China and the U.S. are exactly the same

In a post from last year, I touched briefly on some results from my research having to do with a hypothetical scenario. Today we take a deeper dive. The scenario:

Suppose a citizen is walking down the street one day when the police arrest him.  They don’t tell him why; they simply arrest him and keep him locked up for three days before letting him go.  He has done nothing illegal.  What will this person think?  What will this person do?

I have mentioned earlier that my research aimed at exploring differences in thinking about “human rights” in the U.S. and China. Of all the questions I asked, to me this question is the most directly relevant to human rights: the scenario is very much like the horror stories we hear from human rights organizations and from media reports. Certainly things could be worse for our protagonist, but short of torture or murder, this is about as close as one can get to a prototypical human rights violation.

For that reason, given my preconceived notions of human rights thinking in the U.S. and China — according to which there is a much more developed concept of human rights in the U.S. — I expected the Americans to be righteously indignant, and the Chinese to be perhaps uneasy, but willing to accept the inevitable triumph of state power over innocent citizens.

I was wrong — at least about the Chinese responses. A sampling (never mind the coding system — C for Chinese, E for English):

C-21 Of course he would be extremely angry.

C-20 I think if I encountered this sort of thing, I also would be extremely angry, because I didn’t…

C-21 Didn’t make any mistake.

C-20 I would think there isn’t any possibility that I committed a crime but suddenly I’m arrested. I would be extremely angry.

C-17 The police didn’t tell him what he did, just locked him up for no reason for three days and then let him go? This sort of thing couldn’t happen, could it? Regardless he would feel extremely confused, how could this happen? I would definitely want to clarify why you arrested me like that.

C-18 I think that if I were this sort of person, I would feel it was inconceivable. Since I didn’t make any mistake, why lock me up? Why lock me in jail?

C-19 Plus there’s no explanation at all.

C-18 Right.

Strong emotions are the order of the day. Anger in particular, and shock and surprise. When it comes to redress, no punches are pulled: In every Chinese interview it is suggested that the citizen sue. When this suggestion is made, it is never challenged; the Chinese interviewees are unanimous in their recommendation of this strong course of action.

The Americans, too, are indignant:

E-14 Well obviously he'll be confused, angry…E-13 Very angry, I think.

E-15 Well, if I were that person I'd be very upset and angry. And confused.

E-18 If it was me I'd be pissed off, I would be like, what the hell was that?

E-19 If that was me, I'd be angry. Because, they didn't even tell me what I did.

E-20 Well I'd be pissed off. Like really pissed off.

Again, though, this is what I expected. The Chinese responses surprised me.

What's going on here? Why are the Chinese and American responses so similar?