Andrew Singer Talks About China and America

Vol. 3, Issue 27

Four Weeks in China: Spring 2025

I recently returned from almost a month in China, primarily spent in Henan Province. The trip was the longest I have been in the country in decades. It was an immersive experience. I was a tourist but also much more. I met my in-laws. I visited friends I had previously only known through social media. I made new friends. I met strangers. I helped my wife (to some minor extent) as she attended to various matters. I lived briefly in today's China.

Map of China showing Chinese surnames (Phoenix Lake, Xinxiang, China)

Henan Province in Central China is the historic birthplace of China thousands of years ago (e.g., Shangqiu and Anyang) and repeatedly the site of ancient national capitals (e.g., Kaifeng and Luoyang). Today it is also a manufacturing hub for behemoths such as Foxconn (Apple phones) and BYD (electric vehicles) in and around the capital city of Zhengzhou and boasts high-tech and extensive agriculture making the Province a national breadbasket.

This was my first time in this part of the country. From this perch, I saw China from the inside and America from the outside. There is so much to process and share--about China, America, and the world. There is poignant history and culture, a cutting-edge society, as well as anxious domestic and global current affairs bubbling at and below the surface.

Yellow River looking west

I crossed the Yellow River daily over the 9+ km-long, Zhengxin Yellow River Bridge on Bus 601 into and out of Zhengzhou City. I rode the gaotie, high-speed train and the subway. I experienced the city while walking (a lot) and from private cars and Didi for-hire cars. I avoided the two-wheel scooters and three-wheel motorized vehicles that dash, dart, and weave throughout the streets and sidewalks.

I enjoyed full social media and news access in China through an International Travel Pass on my wireless account. This included even Google Maps (albeit with some drop in detail). I had considered purchasing a VPN ahead of time and researched several, but I ultimately did not get one. I now presume that there is one built-into my phone service. While I left my laptop at home (more because I did not want to lug it around or lose it), I did not buy a burner phone.

I discussed America's spiraling constitutional, social, and economic chaos with the Chinese. They are interested and often seem as mystified as I am about America's U-turn. There are significant problems in need of attention in America, but the same are not being seriously addressed. To the contrary, the methods being employed and rhetoric being deployed by the U.S. government towards purported stated ends defy logic and are both counterproductive and incredibly damaging. Many (and I believe most) Chinese remain positive on the U.S. as a land of opportunity and are friendly to Americans, but the unease and those who do not or are no longer sure are growing.

Truth-be-told, what gave me the greatest agita before leaving was the thought of the ultimate return to America, not the time to be spent in China. My wife is a lawful permanent resident, a/k/a a green card holder. She does not protest and has had no run-ins with the American legal system, minor or otherwise. She is not a threat to anyone, let alone the United States of America. Yet, the avalanche of stories about immigrants, students, and tourist visitors having visas canceled and being detained and deported by the American government as allegedly threatening grows. I was worried.

Though I recognize that such numbers are a small percentage of the whole, as a result my concerns, I prepared. I spoke with my wife’s immigration lawyer. I wrote her a cheat sheet in case we were separated at customs. This paper included the immigration attorney's name, address, and work and cell numbers, as well as the following sentences in both Chinese and English: "I will not sign any documents" (used to pressure immigrants into voluntarily relinquishing their green cards in exchange for being released from detention) and "I want a hearing before an immigration judge" (due process which every immigrant is entitled to in such a situation before being deported).

Upon our return in San Francisco, we sailed through customs together. No delays. No hassles. No secondary questioning, though they did take a Chinese woman two in front of us off to such questioning. I probably went overboard, but I do not think I was being paranoid in preparing. In fact, either the first or second question people have been asking me since we returned has been, “Did you have any difficulties at customs?”

Kaifeng Gulou Drum Tower (recreated)

These are turbulent times in America. Separate from the nation’s abrupt, callous, and self-defeating abandonment of the global economic system and international order it helped create, support, and lead since WWII, which, logic aside, a sovereign nation has the prerogative to do,

In America today:

1. Freedom of speech is being restricted if the government disagrees;

2. Freedom of assembly is being punished if the government disagrees;

3. Freedom of the press is being pressured if the government disagrees;

4. Freedom from search and seizure is being sidelined if the government disagrees;

5. Compliance with the Courts is being ignored if the government disagrees;

6. Due process does not apply if the government disagrees;

7. Education and nonprofit activities are being threatened if the government disagrees; and

8. Official history is being rewritten and re-messaged to de-emphasize that with which the government disagrees and to promote the direction the government supports.

For decades since the mid twentieth century, America has accused the Chinese government of doing each of these specific actions. We claimed them to be antithetical to the western liberal international order, something bad, offensive.

At the beginning of this century, America dreamed that China becoming part of the international order through the World Trade Organization would liberalize the country in America’s image.

A quarter century later, the opposite has happened. China's more authoritarian political and social systems are instead being adopted by the American government, as that which we railed against in the past is fast becoming the norm here.

Now that’s irony.

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