Misreading China goes both ways
- Source: Global Times
- [22:08 July 20 2010]
- Comments
GT: You mentioned the concept of a "weak-nation mentality" in your book. You said that China is in an embarrassing situation, as the country has a strong international position but the public has a weak-nation mentality. Could you elaborate on this?
Yang: The PRC has made great achievements since its founding, especially in the past 30 years. China now holds a significant position in international society and has a big say in all kinds of international affairs.
The economy keeps growing, political systems are getting more mature, and society is diversifying. Meanwhile, however, people are becoming more practical and intent on profit. This is no surprise in a commodity economy, but it shows the fickle and superficial side of our society.
Nowadays, China seems to have lost its soul in development, which probably results in China's weak-nation mentality. When a country has too little faith in politics or religion like in China, whether in the government or among the people, its people suffer from a psychic deficiency.
That means they have much more to live on but less to live for. They lack enough faith to give their lives meaning. As a result, they become impatient and fickle, only interested in material affluence.
GT: What does China need in order to grow into a more mature society?
Yang: Religion and its related values will help people become stronger, more decent and less selfish, less greedy and less vulgar.
Besides faith, as far as I'm concerned, systems are also of great significance for a country. A good system can put government policies under more thorough supervision.
It also should have a responsible media that plays a supervisory role, which would mean far fewer cases of corruption and various injustices in society.
There should also be a proper tax policy. For example, a middle-class society with a good system would advocate social justice and stress closing the wealth gap to avoid polarization. In a society of this kind, people would behave more decently and be willing to spend more time to participate in media supervision.
Like the saying goes, "When the granaries are full, men appreciate rites and obligations." Labor unions that can stand for workers' interests are also needed, helping smooth social conflicts, and build a harmonious society.
We need to build a civil society where civil rights are guaranteed and people live with independence and dignity.
We have spent 30 years building the economy to meet people's material needs. Now these have been met, China is making progress in building a healthy system, and especially in realizing social fairness and justice.
Concepts like the rule of law and public supervision have become popular.
Culturally speaking, China has many strong core values like "Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you." We should not look down on our own culture blindly.
As society is making progress, values are become more diverse, and individuality is more respected. I believe we can become a mentally strong nation over time.
GT: How do you interpret the maturity of a nation? What's the value of toler-ance and plurality in this regard?
Yang: A mature nation is confident and easy. I think India, another big developing country, is our model in this regard. People in India enjoy a kind of leisure and ease in life. They don't put material goods or the pursuit of profit as the only standard of life. They manage to lead an easy life, which is different from the West, because the latter has robust welfare policies.
I think the core of the middle class is decency. I've been stressing civil society, middle class, decency, abundance of polarization, and supervision and criticism in the system since the beginning, because in my opinion, these are the elements that make up a mature nation. We also need an elite that show these values. At present, due to the get-rich-quick culture, the idea of philanthropy is barely developed in China
So I have always said that China has a history of 5, 000 years but a 30-year-old mentality. We are really immature in the face of criticism from other countries. Our political culture shows little tolerance for different voices and well-intentioned criticism from the outside. And the supervisory function of the media is weakened in China.
A mature nation should be tolerant and plural, and allow for many voices.
