(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-28 07:16

The demonization of China still exists because some Westerners have not changed their views on the country, says an article in People's Daily. The following is an excerpt:

Sections of the Western media have recently stirred a wave of China-baiting, which was quite popular some years back. Some Westerners of insight have also smelt a rat in all this. One of them is Thomas Heberer, a renowned German China specialist, who wrote in a recent article that the negative reports in some Western media were aimed at depicting China as a demon. He also noted that these reports ignored, most pathetically, the great achievements made by China through the past several decades of reform and opening-up. The stories in the Washington Post cited Mark Leonard, the executive director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, as saying that the story of the last five years has been about economic opportunities. The story of the last six months has been about China as a threat in Darfur and in Tibet.

In the past few years, some positive changes have taken place in the reports and comments on China by the Western media. They have highlighted the importance of contacts, opportunities as well as responsibilities as if the voice "demonizing China" has subsided. But this time, they hyped things about China by grabbing the opportunity of the anti-China wave and it makes one believe that the demonization of China is still alive; once there is a chance, it will definitely come up again.

There is still room left for the demonization of China because some Westerners have not changed their views of China. Though great changes have taken place in China after the country's reform and opening-up, their knowledge about China continues to be that of the past. Many people do not have a grasp of China and also lack communication channels to get access to China, resulting in the fact that they cannot fundamentally understand the peaceful development of China.

Westerners cannot but feel worried, jealous, fearful or even hostile about China, a large country that develops with a different model of its own. This is more so because they face up to the relocation of their enterprises and the outsourcing of their jobs as well as see China's GDP rising, "Made in China" goods piled up in various stores, and throngs of Chinese tourists walk the streets of Paris, London and New York.

The complicated feelings of Westerners mainly derive from their deep-rooted feeling about the superiority of their value systems. For a long time, Westerners have observed China in a commanding position and their basic principle has been that "The West is correct". In their eyes, China, as a country that takes a different development road from the Western one and has different value systems, will definitely cause troubles for the world.

To change the Westerners' view of China, two things need to be done: First, we should stick to peaceful development and use facts to argue our case; second, Westerners should adjust their mindset about the growth of China. Of course, both the things involve long-term processes.

(China Daily 04/28/2008 page4)