Misreading China goes both ways

• Source: Global Times
• [22:08 July 20 2010]
• Comments

Yang Rui

Editor's Note:

Yang Rui (Yang) is a star interviewer with China's English-language TV channel, CCTV-9. Besides his TV appearances, Yang finds other ways to express his ideas, especially his interpretation of China and the international situation. This May he published his second book, Who Is Misreading China. It collects over 60 of his essays and commentaries on the present situation of China, from politics to entertainment. Why does he think China is misread? What's his understanding of Chinese culture? Global Times reporter Xu Ming (GT) talked to Yang on the issues raised in his new book.

GT: "Misreading" is the theme of your new book. What do you think is the root of misreading, is it from China or from abroad?

Yang: It's a big question. The misreading of China lies in foreign countries' ignorance of and bias against China, which involves different ideologies in different countries.

Ignorance partly results from arrogance. In addition, the Cold War mentality still exists, almost 20 years after the Cold War ended in 1991. Therefore, China is seen through a political or ideological lens. Western media also sometimes misread China.

In some circumstances, however, I don't think they are misreading us. Rather, I'm afraid we are just not quite prepared to receive their criticism.

Speaking of criticism, China has an old saying, "Correct mistakes if you have made any and guard against them if you have not." So criticism could be a good thing, even if it's wrong.

And don't forget that we also misread the world. There is a discrepancy between China's and the West's media system. The media in the West plays a bigger role of watchdog, criticizing and supervising government policies and political leaders in not only foreign countries but in their own.

You cannot expect them to be nice and mild. They are the bad guys, always critical and independent. This is the main role that the media plays in the West. This is different from traditional Chinese media.

Moreover, we misread ourselves too, which is demonstrated in our extreme conceit and inferiority complex. Some Chinese people are too narcissistic about our culture, some too confident about our economy and some too self-critical of our politics.

We feel inferior and lack confidence because China's development model hasn't been fully established yet.

In addition, in past years, we have followed a route of "First development and later treatment," "First pollution and later treatment," and "First the economy and later politics," which results in the environmental deterioration and other problems. So, even if we have made impressive achievements in the economy and play an important role in international affairs, we still have a weak-nation mentality.