TaiShang
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Reevaluation of China emerging in West
British academic Martin Jacques wrote in a recent article in the Financial Times that "China's governance system has been remarkably successful for more than three decades." He also contended that it is a mistaken view to believe "democracy is the sole source of a regime's legitimacy." He pointed out the possibility that "the problems of governance will become more acute in the West than China."
This article echoes the thoughts of US political scientist Francis Fukuyama about the dysfunction of US systems.
Noticeably, Jacques wrote the book When China Rules the World and is considered a China hand in the West. But Fukuyama is known for arguing that the Western system may signal the end of human government.
Now Fukuyama's ideas are drawing close to that of Jacques's. Is this a signal of a certain trend?
Objectively speaking, there are few Western scholars who can break out of the mainstream stances on China and speak truly about it, but the impact of their opinions is rising. These voices emerge at a time amid China's rise and the West's decline. The thoughtful and rebellious spirit that exists in any system has been encouraged by changes across the world.
The West's understanding of China is based during the Cold War era or even earlier, when the socialist system was seen as evil.
In many Western countries, criticizing China's systems is still politically correct.
Pursuing an objective way of portraying China has been rare.
In the West, it is difficult to attract attention when having a completely new understanding of China. It depends on whether China can develop successfully and whether China's current reforms can make another round of remarkable achievements.
The West has controlled the world's fortune and discourse for a few hundred years. It is able to create a mainstream way of thinking and influence the way that some intellectuals in every country think.
Developing countries still need to learn from the West, and this adds to the difficulties in breaking such dogmatism.
We cannot win the battle of ideology between China and the West simply by spirit. The success of China's reforms and development is the real driving force of changing the world's fixated thought patterns.
The key is that we must do a good job. In the future, the West will recognize us more, while we attach less importance to it.
***
+, An outstanding comment:
Power determines the success of a narrative. Power includes both hard and soft. That is something that we have to bear in mind. China is right in wanting the world to see it in favourable light. But this change in view - from one that is grossly negative towards China to one that is positive towards China - will not come about in a single day. Any Chinese anxiety in this regard runs the risk of giving the wrong impression to the world - that China cannot live without the approval of others. This should not be the way of a country with a long history and a glorious civilization.
I am not in the least surprise that it is taking the West so long to have a more balanced view of China. Bear in mind that the western psyche is paralysed by its own historical baggage. That baggage includes the self-serving propaganda inherited from the days of the dawn of western civilization. Is it any wonder that the West has positive things to say of the ancient Greeks - from which the West traces the beginnings of its civilization - and has scathing things to say of the Persian civilization. From the days of Alexander and the Greek city-states, the West had already expropriated all the positive qualities - human rights, democracy, freedom - for itself and assigned negative attributes - like despotism, barbarity, violence - to humanity that resides east of Persia.
The material and mililtary superiority of the West, which led the Portuguese, Spaniands, French, Dutch and the English to steal land in Africa and Asia, only confirmed the early beliefs of westerners in their superiority. By the time the Western nations made their way to the Far East, they already had this ideological baggage which they diligently, but falsely, applied to China. In their wonky view, the West represents progress, China is mired in backwardness. The West is democractic, China is feudal. The West is scientific and progressive, China is superstitious and crippled by tradition. China is, above all, poor whereas the West, as a result of its industrial revolution, is prosperous. Some western missionaries even took this comparison to high heaven - the Chinese, like the blacks of Africa, are even said to have no souls, no chance of salvation, until they are converted to the Christian faith. Such arrogance was not uncommon among the westerners of those days. If at all anything positive is said of China, it is that its people are quaint, a word that today has a prejorative ring to it, thanks to the manner in which the whiteys have employed it.
Despite the efforts of people like Pearl S. Buck and Joe Stiwell to restore to China some positive attributes, the reality of geopolitics - the victory of the CCP, the Korean War and the Cold War - made it inevitable that the West should go back to its old narrative about China.
But now events are changing very fast. The peaceful rise of China, its economic prowess, its examplary diplomacy in Africa, and the possibility that Beijing will go on to play an even larger role in the world, have raised challenges to the old viewpoint and spin that the West has of China. A revision, if not a total jettisoning, of that narrative has to be made. For instance, it is no longer feasible to term China "poor" when Chinese tourists are today shopping in the swanky districts of London and Paris. It is no longer possible to term China "backward" when China is about to land a man on the moon, and Chinese trains and commercial planes are about to conquer the world's markets.
Have no illusion. Whatever change the West may undertake in its view of China, that change - at the official level at least - is going to be done most grudgingly. The proud West is not about to admit that it is wrong with regards to China, or false in its depiction of societal evolution. The persistence in the maligning of China - that it is totalitarian, communist, and has no regard for human rights - are both the attributes of the stupid who have not kept abreast of changes, and the vindictive unable to come to terms with China's transformation, and hence their need to persist in the employment of their discredited world view. In both cases, the strength of this anti-China animus will decline with time.
China should not be unduly worried with how it is viewed by the West. Just keep doing what it does best - grow its economy, give its people a better life, forge beneficial relations with the rest of the world. In time these factors - a combination of hard statistics and soft initiatives - will win for China its battle to be seen for what it is, not through the distorted prism of a psychologically crippled and culturally hobbled West. And that should ultimately be the way - China will be accepted by the world on its own terms.
by Chinhomiah
British academic Martin Jacques wrote in a recent article in the Financial Times that "China's governance system has been remarkably successful for more than three decades." He also contended that it is a mistaken view to believe "democracy is the sole source of a regime's legitimacy." He pointed out the possibility that "the problems of governance will become more acute in the West than China."
This article echoes the thoughts of US political scientist Francis Fukuyama about the dysfunction of US systems.
Noticeably, Jacques wrote the book When China Rules the World and is considered a China hand in the West. But Fukuyama is known for arguing that the Western system may signal the end of human government.
Now Fukuyama's ideas are drawing close to that of Jacques's. Is this a signal of a certain trend?
Objectively speaking, there are few Western scholars who can break out of the mainstream stances on China and speak truly about it, but the impact of their opinions is rising. These voices emerge at a time amid China's rise and the West's decline. The thoughtful and rebellious spirit that exists in any system has been encouraged by changes across the world.
The West's understanding of China is based during the Cold War era or even earlier, when the socialist system was seen as evil.
In many Western countries, criticizing China's systems is still politically correct.
Pursuing an objective way of portraying China has been rare.
In the West, it is difficult to attract attention when having a completely new understanding of China. It depends on whether China can develop successfully and whether China's current reforms can make another round of remarkable achievements.
The West has controlled the world's fortune and discourse for a few hundred years. It is able to create a mainstream way of thinking and influence the way that some intellectuals in every country think.
Developing countries still need to learn from the West, and this adds to the difficulties in breaking such dogmatism.
We cannot win the battle of ideology between China and the West simply by spirit. The success of China's reforms and development is the real driving force of changing the world's fixated thought patterns.
The key is that we must do a good job. In the future, the West will recognize us more, while we attach less importance to it.
***
+, An outstanding comment:
Power determines the success of a narrative. Power includes both hard and soft. That is something that we have to bear in mind. China is right in wanting the world to see it in favourable light. But this change in view - from one that is grossly negative towards China to one that is positive towards China - will not come about in a single day. Any Chinese anxiety in this regard runs the risk of giving the wrong impression to the world - that China cannot live without the approval of others. This should not be the way of a country with a long history and a glorious civilization.
I am not in the least surprise that it is taking the West so long to have a more balanced view of China. Bear in mind that the western psyche is paralysed by its own historical baggage. That baggage includes the self-serving propaganda inherited from the days of the dawn of western civilization. Is it any wonder that the West has positive things to say of the ancient Greeks - from which the West traces the beginnings of its civilization - and has scathing things to say of the Persian civilization. From the days of Alexander and the Greek city-states, the West had already expropriated all the positive qualities - human rights, democracy, freedom - for itself and assigned negative attributes - like despotism, barbarity, violence - to humanity that resides east of Persia.
The material and mililtary superiority of the West, which led the Portuguese, Spaniands, French, Dutch and the English to steal land in Africa and Asia, only confirmed the early beliefs of westerners in their superiority. By the time the Western nations made their way to the Far East, they already had this ideological baggage which they diligently, but falsely, applied to China. In their wonky view, the West represents progress, China is mired in backwardness. The West is democractic, China is feudal. The West is scientific and progressive, China is superstitious and crippled by tradition. China is, above all, poor whereas the West, as a result of its industrial revolution, is prosperous. Some western missionaries even took this comparison to high heaven - the Chinese, like the blacks of Africa, are even said to have no souls, no chance of salvation, until they are converted to the Christian faith. Such arrogance was not uncommon among the westerners of those days. If at all anything positive is said of China, it is that its people are quaint, a word that today has a prejorative ring to it, thanks to the manner in which the whiteys have employed it.
Despite the efforts of people like Pearl S. Buck and Joe Stiwell to restore to China some positive attributes, the reality of geopolitics - the victory of the CCP, the Korean War and the Cold War - made it inevitable that the West should go back to its old narrative about China.
But now events are changing very fast. The peaceful rise of China, its economic prowess, its examplary diplomacy in Africa, and the possibility that Beijing will go on to play an even larger role in the world, have raised challenges to the old viewpoint and spin that the West has of China. A revision, if not a total jettisoning, of that narrative has to be made. For instance, it is no longer feasible to term China "poor" when Chinese tourists are today shopping in the swanky districts of London and Paris. It is no longer possible to term China "backward" when China is about to land a man on the moon, and Chinese trains and commercial planes are about to conquer the world's markets.
Have no illusion. Whatever change the West may undertake in its view of China, that change - at the official level at least - is going to be done most grudgingly. The proud West is not about to admit that it is wrong with regards to China, or false in its depiction of societal evolution. The persistence in the maligning of China - that it is totalitarian, communist, and has no regard for human rights - are both the attributes of the stupid who have not kept abreast of changes, and the vindictive unable to come to terms with China's transformation, and hence their need to persist in the employment of their discredited world view. In both cases, the strength of this anti-China animus will decline with time.
China should not be unduly worried with how it is viewed by the West. Just keep doing what it does best - grow its economy, give its people a better life, forge beneficial relations with the rest of the world. In time these factors - a combination of hard statistics and soft initiatives - will win for China its battle to be seen for what it is, not through the distorted prism of a psychologically crippled and culturally hobbled West. And that should ultimately be the way - China will be accepted by the world on its own terms.
by Chinhomiah
