In terms of recent international criticism, I don’t think all of it’s fair. If you look at US newspapers, for example, they accused China of being arrogant when President Obama announced the weapons sale to Taiwan. For the first time, China suggested that it might impose sanctions on US companies that were involved in producing these weapons. At the time, I read some of the articles in US newspapers on this issue and there would be headlines saying things like ‘Confident China Growing More Arrogant Every Day.’ So I thought I’d read on and see what evidence they had, and all they were doing was quoting Beijing’s reaction to the arms sale. But this is hardly a good example of China becoming more assertive, because from China’s point of view it’s simply responding to a US provocation. So I wouldn’t say the evidence supports the idea that China is becoming more confident.
China’s efforts to cultivate a positive, non-threatening image have been well covered. So how worried do you think China’s government will be about the adverse publicity it has been receiving of late—over its role in Copenhagen and the Google censorship issues for example—and how is it likely to respond?
I think it does worry about these things. It cares a lot about image, partly because there’s a connection between image and more substantive issues. For example, if China’s image is bad, the next time a Chinese state-owned company tries to make a deal in another country, then it might face greater obstacles, or that country’s leader might meet with the Dalai Lama or the Uighur leader outside of China. So China cares about its image and you can see it making an effort to try and address these issues and try to combat that kind of negative portrayal.
In fact, I think it’s already responded to two cases of adverse publicity. At the press conference I mentioned this month, Wen tried to explain that all of the accusations about China’s role in Copenhagen were wrong and that the reason he didn’t turn up to that meeting was because he wasn’t invited.
And on the Google issue, because it has dragged on for months, the reaction has also evolved. Initially it was very mild. But more recently, and during the National People’s Congress, there seemed to be a less conciliatory approach towards Google. At first it was very careful and I don’t remember the government actually accusing or attacking Google, at least initially. But more recently we’ve started to see some articles and answers to questions that are more prepared to directly criticise Google. After Google finally announced its pullout, the attacks on Google further heated up. So I think China’s reaction and response (to adverse publicity) will evolve as situations evolve.
Yiyi Lu is an associate fellow with Chatham House’s Asia Programme, a research fellow at the China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham, and a regular blogger for the Wall Street Journal. The interview was conducted by Amy Foulds.
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Josie nguyen
I like this article; well balanced and reasonable and more importantly, sounds believable. The media and the Internet have been great in fuelling our hunger for information, but NOT knowledge. In particular, the general media (the ones that care more about headlines and sound bites than substance) and the Internet in particular have, together and generally had the effect, as far as political discourses are concerned, of polarizing the world by making people dumber and by appealing to humanity’s negative emotions. Overall, the Internet has brought out the WORST in humans more than the good. The Internet makes it way too easy for people who are lazy and/or sloppy to think about issues to further narrow their viewpoints because thinking is hard work, to become more herd-like (either for or against issues, countries, people, etc, especially issues that can generate negative emotions such as “China is our enemy”, “China is arrogant”, etc., people get excited, a herd like type of excitement). For the thoughful type, the Internet is a God send, for the ideologues and the uninitiated masses, the Internet is a dangerous weapon of mass destruction of reason and reasonableness.
chinadepth
Nice to see a well-balanced take on things. I do think the top leadership is misunderstood by those who would portray them in stark black & white terms, and my feeling is there is a great distinction to be made between Beijing, which is grappling with truly enormous short- and long-term challenges and deserves our patience, and provincial and local government officials, the latter of whom often run their cities like personal businesses / fiefdoms. This perception of total corruption and complete incompetence at the top levels is probably outdated. (At least, it has to be, or we’re all in big trouble!)
C. Wong
All countries will do the same as China has done, in the case of Google. What is more important than a country’s own security and stability. It is not an exclusive right just for China. It started with the accusation of censorship, was it not? When it did not work, the issue of hacking and downloading was brought up. What is to follow now???
water
This was a well-written article. However, the writer ignored the “800 lbs. gorilla” in the room, namely, the attempt on part of the Chinese authorities to hack into Google’s servers and download its source code.
Yes, Google initially made noise about censorship but it was the attempt to steal Google’s intellectual property that escalated into the current situation.
Had the writer addressed this issue, it would have satisfied many readers.