2006-12-10 17:29:16globalist
中國公開討論其崛起
中央台的一個節目探討世界大帝國之崛起，展現了中國崛起的企圖心。
China opens public discussion of its rising power
By Joseph KahnBEIJING: Spain had a risk-taking queen. Britain’s nimble navy secured vital commodities overseas. The United States regulated markets and fought for national unity.
Those are among the reasons that nine nations rose to become great powers, according to an elite team of Chinese historians. They briefed the ruling Politburo on the subject and informed the public through a 12-part television documentary broadcast over the past two weeks on China Central Television.
China’s Communist Party has a new agenda: It is encouraging people to discuss what it means to be a major world power, and has largely stopped denying that China intends to become one soon.
With its $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, surging military spending and diplomatic initiatives in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Beijing has begun asserting its interests far beyond its borders. Chinese party leaders are acting as if they intend to start exercising more power abroad rather than just protecting their political position at home.
Like it or not, China’s rise is becoming a reality,” says Jia Qingguo, associate dean of the Beijing University School of International Studies.
”Wherever Chinese leaders go these days, people pay attention. And they can’t just say, ’I don’t want to get involved.’”
Itself a major recipient of foreign aid until recently, China this year promised to provide well over $10 billion in low- interest loans and debt relief to Asian, African and Latin American countries over the next two years. It invited 48 African countries to Beijing last month to a conference aimed at promoting closer cooperation and trade.
Beijing agreed to send 1,000 peacekeepers to Lebanon, its first such action in the Middle East. It has sought to become a more substantial player in a region where the United States traditionally holds far more sway.
At the United Nations Security Council, China cast aside its longstanding policy of opposing sanctions against other nations. It voted to impose penalties on North Korea for testing nuclear weapons.
Until recently the shift remained sensitive, and largely unspoken, inside China. For nearly two decades, Beijing has followed a dictum laid down by the late Deng Xiaoping, ”taoguang yanghui,” literally to hide its ambitions and disguise its claws. The prescription was generally taken to mean that China needed to devote its energy to developing economically and should not seek to play a leadership role abroad.
President Hu Jintao set off an internal squabble two years ago when he began using the term ”peaceful rise” to describe his foreign policy goals.
He dropped the term and opted instead for the tamer-sounding ”peaceful development.” The word rise risked stoking fears of a ”China threat,” especially in Japan and the United States, people told about the high-level debate said. Rise implies that others must decline, at least in a relative sense, while development suggests a win-win formula in which China’s advance brings others along.
Yet this tradition of modesty has begun to fade, replaced by a growing confidence that China’s rise is not fleeting and that China needs to do more to define its objectives.
The documentary on China Central Television, the main national network, uses the word ”rise” constantly, including in its title: ”Rise of the Great Powers.” It endorses the idea that China should study the experiences of nations and empires it once condemned as aggressors bent on exploitation.
”Our China, the Chinese people, the Chinese race has become revitalized and is again stepping onto the world stage,” Qian Chengdan, a professor at Beijing University and the intellectual father of the series, said in an online dialogue about the documentary on Sina.com, a leading Web site.
”It is extremely important for today’s China to be able to draw some lessons from the experiences of others,” he said.
The series, which took three years to make, emanated from a study session of the Politburo in 2003. It is not a jingoistic call to arms. It mentions China itself only in passing, and it never explicitly addresses the reality that China has already become a big power.
Yet its history, which partly tracks the work done by Paul Kennedy in his 1980s best seller, ”The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” differs markedly from the version in socialist-era textbooks still in use in many schools.
Accompanied by an epic soundtrack, the narrator presents the emergence of the nine countries analyzed as achievements worthy of emulation, reviewing the globe-spanning colonies of the imperial powers in admiring terms.
The documentary also stresses historical themes that coincide with policies Chinese leaders promote at home. Social stability, industrial investment, peaceful foreign relations and national unity are presented as more vital than, for example, military strength, political liberalization or the rule of law.
In the 90 minutes devoted to examining the rise of the United States, Abraham Lincoln is accorded a prominent part for his efforts to ”preserve national unity” during the Civil War. China has made reunification with Taiwan a top national priority. Franklin Roosevelt wins praise for creating a bigger role for the government in managing the market economy, but gets less attention for his wartime leadership.
The series, which was broadcast twice in succession, covering 24 consecutive nights, was viewed in two million households nightly on average, according to CSM Media Research. The company said that the ratings were high for a documentary, but moderate by the standards of the government-run television network, which draws an average of 70 million households for its main nightly news broadcast.
Major Web sites set up online forums for people to comment on the show. The reaction seemed generally positive and often overtly nationalistic, though strong expressions of patriotic sentiment is not uncommon among Chinese Internet users.
Government officials play down the importance of the series. He Yafei, an assistant foreign minister, said in an interview that he had watched only one or two episodes. He said that the documentary should not signal changes in China’s thinking about projecting power, adding that colonialism and exploitation ”would go nowhere in today’s world.” But He also hinted at a shifting official line. He stressed China’s status as a developing country, but allowed that others might see things differently.
”Whether a country is a regional or a world power, it is not for that country to decide alone,” he said. ”If you say we are a big power, then we are. But we are a responsible big country. We are a maintainer and builder of the international system.”
China has in fact emerged as a major power without disrupting the international order, at least so far. It has accepted an invitation by the Bush administration to discuss becoming a ”responsible stakeholder” in the American-dominated international system.
Beijing places importance on many world institutions, especially the United Nations, where it holds a veto in the Security Council. It professes a strong commitment to enforcing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Last month, Margaret Chan of Hong Kong became the first Chinese person to head a major United Nations agency, the World Health Organization. She vowed to build a ”harmonious health world,” echoing the slogan of harmony promoted by Hu.
Yet critics say that China is prepared to emerge in a less amicable fashion, if necessary. The Central Intelligence Agency says that Chinese military spending may be two or three times higher than acknowledged, and that China allocates more to its military than any other country except the United States.
Beijing has cultivated close ties to countries that provide it with commodities and raw materials, regardless of their human rights records. Sudan, Myanmar and Zimbabwe have all escaped international sanctions, in large part because of Chinese protection.
China’s increasing international engagement has also stimulated a more robust academic discussion about its global role and the potential for tensions with the United States.
Yan Xuetong, a foreign affairs specialist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, argued in a scholarly journal this summer that China had already surpassed Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and India in economic, military and political power. That leaves it second only to the United States, he said.
While the military gap between China and the United States may remain for some time, he argued, China’s faster economic growth and increasing political clout may whittle down America’s overall advantage.
”China will enjoy the status of a semisuperpower between the United States and the other major powers,” Yan predicted in the article, which appeared in The China Journal of International Politics.He added, ”China’s fast growth in political and economic power will dramatically narrow its power gap with the United States.”
China opens public discussion of its rising power
By Joseph KahnBEIJING: Spain had a risk-taking queen. Britain’s nimble navy secured vital commodities overseas. The United States regulated markets and fought for national unity.
Those are among the reasons that nine nations rose to become great powers, according to an elite team of Chinese historians. They briefed the ruling Politburo on the subject and informed the public through a 12-part television documentary broadcast over the past two weeks on China Central Television.
China’s Communist Party has a new agenda: It is encouraging people to discuss what it means to be a major world power, and has largely stopped denying that China intends to become one soon.
With its $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, surging military spending and diplomatic initiatives in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Beijing has begun asserting its interests far beyond its borders. Chinese party leaders are acting as if they intend to start exercising more power abroad rather than just protecting their political position at home.
Like it or not, China’s rise is becoming a reality,” says Jia Qingguo, associate dean of the Beijing University School of International Studies.
”Wherever Chinese leaders go these days, people pay attention. And they can’t just say, ’I don’t want to get involved.’”
Itself a major recipient of foreign aid until recently, China this year promised to provide well over $10 billion in low- interest loans and debt relief to Asian, African and Latin American countries over the next two years. It invited 48 African countries to Beijing last month to a conference aimed at promoting closer cooperation and trade.
Beijing agreed to send 1,000 peacekeepers to Lebanon, its first such action in the Middle East. It has sought to become a more substantial player in a region where the United States traditionally holds far more sway.
At the United Nations Security Council, China cast aside its longstanding policy of opposing sanctions against other nations. It voted to impose penalties on North Korea for testing nuclear weapons.
Until recently the shift remained sensitive, and largely unspoken, inside China. For nearly two decades, Beijing has followed a dictum laid down by the late Deng Xiaoping, ”taoguang yanghui,” literally to hide its ambitions and disguise its claws. The prescription was generally taken to mean that China needed to devote its energy to developing economically and should not seek to play a leadership role abroad.
President Hu Jintao set off an internal squabble two years ago when he began using the term ”peaceful rise” to describe his foreign policy goals.
He dropped the term and opted instead for the tamer-sounding ”peaceful development.” The word rise risked stoking fears of a ”China threat,” especially in Japan and the United States, people told about the high-level debate said. Rise implies that others must decline, at least in a relative sense, while development suggests a win-win formula in which China’s advance brings others along.
Yet this tradition of modesty has begun to fade, replaced by a growing confidence that China’s rise is not fleeting and that China needs to do more to define its objectives.
The documentary on China Central Television, the main national network, uses the word ”rise” constantly, including in its title: ”Rise of the Great Powers.” It endorses the idea that China should study the experiences of nations and empires it once condemned as aggressors bent on exploitation.
”Our China, the Chinese people, the Chinese race has become revitalized and is again stepping onto the world stage,” Qian Chengdan, a professor at Beijing University and the intellectual father of the series, said in an online dialogue about the documentary on Sina.com, a leading Web site.
”It is extremely important for today’s China to be able to draw some lessons from the experiences of others,” he said.
The series, which took three years to make, emanated from a study session of the Politburo in 2003. It is not a jingoistic call to arms. It mentions China itself only in passing, and it never explicitly addresses the reality that China has already become a big power.
Yet its history, which partly tracks the work done by Paul Kennedy in his 1980s best seller, ”The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” differs markedly from the version in socialist-era textbooks still in use in many schools.
Accompanied by an epic soundtrack, the narrator presents the emergence of the nine countries analyzed as achievements worthy of emulation, reviewing the globe-spanning colonies of the imperial powers in admiring terms.
The documentary also stresses historical themes that coincide with policies Chinese leaders promote at home. Social stability, industrial investment, peaceful foreign relations and national unity are presented as more vital than, for example, military strength, political liberalization or the rule of law.
In the 90 minutes devoted to examining the rise of the United States, Abraham Lincoln is accorded a prominent part for his efforts to ”preserve national unity” during the Civil War. China has made reunification with Taiwan a top national priority. Franklin Roosevelt wins praise for creating a bigger role for the government in managing the market economy, but gets less attention for his wartime leadership.
The series, which was broadcast twice in succession, covering 24 consecutive nights, was viewed in two million households nightly on average, according to CSM Media Research. The company said that the ratings were high for a documentary, but moderate by the standards of the government-run television network, which draws an average of 70 million households for its main nightly news broadcast.
Major Web sites set up online forums for people to comment on the show. The reaction seemed generally positive and often overtly nationalistic, though strong expressions of patriotic sentiment is not uncommon among Chinese Internet users.
Government officials play down the importance of the series. He Yafei, an assistant foreign minister, said in an interview that he had watched only one or two episodes. He said that the documentary should not signal changes in China’s thinking about projecting power, adding that colonialism and exploitation ”would go nowhere in today’s world.” But He also hinted at a shifting official line. He stressed China’s status as a developing country, but allowed that others might see things differently.
”Whether a country is a regional or a world power, it is not for that country to decide alone,” he said. ”If you say we are a big power, then we are. But we are a responsible big country. We are a maintainer and builder of the international system.”
China has in fact emerged as a major power without disrupting the international order, at least so far. It has accepted an invitation by the Bush administration to discuss becoming a ”responsible stakeholder” in the American-dominated international system.
Beijing places importance on many world institutions, especially the United Nations, where it holds a veto in the Security Council. It professes a strong commitment to enforcing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Last month, Margaret Chan of Hong Kong became the first Chinese person to head a major United Nations agency, the World Health Organization. She vowed to build a ”harmonious health world,” echoing the slogan of harmony promoted by Hu.
Yet critics say that China is prepared to emerge in a less amicable fashion, if necessary. The Central Intelligence Agency says that Chinese military spending may be two or three times higher than acknowledged, and that China allocates more to its military than any other country except the United States.
Beijing has cultivated close ties to countries that provide it with commodities and raw materials, regardless of their human rights records. Sudan, Myanmar and Zimbabwe have all escaped international sanctions, in large part because of Chinese protection.
China’s increasing international engagement has also stimulated a more robust academic discussion about its global role and the potential for tensions with the United States.
Yan Xuetong, a foreign affairs specialist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, argued in a scholarly journal this summer that China had already surpassed Japan, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and India in economic, military and political power. That leaves it second only to the United States, he said.
While the military gap between China and the United States may remain for some time, he argued, China’s faster economic growth and increasing political clout may whittle down America’s overall advantage.
”China will enjoy the status of a semisuperpower between the United States and the other major powers,” Yan predicted in the article, which appeared in The China Journal of International Politics.He added, ”China’s fast growth in political and economic power will dramatically narrow its power gap with the United States.”