Ezio Yao, B.A. Accounting & Military, Iowa State University
So why did Cai Xia do it?
Cai Xia was born in 1952. People born in 1950-1970 in China have a very complicated view of China. They were born when China was not yet reformed and opened up, so people's thinking was overly uniform. Suddenly in 1978 when the reform and opening up took place, some people went out and saw the capitalist countries and then fell into deep distress and dissatisfaction with their own country. Before the 1980s, not many people in China could have their own bathroom, and many families would not have running water. Many places didn't even have electricity, let alone a telephone. But the United States in that era was far more developed than China. This strong contrast is absolute will break a person's mind. Then, after seeing the gap, it is important to see how you are going to choose.
There are many people who see how developed the West is and choose to make their country stronger. There are those who see the development of the West and they think their country is weak because of the Communist Party. Through decades of development, the former group made China strong; while the latter group failed. But they would not be willing to accept their failure; they considered themselves as senior intellectuals, a privileged class, and no one could convince them. They will intensify their attacks on the Chinese Communist Party.
how do we think about her?
If she had done it 15 years ago, it might have had an impact, because China wasn't as powerful then, so there wasn't enough confidence. But now China is very confident, and the presence of such voices does not change anything, she is after all a professor of ideology and politics and not a scientist in a certain field. She will continue to criticize the Chinese Communist Party as she always has, even more viciously, because it is one of the bases for her survival in the United States and one of the practices to maintain her reputation.
