Journalists can help improve China's image

I have been traveling to Asia and writing about it in various newspapers and journals for two decades, and I have visited China many times to know it closely. My observation about China is substantially different from most of the written accounts I read or video-view back home in the United States through the media.

China can, should and must do a much better job of explaining itself and its views to the world. For China, "a great culture with inexhaustible wisdom", global public opinion does matter. China's prosperity, not to mention peace, depends on true mutual understanding and warranted global respect. A wider, clearer message to the world has to come from its heart and brain.

For that, China has to immediately start a determined step-by-step amplification program. It has to let a hundred programs bloom. Take for example TV shows in the US that focus on politics. Issues such as the South China Sea sometimes get their attention. Some American journalists are guests on such shows, discussing China and its intentions. Why not invite China's best and most articulate journalists to participate in shows that reach an elite audience? Perhaps China could send its more articulate (and witty) diplomats to such shows?