    China is a Communist country. The Chinese Communist party is the only party that operates the government. Thus, in order to maintain the ruler-ship, China’s government controls the country by limiting and getting command of almost every field connected with citizens’ daily lives such as education, multimedia, basic rights, resources, business, and so on. Also, the government uses violence and encourages violence between citizens to control the country. The control from government is like a net that covers everything in citizens’ daily life. Because of the control, a lot of citizens are brainwashed by the government. They need to know the truth, they need to get rid of the control, and they also need to know how the government controls them so that they can think by themselves and become strong to push the country forward to reformation.

    Hedong Lu, a writer, pointed out that filial piety, which is the younger generation obeying the older generation, is encouraged by the government by advertising the ancient philosophers’ opinion that the society need filial piety in his essay “Do not use filial piety to control.” What the government does is actually control the younger generation by brainwashing them to obey. Brainwashing filial piety to the young generation is an example of education control. The government encourages students and citizens to learn the thought of ancient philosophers and follow their opinions, especially following elders and power even if they are wrong. Students are taught that the younger generation should obey their parents and avoid disagreeing with their parents and teacher; challenging is forbidden. This kind of education is called brainwashing education. The government uses education to force the younger generation to follow power and the older generation. Once the young people become used to following this power, they will not pay attention to the mistakes made by the government or challenge the power of the leader. Once everyone in the country only knows how to follow, it will be easy for government to control the country because if the government makes mistakes, the citizens will not say anything because they do not know how to challenge and cannot realize the government is wrong.

Filial piety is not only the example of education control but also a kind of control of limiting citizens’ basic rights. For individuals, freedom is their right. However, under the cultural background of filial piety, individuals do not have freedom and the right to think and express themselves. Everyone depends on someone in their family. Individuals should do what the old generation asks them to do. Expressing or disagreeing is not allowed. Under this situation, individuals lose their right of freedom. For the government, it is easy to control because everyone in the family is tightly connected and they do not have ability to think personally. The government only needs to brainwash few people in a family, especially the old generation. Then, the whole family will be brainwashed and educated by the old generation. Therefore, the most common thing that the government does is combining the education of the filial piety and the thought of following together in school and public advertisements.. 

    To block the important information and avoid the citizens from gaining knowledge by themselves, the government controls the media and the internet. David Bandurski described that China’s government control the newspaper with the example of the Oriental Star cruise ship on the Yangtze River which is a accident of the boat sinked into Yangtze River in China. Over three hundred people died in the accident. However, a lot of important information was lost in the newspaper, such as delayed distress signals. Also, all of the newspapers that reported the accident used the same photo or the photo without the scene of the accident. The government blocked part of negative information to make citizens think the country under the power of the current government is perfect. Also, the high similarity between the different newspapers shows the government guides the newspapers to all become same. Similarities not only exist in the newspapers but also in other fields, such as school uniforms, vacation time, and so on. If the country reaches high similarity, the government can control it through various outlets, such as the internet. The evidence of the internet control came from the article published by China daily, one of the newspapers in China that represented the government’s future political trend, “Only Internet control can solve the problem online.” This article states that only online control can block the negative information. Since the citizens cannot get the full information and the real news, they feel the world that the government wants them to feel; their country is like Utopia. Thus, citizens live in the world that the government makes for them and lose their ability to think. It is easier for the government to control the people who do not have their own thoughts. Also, some news has negative effects on the reputation of the government. Some accidents occur because of the wrong decision made by government, the lack of organization, and the supervising of the regulatory system. The republic government is the only legal government in China, so the government has the absolute right, which means they never have to apologize. Because the government thinks apologizing will impact its reputation and make the government lose the loyalty of citizens, it blocks the news and keeps the citizens from knowing the truth so the government can hide their mistakes. 

    Anther method that the government uses to control China is related to the control of media. The government limits the basic rights of the citizens. Controlling the media makes the citizens have no chance to connect the truth, and the limitation of the basic rights makes the citizens become used to following and lose their ability of questioning and thinking. BBC reported that China steps up the one child policy, which is that a couple can only have one child unless both parents do not have siblings, in which case they can have two children. Having children is one of the basic rights for humans. However, the government even limits the right of having a child. Officially, the purpose of the one child policy is to control the population boom. However this policy makes the citizens think the government limiting their basic rights is normal. Most people just do what the government allow them to do. They do not know that they should fight against the government to protect their own rights. For the government, once the citizens lose their ability and mind to fight against the improper policy, the government can come up with new policy and control the citizens without the worry of disagreement. This control influences every field related to the daily life of citizens. However, citizens feel it is normal because almost all of their basic rights are limited. Citizens have no freedom of speech, they cannot know the truth, and they cannot even have the baby that they want. In order to make citizens lose their basic rights without complaining, the government uses brainwashing education. From primary school to the college, brainwashing education exists and makes students get used to having their lives without basic rights. Once the students grow up, they will become the people that do not have ability and thought to protect their rights. They do not feel angry or disappointed when they lose their rights because they think it is normal for government to control their own rights. Sometimes, they even think some control and limitation of rights makes their lives better. Obviously, the citizens become easy to control.

    Brainwashing is also the common way for the government to control China. As the source I used before, the filial piety is a kind of brainwashing from family. The block of information is a kind of brainwashing from the government and makes citizens feel normal about losing their rights, which is also brainwashing from society. Education, is another way of brainwashing. A YouTube video speech showed that the China’s government educates the citizens to love the government. The government uses education to brainwash the citizens and move their attention off of the negative side of the government. Because the government system in China is a monarchy, citizens always feel discontent and will have the thought to challenge the government. In order to avoid the challenging of the government, the government brainwashes the citizens and educates them that everyone should love China, love China’s government, and love the party.

    Also, the government controls the business field. One of the example can be found in national companies. Xie Tian pointed out that the national companies can only bring negative effects on the market and give the chance of corruption for the people who have power in his article “The disadvantage of national companies”. In China, the national companies are a kind of monopoly that control the personal companies’ chances to develop. The national companies control the most profitable fields of business such as selling natural resources, digital communication, transportation, the production of weapons, and so on. The government controls the market in China so that the national companies can earn money easily and the government can earn the profit. However, the national companies actually increase the corruption because of the lack of supervision. Also, the national companies limit the growth of personal companies. A lot of entrepreneurs quit the market because maintaining companies becomes hard and the most profitable fields are not allowed to enter under the limitation of the government. Another reason for the government to control the market is that the governors who have extreme power are the children of the people who were the old governors with extreme power. There is a chain of profit. The national companies are under the control of the powerful governors, and the powerful governors earn money through national companies. Of course, they earn money illegally. In order to earn more money, the government limits personal companies and increases the size of national companies, especially in the most profitable areas to build a monopoly. Because of the lack of computation, the national companies have low efficiency, and even when they monopoly the most profitable area, the national companies get a net loss in most years. The result of the control of the personal companies forces part of the entrepreneurs to build a relationship with the powerful governors. This action brought corruption. Another part of entrepreneurs who do not have chance to build relationships can only maintain their companies with a little profit. Some of them even quit because maintaining the personal companies is tiring and hard to control.

    Violence is the most efficient method to control China, and it actually became the method that the government used for over thirty years. During the Mao era which is the period that the first Chairman was in power, the cultural revolution started from 1966 to 1976. Tan Hecheng, the famous reporter in China spent over twenty years working on doing the research of cultural revolution described in his book The Legend Of Blood. During the cultural revolution, Daoxian, a village in China started a massacre. Thousands of people died and even the river was filled with bodies and the color turned red. The reasons that the people were killed were because they did not follow the government, they did not follow the rules, they were talking about the negative side of the government, they did not believe in the communist party, and so on. Violence was encouraged by Mao, and violence became fiercer and fiercer during the cultural revolution. People in that period lived in an awful situation with fear and terror. Everyone had to follow the government. Citizens followed the government tightly and lived carefully.They even had to think several times before speaking or doing anything. Also, during the Deng Xiaoping era who was another chairman in China, Tiananmen Square events occurred, and the government used violence to stop the event. Qiwei Tang wrote the article “the truth of Tiananmen square event”. In the article, he described the Tiananmen Square event. Tiananmen Square event was a student movement which aimed to push the government to reform. However, the government thought the student movement was dangerous and would make the country became hard to control. The government used violence to stop the movement. The army shot the unarmed students and ended the movement. Violence is a powerful method to control the country because people are scared the death. Violence destroy the disagreement with government from the citizens. Back to the control of the information and education, the government actually blocks the truth of violence because it makes people feel disappointed of the government and it breaks the government’s positive figure. Nowadays, chairman Xi, who is the current chairman in China, there is no evidence that shows he uses violence to control the country which is same with Mao and Deng. The reason is nowadays, it is hard to block the information. However violence does exist at past. It is an important history to know. Violence is combined with the block of news, history, and information to control the country.

    Chairman Deng who is the first Chairman that came up with the idea of opening , actually came up with the idea of freedom during his era, which was a controversial topic. He had a speech about free thought and came up with the thought of reformation. Also, he reformed the country to allow China to have connection and trade with other country. It seems like he would not control the country. However during the Tiananmen Square event, he still had the thought of control and even used the worst method, violence. We can say that his announcement in the third plenary session is cheating. The purpose that he came up with the opinion of freedom was that China was in a dangerous situation. The country was too poor to make everyone follow the government because when people’s basic need can not be fulfilled, they will fight against the government. In order to control the country in the long term, Deng chose to give some freedom and to open market to make sure the citizens have food to eat. Once the problem of poverty was solved and citizens needed more rights, he began to use violence to stop the movement for revolution. 

    In conclusion, nowadays, the most common limitation and command from the government involve in education, family, information and economy field. Although the government control the country, the freedom still exist. Freedom is a seed, once the environment become suitable, it will bloom.

 