Let's just go straight to the report in the Telegraph in the UK:
are so chaotic they need to be firmly controlled by the government.
The actor told a forum on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, whose
attendees included Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, he was not sure "freedom"
was necessary.
Chan, 55, whose latest movie, Shinjuku incident, was banned in China, was
asked about censorship and restriction on the mainland. He expanded his
comments to discuss Chinese society in general.
"I'm not sure if it is good to have freedom or not," he said. "I'm
really confused now. If you are too free, you are like the way Hong Kong is
now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic."
He added: "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."
His comments were applauded by the Chinese audience, but triggered fury in
Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Where to begin?
I am hesitant to give too much credence to what celebrities have to say about politics. In most cases, these are people who have not thought a great deal about history and politics and philosophy. Is he even aware that he is making an argument very much like that used by imperialists against China in the nineteenth and early twentieth century; that he is repeating something rather like the "Chinese characteristics" analysis? Has he heard of Arthur Smith? Probably not. So, perhaps he is not aware of how Orientalism can turn back upon its targets and become part of a discourse that reproduces certain stereotypes and all of the social and political practices that are associated with them.
Because that is what he is doing here. He is taking an image – China is so "chaotic" that individual Chinese persons cannot be trusted with meaningful political participation – that, ironically, the founders of the Chinese Communist Party rejected in their early days of revolutionary struggle, and he is investing it with a certain celebrity legitimacy. In doing so, he ignores the vast range of political realities expressed and experienced by Chinese people both historically and contemporaneously. This, of course, serves the interests of current CCP power holders. It is what they want to hear; it is what they want Chinese people to believe.
Chan is rather easy to understand, however. While we should not expect him to be conversant with academic debates on Orientalism, it is clear that he is saying what needs to be said to maximize his material gain within the current political environment of the PRC. His most recent movie was banned there because it is too violent. This utterance, then, might just be his effort to make amends with the censors and create better opportunities for his next film. It's all about the Maos. (this is my attempt to coin a Chinese version of the American slang phrase, "it's all about the Benjamins;" Mao Zedong appears on PRC currency…).
In any event, how can we know if Chan's assertion is true or not? The PRC, since 1949, has never had a moment of meaningful, institutionalized electoral contestation. Thus, all we have in the historical record is precisely the Chinese people being controlled by authoritarianism, sometimes with world historically horrible results (see: Great Leap Forward; Cultural Revolution; viii ix vi iv; etc.). Would a gradual political liberalization (no, it does not have to be "Western democray;" just less repression of speech and association and the like) lead to something worse than the Great Leap Forward? I seriously doubt it. Would it open the door to large-scale public "chaos" and violence? Not necessarily. Hong Kong and Taiwan demonstrate precisely that freer politics is possible in Chinese cultural contexts. The primary reason why political repression continues in the PRC has nothing to do with such concerns but is, rather, driven by the fears of those now in power who do not want to cede their positions of authority and privilege.
One more thing. Here is a test. When we encounter this kind of statement, let's ask ourselves: what would be the political implications had a foreigner said it? Would it be seen as an essentialist racist distorition? Or would it be welcome as a wise and deep understanding of "Chinese culture"?
Personally, I think Chan is wrong. I think the average Chinese person knows his or her own personal interests and, given the chance, would advocate for those interests in non-violent ways that could be productively channeled into new and less repressive political institutions. I have more faith in the average Chinese person than does Chan. But, then again, I am not trying to sell movies to the the Party leadership…
UPDATE: This story is getting a lot of play all over the internets. Too many posts to link to all of them, but one rather interesting response was that of John Pomfret over at WaPo's PostGlobal:
My reaction, however, is this: Chan is just saying what a lot of other
rich Chinese feel. In the 20 years since Tiananmen, Chinese society has
changed enormously. One of the most astounding ways has been in the
return of a class society and in the disdain with which China's rich
view China's poor. When Chan was saying Chinese need to be
"controlled," to be sure, he was speaking about the poor. He didn't
have to say it, But that's what the audience at Boao heard and that's
why they cheered him on. Anyone who has conversations of depth with
members of China's elite has heard this argument before. "The quality
of the average Chinese is too low," the line goes. (Zhongguoren de suzhi tai di le.) "So of course we can't have full freedom."
He is right: class-based politics is increasingly obvious in China. I ran in to a bit of it on my recent trip to Beijing and Nanjing. In talking with both academics and a cab driver about the potential problem of unemployed migrant laborers, several people (admittedly from rather different class positions) said the same thing: the migrants all had access to land back in their villages so they can just go back there and farm. Of course, it is far from empirically clear that all migrants really do have access to farmable land (or that they want to eke out a survival with subsistence agriculture), but I took this as an expression of a certain urban bias: people in the cities are stereotyping migrants ("they all have land") in a way that will facilitate their exclusion. Migrants could, in a sense, be "controlled" right out of the cities back into the countryside. Although cab drivers are not haute bourgeoisie, they may feel more of a claim (if they have the right hukou) to the opportunities of the urban economy and thus be more willing to agree that some Chinese, especially the poorer migrant laborers, must be "controlled."
The Useless Tree 
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