 Chinese security personnel with their sniffing dogs walk past the National Stadium, also known as the “Bird's Nest” in Beijing, Thursday, a day ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Everything about the Beijing Olympics is on a huge scale and organizers intend to start as they mean to go on judging by their plans for the opening ceremony, a three-hour “spectacular.” Some 15,000 performers will take part, with 29,000 fireworks due to be fired into the night sky. / AFP-Yonhap |
By Sunny Lee
Korea Times Correspondent
BEIJING― China is one of the most misunderstood countries in the world, and it's China's fault in many ways.
China needs to empower its people more by giving them more rights, tackling corruption by officials who don't serve the people, allowing more media freedom, and respecting universal human rights nationwide, not just in big cities but also in remote rural areas. Foreign countries, however, need to change their attitudes toward China as the Middle Kingdom goes through changes.
That's the message from Susan Shirk, a former U.S. State Department official in charge of Chinese affairs under the Clinton administration and a Sino-phile who has been visiting China since 1972.
With the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics just hours away, her words are a refreshing view for the world community to consider, as curious eyes around the globe will be fixated on China for the next two weeks, scrutinizing "modern China."
After a century of sitting on the sidelines of the world's center stage, Shirk said, "The Chinese leaders and public crave respect and approval from the world community." As China rises economically, militarily and politically, the world should be "ready to accept China as a major power," so that China avoids making the wrong choice with its reclaimed power still in development. She mentions this in her new book, "China: Fragile Superpower."
Shirk says America especially needs "the wisdom to appreciate China's fragility and the maturity not to pursue unilateralism."
Her view, however, is not shared by others, as it requires a fundamental change in the West's deeply-embedded animosity and suspicion of China that was formed in the Cold War but actually dates further back in history.
"I think it will be very difficult for the West to overcome its fear of China," said a South Korean journalist in China to cover the Olympics.
"In a sense, Koreans are at a vantage point to look at China in a more objective view. Unlike the West, Korea has lived with China as a neighbor for thousands of years. There have been constant exchanges between the two. We were also invaded by China many times. But we don't look at China as evil."
China has often been symbolized as a mysterious dragon in Western minds. The Bible also demonizes the dragon in the Book of Revelation. "The fear goes quite deep into the Western psyche," he said, also mentioning "Yellow Peril."
"Yellow Peril" is a phrase that originated in the late 19th century as more Chinese workers flocked to Western countries, notably the United States, invoking the belief that the Chinese would spread out and take jobs held by natives, threatening their livelihood.
Zhang Lijia, author of the New York Times bestseller, "Socialism is Great'' ― her coming-of-age memoir during the Cultural Revolution ― echoes the concern.
``When I did a recent book tour in the United States, I often got questions from American audiences asking me if America stands any chance of survival against China's rise," she told The Korea Times.
"I was shocked. I think there is a great ignorance. That's why I support the Beijing Olympics. It's an opportunity for Americans to know more about China and vice versa."
Shirk said that the world should engage and work with China, but that a frustrated and angered yet powerful China isn't helpful to the world either. "When the (International Olympic Committee) rejected Beijing's (2000 Olympics) bid and awarded the Olympic Games to Sydney by two votes, the Chinese government and the public reacted with shock and anger," she said.
Mistrust doesn't come unilaterally from the United States only, Shirk said. China also mistrusts America, which opposed Beijing's Olympic bid.
Optimists, however, are not all in agreement over the need for engagement and dialogue with China as a conduit to further integrate the Middle Kingdom into openness. The skeptics even include Chinese.
Zhang Weiying, an Oxford-educated economist and now dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, said China's openness doesn't necessarily foster mutual understanding with the West, citing the fundamental difference of their world views.
"The more each side knows about the other, the more they will discover how different they are," he said.
The Beijing Olympics could prove to be the prime opportunity to test these views.
boston.sunny@gmail.com
