John Richard Schrock: Chinese don’t understand U.S., Kansas politics

“Aren’t you from Kansas?” my hosts asked as I traveled across China this summer visiting four universities.

“Yep,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Kansas is on all the news,” they replied. “There is lots of argument in your state government.”

At the next opportunity, I brought up the Yahoo, MSN and CNN news feeds. And there was Kansas.

When I left Kansas at the end of the spring semester, the Legislature was into overtime trying to address the state constitution-mandated balanced budget. Kansas was still about $450 million in the red. Here I was in China weeks later, and this debate was still dragging on.

Finally came the news that Gov. Sam Brownback went to the Legislature and begged for an increase in sales tax and finally got it, but not quite enough to cover the shortfall. The Legislature also passed a bill that would defund the courts if the court ruled against them on a new law involving the oversight of the courts.

The Chinese watch a lot of foreign news (in part to improve their English). Students and teachers in China know a lot more about our form of government than the average American knows about theirs. So I knew that at the next dinner I would face more questions, and I did.

“Aren’t your branches of government supposed to do different jobs?”

I explained how our executive branch ran day-to-day affairs. The judicial branch judged cases based on the Constitution, laws and rights. And the legislative branch met for a short time to pass new laws. They already knew this.

“But if your Legislature controls the money, they can control the other two branches, too, can’t they?”

“That happened at the national level, too,” another professor injected. “That’s why they shut down the national government two times.”

I try to explain: “It’s not supposed to work that way. But some legislators think we spend too much money and they do these things.” But I could tell that explanation didn’t make sense to my fellow professors.

Now my dilemma is how to make the Chinese perspective understood to American readers.

Many European countries as well as Israel have more than two parties. Their elections rarely see any one party gain a majority. So the leading parties have to confer to put together a ruling coalition. At any time the coalition no longer agrees, they break up, and this requires a new election be held. Americans tend to ridicule such a system as confusing and short term.

My China colleagues view our two-party system, with its gridlock and power plays, with the same disdain that Americans view the European multiparty systems. And they certainly have these cases of dysfunction to prove their point.

That does not mean that their system is necessarily monolithic. Most Americans would be surprised to know that there are more than a dozen other political parties in China besides the Communist Party. However, their membership is very low. They mainly win positions in local and regional elections. And debate does occur, not only in their National People’s Congress, but also in the bimonthly meetings of their subcommittee that writes laws for consideration at the next congress.

I have long since given up trying to explain the O.J. Simpson trial verdict in China. And this summer I gave up trying to explain Kansas politics.

This story was originally published September 9, 2015 at 7:05 PM with the headline "John Richard Schrock: Chinese don’t understand U.S., Kansas politics."