A Reporter Returns to China to Find it Richer, but Also Highly Paranoid.
New York Times · LC · trust 32/100
Returning to China after decades away, a correspondent finds bullet trains, dazzling skylines — and a surveillance state more paranoid and pervasive than ever.
Listen · 16:10 min Share full article Andrew Higgins riding a car past Tiananmen Square in January. He was at the square in June 1989 when the military assaulted people who were protesting corruption, inequality and inflation. By Andrew Higgins
Andrew Higgins was based in Shanghai for six months late last year and early this year, an assignment that took him around the country.
The group I was traveling with in the northern province of Shanxi — mostly foreign influencers hungry for followers and Chinese freebies — was told to line up behind a long banner and be filmed chanting: “Amazing China, Amazing Shanxi.”
I declined to join in, scowling in silence. But, back in my hotel room in the provincial capital of Taiyuan, I felt I had perhaps been too churlish: Getting a bunch of foreigners to chant on cue for the camera about China’s wonders was a transparent but harmless propaganda stunt.
And, to be honest, the 11th century temples we visited — and also the new highway that took us to them — were pretty amazing.
Then I received a message on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, from an old friend in Beijing, a lawyer whose earnest decency and movie star looks always reminded me of the “good party cadre” characters in propaganda films. I had not seen him for more than 30 years and was planning to visit the following day.
Sadly, his message said, he would not be able to keep our appointment because state security officers, somehow apprised of our plans, had turned up at his door and ordered him to cancel.
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