SUBSCRIBERS

Why China’s people no longer look up to America

We Chinese once sought to learn from US successes; now we study its mistakes so that we can avoid them.

    • Shoppers line up to enter a shopping mall in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022. China needs to step up government spending to support an economy that’s slowing due to coronavirus lockdowns and a property sector downturn, according to the International Monetary Fund. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
    • Shoppers line up to enter a shopping mall in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022. China needs to step up government spending to support an economy that’s slowing due to coronavirus lockdowns and a property sector downturn, according to the International Monetary Fund. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg Bloomberg
    Published Tue, Aug 9, 2022 · 04:55 PM

    BEIJING — MY generation of Chinese looked up to the United States.

    When I was a university student in northwestern China in the late 1990s, my friends and I tuned in to shortwave broadcasts of Voice of America, polishing our English while soaking up American and world news. We flocked to packed lecture halls whenever a visiting American professor was on campus.

    It was a thrilling time. China was emerging from isolationism and poverty, and as we looked to the future we studied democracy, market economics, equality and other ideals that made America great. We couldn’t realistically adopt them all because of China’s conditions, but our lives were transformed as we recalibrated our economy on a US blueprint.