In addition, cultural and social structural influences such as cultural expectation of duties, minimal emphasis on rights, and a prioritization of community over the individual led to the development of a police structure in which the community played a significant role. However, the negative consequence of these influences in terms of loss of freedom of choice, privacy, and other rights needs to be assessed against the benefits of the low crime rate and against the cultural difficulty of modeling western policing on Japanese lines. Because of the centralized structure of the Japanese police, the community-based initiatives are indicative of control that is centralized rather than community-oriented. Close similarities exist between local structures in Japan and China despite the different political systems. In China, the police are open to local influence, whereas, in Japan government policy, police operational practice and organizational structure isolate the police from public influence.