Members of the District of Columbia National Guard standing next to an MATV vehicle scan the area as they patrol outside Union Station, Monday, Sept. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
In 1997 or 1998, as a doctoral student, I met a Chinese woman in my cohort. She had left her husband at home while she studied English in the United States; she hoped to return to China to teach English.
We had dinner one night at the home of a fellow student, and during the conversation that ensued, the inevitable topic of China’s repressive government came up.
At that time, China was in a period of significant transition as a new, rather weak centrist president came into power — Jiang Zemin. Great Britain was surrendering its control of Hong Kong, and the future of freedom anywhere in the Chinese sphere was in question. Would China open up even more to the western world, or would it retreat into the old autocratic political system of its recent past? When I asked my Chinese friend if she would prefer to stay in the United States where she could benefit from the personal freedom a democracy guaranteed, she said she wanted to return to China. Her reply was simply, “you may have great freedom here, but in China, we have no crime.”
Indeed. When an autocratic regime is in power, what we ordinary citizens think of as “crime” can easily be eliminated. All it takes is the heavy presence of enforcers in the streets and a network of loyal neighborhood observers to stifle petty thieves, break-in artists, and even wife-beaters and drunken drivers.
President Trump has recently argued that U.S. citizens feel the same as my Chinese acquaintance — that they are willing to trade democratic freedoms for crime-free neighborhoods.
Sadly, if Trump is right, there may be no crime in the streets, but the kinds of crimes that ravage national economies, subvert the power of independent agencies and courts, and strip funding from human services, education and cultural treasures continue unchecked.
You and I may have quiet, crime-free neighborhoods but at what price?
I wonder if my erstwhile Chinese friend is still teaching English in China, and if she is watching as the United States devolves into an autocracy much like that of her own country. I wonder if she marvels at the irony as she remembers our conversation. My heart breaks for my country.
Louise Excell, Springdale