How safe is China?

My information is grossly outdated since I visited China more than a decade ago.

While out to see the cultural attractions of Urumqi, i managed to lose myself completely in the city somewhere around late night. And no, i don’t mean the romantic notion of being lost or enthralled completely, i mean literally lost. I had no idea where i was and how to get back to my hotel. This was before the age of google maps and all those flashy apps we have now.

I spent nearly an hour trying to retrace my steps in the increasingly quiet city and honestly began to get a little scared. It was my first time outside my own nation, i was in a foreign country, i was lost, it was probably midnight and i had no idea whether i would have to sleep on a footpath till morning and hope for the best or whether i could run into some serious trouble before then. South Asian cities are urban jungles after night time and no one in their right state of mind would stay out after dark in our region’s cities.

I managed to locate an open shop in my path and thanked my lucky stars. I could ask for directions! I was safe!

The moment i stepped in, i realized, to my utter horror, that this was an alcohol shop. Three completely wasted dudes sat sharing a bottle under their only fluorescent light. Drunk People + Late Night hours can never be a good combination. And i didn’t even speak the language. Still i had no options at this point.

We engaged in a difficult conversation, hard to navigate due to the language barrier and complicated even further by the effects of alcohol. I tried to explain that i was attempting to reach my hotel whose name i kept repeating as well as some general directions that i could still recall.

90% of their response was laughing hysterically, hugging me, throwing their arms around my shoulder, aggressively shaking my hand and making loud jokes with each other in Mandarin. The guys were totally wasted.

Nevertheless, the motley crew decided to act as my escort and engage in the endeavor of navigating the streets of Urumqi at night in order to reach a destination they had barely understood.

As luck would have it, i had managed to run into the most navigationally proficient drunk gentleman in Urumqi and we soon managed to chance upon the intersection from which i could see my hotel. I thanked them profusely with multiple “Xie Xie”s. I also opened my wallet to offer them some money as compensation for their assistance which they rejected. I returned to my hotel and they went off on their merry ways.

(BTW, are there laws in China regarding alcohol shops having to close early as well as public intoxication? I hope those guys didn’t get in trouble with the police later)

So if my experience of getting lost late night in one of the frontier cities of China, running into a few intoxicated gentleman and rather than being the victim of a crime, being provided assistance is any benchmark of how low crime is in China, then i’m happy to help. Their cities, even the pretty remote ones seem to be fairly safe.

I would make similar ventures in other cities as well and never noticed any concern among the citizens of crime after night. Actually, i barely noticed a heavy police presence either.

I should mention though, that they were safe for me as a young adult male (and a foreign one) so my experience might not be applicable to everyone.

This question and the memory of this incident actually lead me to reflect on something i’d seen on Mindhunter a while back on the topic of crime and the citizen’s relationship with their government.

There’s an interesting conversation in Mindhunter, a TV series about the FBI trying to develop a profiling system in the behavioral science unit. This is based in the 60s,70s era and the FBI is faced with a spate of a new type of crime: violent crimes between complete strangers (serial killers and so on) for reasons that defy traditionally defined motive. In the first episode, the primary character Detective Holden has an interesting conversation with a visiting FBI professor Rathman on this new spate of violent crime with no motive and no link between the criminal and victim:

Source: Mindhunters, Season 1, Episode 1.

The conversation is pretty interesting and if we were to accept the logic of it, it would imply that Chinese citizens still view their state government as a parental institution and place their faith in it’s abilities, rulings, decisions and capacity to deliver in order to meet their needs. They also accept its legitimacy and have a fair degree of trust in it. And that could be the logic behind why China’s crime rates are so low.

I have observed from reading the answers of Chinese Quorans, when they discuss matters of state and it’s relation to Confucian values, that the Chinese cultural dynamics also place a similar emphasis on the state as a kind of parental institution. It’s authority and legitimacy is accepted as long as it delivers and this is in stark contrast to other parts of the world where the state is either viewed with suspicion or seen in conflict with the values of it’s citizens (e.g. Secular states vs conservative Muslim’s Islamic values).

When the state’s legitimacy and the trust in government is as high as what we see in China, there are few incentives for citizens to turn to violent crime. Because they trust in the plan the government has in store for them, trust the system, obey the laws and live their lives within the order set out for them by the legitimate State.

Honestly, i don’t think it’s not even the consistent economic growth and the riches of society that prevent crime (You can have fantastically wealthy states and still have huge crime rates).

If citizens look at their government and state and :

Then they will turn to crime regardless. I guess a kind of panic or frenzy grips society and the first impulse of citizens is to parallel the break down of the state with a break down of their own social order as well. Leading to a spike in crime rates. Because when you feel that the people in charge have no plan, no way forward, the automobile is speeding off the road, then you will hardly be in the mental state required to live that ordered, lawful way of life that implies you putting your faith and trust in the state and it’s system.

Lets take Pakistan as a case study. Here, we have a state in disorder. Politicians cant finish their terms without being ousted by un-elected state institutions. This encourages them to focus more on cementing their power through corruption and backroom deal making than focusing on alleviating the problems of the country, which are crimes. Their crimes reduce the trust of the citizens in the government and the citizens now indulge in tax evasion and illegal self-enrichment means to protect themselves and their wealth since they cant trust the corrupt politicians of the state. Similarly, police and other law enforcement agencies are seen as corrupt, serving the interests of political elites or under the control of agencies with their own agenda, be it ethnic or sectarian. So citizens form their own urban gangs and militias to defend themselves.

All of the above acts are illegal and lead to crime. And they all stem from the disorder within our state which signal to citizens that the entire country is in a free for all. “Grab what you can, however you can. The system isn’t working.”

The CPC has ensured that none of that happens due to stable party succession, rule based behavior, predicable and reliable policies and consistency in delivering as well as pragmatic decision making. All of these methodologies of state craft and previous track record ensure that, by and large and with a few exceptions, the citizens remain calm, trust the system and living within the lawful framework set out for them by the State.

Anyway, this is just me churning out some amateur theory crafting of my own. I welcome feedback and corrections from any Chinese readers on the issue. I should mention that I work a Government job so a lot of my interpretation of events is through the eyes of the state. I welcome alternative suggestions to the one presented above.

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