China is not the world’s other superpower [Washington Post] #RisingChina #SinoUS

Fareed Zakaria poses challenge to China to stand up and be counted as a superpower in global terms.

There are many loopholes in this assumption China does the world and its partners no good.

However if that is the impression opinion leader Fareed Zakaria forms his thoughts with, then China really ought to think about working on a more impactful positive image of themselves; one based on fact and not western narrative alone.

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China is not the world’s other superpower
By Fareed Zakaria
Source – Washington Post, published June 6, 2013

In February 1972, Richard Nixon went to China and restored Sino-U.S. relations that had been broken for 23 years. During that visit, Nixon held a series of critical meetings with China’s premier, Zhou Enlai, and they discussed the broad strategic framework that would guide bilateral relations. President Obama’s meetings with President Xi Jinping this weekend have the potential to be a similarly historic summit — but with an important caveat.

China has always played a weak hand brilliantly. When Mao Zedong and Zhou met with Nixon and Henry Kissinger, China was in the midst of economic, political and cultural chaos. Its per capita gross domestic product had fallen below that of Uganda and Sierra Leone. Yet Beijing negotiated as if from commanding heights. Today, it has tremendous assets — but it is not the world’s other superpower, and we should not treat it as such.

The United States has been accused of having a confused, contradictory foreign policy, as each administration reverses its predecessor. This is often a mischaracterization, never more so than with China policy. Since Nixon and Kissinger opened the door, U.S. foreign policy toward China has been remarkably consistent over 40 years and eight presidents. Washington has sought to integrate China into the world, economically and politically. This policy has been good for the United States, good for the world and extremely good for China.

Please click here to read the full article at the Washington Post.

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, China Dream, Chinese Model, Communications, Culture, Economics, Finance, Foreign aid, Government & Policy, Ideology, Influence, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Reform, Resources, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Trade, U.S., Washington Post

Chinese talent show captivates Taiwanese, raises concern about China’s cultural influence [AP] #RisingChina #CulturalCapital #我是歌手

Image Source – Chinasmack, 2013

我是歌手: Hunan Satellite TV imports the South Korean singing competition reality show I’m A Singer format to great effect. Another feather in China’s cultural capital hat, this time with a wider regional audience while boasting cutting edge production.

… she was “stunned” that the Chinese talent show was able to put as many as 38 cameras to work simultaneously to capture the best details of the performance. Taiwan’s Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai

To catch videos of the final on Youtube, see – Yu Quan beats Terry Lin to clinch the Music King title (Asian Pop News, April 14, 2013)

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Chinese talent show captivates Taiwanese, raises concern about China’s cultural influence
AP
Source – Washington Post, published April 16, 2013

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A Chinese singing competition that has captivated television viewers in Taiwan is raising concerns about China’s cultural influence on the island.

“I Am A Singer” features professional singers from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong in a tense competition. The slickly produced show earned top ratings and even attracted veteran singers to try their luck and revive their careers.

Friday night’s final episode of the Hunan Satellite TV station show featured four Taiwanese and three mainland Chinese competitors, and many Taiwanese TV stations aired part or all of the finale, won by Chinese duo Yu Quan.

Taiwan’s Terry Lin and Aska Yang were runners-up. Taiwanese veterans Julia Peng and Winnie Hsin, who ranked fifth and sixth, got a chance to show their exuberant singing and become the sensations they didn’t earlier in their long careers.

Taiwan-produced songs and music programs once dominated Mandarin song markets. But over the past decade, many of its top singers have left the island for the fast-growing Chinese market.

Taiwan’s Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai says the island’s edge in the pop-song market may be fading quickly.

Please click here to read the full article at its source.

Filed under: AP, Art, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Culture, Domestic Growth, Entertainment, Greater China, Influence, Lifestyle, Mapping Feelings, Media, Peaceful Development, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Washington Post

Hello America, China TV reporting [Straits Times/Washington Post]

China makes a pronounced soft power move to effectively convey its point of view. So here we witness the commencement of a fight for global mind share through the proxy of English-language media control. That said, ‘experts say the country’s lofty media goals may collide with the communist government’s long history of official censorship and propaganda.’

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Hello America, China TV reporting
CCTV’s new US set-up aims to boost Beijing’s ‘soft power’
Washington Post
Source – Straits Times, published Jan 19, 2012

Hello America, China TV reporting. –ST ILLUSTRATION: MANNY FRANCISCO

WASHINGTON: In a downtown D.C. office building, China’s most ambitious effort to become a global power in English-language TV news is literally taking shape.

In a few weeks, China Central Television (CCTV), the nation’s state-run international broadcaster, intends to originate news broadcasts produced by a staff of more than 60 journalists hired in recent weeks from NBC, Bloomberg TV and other Western news organisations.

The new Washington operation, its managers say, will be a hub of CCTV’s global news-gathering operations as the network launches a major expansion outside China to compete with international broadcasters such as CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera.

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Culture, Democracy, Influence, International Relations, Media, Peaceful Development, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Soft Power, Straits Times, Strategy, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Washington Post

Japan, China still at odds over ‘Rape of Nanking’

This AP story appeared in multiple sources today. This is why Sino-Japanese relations are so deeply rooted in suspicion. It’s not that the two countries do not wish to make friends, but sometimes the wounds are too deep to heal, and time has not yet done so.

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Japan, China still at odds over ‘Rape of Nanking’
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press
Source – Washington Post, 01 Feb 2010.

FILE - In this Dec. 1937 file photo Japanese soldiers cheer as they hoist their flag from the roof of the central government building after they seized Nanking in the Second Sino Japanese War. Japan acknowledged its wartime military caused tremendous damage to China in the "Rape of Nanking" massacre, but the two sides failed again to agree on the death toll in a report published this week. The massacre was one of the worst incidents in Japan's invasion of China during the first half of the 20th century. (AP Photo) (AP)

TOKYO — Japan acknowledged its wartime military caused tremendous damage to China in the “Rape of Nanking” massacre, but the two sides failed again to agree on the death toll, a joint study obtained Monday said.

The massacre was one of the worst incidents during Japan’s invasion of China in the first half of the 20th century, with Beijing claiming as many as 300,000 people died, but Tokyo saying the toll was far less.

The report was written by Japanese and Chinese historians appointed by the two governments. In it, Japanese scholars confirmed Japan’s Imperial Army “massacred” war prisoners, soldiers and citizens in the city of Nanking, now called Nanjing, in the December 1937 attack, and committed repeated rapes of women, arson and looting.

But the two sides failed to agree on the death toll.

The Japanese listed figures ranging from 20,000 to 200,000, citing differences on the definition of “massacre,” the area and the span of the event. China, which compiled data from records of domestic and international tribunals, put the death toll at more than 300,000.

The report cited many pending lawsuits filed by victims of Japan’s brutalities, including using and abandoning poison gas weapons, and forcing women to serve as sex slaves for front-line soldiers and men as slave laborers.

Japan invaded or colonized large parts of Asia in the first half of the 20th century. Many Chinese believe that Japan hasn’t shown sufficient remorse for atrocities committed, a sense of resentment that has flared repeatedly after attempts by conservative Japanese lawmakers to defend their country’s wartime actions.

Japanese ultraconservatives typically claim the death toll in the Rape of Nanking massacre was grossly inflated.

Japan and China agreed the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese War was an “act of aggression,” defining Japan as the aggressor. “We must admit that the Japanese side was responsible for creating most of the causes,” the report said.

Sumio Hatano, professor of the University of Tsukuba and one of 10 historians involved, said “a spate of unlawful actions” by the Japanese military inflicted a heavy toll on China’s civilian population, leaving “a deep scar that has prevented the peoples of Japan and China from establishing a new relationship after the war.”

Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada welcomed the report, despite delays and differences that still remain. He said it was just the first step and suggested a second round.

“If two sides could gain mutual understanding just a little, we can call it a success,” Okada said.

The report concludes a project launched in 2006 to promote mutual understanding on parts of the history that have often strained ties between the two neighbors. The study was issued over the weekend and obtained Monday.

Filed under: Culture, International Relations, japan, Media, Politics, Washington Post