Q: What will the SCIO do to prepare for the 2008 Olympic Games?

Wang: We'll work harder and issue more news releases to address the concerns of the overseas media before the Games.

We will hold a series of press conferences, giving the media a clear picture of China's political and legal systems, economic and social development, media regulations, human rights, Olympic construction projects and environmental protection.

Also, in the pipeline are a chain of White Papers expounding China's political and legal systems and the government's propositions on promoting harmony the world over.

Finally, on the important days to the countdown to the Games, we will help organize some publicity activities in foreign countries.

Q: A mission of the SCIO is to better present China to the outside world. What's your opinion on the image of China being presented by the foreign media?

Wang: My office conducted a survey in mid-2006, and concluded that only 26 percent of the 243 China-related articles in three leading US newspapers The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today in 2005 were objective; 34 percent were biased and 40 percent balanced.

The China image encapsulated by the three newspapers is that on the economic front, the country has been running on the fast track and being increasingly integrated into the international community.

They say that politically, the country plays an important role in world affairs but has bad human rights and democracy records. They also say that China has a long cultural tradition but poor public health and environment record.

The findings, however, indicate changes are taking place if you compare them with the 1990s, when foreign reports "demonizing" China accounted for up to 70 percent of the China-related stories.

But reports laden with political prejudice and lacking truth have often disparaged or even defamed China internationally.

In my eyes, a country's image ought to reflect its true picture, and China's image could be summarized as one standing for peace, development, cooperation and harmony. The true China is full of vitality, vigor and hope, but is also facing problems and challenges.

Politicians and scholars have already reached a consensus on such a China image. For example, in an October 2004 speech, China's Future, Its Impact on Us, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the last 25 years had seen a remarkable positive change in China.

Rather than a threat, the changes have created opportunities for traders and service providers with massive increase in market access.

Also, Mandelson said, Chinese growth has astonished the world, while its culture's strength is beginning to have a global impact.

In China and Globalization, a testimony published by Rand Corporation in 2005, William H. Overholt said China had joined the globalized system much more enthusiastically than Japan. China's economy is much more open than Japan's.

No large country has ever experienced such rapid improvements in living standards and working conditions as China, and "it was quite possible that China's globalization saved us from beginning the new century with a drastic global economic squeeze," Overholt has said.

We have to consider the viewpoints of these politicians and scholars as wise and incisive. But the problem is that their influence is not as intensive. Their influence needs to be expanded by the media.

About 80 percent of the world's news comes from a few mainstream media in the West. Most of people in foreign countries, including the developing ones, know about China through their reports.

So the key point is how the international media would portray a true China image.

(China Daily 01/04/2007 page7)

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