Many journalists and analysts in the western media often let their own personal prejudice cloud their professionalism. I’m often surprised and appalled at the amount of misrepresentation that China receives in the west. The restriction on journalistic access to some regions of China is further used as an excuse to print biased reports and unverified facts. But that is certainly no excuse to print lies and misleading statements.
I think that a large part of the western media acts rather irresponsibly when publishing news about China.

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BTW, about that Saibal Dasgupta article which you linked to, I would like to mention that I would not be over-exaggerating when I say that he always over-exaggerates his articles and sometimes prints downright lies.

Examples are many, but I’ll just give two here:

1. In this article –
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/China-persuades-Google-to-stay-back/articleshow/5453590.cms , he says, in regard to the Google books copyright issue, that, “Google is in negotiations with the association but has refused to accept its demand to apologize. “.
But clearly, Google had apologized to Chinese authors long before this article was published – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/technology/companies/12google.html

2. Even the title of this article – ‘China persuades Google to stay back’ is misleading, since, as you know, China has always said that any company operating in China should abide by Chinese law and has not ‘persuaded’ Google to do anything. It is in fact Google which is sending ambiguous signals.

Even in the article which you linked to, the title is equally misleading. The original article in china.org.cn – http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2010-01/28/content_19324522.htm by Dr. Shen Dingli, was entitled ‘Don’t shun the idea of setting up overseas military bases , which was conveniently twisted by Saibal Dasgupta to mean that China is ‘mulling’ about building overseas bases in Pakistan. The original article never mentions Pakistan at all.

The Indian media is even more biased then the Western media in it’s portrayal of China.

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About your remark that it is not in China’s ‘best interests’ to be a good neighbor, I would like to differ.
China has, for one, offered significant concessions in its land border negotiations with its neighboring countries. I’ve discussed this topic in some detail here:
http://indiaschinablog.blogspot.com/2010/03/you-scratch-my-back-but-i-wont-scratch.html

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As far as this being the Chinese century is concerned, I think that the US uses China and a China scare merely as a scapegoat or a sort of bogeyman to a)divert attention from domestic problems and b)to hide its own mistakes.

To me US intentions are as clear as daylight – if an international ‘crisis’ is solved, take credit and pat yourself on the back (And if possible use it as an excuse to become even more complacent). If its not, blame China.

When the US cannot fulfill its responsibilities as a superpower, it often hides behind China in order to escape from committing to anything itself – like in Copenhagen.

This might set up a dangerous precedent of using the China scare to one’s advantage, like the terrorist scare was used during Bush’s second election campaign.

China represents no threat to the world (yet). It has never sought any leadership position and has never meddled in other countries’ internal affairs, in accordance with Deng Xiaoping’s 24 character strategy.

———————–
And about Chinese R&D, China is clearly leading the world in R&D growth, i.e. if you consider the rate of increase in R&D. In absolute terms however, it has a lot of catching up to do.

China already publishes the second largest no.of original research papers (despite the reports of plagiarism) in the world and also files the second largest no.of patents.

If there is any country that can challenge US monopoly in Science and Technology, it is China.

– Maitreya Bhakal
India’s China Blog – http://indiaschinablog.blogspot.com

I’m currently teaching a course in Global Sourcing to a group of mostly French graduate students here in Shanghai. This blog is on the top of their reading list.

Keep up the good work!

First, I’m not an economist, so I’ll tell you what I (think I) know–and then someone will probably correct me.

GDP includes the profit that is made by the manufacturers that produce for Apple in China, yes. But it does not include the profit made by apple on the sale of those goods (unless they are retailed in China).

China also receives about $90-$100 billion a year in FDI. What % of their total capital investment that is, I don’t know. But China is one of the major recipients of FDI in the world (I’ve seen them as 2-3 on different lists).

I’m sure that if you take out SOE’s (Government investment) and “forced” loans to SOE’s by banks the numbers of capital investment would be very different from what you can find being officially reported.

This article seemed related to your latest blog post on media coverage of China.  I think you made the point(s) better than they do, but at least they’re on the same side.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022602601_pf.html

Great post, by the way.

Bernie

what scares me most in all we can read in the western press on China is the sincerity of most of those articles… let me clarify this: it’s ok (in french we say “de bonne guerre”) to claim China is no developing country anymore, that they dream of overtaking the US, that they are responsible for our problems and have the ability to make our wildest nightmares come true, that we invest more in multilateralism because we are virtuous etc etc as long as you don’t believe in your own lies. As long as it’s just normal tactical play. But i get the feeling most people actually do believe all of that. I also find most comments following articles on China to be incredibly violents.

I don’t think we need even more emotions in our relationship with China. Actually, I feel we need to combine less preaching, deeper understanding and respect and at the same time more toughness (a dry, technical kind of toughness)