Xu Wu is an assistant professor in strategic media and public relations at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, and the author of “Chinese Cyber Nationalism.” He writes on the Christian Science Monitor:
Americans are out of touch with today’s China. It’s a knowledge deficit that carries more weight in the long-term bilateral relationships between China and the United States than the ballooning US trade deficit with China. And as China makes a comeback on the world stage, it’s one that the US should address.
Chinese visitors to the US have shared the shock of witnessing a severe dichotomy between how much Americans seem to talk about China and yet how little they know about it. The US status as the world’s superpower, coupled with its location, warrants people this type of benign negligence.
But what about those experts who have the power to impose their perceptions of China on others? All too often China experts in the US cannot even speak the language. How can they claim to understand a culture without knowing how its people communicate?
