Friday 11 February 2011

Land of free spenders

In a skit aired by China’s state-owned CCTV last September, four children - each wearing a national flag representing China, the United States, India and Brazil - were lined up for a race.

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Guanyu said...

Land of free spenders

By Grace Ng
25 January 2011

In a skit aired by China’s state-owned CCTV last September, four children - each wearing a national flag representing China, the United States, India and Brazil - were lined up for a race.

The American child, Anthony, swore he would win ‘because I always win’ as he took the lead. But he soon toppled over, suffering from cramps. This prompted his Chinese competitor to cheer: ‘Now is our chance to overtake him for the first time!’

‘What’s wrong with Anthony?’ another child asked, to which the fourth kid said: ‘He is overweight and flabby. He ate too many hamburgers.’

This skit, aired during the World Economic Forum, was a pointed commentary on how the Chinese viewed America, observed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. He had attended the gathering, along with hundreds of top businessmen and political leaders, in China’s Tianjin city.

For many Chinese, this picture of a bloated America ceding the lead to the rising dragon economy surely resonated as they witnessed their president’s visit to the US last week.

President Hu Jintao brought with him US$45 billion (S$58 billion) worth of business deals that are expected to translate into 235,000 jobs for a struggling American economy.

The notion of China coming to America’s rescue has prompted many Chinese to look anew at their perceptions of the US.

‘When we were growing up, the US was the world’s superpower that was far ahead of China,’ said Ms Ding Lihua, 35, a human resource manager in Beijing. ‘But watching the Americans give Mr. Hu the VVIP treatment last week made me realise the US is on the decline, and China is becoming its equal,’ she said.

This shift has also prompted them to reconsider what they admired and disliked about the Land of the Free.

Or rather, the land of the free spenders - which dragged China and the world into crisis - as a poll on Chinese perceptions of the US last month showed.

The US was blamed for the global economic crisis as well as the tensions in US-China ties, according to the survey of 1,400 people partly organised by the state newspaper China Daily.

Seven in 10 among those polled also saw the two countries as both allies and competitors. ‘The US and China should be friends, but they cannot avoid being rivals in all spheres,’ said translation company manager Michael Zhang, 43.

One area where the two may clash is foreign policy, said several Chinese nationals interviewed by The Straits Times. In their view, the Americans were ‘too interventionist’.

Said corporate relations manager Wang Xingzi, 27: ‘The US foreign policy is to bring democracy to countries, even those that don’t necessarily want it. It said it would free people in Iraq, but it seems to have made their lives worse.’

Meanwhile, the US education system may be starting to lose its shine.

It did not escape notice that Shanghai schoolchildren recently beat those in 65 other countries in international standardised tests in mathematics, science and reading. American children came in between the 15th and 31st places in the three categories.

‘I think more Chinese students are questioning if it is worthwhile to study at a not-so-good US school,’ said Tsinghua graduate student Yang Jingjing, 27, who at one time studied in the US.

Still, if Chinese people were asked to name today’s creative geniuses, Americans like Mr. Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg would first come to mind, she added. ‘Silicon Valley, Harvard and Wall Street are still powerful emblems of US superiority. The huge talent and creativity there are hard to beat.’

Guanyu said...

It was its tech prowess that made the US pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai the most anticipated among the Chinese in Internet polls last year. And even though it turned out to have no futuristic gadgets and was disappointingly full of corporate sponsors’ displays, one visitor, Mr. Jun Caifeng, was still stirred by ‘the US’ branding power’.

‘Americans know how to package and show the best side of themselves,’ said the retiree in his 70s, citing the example of his 10-year-old grandson whose hero is National Basketball Association (NBA) star Kobe Bryant. ‘I asked him why he likes an American more than Yao Ming, and he said, ‘Kobe has more style and does magical dunks.’ Americans really know how to impress.’

High school student Jordan Zhang, 14, echoed this: ‘American culture, sports and pop music are cooler than China’s.’ That was why he chose to have an American college student, rather than a British researcher, teach him English. Both are volunteers at a non-profit Beijing tuition centre.

‘We found most kids would rather have a Texan accent than speak the Queen’s English,’ said the centre’s manager, who declined to be named. ‘They watch too many American shows.’

Indeed, NBA games and Hollywood movies are the most-watched foreign content on CCTV as well as top video websites like Youku.com.

Even Vice-Premier Xi Jinping, tipped to be Mr. Hu’s successor, is said to be a fan of Hollywood’s World War II movies such as Steven Spielberg’s war epic, Saving Private Ryan.

For some, like Ms Qin Ping, a 36-year-old clothes shop owner, the values that come across, such as their quest for greater freedom and their greater participation in matters that affect their lives, are appealing.

Despite its recent setbacks, America was still ranked the ‘best-liked country’ in the world in a Global Times poll of 1,350 Chinese a year ago, beating France, Australia and Singapore, which was ranked fourth.

What is becoming clear to the Chinese is that one way to view the US is to see it as an ever-changing kaleidoscope, where you are as likely to find Nobel Prize winners as Wall Street crooks, Lady Gaga as well as hamburger-stuffed overweight children.

Said accountant Maggie Sun, 28: ‘As Chinese people interact more with America, we are finding out that the US is too big and complex to be put into a box like what we used to do. I think Americans are learning the same about China.’