Jackie Chan : 'We Chinese need to be controlled'

[scarletghoul]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090419/ap_en_mo/as_hong_kong_people_jackie_chan

HONG KONG – Action star Jackie Chan's comments wondering whether Chinese people "need to be controlled" have drawn sharp rebuke in his native Hong Kong and in Taiwan.
Chan told a business forum in the southern Chinese province of Hainan that a free society may not be beneficial for China's authoritarian mainland.
"I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not," Chan said Saturday. "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."
He went on to say that freedoms in Hong Kong and Taiwan made those societies "chaotic."
Chan's comments drew applause from a predominantly Chinese audience of business leaders, but did not sit well with lawmakers in Taiwan and Hong Kong.


Is Mr Chan correct for saying that we need to be controlled? I find this very interesting. Also do you think this has to do with the confucianist style of society in east asia, and how east asia seems prone to authoritarian regimes and conformism?

[Dimentio]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090419/ap_en_mo/as_hong_kong_people_jackie_chan


Is Mr Chan correct for saying that we need to be controlled? I find this very interesting. Also do you think this has to do with the confucianist style of society in east asia, and how east asia seems prone to authoritarian regimes and conformism?

Seriously, no. Rather, I think it has to do with mr Chan wanting to get a foothold on the Chinese market.

Former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson created a scandal in 1997 when he hailed "China's stability". I think this is about the same level.

[Yazman]

Yeah, he's probably just trying to break in there.

At any rate, Jackie Chan has done a lot to expose chinese culture and cinema to the rest of the world, I'm not going to condemn him over one statement.

Besides, the most bullshit and worrying crap in the article is the following:


Another lawmaker, Albert Ho, called the comments "racist," adding: "People around the world are running their own countries. Why can't Chinese do the same?"

What the fuck? What planet does he live on?

[Communist Theory]

I really don't care.

[Yazman]

I really don't care.

Then don't fucking post! This is a stupid one-liner that was entirely un-necessary.

[Pogue]

Mr Chan is being an idiot.

[ComradeOm]

"If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want"

And what a tragedy that would be :rolleyes:


Also do you think this has to do with the confucianist style of society in east asia, and how east asia seems prone to authoritarian regimes and conformism?The history of authoritarian regimes in East Asia has less to do with any lingering religious sentiment than the pressures of industrialising in the late 20th C

[Patchd]

Hmm ... good acting isn't a prerequisite for intelligence or rationality. :p

[Andy Bowden]

Isn't Jackie Chan an official "cultural ambassador" for the PRC? That might explain why he'd make such a statement.

[cyu]

I'm gradually beginning to feel that Jackie Chan needs to be controlled. If he's not being controlled, he'll just do what he wants.

We must make him learn to obey the ninja masters! :ninja: :ninja: :ninja:

[RedHal]

The greater tragedy of such statements is the accepted belief that communism = authoritarianism and bourgeois democracy = freedom. I do believe it has to do with Confucian influence in the East, something the cultural revolution seeked to destroy.

[Idealism]

i do think that you could make the argument some societies, due to such deeply engrained tendencies from the years of monarchy, feudalism, and other authoritarian systems; would erupt into chaos if not for an ideological alternative. Though i do not think that these societies exist; i think that may be the point he's trying to make; which i find mildly ironic due to the fact that he is a product of a society, as are all people, not the other way around.

[Dimentio]

The greater tragedy of such statements is the accepted belief that communism = authoritarianism and bourgeois democracy = freedom. I do believe it has to do with Confucian influence in the East, something the cultural revolution seeked to destroy.

Confucianism was basically scrapped as a major ideological current in China when the Qing Dynasty fell in 1911. But Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao has done their best to re-introduce some of the aspects of it.

I would not claim that the Chinese are collectivist or "need a strong hand" because some sort of cultural reasons.

[JimmyJazz]

Then don't fucking post! This is a stupid one-liner that was entirely un-necessary.

Saying that Chan's statement doesn't matter one way or the other is a perfectly valid comment both on Chan's statement and on the existence of this thread. And, even if you were right, you just added another pointless post to the thread. What is it with people on this board and the love for vigilante-like clamping down on others' posting behavior?

[punisa]

Chan had an idea what to point out, but it came out a little bit clumsy. When he said that people should be controlled, I don't believe he meant in the "dictatorship like control", but merely that China, as large as it is, needs certain guidance and that wild free market would bring chaos to it.
Which I totally agree.
Capitalism brought cause to many countries, but you know that my commie comrades :lol:

[RedStarOverChina]

It's just part of a larger struggle between Chinese nationalism and Western imperialism mixed with Liberal-Democracy.

We need not pay any attention to it.

[STJ]

Mr. Chan is being a moron.

[Reuben]

I think it is significant that he was speaking to - and applauded by - a business audience. Certainly in the most developed stages of capitalism, a degree of cultural and political liberty is both safe and desirable for the capitalist class, along with free trade and all the rest of it. However, in a young, low wage, industrial economy, marching to the ryhtm of the production line, political authority and industrial control are of far greater importance to the capitalist class than any form of liberty. This is the basis of China's rapid industrial expansion.

[Uppercut]

We won't need to be controlled when the majority finally understands the difference between simple right and wrong decisions. Personally, I'm highly anti-authoritarian and I don't want to see soldiers everywhere, constantly on the look-out for free thinkers. China's just gotten more and more corrupt (no freedom of speech/press) throughout the years. Their market doesn't even have health regulations, hence all the poisonous products and whatnot.

[Diagoras]

Chan is marketing himself. It has been fairly popular over the past couple of decades to utilize cultural relativism as a means of excusing dictatorship, essentially arguing that "asian values" are a unique set of cultural ideas drawn out of the uniquely "asian" experience. The problems with this being, of course, that there is no such thing as a uniform set of asian values, that the history of asia has a number of prominent figures that advocated equality, liberty, etc, and that this line of reasoning equivocates certain "values" (like "cooperation over competition") with authoritarianism. Amartya Sen is one of the more prominent advocates of this notion of asian exceptionalism... though his position as an economist likely explains his support for strong hand governments that "stabilize" economies (in his mind).