Over at The China Beat, David Porter has a helpful post about the cultural biases that plague American and, more generally Western, perceptions of China.  It is not really a new argument, but a well stated one that needs to be kept in mind:

…We are inescapably products of our culture and so thoroughly identify
with certain of its norms and values that we are strongly predisposed
to take these elements as normative standards when attempting to
identify or describe instances of cultural difference. We might well be
entirely correct in the perception of difference. The trouble is that
this predisposition warps the experience of difference so that all we
finally see is the absence of qualities we take for granted in
ourselves.

     We are, all of us, susceptible to seeing what we want to see in others, and that can produce partial and distorted interpretations.  This is a problem, not just for those outside a particular culture, but also for those inside of it (which Porter does not really discuss).  Our "American" views of China must always be checked against others, against "Chinese" views of China.  But "Chinese" views of China are also embedded in their own social and cultural and political context that can refract and distort perception and interpretation.  It is not clear, by any objective criteria, that the internal view is necessarily truer or more reliable than the exterior.  We need both and more.  We need to be open to many "foreign" views of China and many "Chinese" views of China and always maintain a sense of humility about the limits and imperfections of all human knowledge.

    So, I generally agree with Porter, though I would carry the critique a bit further.

    There is, however, one point which I would push back against; this one:

Imagine that I want to tell you about a creature I saw on a recent
trip, but that all I can remember about it is that it didn’t have a
trunk, tusks, floppy ears, teeth, legs, toenails, or deeply textured
skin. You might surmise, correctly, that the creature I’d seen was not
an elephant, but you’d be hard pressed to conjure up a satisfactory
mental picture from my account. My account is an entirely true and
accurate description of a whale, but it doesn’t get us very far in
understanding what a whale is. A knowledge of China consisting largely
of a series of negations-no human rights, no free press, no
environmental protection, no effective regulation, no public manners,
no democracy-is really no knowledge at all.

      Oddly, his assertion that negative knowledge (i.e. describing what an other lacks) is "no knowledge at all" reveals a certain Western bias in itself.  Taoists would certainly not agree, as suggested by Chuang Tzu:

Instead of using a finger to demonstrate how a finger is no-finger, use no-finger to demonstrate how a finger is no-finger.  Instead of using a horse to demonstrate how a horse is no-horse, use no-horse to show how a horse is no-horse.  All heaven and earth is one finger, and the ten thousand things are all one horse. (23)

You’ve heard of using wings to fly, but have you heard of using no-wings to fly?  You’ve heard of using knowing to know, but have you heard of using no-knowing to know? (52)

     In other words, there is something to know in negation.