China’s Take On Becoming The World’s No. 2 Economy
Evan Osnos, a staff writer in Beijing, reports in his Letter From China blog at The New Yorker magazine that despite the historic news that China has overtaken Japan as the second greatest global economy, Chinese media and even Chinese people in the street have reacted with less than elation and even an air of incredulity at the news.
Recently, Chinese media has played up the fact that the world’s biggest chocolate show– Chocolate Wonderland– was held in Beijing and that China has had the world’s largest I.P.O. with the Agricultural Bank of China, and yet becoming an economic superpower is received with gloomy self-criticism by the Chinese. Shouldn’t there be a more positive and ebullient response as China ascends?
“…Chinese media and even Chinese people in the street have reacted with less than elation and even an air of incredulity at the news [that China has overtaken Japan as the second greatest global economy]”
This is because the Chinese media never tires of positioning China as a poor, third-world nation, and most Chinese see their country in such a light.
While China’s neighbors are increasingly frightened of the economic Dragon-Next-Door, the working-class person on the street in China is fed an entirely different picture of his/her country as poor, vulnerable and exploited by an unfair global economic system.
This blindness extends to Japan’s “militarization.” Japan has a pacifist constitution and has not waged war on anyone since 1945. By comparison, since that time, China has sent armies into battle in Korea, fought border wars with India and Vietnam, and in Fujian alone has 1,000+ ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan.
Yet, the man or woman in the street in China is convinced that Japan is armed to the teeth and ready to fight a war with China tomorrow…
Comment by Bruce Humes — August 30, 2010 @ 11:08 pm