H/T to David Peng for pointing out this article written by Assaf Lichtash and published in the Jerusalem Post. David also pointed out an interesting discussion thread on this article in Chination Report.
In his post, David made a very simple but profound comment, which I fully endorse:
还记得那个伊索寓言吗？北风做不到的事情，只有太阳才能做到。
Do you remember that particular Aesop’s fable? The one in which the sun easily accomplishes a task failed by the north wind?
For those who are unfamiliar with this particular reference of the Aesopica, check out this Wikipedia entry on “The North Wind and the Sun“. The moral of the story is: Kindness, gentleness, and persuasion win where force fails.
MoneyBall says
I was watching Pbs’s Bill Moyers interview Philip Pan, former Beijing bureau chief for Washington post, 2 very intelligent journalists, (Moyers can be moonbating to lala land from time to time but overall he’s ok), they talked thoughtfully about what the problems China is facing, political situation in China and the seemingly future of it. However when Moyers asked Pan what should we do? Pan said well it’s a delima… and that’s it! it ended right there. It’s a delima so we dont know.
Are you kidding me? You are the smartest guys in the room, if you dont know who does? But I’m not supprised, the way western governments/medias/ngos deal with China rightnow is a textbook case of bunch of chicken running with their heads cut off. In their stories covering China there’s abundance of what/where/when, but when it comes to Who, there are only 3 characters for 1.3 billion people, CCP government, Fengqings, and suppressed Chinese people; when it comes to Why, why would Chinese government do that? why would Chinese people react this way? it’s even worse, there is no reason. China is like a big ugly monster nobody seen before, either we cage it, or we tame it, nobody cares what it might be thinking. And when the non-strategy failed and backfired, what they do? they dont blame themselves for oversimplifying things, they dont blame themselves for utterly lacking of strategic thinking, they dont blame themselves for shoting from their asses 7×24, they pin it on Chinese nationalism. It’s always nationalism isnt it, Islamic nationalism, Chinese nationalism, Russian natioanalism. If I were nationalism itself I want to finish off mankind too, just for this kind garbage dumping.
You’d ask the super sized US government with all these smartest lobbists/thinktankers, the super rich NGOs like NED with all the money they have, and the super influential media outlets like NYT and Washinton post, how hard is it for them to sit together and do some analysis, come up with some strategy to help changing China, apply some gaming theory, and execute it? As a business man myself I cant figure out for my life why in bloody hell these utterly incompetent stooges, attention whores get paid so well.
GNZ says
The US has no coordination, in fact it is built on the idea of being uncoordinated. A nice strategy if there is no country in the world you are competing against but asleep at the wheel if there is.
The good news is the uncoordinated US will probably go quietly into the night rather than starting a war when they loose hegemony.
MoneyBall says
@GNZ,
Every organ of of U.S from politicians to medias, from thinktank to NGO was very coordinated before going into Iraq. I’m saying this as a compliment.
S.K. Cheung says
To Moneyball:
I would much rather, if someone doesn’t have the answer, to admit to that, instead of spewing a bunch of BS. I think it takes a lot of insight and honesty to identify what you don’t know. Sometimes, asking the right questions is half the battle.
It’s also ironic that you complain when PBS and WP doesn’t have the answers to China’s problems. Many around here (I don’t know if you have or not) seem to object when Westerners pretend to have the solutions to what ails China, and they insist that Chinese problems require Chinese solutions. So it’s almost like PBS, WP, etc are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
SenorSparkles says
I like to eat my own poop
MoneyBall says
You are what you eat.
Chinationreport says
Read and comment on this piece from Virginia H: Questioning the media coverage of Beijing Olympics and this from a Westner: http://blog.chinationreport.com/2008/08/28/questioning-media-coverage-of-the-beijing-olympics/