Thoughts on Western Media Reports on China III
Back in September, I was told that New Internationalist September's issue has a story featuring China's NGO sector. It is only today that I finally came across to it on-line.
"Mao or never. China's people speak" is the headline on the magazine's front cover.
Not much groundbreaking news in the articles. But the editorial is quite interesting in light of the different and often rather contradicting perceptions as well as narratives of China I see in the media and on the net these days.
Chris Richards, editor of the said issue wrote:
Then in "Let us speak!", a view from a Chinese information technology executive who got a Masters degree in the US in the 1960s and later returned to work in China:
"Mao or never. China's people speak" is the headline on the magazine's front cover.
Not much groundbreaking news in the articles. But the editorial is quite interesting in light of the different and often rather contradicting perceptions as well as narratives of China I see in the media and on the net these days.
Chris Richards, editor of the said issue wrote:
"No doubt about it. China gets bad press. Mostly, it’s about the Chinese Communist Party’s appalling human rights record. But during my first visit to China, as I read the China Daily over a breakfast bowl of steaming dumplings (Beijing produces very chompable dumplings), I was struck by what newspapers in Western countries weren’t telling us about this country and the misconceptions that can form as a result.
I thought I would find here a closed and restrictive society whose people – fearing punishment or scrutiny from the Chinese authorities – would be reticent to speak. I imagined an embryonic civil society movement in which any NGO that wanted to advocate against Chinese Communist Party policies would be crushed before it could even begin. And I thought that China’s long march towards capitalism was relatively recent, and that the excesses of globalization would be some years from irretrievably infecting the welfare of its people. In some ways, I was right. But in so many ways, I was wrong, wrong, wrong!
During that visit – and on another, two months ago – a collection of wonderfully warm and welcoming Chinese activists told me what they thought the international media should be publishing about China. The following pages are inspired by them and their work."
Then in "Let us speak!", a view from a Chinese information technology executive who got a Masters degree in the US in the 1960s and later returned to work in China:
"in judging whether the people have a voice in how they are governed – there is a form of democracy in China. No, it is not a representative democracy with directly elected politicians gathering in a Parliament or Congress. Nationally, he points out how difficult that would be. In a population of 1.3 billion, if you had, say, 1,000 elected representatives, each would need to represent the views of 1.3 million people. ‘But amongst ourselves we do debate our views freely. We can have an impact at a local level and on government officials. We can be heard.’ He then relates his recent meeting with CCP officials in which there was a healthy difference of opinion about policy issues, argued without adherence to a Party line."
