From the Readers

Ways for China to be better

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-05-26 17:30
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Comment on "How to boost China's peaceful rise" (China Daily, May 18)

China, as a developing country has great potential to become even better. With her good infrastructure, economic strength, and manpower, she has laid most of the ground work necessary to achieve her goals. Like in building a house, the foundation is the most important part of the process. So, if she take her time to plan, be patient, determined, stay focused, and above-all take the nation with her, then it is quite likely that she will become one of the most successful stories of modern times.

PEOPLE FIRST - China must listen to people's voices and concerns for issues such as poverty, income disparity, corruption, education and jobs, and above-all strive to improve the life and well being of her people. Also, she should adapt a welfare system to look after the people in need such as the poor, the elderly, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed.

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THINK GLOBAL AND LOCAL - As an emerging economic power with increasing global influence, China should and will naturally be expected to engage more in international issues, but she must do it in a way without compromising her core interest and principles. Although she is still relatively 'young' on the international stage, given her experience and long history, she should be able to command more confidence, assertiveness and diplomacy in dealing with international matters. The following two examples showed how well China had handled some of these issues. When the US and UK want to sanction Iran, China rightly did not side with them, as she considered it was better to use dialogue/diplomacy than confrontational means. When the US and UK invaded Iraq, China not only disagreed but strongly condemned such pre-emptive strikes, the aggression, and illegal war. Whilst China should cooperate internationally, she should never bow to unacceptable pressure from abroad; instead she should stick to her guns, for example, where the US unfairly calls for a revaluation of the Yuan. Now, in terms of living in one's house, it is important to have good neighbors. Likewise, China needs to maintain good relationship and cooperation with neighbors such as Russia, and other Asian countries.

CHINESE DEMOCRACY - In order to become a true world player and so called 'superpower', China's political system should strive for and evolve into a kind of 'Chinese democratic system' in the future - a modified version of the western democracy with emphasis on Chinese characteristics, as a political system can never be a one size fit all system.

MODERNISATION - For national security and defense, China's military systems should be enhanced with 5th generation fighters and blue-water navy capabilities to rival the world's best. Some may think that, China is building up her military for world domination, but this is simply not the case. China has not dominated the world in the past and the same attitude will remain for the future. For example, as China has increasingly many vested business interests overseas (e.g. in Africa and Brazil), managing these becomes quite a task and a blue-water navy would be ideal for this (e.g. when a Chinese tanker is targeted thousands of miles away from home, the navy would serve both as a deterrence and defense). Now, in an ideal world, we should not need to have locks on our home, but we need to be realistic which means we'll also need alarm plus possibly Closed Circut Television to protect our interests (including people's life) at home. As the Chinese saying goes 'whilst we must not hurt others, we must be on our guard, as others may hurt us'. Another reason for having a strong military is for deterrence.

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ENVIRONMENT - China is already a world leader in the green technology and the world's biggest investor in energy-efficient technology. However, to sustain growth and reduced reliance on Western markets, she should continue with more investment in green technology. In other words, she should continue with her economic growth but must also respect the environment and address some of the issues such as air and water pollution.

EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL KNOW-HOW - As China still lack some of the leading edge technology know-how, she has always been labeled as a good copier/modifier. She should change this image and strive for the ‘Made-in-China’ brand to be as well known and well made as say, a Japanese Sony TV or a German BMW car. To do this she needs to invest more in science/technology research, and promote and encourage the notion of 'creative thinking' in schools and universities, so that people can 'create' the necessary technology 'at-home' and reduce reliance on outside help or Western high-tech imports. Further, she could make use of talent from overseas, well educated Chinese from the UK, US, Australia, etc, and to encourage them to come back and contribute to the motherland for a better future in terms of career development or business opportunities. In other words, she should invest in her own people first, and recruit from overseas only when absolutely necessary.

WESTERN MEDIA - Whilst it is unfortunate that some western media will always portray China in a less than positive light (almost anti-China sentiments) for one reason or another, she should be undeterred by it, as China is like a tiger who should not be bothered or distracted by a few pests or flies, annoying though they might be, instead she should concentrate on her journey towards her goal.

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