Chinese people: would you care about how an Indian scholar understands China? Most ordinary people probably wouldn’t care. But when European and American scholars or even journalists talk about China from their perspectives, many people will care, become nervous, and even revise their own views and behaviors based on their opinions. Of course, some people will agree and say, “Yes, it is indeed unreasonable and absurd, and I have already thought so.”

It is understandable that foreigners trust their own media, which better reflects their values and language. But what about Chinese people? Do those who just echo others’ opinions really understand China?

By surrendering their judgment to others, they instinctively use values that are completely impossible to understand their own country to guide their own views. In the end, it can only lead to a two-way communication failure: they can only parrot the words and phrases from the European and American world without having their own opinions, and they observe and judge their own country and system from a condescending position, resulting in hasty and rough conclusions.

As mentioned earlier, this group of people usually makes such judgments not because the judgment of the European and American world is more logical or persuasive, but because the Western countries are more powerful and to some extent have more power in disseminating and interpreting facts. Blindly worshiping power, giving up the right and opportunity to think independently is like when you were a child, and your mother thought that the top students would make all the decisions related to or unrelated to their studies correctly because of their good grades. It is a typical result of being influenced by the confirmation bias.