Thoughts on Christchurch
Preface
March 15 for most Chinese is the annual Consumer Rights Day. But this year, March 15, 2019, will go down in New Zealand’s history as a day to remember — a day that will change New Zealand. It’s been a day since the event. Like many around me, my heart is heavy. I want to say something, but my thoughts are a mess. I’ll record them here. I don’t know if public media can publish this. I don’t want to cause trouble for them. I’ll just post it on my own blog — it has no ICP备案 anyway.
Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island, is commonly called “基督城” (City of Christ) by Chinese. Perhaps to downplay the religious connotation, the official Chinese translation has been the phonetic “克莱斯特切奇” (Kelaiseiteqieqi). But what happened that day is inextricably linked to religion and extremism. A few extremists live-streamed themselves storming a mosque with guns, firing at worshippers. Mass casualties resulted, drawing international attention. The suspect was brought before the court within 24 hours — remarkably efficient for this slow-paced country. In court, the suspect still displayed white supremacist hand gestures.
When it happened, it was Friday afternoon. I was at work. A colleague heard the news from somewhere and immediately turned on the TV for breaking news. On screen, police in body armour and heavy weapons had the scene surrounded; ambulances raced by. Completely different from the police you see on the streets every day. During our immigrant orientation, a police officer told us New Zealand police are like Chinese police — they usually don’t carry guns. They used to have to tackle fleeing suspects, which injured both officers and suspects, so they were issued tasers. This was the first time I’d seen police with heavy weaponry.
Among the colleagues watching with me were one Chinese (me), one German, one Iranian, one Finn, two Indians, one American, one Briton, one Australian, and two New Zealanders. Like me, everyone initially couldn’t believe this was happening in New Zealand. New Zealand has always been one of the safest countries in the world. When I first arrived, news reported homicides at a 40-year low — single-digit deaths per year. People may not be wealthy, but they have enough food and clothing and are very friendly. As an immigrant country, different ethnic groups integrate well. My American colleague is married to a Māori woman. My German colleague is married to a Sri Lankan immigrant. My Indian colleague’s husband is a New Zealander. On my first day at work, my boss told me: if you ever feel any discrimination — race, religion, sexual orientation — report it immediately. In my two years here, I’ve never experienced discrimination of any kind.
New Zealand After the Attack
The first topic of discussion was gun control. While NZ residents have the right to bear arms, it’s not easy for ordinary people to legally own a gun — nothing like America where you can buy bullets on supermarket shelves. A colleague of mine likes submachine guns and knows the licensing process well. Over lunch, I casually asked if getting a gun was easy. He talked non-stop through the entire meal about his painful experience getting a firearms licence. First, you have to pass a test. Then there are home visits. If any of your colleagues, family, or anyone else says you have violent tendencies, you’re probably out. You can only keep the weapon at home — you can’t take it out casually, etc. My American colleague supports gun bans, but he said some US media are already using New Zealand as a counter-example, saying gun bans don’t work. New Zealand’s regulation is much stricter than America’s, and attacks still happen. I took the opportunity to educate my colleagues about China’s实名制 (real-name registration) for kitchen knives and how safe China is. Another colleague said extremists exist everywhere — if they can’t get guns, they’ll use lower-tech weapons against even more vulnerable populations. This reminded me of the attacks on kindergartens in China, and I felt there was some truth to that.
Next was the impact on the country. The economic impact is the most direct. Agriculture is probably fine — cows still eat grass and produce milk — but tourism will definitely take a hit. Beyond the economy, deeper impacts include the state apparatus and ethnic relations.
New Zealand’s state apparatus was almost imperceptible before. When I first arrived, I noticed virtually no surveillance cameras on the streets. Speeding is rarely enforced. Police are rarely seen. Domestic flights don’t require real names — tickets can be freely transferred without any ID. Airport security is a formality. Most people follow the rules, so so much police force isn’t needed. But freedom is always relative. Take traffic safety — in an extreme case, if everyone followed the rules, you could eliminate traffic police and use the savings for public welfare. The more rule-breakers, the more cameras and police you need — but the cost is ultimately borne by the public. If a camera costs 20,000 yuan and each fine is 200 yuan, you need 100 violations to break even. New Zealand has few cameras because they wouldn’t recoup the cost. With Chinese driving habits, cameras would pay for themselves quickly. After the attack, the Prime Minister said in her speech that national defence must be strengthened. More money will be spent on police, stricter customs and airport checks, and citizens’ freedoms will be curtailed. Welfare may also be affected. Tax revenue is finite — money spent here can’t be spent there.
The second issue is ethnic relations. New Zealand is an immigrant country — as the Prime Minister said, over 200 languages and 100 ethnicities. Ethnic equality is the highest political correctness. If ethnic conflict escalates, chaos is guaranteed. New Zealand has prided itself on relatively good race relations. It’s often said that New Zealand is the only country in history that didn’t massacre its indigenous population on a large scale — instead, it signed a treaty and coexisted peacefully (though there have been conflicts). After Europeans arrived, the indigenous population actually multiplied several times. There’s even a joke that New Zealand is the only place where the indigenous people colonised the European colonisers (because of high welfare). So racial or religious violence is the last thing anyone wants. Everyone’s worried about whether communities will become more united or more divided after this.
Resources, Globalisation, and Beyond
On the deeper issue of ethnic and racial conflict: it’s about globalisation, anti-globalisation, and resource competition. When I was a student, I remember the education plan had a line about “cultivating talents with international perspectives.” Later, when I revised educational plans for my own work, I kept that line in. But I’m not sure I fully understand what it means. What is an international perspective? Understanding peoples beyond your own ethnicity? Understanding other countries’ laws? Knowing other peoples’ histories? Maybe all of this. But from my personal experience, these aren’t acquired overnight.
I grew up in a county on the southeast coast of Shandong, China. Everyone around me was extremely homogeneous — same dialect, same food. Our area is famous for garlic. During Chinese New Year, every family eats dumplings with garlic cloves. The two most famous restaurants in the county were dog meat and donkey meat places. Nobody thought eating garlic or dog meat was problematic. So there were no ethnic conflicts. Occasionally, people from neighbouring Jiangsu province came to do business. Because their language was different — they spoke Mandarin instead of our dialect — people gave them derogatory nicknames. In primary and middle school, my classmates were all children of local government or state-owned enterprise employees. That was fine. In high school, many kids from rural towns came to study in the county seat. I complained back then: “In primary and middle school, we had 40-50 students per class. That was fine. Why let them in, making it nearly 100 students per class? They’re taking our resources.” (My mother scolded me for that.)
Later, I went to Shanghai for study and work. Living with classmates from all over China, I gradually learned that many people don’t eat wheat-based food, don’t eat dumplings for New Year, and eating garlic can be politically incorrect. Zhou Libo even made a joke about it in his show. My wife and I are from neighbouring provinces, but our habits differ hugely. She later told me that after our first meal together, she nearly broke up with me because I ate garlic. Later, I learned Shanghainese also give derogatory nicknames to out-of-towners. When the city’s subways, buses, and highways become congested, Shanghainese feel outsiders are taking their resources.
Then I went to Hong Kong for my PhD. The same thing happened there. Due to different histories, lifestyles, and thinking patterns, the conflict between Hong Kongers and Mainlanders was significant. For example, historically, Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in the Qing dynasty and only returned under the PRC — it was never ruled by the Republic of China. So some customs that formed during the ROC period are politically incorrect in Hong Kong. Qingming Festival and Dragon Boat Festival are fine, but they don’t call Lunar New Year “Spring Festival” because that’s an ROC-era term. Then there’s driving on the left vs right. There are too many mainland students in universities, they’re too academically competitive and compete for scholarships. There’s the issue of pregnant women from the mainland giving birth in Hong Kong, grabbing baby formula, and so on.
Then I came to New Zealand. There’s nothing new under the sun. The conflicts between people from different parts of China are just the same as conflicts between people from different countries.
On one hand, we only have one earth, finite resources — especially scarce resources like top hospitals and school-zone housing — which inevitably leads to competition. On the other hand, technology makes population movement easier. My grandparents’ generation might have lived their entire lives within a few dozen kilometres of where they were born. For our generation, global movement is common. By our grandchildren’s generation, they might be moving to other planets. Competition is no longer within a county, a province, or even a country — whether you like it or not, you’re participating in global competition. The local clothing store in the small county where I grew up has to compete with Taobao from Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai, and even with global shopping agents. Local English teachers find that VIPKID has foreign teachers competing for their jobs. The left-leaning view: globalisation is good. All people are born equal. Love has no gender. Rich and poor share together. The right-leaning view: Trump’s “America First” — no to globalisation, foreigners are taking American resources, people are not equal, local priority, don’t support lazy people with high welfare. Neither left nor right is inherently right or wrong. New Zealand’s government frequently swings between the two. I’m probably like most intellectuals — centre-left, in favour of globalisation. But how to solve the ethnic and racial issues caused by globalisation, and how existing interest groups feel about others taking their resources — I don’t know. Otherwise I’d go into politics.
Lessons for Us
Finally, what does this mean for China? I’ve noticed some Chinese are already watching the show and even making jokes. They seem to think this happened in a remote little country and has nothing to do with them. Even some local Chinese in New Zealand think “it was against Muslims, not me.” I disagree. This isn’t just a religious conflict or an ethnic issue. It’s extremism.
Extremists can exist in any faith, any place. None of us can stand apart. The 9/11 attackers were Muslim extremists. The Christchurch attacker was a Christian and white supremacist extremist. The Kunming railway station attack in China wasn’t long ago. Liu Cixin’s recent works are very popular. If you’ve read Chapter 1 of The Three-Body Problem, you’ll find extremists there too, with their own beliefs. All of them, without exception, went to extremes. Once they go to extremes, they believe whatever they do is righteous. So how to prevent extremist ideology from taking root is something everyone must pay attention to. No one can avoid it. Extremist ideology is not far from us — especially when the whole world is being pulled “rightward” by Trump.
Some Chinese media have seized on one sentence from the attacker’s manifesto and made a big deal of it, because it directly mentioned the full name of our country. He said his political views are close to China’s. I won’t quote it. Extremists want their views known — he sent his manifesto to NZ media and even the Prime Minister’s office before the attack. Quoting it would only play into his hands.
But I don’t think this should be over-interpreted. In fact, I haven’t seen any English media discussing that sentence. The manifesto is over 70 pages long. He also repeatedly called himself a hardcore Trump fan, mentioned being born and educated in neighbouring Australia, and his British ancestry. If anyone’s guilt by association, China is hardly the only one. And there’s no need to fear that retaliation will target China. As I said before, people can go to extremes regardless of belief. Making sure we don’t go to extremes ourselves, and preventing extreme thinking from taking root around us — that’s what’s worth paying attention to.