My portfolio career may be collapsing all around me as the Government moves to abolish both Consumer Focus and the Communications Consumer Panel, but yesterday I had a stimulating time in Oxford addressing a group of 24 Chinese state officials from the centrally- administered municipality of Tianjin in the north of the country. The topic of the day,\u00a0 at the start of a three-week visit to Britain, was “Government Communications In The UK”.\u00a0 I took the morning and my son Richard took the afternoon in our first professional collaboration which was very satisfying.<\/p>\n
I was encouraged at how open the Chinese visitors were to learning new methods of doing things and even new ways of thinking and, in a polite way I hope, I was quite challenging across a range of\u00a0 complex issues.<\/p>\n
I challenged the sensitivity to criticism by the Chinese state and the lack of tolerance of dissenting views, even if it is felt that these alternative views are based on wrong information or understanding.\u00a0 I explained the open and transparent systems of communications in liberal democracies and argued that open systems encourage innovation and progress. I put forward the case for policy making to be based on evidence rather than ideology or prejudice – a message equally valid for British politicians.<\/p>\n
I pointed out the artificially low level of the Chinese currency and explained the concern of a country like the United States with its trade deficit with China and its high level of unemployment as the country goes into mid-term Congressional elections.\u00a0 Of course, the Chinese are worried that a revaluation of the Renminbi would put small and medium sized companies out of business and we discussed different options for addressing the problem including a new global trade agreement and stimulation of domestic demand.<\/p>\n
I questioned the heavy use of capital punishment in China and compared it to the similar support for state execution in the United States.\u00a0 I queried the justification for such an approach and whether it really was a deterrent. Interestingly one of those present was a Chinese state prosecutor who explained that the country was moving to restricting capital punishment to a narrower range of crimes but that Chinese culture and popular opinion was very supportive of the death penalty.<\/p>\n
I queried the need for a standing army of some two million Chinese soldiers. I was advised that the country requires such a large army to deal with natural disasters and that there was no real threat to other countries because many of the soldiers are poorly trained and ill-equipped.\u00a0 I wondered whether China’s military resources could sometimes be used in other countries for peace-keeping or aid relief.<\/p>\n
I suggested that China needed to rethink its foreign policy and determine more clearly to what it extent it wished to be part of the international community and to what extent it intended to continue to pursue non-mainstream positions such as support for North Korea and Iran.\u00a0 I argued that China and the US need to understand each other more and that China’s growing economic and military power brings with it the need to play a fuller and more constructive political role in global affairs.<\/p>\n
The main message which I took away from this candid\u00a0 exchange of views is that China needs time and understanding from the West in order to come to terms with its new role and responsibilities in the international community.\u00a0 Europe and the United States took centuries to modernise their economies and evolve their political institutions. China’s economic reforms have only been running for three decades but have already brought about revolutionary change (as well as some problems) and wider social and political reforms will follow but at the pace and in the form to be determined by the Chinese themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My portfolio career may be collapsing all around me as the Government moves to abolish both Consumer Focus and the Communications Consumer Panel, but yesterday I had a stimulating time in Oxford addressing a group of 24 Chinese state officials from the centrally- administered municipality of Tianjin in the north of the country. The topic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts","category-world-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3978"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7232,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3978\/revisions\/7232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}