Two recent pieces in the news focused a spotlight on how most people in the West misunderstand China and the Chinese. On January 19, Time published a piece comparing China’s handling of its earthquake in May 2008 in Sichuan with the way Haiti is handling its current catastrophe. There were striking differences—mostly making China look good.
Today, the Associated Press published a piece about China slamming US criticism of its Internet controls, and it was mentioned how a “few” Chinese bloggers were upset by content controls in China. Don’t forget that China has 1.3 billion people.
Both pieces miss the point because they both assume that Western values should be applied to China. This also goes back to a conservative friend whom, during an e-mail conversation, said Communism was evil. I’m sure many Americans may believe this statement, and they would be both historically correct and currently wrong. To learn more, see what I said in A Media Slugfest Using Taiwan.
Further reading:
Time: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100121/wl_time/08599195464400
Associated Press: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100122/ap_on_hi_te/as_china_google
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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