Economic Changes In China

Economic Changes

The bystander behaviour also hints at the presence of a deeper moral problem in China. Though the fear of being extorted by a victim is strong, upon inspection the costs of extortion are mainly monetary. The fact that the Chinese are so affected by fear of extortion shows that perhaps they value money more than the lives of other people. For instance, when the driver of the van that ran Yueyue over was interviewed, he said, “If [Yueyue] is dead, I may pay only about 20,000 yuan. But if she is injured, it may cost me hundreds of thousands of yuan.” (Zhang, 2011). The idolatry that the Chinese shower upon money may be due to the major changes in the economy. From 1978, China began to move from a purely centrally-planned economy

Looking back at the history of China, the individual has never had an important place in society. For instance, the “five core elements of Chinese culture [that] constitute the Chinese individual” do not have anything to do with an individual self per se, but defines the individual as existing only in relation to and on behalf of groups like the family, lineage or a hierarchy of social relations (Yan, 2010). Therefore, in Chinese culture, individual interests were secondary to collective interests. Under radical Maoist socialism, the importance of the individual declined even more as the state promoted the narrative of collectivism and the idea of the dual-self, which is made up of a small self centred on personal interests and the great self centred on national interests, and that one should always sacrifice the small self for the good of the great self (Yan, 2010). In the post-Mao era, individuals began to redefine themselves as they were freed from rigid constraints of Maoist socialism that forced them to prioritise the collective over the self. For instance, post-Mao economic reforms allowed individuals to pursue their own careers for the first time rather than assigning each individual with jobs. Also, instead of living in communes and working for the sake of the collective, individuals now have the option of migrating to urban locations for employment and a better life. Though self-sacrifice and working for the good of the collective are still crucial aspects of China’s narrative, these actions are no longer seen as ideal by individuals because of the greater freedom that individuals possess, allowing them to prioritise fulfilling self-interest. As such, when an individual weighs the benefits and costs of action and inaction to decide on the response to emergency situations, whatever benefits the self the most and costs the