Does China need some work on PR?

I run into Scott on the school bus yesterday and he was asking me about Tibet. I know it is something that a lot of Chinese people are getting tired of talking about, but we were talking kinda from another perspective.

He used to live in China for four years and he knows Chinese, which gives him an edge over other Americans to better understand this I think. He was saying that Chinese government could win this argument since they are doing the right thing, but they need to work a little bit on PR (Public Relations) to have people understand them. He said that the strong attitude of the government makes the western media and Americans feel that it is just something that the communism China always does, like crack down the protest, etc. I personally do not like how the western media is basking China, but I agree with him on this point that Chinese government can make differences by rephrasing some statements. If you say, “Chinese government is determined to crack down the separatists”, people would pay more attention to “determined” “crack down” instead of the fact. The words sound very much like the traditional view that western world holds about Communism. I think it would sound better by emphasizing more on helping people, supporting people and not using bad words on Dalai, although he is doing something bad. I have not come out with a good solution yet and cannot have my voice heard in the Chinese government. But if I could, I would try my best to make a difference by communicating with the western world.

I appreciate the patriotic Chinese folks, but I do not see that going to extremism can solve any problems. If their bashing China makes you angry and you just slash back, it would not lead us anywhere, but more distrust and misunderstanding would happen. Take Taiwan as an example. I agree with Xiaoxiao that the Taiwan representative to the U.S. was somewhat funny by making some biased statements that cannot hold water. I also agree what they are doing, whatever campaigning to enter UN or alienating China, do not make good sense. But, these are successful PRs to me and they are making good sense to Americans and western world. It is true that we do not have to flatter anybody to get support. My point is that why do not we stop just fighting, but communicating with them. Instead of not doing anything or being ironic, why do not we try to understand and help them understand. I saw a lot of Chinese people getting emotional when American students were asking questions regarding Taiwan or Tibet. I do understand and I am sometimes doing the same thing. But that is not persuasive. Only when yourself can rationally make your point, give evidence and try to help them understand can you make difference.

Well, you can say that I do not care and I do not need understanding from them. That’s true if it does not affect your life. But, China is on the global stage now and it is taking advantage of globalization to develop itself. Thereafter, it is impossible to just close the door and do the construction. We need to communicate with the outside world. The same time to require understanding from outside world, we need a little bit of work to understand them as well. That’s an interaction and two-way path.

If you are making efforts but do not see it is working yet, just give it a little faith and patience. It is going to take a while to build up trust between two complete cultures and systems. We also have to take into account that the media is that kinda animal looking for bad news and something striking. It is not easy to shape their opinion, but at least it won’t hurt to take sometime to understand how they work.

You can agree with me or not. I am just trying to do some test out of good will. I do hope I can make differences someday and what I am doing is beneficial to my country and the world.