“These kinds of debates have been a constant in our political life throughout the history of our republic — and sometimes, they are messy,” [Clinton] said in a speech in Hong Kong. “But this is how an open and democratic society ultimately comes together to reach the right solutions.”

Not everyone in China is so convinced.

“I fully understand her points, and I agree with her, that democracy sometimes makes things difficult, but that in the end they can make a compromise,” says Shen Dingli, the executive dean of the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University.

“But most Chinese are not as sophisticated as that. They read Chinese newspapers, and the Chinese newspapers portray the U.S. as an irresponsible country that owes a lot of money to us, and is threatening to not pay it back.”

Gao Wenqian, a Chinese historian and senior policy adviser for the New York branch of Human Rights in China, says he has yet to see too much emphasis on the failings of democracy in the Chinese press. But he adds, “If this doesn’t get resolved, it would be a very convenient excuse for the Chinese official media to mock the democratic process in the U.S. ….”

A post at East Asia Forum sums up perceptions bluntly:

The concern is straightforward: if American lenders in Asia, especially China, cannot trust the US on its word to abide by a financial contract then they will be less willing to trust the US on defence, trade or other issues of strategic interest. For them, this ongoing debate is not about fiscal stability but is just another sign that America’s leadership is short-sighted, untrustworthy and declining.

In the view of its Asia neighbors, this abdication of responsibility by the US to honour its commitments continues a trend of ineffective government decisions, exemplified by the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq — where, after nearly a decade, a decisive victory has not been achieved — and the bumbled Hurricane Katrina disaster response. The US government has appeared as feeble at best and anemic at worse, while China’s government has achieved nearly double digit growth and successfully planned and met its five year goals.

See also The U.S. as ‘Lethal Laughing Stock’ by James Fallows at The Atlantic, and the similar shadow being cast over the Western media by the Murdoch phone hacking scandal.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Afghanistan, debt, fudan university, Hillary Clinton, human rights in china, iraq, United States
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

In a bid to raise China’s voice on the world stage and compete with Western media, Beijing is planning to assign an elite team of 100 specially trained journalists to the staff of leading state-run media outlets.

Under a programme that began last year, Beijing Foreign Studies University, the capital’s Tsinghua University, Communication University of China and Renmin University, and Shanghai’s Fudan University have each enrolled about 20 hand-picked postgraduate students in two-year master of journalism courses that will provide talent for the likes of Xinhua news agency, China Central Television and China Daily.

A recruiter at Beijing Foreign Studies University’s department of international journalism and communications said the students were the first batch to receive multidisciplinary training specifically aimed at extending the international reach of state-run news outlets. “The Communist Party’s Central Committee has required agencies in charge of international communications to work more closely with the designated schools and, in return, the universities will get extra funding,” he said.
….
Dr Zhang Zhian, of Fudan University’s journalism school, said the March 14 riots in Tibet were a major trigger behind the central government’s push to expand state-run media organisations – including the journalist training programme – because the authorities were disturbed by what they perceived as biased coverage in Western media.

“The unfriendly coverage in foreign media led [authorities] to discover that China is still insignificant in terms of a voice internationally,” Zhang said. “To better tell the world about China, the country needs to train plenty of journalists specialising in international communication.”

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: external propaganda, fudan university
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall