How American and Chinese values shaped the coronavirus response

To combat COVID-19, countries have enforced city-wide shutdowns, stay-at-home orders and mask mandates -- but the reaction (and adherence) to these rules has differed markedly in the East and West. In conversation with TED's head of curation Helen Walters, writer and publisher Huang Hung sheds light on how Chinese and American cultural values shaped their responses to the outbreak -- and provides perspective on why everyone needs to come together to end the pandemic. (Recorded April 16, 2020)

Helen Walters: Huang,
it's so good to see you.

Thank you for joining us.
How's your 2020 been?

Huang Hung: My 2020
started totally normal.

In January, I went to Paris,

did my interview
for the fashion week there,

came back to Beijing on January 22nd,

and finding things a little bit tense

because there were a lot of rumors.

Having lived through SARS,

I wasn't that concerned.

And on the 23rd, I had a friend of mine
from New York come to my house

who had a flu,

and we had dinner together,

and another friend who came,

who left the next day for Australia
for vacation on an airplane.

So we were not taking this
terribly seriously

until there was a lockdown.

HW: And we've seen that echo
around the world.

I think still some people find it hard
to understand the magnitude

of some of the measures that China took.

I mean -- what else are we missing
about China's response in all of this?

HH: You know, historically,

we're just two very different countries

in terms of culture and history.

I mean, these are two completely different
human experiences for its people.

So, for China,

when the lockdown happens,

people are OK.

People are OK with it,

because they think that's what
a good parent should do.

You know, if a kid gets sick,

you put him in the other room,

and you lock him up and make sure
that the other kids don't get sick.

And they expect that
out of the government.

But when it is outside of China,
from America, it becomes a huge issue

of the right political thing to do

and whether it's infringing
on personal freedom.

So the issues that you have to deal with
in a democratic society

are issues that one does not
have to deal with in China.

I have to say that
there's a word in Chinese

that doesn't exist in any other language,

and the word is called "guāi."

It is what you call a kid

who listens to his or her parents.

So I think, as a people,
we are very "guāi."

We have this sort of authoritarian figure

that Chinese always look up to,

and they do expect the government
to actually take the actions,

and they will deal with it.

However much suffering there is,

they feel that, OK, if big brother says
that this has to be done,

then it must be done.

And that really defines China
as a separate mentality,

Chinese has a separate mentality,

as, say, people in Europe and America.

HW: That sense
of collective responsibility

sometimes feels a little absent
from this culture.

At the same time, there are,
I think, valid concerns

around surveillance
and data privacy, things like that.

What is the balance here,

and what is the right trade-off
between surveillance and freedom?

HH: I think in the internet age,

it is somewhere between China and the US.

I think when you take
individual freedom

versus collective safety,

there has to be a balance somewhere there.

With surveillance, the head of Baidu,
Robin Li, once said

the Chinese people are quite willing
to give up certain individual rights

in exchange for convenience.

Actually, he was completely criticized
on Chinese social media,

but I think he is right.

Chinese people are willing
to give up certain rights.

For example, we have ...

Chinese mostly are very proud
of the payment system we have,

which is you can go anywhere
just with your iPhone

and pay for everything,

and all they do is face-scan.

I think that probably
freaks Americans out.

You know, China right now,
we're still under semi-lockdown,

so if you go anywhere,
there's an app where you scan

and you input your mobile phone number,

and the app will tell the guard
at the entrance of the mall, for example,

where you have been for the past 14 days.

Now, when I told that to an American,

she was horrified,

and she thought it was
such an invasion of privacy.

On the other hand,

as someone who is Chinese

and has lived in China
for the past 20 years,

although I understand
that American mentality,

I still find I'm Chinese enough
to think, "I don't mind this,

and I am better, I feel safer
entering the mall

because everybody has been scanned,"

whereas, I think individual freedom
as an abstract concept

in a pandemic like this

is actually really meaningless.

So I think the West really needs
to move a step towards the East

and to think about
the collective as a whole

rather than only think
about oneself as an individual.

HW: The rise of antagonistic rhetoric
between the US and China

is obviously troubling,

and the thing is,
the countries are interlinked

whether people understand
global supply chains or not.

Where do you think we head next?

HH: You know, this is the most
horrifying thing that came out of this,

the kind of nationalistic sentiments
on both sides in this pandemic.

Because I'm an optimist,

I think what will come out of this

is that both sides will realize
that this is a fight

that the entire human race
has to do together and not apart.

Despite the rhetoric,

the global economy has grown
to such an integration

that decoupling will be
extremely costly and painful

for both the United States and China.

HW: It's also been interesting to me

to see the criticism that China
has received quite vocally.

For instance, they've been criticized
for downplaying the death toll,

arguably,

also for trying to demonize Dr. Li,

the Wuhan doctor who first
raised the alarm about the coronavirus.

I just saw a report
in "The New York Times"

that Weibo users have been posting
repeatedly on the last post of Dr. Li

and using this as kind of
a living memorial to him,

chatting to him.

There's something like
870,000 comments and growing

on that last post.

Do you see a change in the media?

Do you see a change in the approach
to Chinese leadership

that actually could lead to China
swinging perhaps more to the center,

just as perhaps America needs
to swing more towards a Chinese model?

HH: Unfortunately, not really,

because I think there is a way

between authoritarian governments
and its people to communicate.

The night that Dr. Li died,

when it was announced that he died,

the Chinese social media just blew up.

Even though he was
unjustly treated as a whistleblower,

he still went to work in the hospital

and tried to save lives as a doctor,

and then he died

because he contracted the disease.

So there was anger, frustration,

and all of that came out

in kind of commemorating a figure

that they feel that
the government had wronged.

The verdict

and sort of the official voice on:

"Who is Dr. Li?
Is he a good guy or a bad guy?"

completely changed 180 degrees.

He went from a doctor who misbehaved

to the hero who warned the people.

So under authoritarian government,

they still are very aware
of public opinion,

but, on the other hand,

when people complain
and when they commemorate Dr. Li,

do they really want to change the system?

And my answer is no,

because they don't like
that particular decision,

but they don't want to change the system.

And one of the reasons is because

they have never, ever
known another system.

This is the system they know how to work.

HW: What is wok-throwing, Huang?

HH: Oh, wok-throwing is when
you blame somebody else.

Basically, someone who is responsible
in a slang Chinese

is someone who carries a black wok.

You are made to be the scapegoat
for something that is bad.

So basically, Trump started
calling it the "Chinese virus,"

the "Wuhan virus,"

and trying to blame the entire
coronavirus pandemic

on the Chinese.

And then the Chinese, I think,
threw the wok back at the Americans.

So it was a very funny joke
on Chinese social media,

that wok-throwing.

There's a wok-throwing gymnastics
aerobics exercise video that went viral.

HW: But tell us, Huang:

You're also doing dances on TikTok, right?

HH: Oh, of course.

I'm doing a lot of wok-throwing
aerobics on TikTok.

HW: I mean, a potential silver lining
of all of this is that it has laid bare

some of the inequities,
inequalities in the system,

some of the broken
structures that we have,

and if we're smart, we can rebuild better.

HH: Yes. I think one of
the silver linings of this pandemic

is that we do realize

that the human race
has to do something together

rather than to be distinguished
by our race, by the color of our skin

or by our nationality;

that this virus obviously
is not discriminating against anyone,

whether you are rich or poor,

important or not important

or whatever skin color
or nationality you are.

So it is a time to be together,

rather than to try to pull the world apart

and crawl back to our own
nationalistic shells.

HW: It's a beautiful sentiment.

Huang Hung, thank you so much
for joining us from Beijing.

Stay well, please.

HH: Thank you, Helen,
and you stay well as well.