Online Lesson (1st Feb 2008) - The China Threat Theory

This is an ONE HOUR exercise divided into 2 PARTS. You should take at most 30 MINUTES to complete each part of this assignment.

PART 1: Below are two sources on the China Threat Theory, study them carefully. You are a spokesperson for the Chinese government. Draft a statement of about 100-200 words to refute the claims made by the sources. Your work should be typed as a reply to this thread.

Some hints:

1. Why are both sources hostile towards a rising China?
2. Do you think that their fears are justified?

Source A



Source B
Year of the 'China model'
Ian Buruma
January 9, 2008 7:00 AM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_buruma/2008/01/year_of_the_china_model.html

It will be China's year in 2008. The Olympic games - no doubt perfectly organised, without a protester, homeless person, religious dissenter, or any other kind of spoilsport in sight - will probably bolster China's global prestige. While the American economy gets dragged down further in a swamp of bad property debts, China will continue to boom. Exciting new buildings, designed by the world's most famous architects, will make Beijing and Shanghai look like models of 21st century modernity. More Chinese will be featured in annual lists of the world's richest people. And Chinese artists will command prices at international art auctions that others can only dream of.

To come back from near destitution and bloody tyranny in one generation is a great feat, and China should be saluted for it. But China's success story is also the most serious challenge that liberal democracy has faced since fascism in the 1930s.

This is not because China poses a great military threat - war with the United States, or even Japan, is only a fantasy in the minds of a few ultra-nationalist cranks and paranoiacs. It is in the realm of ideas that China's political-economic model, regardless of its environmental consequences, is scoring victories and looking like an attractive alternative to liberal democratic capitalism.

And it is a real alternative. Contrary to what some pundits say, Chinese capitalism is not like 19th-century European capitalism. True, the European working class, not to mention women, did not have voting rights 200 years ago. But even during the most ruthless phases of western capitalism, civil society in Europe and the US was made up of a huge network of organisations independent of the state - churches, clubs, parties, societies, and associations that were available to all social classes.

In China, by contrast, while individuals have regained many personal freedoms since the death of Maoism, they are not free to organise anything that is not controlled by the Communist Party. Despite communism's ideological bankruptcy, China has not changed in this regard.

The China model is sometimes described in traditional terms, as though modern Chinese politics were an updated version of Confucianism. But a society where the elite's pursuit of money is elevated above all other human endeavours is a far cry from any kind of Confucianism that may have existed in the past.

Still, it's hard to argue with success. If anything has been laid to rest by China's rising wealth, it is the comforting idea that capitalism, and the growth of a prosperous bourgeoisie, will inevitably lead to liberal democracy. On the contrary, it is precisely the middle class, bought off by promises of ever-greater material gains, that hopes to conserve the current political order. It may be a Faustian bargain - prosperity in exchange for political obedience - but so far it has worked.

The China model is attractive not only to the country's new coastal elites, but has global appeal. African dictators - indeed, dictators everywhere - who walk the plush red carpets laid out for them in Beijing - love it. For the model is non-western, and the Chinese do not preach to others about democracy. It is also a source of vast amounts of money, much of which will end up in the tyrants' pockets. By proving that authoritarianism can be successful, China is an example to autocrats everywhere, from Moscow to Dubai, from Islamabad to Khartoum.

China's appeal is growing in the western world as well. Businessmen, media moguls, and architects all flock there. Could there be a better place to do business, build stadiums and skyscrapers, or sell information technology and media networks than a country without independent trade unions or any form of organised protest that could lower profits? Meanwhile, concern for human or civic rights is denigrated as outmoded, or an arrogant expression of western imperialism.

There is, however, a fly in the ointment. No economy keeps growing at the same pace forever. Crises occur. What if the bargain struck between the Chinese middle classes and the one-party state were to fall apart, owing to a pause, or even a setback, in the race for material wealth?

This has happened before. The closest thing, in some ways, to the China model is 19th-century Germany, with its industrial strength, its cultivated but politically neutered middle class, and its tendency toward aggressive nationalism. Nationalism became lethal when the economy crashed, and social unrest threatened to upset the political order.

The same thing could happen in China, where national pride constantly teeters on the edge of belligerence towards Japan, Taiwan, and ultimately the west. Aggressive Chinese nationalism could turn lethal, too, if its economy were to falter.

This would not be in anyone's interest, so we should wish China well in 2008, while sparing a thought for all the dissidents, democrats, and free spirits languishing in labour camps and prisons. We should hope that they will live to see the day when the Chinese, too, will be a free people. It might be a distant dream, but dreaming is what a New Year is all about.

The statement is flawed as they are stated by forces or groups that have certain interest against the chinese goverment. These groups of people giving figures and thesis without detailed and real life account of the victims and trategy that they are accusing the goverment for. The video can't be a general reperesent the real situation in the whole of China. And they only potrayed the evidence in such away that it corner the Chinese goverment. The incident potrayed can be seen in other perspective when the group of people are the one who strat the violence and the authority just there to calm the uncontrolable crowd. Thus, these two sources is very biased that are cleatry have a certain purpose to demonise the chinese goverment.

These sources are very bias to a large extent. They depict a false picture of the Chinese government. They provided poor evidences of CCP's autocracy. First of all, the video clip may be true but there is little evidence that the chinese police used firearms to kill citizens. I do not see any policeman firing on the villagers. Reports of police brutality may be true, but there is almost no report on the police using firearms. This video is just another propaganda from the Japanese to discredit the CCP. Besides, the person interviewed spoke such fluent Japanese. I bet that he is a Japanese himself, having a grudge against the Chinese government. The figure are most likely false as the source of these figures is being cited. As for the article, it is unfair to call China a model for autocratic governments. China has its form of democracy too, in the form of village elections. The claim that foreign investors invest in China because of its autocratic government is false. Other factors such as a strong manufacturing base and infrastructure contributed too. The Chinese model of economic growth such as setting up Special economic zones has been studied and considered by the Indian government. Another of the misinterpretions is that Chinese personal freedom still remained unchanged since Mao's time is untrue. China has liberised its restrictions on religion,economy and its people's social life,a tremendous improvement for them.

Now, i would like to rebute on a few points,

Serene wrote:
"Firstly, we paid them at the market prices. I not sure how they had assumed that we only paid the farmers 1/10 of the market price. Secondly, we did not force them to sell their land. Most of them are willing to sell to us the land for the olympics. In fact, they were very honoured to contribute to our national interest. The state is concerned about the welfare of the people and thus will not cheat them of their money. The clip about riots among the people is probably not even related to the issue. Perhaps its taken from past scenes where the authorities are just trying to control the crowds. In such situation, there is a tendency for people to get violent, and the authorities had to protect themselves in order to bring the crowds under control. Those untrue statements are probably made by people who are afraid of China's rise. No matter what, they shouldn't be afraid. China is with the concept of a harmonious world and will not harm others."

This is completely without proof, there is no figure showing that peasants are paying at market prices. Besides, if they were paid market price,they would not need to complain. Are you sure they sold their land willingly, many reports have shown that they are being evicted from their homes forcefully without compensation. I don't think that they feel honoured being chased away from their homes. If the state is so concerned about people's welfare, why is that still an income gap? Education and healthcare are getting more expensive for the old and the poor.
Chinese authorities are famous for taking bribes and other corruption scandals. China gets aggressive with its neighbours whenever the issue concerns territory. China sent naval ships to patrol Diaoyu islands. If China is with a harmonious concept, why would it send ships to protect a territory that might not be theirs?

It is unfortunate to have such ignorant people who make such claims. Firstly, we paid them at the market prices. I not sure how they had assumed that we only paid the farmers 1/10 of the market price. Secondly, we did not force them to sell their land. Most of them are willing to sell to us the land for the olympics. In fact, they were very honoured to contribute to our national interest. The state is concerned about the welfare of the people and thus will not cheat them of their money. The clip about riots among the people is probably not even related to the issue. Perhaps its taken from past scenes where the authorities are just trying to control the crowds. In such situation, there is a tendency for people to get violent, and the authorities had to protect themselves in order to bring the crowds under control. Those untrue statements are probably made by people who are afraid of China's rise. No matter what, they shouldn't be afraid. China is with the concept of a harmonious world and will not harm others.

PART 1: Below are two sources on the China Threat Theory, study them carefully. You are a spokesperson for the Chinese government. Draft a statement of about 100-200 words to refute the claims made by the sources. Your work should be typed as a reply to this thread.


1. Why are both sources hostile towards a rising China?
2. Do you think that their fears are justified?

1.: Source A is by the Japenese, for a Japense audience, as evident with the Japanese subtitles, a Japanese Narrator, even a China Man speaking in Japanese??

The subtitles in the clip were purely fictitious, they were made up and dramatised by the Japanese.

What was shown as subtitles:
PLA Opressor: "SMASH THEM UP!"
Hapless Village: "OMG DONT KILL ME PLS!"

What was said in reality was more like:
Big Crowd: "AAAAA AAAIIYAAA BANG BANG BANG *Inaudible* AAAAA"|

Clearly an attempt by the Japs to screw with the Chinese.

Why they are hostile to China is simply because they are Japanese, and are capitalist, imperialistic dogs.

2 Their fears arent justified, they're just being annoying little weiners like they always were towards China throughout history.

Part 2: Take a different stand as you are now someone who feels negative about China's rise. Choose to rebuke any statement/statements made by your classmates. Your rebuttal must be reasoned and logical. Type your critique as a reply to his/her statement, which in turn must be quoted (so that I know who you are criticising).

1. Why is your friend's statement flawed?
2. Can the 2 sources be correct about China after all?

1.

I will now attempt to rebutt the above poster's arguments.

Serene wrote:

It is unfortunate to have such ignorant people who make such claims. Firstly, we paid them at the market prices. I not sure how they had assumed that we only paid the farmers 1/10 of the market price. Secondly, we did not force them to sell their land. Most of them are willing to sell to us the land for the olympics. In fact, they were very honoured to contribute to our national interest. The state is concerned about the welfare of the people and thus will not cheat them of their money. The clip about riots among the people is probably not even related to the issue. Perhaps its taken from past scenes where the authorities are just trying to control the crowds. In such situation, there is a tendency for people to get violent, and the authorities had to protect themselves in order to bring the crowds under control. Those untrue statements are probably made by people who are afraid of China's rise. No matter what, I would like that they shouldn't be afraid. China is with the concept of a harmonious world and will not harm others.

Quote :

"Firstly, we paid them at the market prices. I not sure how they had assumed that we only paid the farmers 1/10 of the market price"

Market forces do NOT determine the price of farm output. Grain prices are constantly supressed in spite of rising input costs. You pay market prices for your rice that comes from China, thats a given. But out of what you pay, only about a tenth actually goes back to the farmers themselves. Unless of course you buy "Fair Trade"( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Trade ) products, however this largely does not apply to China in context.

You are right:

Quote :

"The clip about riots among the people is probably not even related to the issue."

But what do the numbers say? 87,000 in one year? Even susposing the numbers are inflated by thousands for the sake of Japanese propaganda, still, this clearly indicates the level of discontent amongst the peasantry. The BRB also collaborates with the growing discontent amongst chinese peasantry.(BRB: pg 160-167: What is China's San-Nong(rural) Problem?)

Quote :

"Perhaps its [pertaining to source A] taken from past scenes where the authorities are just trying to control the crowds."

The camera dates the clip as 11/6/2005, that isnt exactly very "past". Despite the perceptions of the PLA and CCP practices being arbitrary, Im pretty sure, to the best of my knowledge, crowd control does not involve hurling any form of high explosives (explosions can be seen from 0.11 to 0.15) into the midst of a crowd of peasants.
Also, even though the subtitling was horrible, if you listen closely, the "Assailant" (dubbed by the Japs) in the clip at 0.08 shouts the words "Bu yao pao!" (Dont run (away) !) in mandarin. If you are trying to disperse a crowd, im pretty sure you'd want to encourage them to... well... disperse... as soon as possible.
Also at 0.03, right after you hear "AAAIYAAH" you hear a "BANG" and a blood curdling scream as if someone was shot.

Though there exists an uncertainty of the type of projectile fired (lethal or not) and since he had the chance to scream after the shot was fired, it was obviously not meant to kill him. Either that or the PLA needs to increase budget for marksmanship.

Quote :

"Those untrue statements are probably made by people who are afraid of China's rise. No matter what, I would like that they shouldn't be afraid. China is with the concept of a harmonious world and will not harm others."

Lol.

We've all been to China, right?

2.
Source A has a good chance of being true and credible, if not remotely true and credible. The Japanese are merely taking pot-shots at China using one of its infamously weakest links, Human Rights and Rural/Agricultural bias. Im pretty sure they dont need to make stuff up on their own, seriously, the problems are everywhere. At best, they can be guilty of dramatising the events.

[Edit: Some grammar, spelling and organisation of points]

source A's claim that ccp is an interest group might not be so reliable as the someone who said it was prodemocratic . Thereby he probably has vested interest and so he is somewhat against the communist party. furthermore being japanese, he might not be infavour of china due to the hostile history between china and japan.

Source A is biased to a large extent as it does not portray the general rising dissent of the people living in the rural region. It is also not very justifiable to say that the CCP is an interest group that implies that it only concerns the welfare within the party rather than for the chinese. It is also not too fair to comment that the people's discontentment lies in the fault of the CCP, particularly from someone prominent leader of pro-democracy activities. He attributes the causes of the problems of CCP 'forcibly taking land in rural region', implying the credibility of the CCP. this is not true because the CCP employs democratic policies that does not seek for social gains and that the people are not condemed to suffer from 'repression'. He probably has anti-sentiments towards China and its political party, and wants to point out the weakness of the CCP to allow the world to be aware of certain situations occuring in China. This is especially in view of the impending Olympcs happening in August and this may be created to seek global justification on the reliability of the CCP towards the welfare of the people, and that Japanese is already feeling the threat towards a rising and increasingly powerful China, in view of it hosting a global event.

The origins of the video (source A) is indeed questionable and bias against China. The video may have been a tool that the Japanese used to decredit China and may have been a source of anti-China propaganda.

It is possible that 87000 riots did break out in the year 2004 but even if that's the case, the source did not state the exact locations of the riots and the exact reason for it. The reason given in the video was that the Chinese farmers were dissatisfied, "towards the economic disparity," is rather vague and it contradicts the later statement about how the "Japanese should know more about the real Chinese communist regime." and that they do not accept the "China threat theory" but "Red China threat theory". This paradoxical statement renders the source invalid.

In addition, Son Lee is a member of the Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition and how is it possible that a member of the Overseas Chinese community, will be able to know about what's going on in the heart of china, especially in the rural regions? China's ruling party's (CCP) fundamental ideology is communism. In order to retain their one-party rule, the CCP will never tolerate the presence of another political party, be it a party with a communist or democratic base, even though the CCP is encouraging democracy at the lower levels (Ie: village head election) Soo Lin is the leader of prodemocracy activities and he may have ulterior motives by agreeing to appear in this video, such as, trying to overthrow the CCP.

Furthermore, in Source B, it is stated that China will be hosting the Olympics and that, "while the American economy gets dragged down further in a swamp of bad property debts, China will continue to boom." The source originates from a newspaper in the UK and the UK is a staunch ally of the US. And UK will be the one who stands to lose if China and the US would ever go to war. In addition, "China's appeal is growing in the western world" and in the western world, most political parties or ruling parties are democratic parties. They may fear that the rise of China will lead to communism being wider spread than before. As such, their sovereignity of the country will be threated.

All the all, these group of people who viewed China as a threat is not because China is a real threat to the entire world but because, China is a real threat to their pursuit and attainment of their selfish desires.


PS: I had posted my reply via the Quick Reply (it's at around 2.24pm) but because my answer did not show up, I'd rewrote it. (:

Both sources A and B are biased against China. Source A(video) might be true in some ways, but there is no clear evidence to support the entire issue. Furthermore there might be a possibility that the Japanese exaggerated the video as they might be showing it in japan. There is also no clear real life witness or evidence for the killing and burning of farmers. The man who appeared on the video, Soo lin, might have other agenda to agree to appear on the video since he is a prodemocracy leader. Source B is obvious to be biased. The author is from UK, so the source might be reliable to a small extent. The author himself is not a chinese so i believe he will have the tendency to be biased against China in his words, being one-sided. It is definitely not true that China has remained unchanged towards personal freedom issue. China has tried to loosen its restrictions on religion, its economy as well as social life of chinese people in the past recent years.

Source A is inaccurate as the video only shows a one-sided view. It only showed what the leader of the Chinese prodemocracy activities think and did not reflect what the people in the rural areas and the other communist leaders think. In the video, the leader of the Chinese prodemocracy is a Japanese, therefore he may have a biased view towards the Chinese communist leaders. The source also said that CCP is an interest group, which is pretty unfair because CCP is becoming more democratic where they are trying to care more about the interests of the people. Furthermore, it was not stated clearly how the riots started , therefore this source may be used by the Japanese to show the weaknesses of CCP. Source B is also biased as it is published in UK, therefore it has an one-sided view. It is stated in the source that the Chinese are not free to organise anything that is not controlled by Chinese Communist Party. However, there are no evidences and CCP has already granted more freedom to the people as compared to the past.

Both sources are clearly against China as the content in these sources are unreliable. Source A is made for the Japanese and so it is natural that some anti-China sentiments are present in it. This source is one-sided as they only interviewed the ‘victims’ and did not interview government officials from the CCP.

There is also a tinge of sarcasm in the second source in the opening statement ‘It will be China's year in 2008. The Olympic games - no doubt perfectly organized, without a protester, homeless person, religious dissenter, or any other kind of spoilsport in sight - will probably bolster China's global prestige.’ The source is also from the UK and the author uses strong words, ‘ruthless’, and ’tyrants’ etc to portray China and is also quite obviously biased towards the West as the author is most probably from the UK.

Therefore both sources are only reliable to a small extent and for more accurate information, readers should cross reference the sources with other sources taken from the CCP.

To know that there are people who are making false accusations against China is very sad and unfortunate. China has always strived to be a harmonious society and to hear of such baseless accusations that are untrue, with no evidence to prove their truth, stirs up negative emotions within me. We have always tired to have good ties with other countries. All these sources are unreliable as it only reflects the view of the Japanese. This cannot be a valid view as China and Japan have mutual animousities that hasve not been solved. The video reflects only what the Japanese think of the Chinese communist leaders. Souurce B is biased as well as it is from the Western perspective. China and the West has had different ideologies since the start. This is a cause for the West to be against the Chinese , making this source invalidate. Furthermore both the West and Japan have a reason to be afraid of China - China has managed to rise econmically and politically in a short span of time, making them a great threat.

I dont totaly agree with wee yang that this is only a propoganda that is conducted by the japanese.It is yes that prviously the japanese have certain biased against the Chinese. However they will not making claim without any concrete evidence. This is because as their credibility is at stakes the usage of evidence such as the video clips and even pictures that shows victims of the Chinese goverment brutality must come from somewhere.As we know that the Chinese goverment a brutal in supressing the rouge element in the country its an open secret that is more confirm by these evidence.There will be no smoke without any fire.

Ivan Louise Barus wrote:

The statement is flawed as they are stated by forces or groups that have certain interest against the chinese goverment. These groups of people giving figures and thesis without detailed and real life account of the victims and trategy that they are accusing the goverment for. The video can't be a general reperesent the real situation in the whole of China. And they only potrayed the evidence in such away that it corner the Chinese goverment. The incident potrayed can be seen in other perspective when the group of people are the one who strat the violence and the authority just there to calm the uncontrolable crowd. Thus, these two sources is very biased that are cleatry have a certain purpose to demonise the chinese goverment.

Ivan said that the statement was flawed as they are stated by forces or groups that have certain interst against the chinese government. This itself is a flawed statement in it's own. ''Certain Interest'' is not quite the right phrase to use , rather they are against the Chinese government and are out to ruin their reputation. I do agree that these people are giving false accusations with no prove. But I feel that they could just be exaggerating the events that could have taken place. Ivan has gone straight to say that they are indeed making false accusations.

Serene wrote:
"Firstly, we paid them at the market prices. I not sure how they had assumed that we only paid the farmers 1/10 of the market price. Secondly, we did not force them to sell their land. Most of them are willing to sell to us the land for the olympics. In fact, they were very honoured to contribute to our national interest. The state is concerned about the welfare of the people and thus will not cheat them of their money. The clip about riots among the people is probably not even related to the issue. Perhaps its taken from past scenes where the authorities are just trying to control the crowds. In such situation, there is a tendency for people to get violent, and the authorities had to protect themselves in order to bring the crowds under control. Those untrue statements are probably made by people who are afraid of China's rise. No matter what, they shouldn't be afraid. China is with the concept of a harmonious world and will not harm others."

This is completely without proof, there is no figure showing that peasants are paying at market prices. Besides, if they were paid market price,they would not need to complain. Are you sure they sold their land willingly, many reports have shown that they are being evicted from their homes forcefully without compensation. I don't think that they feel honoured being chased away from their homes. If the state is so concerned about people's welfare, why is that still an income gap? Education and healthcare are getting more expensive for the old and the poor.
Chinese authorities are famous for taking bribes and other corruption scandals. China gets aggressive with its neighbours whenever the issue concerns territory. China sent naval ships to patrol Diaoyu islands. If China is with a harmonious concept, why would it send ships to protect a territory that might not be theirs?

Serene wrote:
"Firstly, we paid them at the market prices. I not sure how they had assumed that we only paid the farmers 1/10 of the market price. Secondly, we did not force them to sell their land. Most of them are willing to sell to us the land for the olympics. In fact, they were very honoured to contribute to our national interest. The state is concerned about the welfare of the people and thus will not cheat them of their money. The clip about riots among the people is probably not even related to the issue. Perhaps its taken from past scenes where the authorities are just trying to control the crowds. In such situation, there is a tendency for people to get violent, and the authorities had to protect themselves in order to bring the crowds under control. Those untrue statements are probably made by people who are afraid of China's rise. No matter what, they shouldn't be afraid. China is with the concept of a harmonious world and will not harm others."

This is completely without proof, there is no figure showing that peasants are paying at market prices. Besides, if they were paid market price,they would not need to complain. Are you sure they sold their land willingly, many reports have shown that they are being evicted from their homes forcefully without compensation. I don't think that they feel honoured being chased away from their homes. If the state is so concerned about people's welfare, why is that still an income gap? Education and healthcare are getting more expensive for the old and the poor.
Chinese authorities are famous for taking bribes and other corruption scandals. China gets aggressive with its neighbours whenever the issue concerns territory. China sent naval ships to patrol Diaoyu islands. If China is with a harmonious concept, why would it send ships to protect a territory that might not be theirs?

PART 1

As a spokesperson on behalf of the Chinese goverment, I feel that the reason why both sources choose to discredit China is because of their fear that China might become a strong superpower. The very being that source A is coming from a Japanese point of view already shows that they have not accounted for a full comprehension of the situation in the rural areas. There have been implementations of policies for people in the rural areas to be able to catch up with those in urban regions and make their lives bearable. More ironically, the Japanese media has chosen to interview a Chinese man who speaks Japanese, lowering the credibility of the source further. The idea of knowing the real threat of "Red China" was mentioned in the Japanese media clip, but the contradiction lies in the fact that Japan itself has not fully understood China's intentions and plans, thus exaggerating and putting China's image in a negative light.

The article on China's up-coming Olympics has also served to pin-point China's flaws and loopholes. The problem of the elites pursuing money being a far cry from any kind of Confucianism in the past brings out a stark contrast of China's ideology which has not changed, and that is egalitarianism. Since it has also been stated that people in China are not allowed to organize anything not controlled by the CCP, it goes to show that there cannot be any possibility of elites pursuing wealth when the state stresses on equality for all. Hence, this goes to show that the source has not fully comprehended China. Furthermore, this source is coming from the West, therefore I understand that there might be a few misconceptions since our ideologies clash from the very beginning.

I thereby urge countries to adopt a more open and moderate view towards China, so as to fully comprehend our country better, while avoiding to make misconceptions and tarnishing our international prestige and image.

Part 1:

As always the imperialist West tries to interfere in internal affairs that never should have. It seems that our comrade Son Ling has capitulated and betrayed our motherland in Source A by blatantly accusing his motherland of violent rural suppression, exploitation of the great proletariats and forcible displacement. This accusation is completely baseless - Son Ling mentioned that we destroyed the evidence, but if we did, then he, in the first place, should not even know about it. Since he knows about it, without any form of proof or evidence, then he is making his own story up.

Again in Source B, the British imperialist try to talk about something that they have little knowledge about. China does not pursue capitalism; we are a socialist country. Also, The great masses of the people do not pose a threat as that of Facist Europe. China would like to draw your attention to the Middle East, where Western imperialist intervention has caused a great stirrup of dangerous fundamentalist strain.

China hopes to create a Harmonious World alongside other countries, and taken steps to achieving such a World, but will never be able to as long as naysayers like Mr. Buruma hinder us.

Clearly in this case, the Japanese are trying to put us in the bad light, with the killing of the farmers during the riots in the rural areas of China. No doubt that the footage of the event was showed, but this is clearly intended for the Japanese viewers by the Japanese themselves because of the Japanese language and the english and Japanese subtitles. No one can really be sure that the footage broadcasted was what actually happened in China. Everyone knows that the Japanese has long been anti-Chinese. Hence naturally, this video would have been produced by a biased person, who is against us, the Chinese government. Furthermore, the video claimed that we only pay the farmers one-tenth of standard land prices and that was not supported by another other concrete evidences. Perhaps if the video had come with another chart or some statistics showing that we had indeed only paid them one-tenth of the stand land prices, we would have not been this defensive. The stand on my part is clear now that we need to see concrete evidences in order for us to see that the video is not produced solely based on their "anti-Chinese" feeling that they have.

Furthermore, I think that the others are having this China Threat Theory because of the fact that they were not chosen to host the olympics. Whatever they did not manage to have, they are trying to make things difficult for us, who happened to just clinch the deal for the olympics through our own capabilities. I believe, for us to be chosen to host this prestigious event, we must possess some ability or at least some potential that show that we can make olympics a success.

With this chance given to host the olympics, there will be many opportunities for us to expand our economy. No doubt that we were known for producing a lot of negative externalities (eg air pollution) together with the massive production of goods for trading, but we have already been paying more attention to reduce our pollution problem. So i believe that the other countries are just basing our past actions and predicting our future, without seeing at what we really are trying to do now. The others are attempting to smear China's possible future developments by creating a bad name for us and then predicting that we would not last long. This will definitely make people lose confidence in our economy and therefore will stop investing in us.

In addition, the fact that we are improving our material wealth first does not mean that we would not improve our non-material wealth too. But think about it, seriously, where would you get the capital to develop and improve the non-material aspects of life without improving the material aspects first? The stability of the material aspects will allow us the capability for us to sustain the need for constant improvisation on the non-material aspects of life.

In conclusion, the reason why the other countries are making so much unnecessary negative comments is because of the clash in self-interest of the different countries. We are able to curve a route for our economy to expand, but to the others, we are just improving our economy at the expense of the other countries.