As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, critics on the Left portray the United States as a nation in irreversible decline. Having lived under both Mao Zedong’s China and the American constitutional republic, I see something very different.
America’s greatest achievement is not that it has existed for 250 years. Many civilizations are older. China’s recorded history stretches back thousands of years.
But if one has the privilege of choosing citizenship, I believe one should choose a nation that protects liberty, respects the rule of law, [and] safeguards human rights.
The remarkable achievement is that America’s constitutional system has endured for two and a half centuries while continually correcting itself. The United States has survived slavery, civil war, economic depression, world wars, terrorism, political polarization, and profound social conflict without abandoning its constitutional foundations.
Its institutional roots run even deeper than 1776. American constitutional government inherited centuries of English legal tradition dating back to Magna Carta in 1215. That uninterrupted development of liberty under law is one of history’s rarest accomplishments.
By contrast, China’s long history is largely a succession of dynasties, revolutions, and political ruptures. Governments rose and fell. Institutions were repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. Modern constitutional democracy never had the opportunity to take root.
Watching Fourth of July fireworks this year, I found myself reflecting not on abstract political theory, but on the moments that taught me what America truly is.
I was born in Mao’s China, where the state decided nearly every aspect of one’s life. As a young man, I dreamed of becoming an artist, but the government sent me to work in the countryside instead.
Only after Mao’s death did opportunity begin to emerge. I studied relentlessly, won admission to Peking University’s Department of Economics, scored first in my graduate study exam, and in 1982 received the opportunity to study in the United States.
Like many Chinese students of my generation, I expected America to be wealthier than China. That surprised none of us.
What surprised us was something entirely different.
Americans seemed … happy.
I remember the celebrated Chinese writer Ah Cheng came to our school to visit and was asked what had impressed him most about America. His answer was disarmingly simple:
“The Americans are happy.”
At first glance, it sounded almost trivial. But the more I lived in America, the deeper that observation became.
Cashiers smiled. Government employees treated foreign graduate students with courtesy. Janitors greeted us cheerfully in university hallways. Strangers said hello.
These were not superficial cultural habits.
People generally chose their own careers rather than having them assigned by the state. Advancement depended far more on talent and effort than political connections. Because people possessed greater control over their own lives, they carried less resentment toward everyone else.
That stood in sharp contrast to Mao’s China, where class labels determined one’s future and political privilege shaped nearly every opportunity. Too often, people who had little control over their own lives vented their frustrations on those around them.
I remember a cafeteria worker at Peking University nearly striking a student in the face with a serving ladle. It was not a food fight; it was resentment born of a system in which the worker was forced to be a food server.
Two years after arriving in America, I returned to China to visit family.
Instead of feeling at home, I felt anxious.
Would I be allowed to leave again?
One fellow student visited an American female classmate conducting research in China. During one of the regime’s recurring “Strike Hard” campaigns, police arrested him simply because a Chinese man had entered a foreign woman’s hotel room. He lost an entire semester of graduate study in America.
Another close friend, then studying at Columbia University, told me something I have never forgotten.
When his plane landed at New York’s JFK Airport after visiting China, he said quietly:
“Home at last!”
We were foreigners in America, living on modest graduate stipends.
Yet America felt like home because freedom felt like home.
Professors Who Wanted Me to Stay — but Helped Me Leave
Although I quickly came to admire America, my original plan was not to stay.
After my first year at the State University of New York at Albany, many of my classmates back in China had begun taking positions in government agencies as Deng Xiaoping’s reforms gathered momentum. I wanted to return and do my part. I told my faculty advisor that I had decided not to pursue a Ph.D. Instead, I would earn a master’s degree and go home to help reform China.
My professor was genuinely surprised.
“Most Chinese visiting scholars and graduate students want to extend their studies or move from a master’s program into a Ph.D.,” he said. “You’re doing exactly the opposite. Think about it a little longer.”
Then history intervened.
The Chinese Communist Party launched its Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign, targeting Western ideas and liberal intellectuals. My professor looked at the news and said to me with a smile, “You’re lucky you didn’t go back. Otherwise, you might have become one of the sources of that ‘spiritual pollution.'”
His remark was humorous, but it carried a serious truth. It reminded me how fragile reform remained under one-party rule. Political winds could reverse overnight.
At the time, I believed China’s economic problems stemmed largely from overpopulation. (Only later, after studying demography, did I realize that China’s underdevelopment had far deeper institutional causes.) Because Princeton University was the world’s leading center for demographic research, I decided I wanted to continue my studies there.
I told my professors at Albany that I intended to apply to Princeton and asked whether they would write letters of recommendation.
They didn’t want me to leave.
I had performed exceptionally well in the department, earning the highest score in its history on the doctoral qualifying examination. Naturally, they hoped I would remain at Albany.
Yet they put my interests ahead of their own.
Princeton admitted me and even invited me to visit the campus at its expense before making my decision. During my visit, one Princeton professor remarked, “Your professors at Albany wrote extraordinarily strong recommendation letters for you.”
That comment has stayed with me ever since.
My professors would have preferred that I stay. But because they believed a teacher’s responsibility is to help students achieve their own aspirations — not to advance the professor’s interests — they wholeheartedly supported my next step.
That, too, was one of the lessons America taught me.
Princeton Three Musketeers
In 1987, as Beijing launched another political campaign against “bourgeois liberalization.” Liberal-minded party leader Hu Yaobang was purged. My father, Li Honglin, one of China’s leading advocates of intellectual freedom, was also removed from office.
Together with fellow students Yang Xiaokai and Yu Dahai, I helped organize an open letter from Princeton protesting the crackdown. More than a thousand Chinese students overseas signed it.
It was the first large-scale public petition organized by Chinese graduate students overseas against Communist political repression.
The New York Times covered the story with our pictures, and the three of us became known as the “Princeton Three Musketeers.”
None of that would have been possible without America’s protection of free speech.
The Pen That Saved Two Generations
The greatest lesson came in 1989.
After the Tiananmen massacre, my father was secretly arrested. I knew that silence would only endanger him.
I contacted Robert Bartley, the legendary editor of The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page. He immediately assigned Claudia Rosett to investigate my father’s case. Their reporting, along with international pressure, helped secure my father’s release ten months later.
Twelve years afterward, I was secretly arrested myself while crossing from Hong Kong into Shenzhen on charges of “endangering state security.”
Once again, The Wall Street Journal came to my defense. Claudia Rosett wrote “The 25th Hostage.” The U.S. Congress passed resolutions demanding my release. President George W. Bush personally intervened. Princeton University and Rutgers University publicly appealed for my freedom.
Five months later, I walked free.
When I landed in San Francisco, reporters greeted me at the airport.
Walking toward me through the crowd was Claudia Rosett herself.
Speaking to the cameras, I said the first people I wanted to thank were my country.
Chinese nationalists immediately attacked me online.
“Which country?” they demanded.
The answer was simple.
America.
I became an American citizen in 1995, not because it was convenient, but because I finally had the freedom to choose my country.
No one chooses where he is born.
But if one has the privilege of choosing citizenship, I believe one should choose a nation that protects liberty, respects the rule of law, safeguards human rights, and allows its citizens to criticize their own government without fear.
America is not perfect. But it is the best in the world. It possesses institutions capable of correcting their own mistakes.
That is why, after 250 years, the American experiment continues.
And that is why, having freely chosen America as my country, I will always hope to see her remain strong.
READ MORE from Shaomin Li:
China: The Limits of Transactional Diplomacy
Shaomin Li is Eminent Scholar and Professor of International Business at Old Dominion University. Born in China, he became a U.S. citizen in 1995.
