the laws and order from the "western democratic systems"!

Yes, let's don't blame Jackie any longer. We should look into ourself, how can we (from all walks of chinese society) help to evolve our chinese community a better "citizenship" nations!

We have too many chinese yes-man! We need Jackie's guts to stand tall among the crowd and speak out what is right and wrong from the bottom of his heart!

White Knight
PS. I welcome any critics and comments; only my true friends are willing to share me his ture feeling :-)

I feel contempt for this guy, he does not think he has enough $ therefore he has been kissing china goverment to get more business in mainland, greed make people do disgraceful thing, how much fame and where his fat money in his bankS, PROPERTIES all over the WORLD, from mainland communist, from north-korea countries like??????
sum up to describe him:
GREED, SHAMELESS
NO more his movies on my list PERIOD
I have no respect for this type of people.

greed, disgraceful, kiss ass type(kiss china goverment) i have no respect for this guy anymore,
No more his movies on my list, I burned all his movies.
Apparently, he thinks he needs more money for his saving account so he must please his boss , kiss the boss(china goverment) like a dog
SHAME on him

So, if Chinese people must be controlled, doesn't that logically include the leaders? Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, Jiang Zemin, Deng Xiaoping, even Mao Zedong, all of them are/were Chinese, right? If Chinese people MUST be controlled or there's chaos (certainly was/is under certain previously mentioned leaders), who should control them? If it's other Chinese, those Chinese can't be trusted to not be Chaotic, and must themselves be controlled, right? So logically someone NOT Chinese must control China, right? If you agree with a stupid statement like Chan's follow it to it's logically conclusion, you find Hideki Tojo and Imperial Japan saying THE SAME THING 80 years ago...

Comments coming from someone who is not highly educated, who only takes advantage of what's to gain for him, such as spokesmanships for China's products probably is half his income these days. I wonder if this guy would make such a comment back in the 50's when Communism was alive and so active.

He is only saying these to "kiss butt" to the Chinese government. Sad to see some heroic figure could stoop so low...he sounds like one of those British who used to say: "Chinese needs to be controlled" when HK was in the colonial days under the British rule.

Sad, very sad to see Jackie Chan is nothing but someone who follows where the dollar signs are!!! I guess, he is afterall, a very very ordinary guy, he needs to be more spiritual and reads more history books of how Chinese people has suffered....he made all those seem so unimportant by just his few comments.

What would and what could we pass on to our younger generations, should we erase all our historical mistakes, so that they would never know how the Chinese had suffered severely under their own Chinese Communistic control?

So if we're talking not about the rule of principle, but "benevolent dictatorship" or whatever brand of totalitarianism he's talking about - then we have a society in which the powerful control the weak *arbitrarily*. And these folks have the nerve to judge democratic values - values which, by the way, helped to keep their own state from collapsing, (so far) - as *chaotic*, of all things - well that's tantamount to calling disease health and black, white, and victims, oppressors. Anarchy indeed.

But then, it was never about idealogies, was it. It was always about the means to power.

Oh, and I wanted to thank Damjan for his/her insightful contribution to the thread. Now that's the ring of truth. You really gave us something to think about!

Well said, David nguyen!

If Jackie's statement is right, then it follows logically that an outside force, say, Japan or England, should control China.

As long as the leaders in China are not Chinese, then it's all good and peaceful.

If you don't respect your freedom, are you going to respect others'?

If you respect your freedom, are you going to respect others'?

No wonder so many Chinese people treat their fellow brothers and sisters with disrespect and dishonesty.

Inst:

I don't know what you're talking about. I certainly don't know what your definition of "chaos" is.

I have lived in both Taiwan and China. The people in China push and shove in line like crazy, have no respect whatsoever for their people. They even crap in open public places. I don't remember seeing these things in Taiwan.

If "chaos" is partisan bickering. Then, yes, Taiwan is definitely way more chaotic than China because in China you only have one or two or three voices. In Taiwan, you have about 23000000 voices. But "chaos" as used in the Engish language has a deeper meaning. Here, "chaos" can be associated with instability, injustice and corruption. Okay, corruption happens in Taiwan. But, look at Taiwan, democracy has this amazing self-correcting mechanism. From my observation and experience, I would say corruption is more of a serious problem in China, albeit it is underneath the calm surface of totalitarianism.

Anonymous @ 1:38 AM, I'm confused. You don't seem to be addressing my post. I said nothing about the relative situation in Taiwan or China, or anything about Chaos. My point is that Jackie Chan is not just representative of a government point of view but also of a center-right (center-left) conservatism in his native culture. There are people who are not fenqing and authentically believe in this kind of stuff. There are ethnic Chinese who got arrested overseas for fighting Falun Gong after the Sichuan Earthquake, and perhaps deported for their violence. Aside from that, I wanted to point out that a repressive authoritarianism has been the historical norm in most agrarian societies throughout history, and while it may make sense to bash tradition, please don't bash autocracies as a novel evil.

Anonymous:

There's been a mistake here. I was actually addressing to White Knight. Anyone with a decent level of intelligence would have noticed that from the content of my post. You really didn't have to defend yourself because I was NOT addressing to you. It's a mistake by the computer.

Inst:

I toatlly agree with your last few lines:

"... it makes no sense to blame the Chinese Communist Party for causing the pre-modern political awareness of the Chinese people in general. For perpetuating it, you may have a case."

What's to blame here, if anything, is a lack of passion for life and confidence and love and trust and courage of the Chinese individuals, which has a lot to do with the environment and how they are raised. They sometimes know it's bad but they will still tell you: "There is nothing I can do to change it, I'm just one in a billion. Besides, my neighbors are doing the bad thing. I might as well go with the flow and live with it and not ruin my own life by trying to do something right." Well, they may have a point here. But then again, what fun is living if you live in a place where everyone is out to get you every second?

Of course, that is not to say there aren't brave Chinese men and women out there who are willing to sacrifice themselves for future generations.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi

So heated discussion here especially in the early summer.

I think Jakie Chan reflect the thoughts that Chinese care much about "order" rather than "freedom" or "democracy" you may called.

Do you think CCP just jumped out from nothing but the magic of Chairman Mao and in a minute induced all the Chinese people into somnambulation???

If most people in China prefer so called "being controlled" rather than too much freedom??? If that also a kind of democracy?

If most people don't welcome so called western style democracy, is this also democracy???

Jackie Chan is just trying to stay on the good side of the CCP.
I found an interesting article about the incident: http://sublimeandbeautiful.wordpress.com/

Btw, there's a video of Colin Powell at the Boao Forum on Youtube. As he walks into the conference room he gets swarmed on by the Chinese media. Eventually, he sternly tells them that "this is chaotic" and that he will talk to them later...ironic

There have been 64 excellent comments written before mine. Everything has been said, except the following, which stands in direct contradistinction to this worthy blog's assertion:

Jackie Chan Is Not A Know-Nothing Self-Loathing Racist.

hmmmm..jackie chen. don't like him personally..he is such a playboy..

It isn't that China shouldn't have democracy it appears as Chinese (mainlanders) don't really want it. Why? Because that means they would have to play by some general rules (law) and the last thing Chinese want to do is play by rules. They want ways to get things done either through power or force or both. They don't care for general mutual understanding and equality in society. Most Chinese want to be a boss someday so that they can tell someone under them what to do. That is the Chinese dream. They long for the day they can use force to control another of their own countrymen. But then again I am not Chinese so someone will get angry that I said this.

Every China man wants to be a boss because he lacks confidence in himself and he has yet to learn one of the greatest lessons in life: How to love and be loved?

Every China man wants to be a boss, even if being a boss means making minimum wages, because he thinks being a boss would get him respect and confidence.

For your information, I am a China man.

If you live in a society where everyone respects everyone else from the heart, do you still need to prove yourself to others by trying to be a boss?

i have a feeling the filmmakers needs government support (increased level of 'freedom') for the next few years .. and government required Jackie to give a pro-speech on behalf of the industry in order to show it is all in good faith.
but then i am not an expert in films' politics so i might be wrong

I am the biggest fan of Jackie chan. He is a superhuman and a living legend. No one EVER will be able to match his action and stunts.