“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,” notes Xu Wu in the May 1 edition of The Christian Science Monitor. (He is an assistant professor in strategic media and public relations at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. He is also the author of "Chinese Cyber Nationalism.") Living in the world’s so-called superpower, Americans tend to assume a “type of benign negligence” he says, demonstrated by the China experts in the US who don’t even know how to speak the language. It’s difficult to understand a culture without communication. 
So here are “recurring talking points in the American media” that Xu Wu finds faulty:
China is a rising power, and a rising power is dangerous.
Xu notes that China is not only a rising power, but also a returning power. As a united continental power for more than 2,000 years, China is composed, restrained, mature and, judging from history, not aggressive or expansive. “They were famous for building walls,” he says.
China is a Communist country, and Communism is evil.
Xu explains that “today's ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could easily be renamed the Chinese Confucian Party (CCP) without changing much of its ideological belief or organizational structure, or even its acronym for that matter.” (For real paranoia, check out this site: China is evil dot com ).
Tiananmen Square in 1989 is an iconic image that lingers in the minds of the Chinese.
To this Xu asks: “Is the Watergate scandal still the dominant issue facing the US today?”
As we have seen in this class, and as Xu reveals here, there is an imbalance of knowledge between what the Chinese know about Western culture and what Americans know about theirs. Chinese youth are taught from an early age English and the Western way of thinking. Those of us in this class are here by choice, not by curriculum requirement.
Since China is a top economic power, perhaps a short segment in middle school about this country isn’t significant enough to dispel the myths Xu examines in this article.
So here are “recurring talking points in the American media” that Xu Wu finds faulty:
China is a rising power, and a rising power is dangerous.
Xu notes that China is not only a rising power, but also a returning power. As a united continental power for more than 2,000 years, China is composed, restrained, mature and, judging from history, not aggressive or expansive. “They were famous for building walls,” he says.
China is a Communist country, and Communism is evil.
Xu explains that “today's ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could easily be renamed the Chinese Confucian Party (CCP) without changing much of its ideological belief or organizational structure, or even its acronym for that matter.” (For real paranoia, check out this site: China is evil dot com ).
Tiananmen Square in 1989 is an iconic image that lingers in the minds of the Chinese.
To this Xu asks: “Is the Watergate scandal still the dominant issue facing the US today?”
As we have seen in this class, and as Xu reveals here, there is an imbalance of knowledge between what the Chinese know about Western culture and what Americans know about theirs. Chinese youth are taught from an early age English and the Western way of thinking. Those of us in this class are here by choice, not by curriculum requirement.
Since China is a top economic power, perhaps a short segment in middle school about this country isn’t significant enough to dispel the myths Xu examines in this article.
1 comment:
Lisa,
This is a great point to bring home to the US media-consuming public. We receive quite a bit of opinion masquerading as fact about China. Language and cultural sensitivity are the first steps toward a deeper understanding of any culture other than one’s own. Professor Xu points out some of the fallacies/misunderstandings currently in circulation. I don’t know that this country is entirely bereft of reasonably well-informed “China experts,” but there are plenty of pundits who claim that title without having put in much effort to prepare themselves!
Thank for all your comments and contributions this semester!
Jamie Anderson
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