Tony was telling me the other day some thoughts he and his classmates at Peking University have been having about China’s role outside of China. He’s been kind enough to write them up as a guest post for Six.
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Right after the National Holidays, I launched and chaired one of the weekly student seminars in Beida, entitled “Becoming a responsible stakeholder? – a Chinese perspectiveâ€. Four years ago, when Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick first developed such a concept as a response to China’s “peaceful riseâ€, the Chinese were confused. Simply put, there is no exact translation of the word “stakeholder†in our language and the term is not widely used among the Chinese youth. Though my peers may be unfamiliar with this concept, the past four years has made almost all of us realise China’s rising global impact, ranging from UN peacekeeping to nuclear proliferation, and from expanding global markets to managing the economic crisis.
But the question is always there. A recent article in the Economist raised the issue again by explicitly pointing out that “China’s own world view has failed to keep pace with its growing weight. It is a big power with a medium-power mindset, and a small-power chip on its shoulder.†To many Chinese who care passionately about our national image, such a comment is unacceptable. “The Western list that outlines the requirements in becoming a responsible stakeholder has gone too farâ€, one friend said to me before the discussion.
Then how to define China’s responsibility? What are the limits of it? After several years of silence from the Chinese side, it is time to hear some responses from Beida students. From time to time, the university has played a key role in the country’s ideological shifts; and to date, an unsure China is witnessing changes in all walks of life.
If Beida students are not so familiar with Robert Zoellick or the English term “stakeholderâ€, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a general expectation for China’s future. During the seminar, a large number of students expressed that China needs to step out and take more global responsibilities. Western countries want China to not only accept and benefit the contemporary world system but also to sustain and nurture it. “Of course such an idea was made according to their own interests, but the identity as a responsible stakeholder is also good for our national development,†commented by a junior student from the School of International Studies. It seems undeniable that the past thirty years has helped China become a contributor to, rather than a spoiler of, the international system built mainly by Western countries. And the reasons which led to that change were decided by many students as simply being “our rational choice based on national interestsâ€. Such interests include alleviating counterbalances against China’s rise and creating a proper regional and international environment for domestic development. This is almost the same as what Mr. Zoellick said in his article in 2005.
Some students further pointed out that China can hardly become a stakeholder if it keeps on pursuing narrow interests in a self-centered way. When students heard that some Party officials defined China’s major foreign policy concerns as “Three NOs†(no arms sale to Taiwan, no meetings with the Dalai Lama and no meetings with Rebia Kadeer), they claimed that the country’s mindset is still not broad enough and it fails to pay enough attention to issues such as global climate change, energy security and anti-terrorism. Some of them also brought up China’s sensitivity towards sovereignty and Chinese citizens’ general distrust of the international system.
However, this is not to say that Beida students are allured by the US and conform to the American definition of a responsible stakeholder. When I moved on and raised the question “should China keep a tacit attitude and accept the American definitionâ€, the answers were diversified. A few participants held the view that by accepting it, China will have to meet the Western criteria and thus be restricted by those countries. “While China needs to develop a broader mindset to become more responsible in global environmental protection and regional security, we have our own pursuits derived from China’s global identity and cultural tradition. The US requires China to impose sanctions on DPRK, Iran and Sudan. It runs against our ways of behavior, our principle of non-intervention, and even the Chinese character,†claimed one student. When I asked him whether non-intervention has become an obstacle for China’s growing global influence, he said it is a principle written in the UN Charter and a diplomatic tradition of PRC. “We should not abandon it, but there could be many flexible approaches and adjustments.â€
To my surprise, the issue of Darfur and Iran were seldom mentioned on the floor. They seemed “too far away†from the students as well as normal Chinese citizens. But it was domestic political reform and promoting democracy that raised heated discussion in the end. Mr. Zoellick once made the link between China’s political reform and the stability of the international system directly to Congress. He said that if China cannot deal with its problems democratically, its domestic issues will affect the sustainability of the entire international system. The Beida discussion was less system-oriented than focusing on the future of China. Whereas our participants were not human rights or political activists, they were well aware that these issues are in both individual and national interests. One of the speakers mentioned that “China should be more transparent in human rights issues. The country is now undergoing vast changes, a situation similar to the German Empire in late 1800s, when nationalism and a civil society were on the rise, imposing stronger influence on the government. However, we must bear in mind the history of great powers. Those that had achieved economic development but failed to alleviate domestic tensions were doomed to vanish. A more democratic China will be a healthier China and that is in our own interests.â€
After all these discussions, how to describe the way Chinese looks at the word “responsibleâ€? I remember in 2007, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace had a debate. At that time, the Americans said China will define responsible stakeholder in terms of promoting multilateralism, taking an internationally democratic approach and following international consensus. In contrast, the Beida students’ points of view may be summarised as follows: in becoming a global stakeholder, China should have a broader pursuit of its national interests; it should be more closely knitted with the international community; meanwhile, a more responsible China means to preserve Chinese traditions and the national character. If I may add one more thing at the end, I was assured again by the discussion that China wants to shape the world by changing itself. Slowly but steadily, the young generation of Chinese are now motivating the country to change and answering the question “whither China?â€.
Giving the ‘V for victory’/secretly-dissing-this-person sign (as far as I know, those are the two options for what it means in Britain, not sure elsewhere) is Zhu Hong. She’s a bubbly personality, majoring in hydraulic engineering at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University. ‘Mickey’/having-the-mickey-taken-out-of-her (oh public school, I miss you so) is the more bashful Shu Longmei, taking civic engineering. Does every Tsinghua student study engineering, you wonder? Pretty much, it’s China’s equivalent of MIT. And how many of them are girls? Not too many.
These two, and others I’ve spoken to, guesstimate a 3:1 m-f ratio here at Tsinghua, and know of one class of forty with just one girl. To them, this is all perfectly natural: Hong tells me technical subjects like engineering are “xinku” (“tough” or “hard work”) and attract the guys – I think that’s more pride at her own merits than sign of a gender-biased society. Hong (or ‘Tracy’) is a loud and bold Southerner, unruffled as the ‘minority’ gender on campus and brimming with infectious self-confidence.Has she picked up a boyfriend in this 3:1 world? “Bu yong!” “Don’t need one!”
It seems that the campus buzz-cuts are scared off by long-locked classmates who know more about suspension bridges and treble-pulleyed-pressure-gears (if such a thing exists) than Tang dynasty poetry like the pretty girls at neighbouring Beida study. In other words, the image is that Tsinghua’s girls aren’t exactly Zhang Ziyis. Another ‘engineering girl’ I chatted with tells me a long-standing student inside-joke: “There are three types of people: guys, girls and Tsinghua girls.” Sometimes, they add a fourth: “guys who are the boyfriends of Tsinghua girls”.
This is all tongue-in-cheek of course, and there’s a campus tradition to match it. Tsinghua students celebrate ‘Girl’s day’ every March 7th (the day before Mother’s Day “International Women’s Day, incidentally also the day of the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia” – thanks Chris!; ‘Guy’s day’ is October 2nd, the day after National Day). In the run-up to Girl’s day there’s a secret-Santa-esque ballot by which each girl is alloted a secret admirer who on the day showers her with little gifts and attentions. The girl who told me this exploited a loophole and had three such admirers last year. Not a bad life…
With plenty of Tibet in the middle, and even me tripping over on ice-skates. Yes, that’s right: your humble author has committed the equivalent of blogging masturbation and uploaded a compilation of clips from traveling in China to YouTube. My only excuse for this shameless self-indulgence is that I am home sick and have nothing better to do. And my sole defense is that I had a clip of my cat playing the keyboard but in a temporary moment of sanity decided not to include it:
In other news – and in a vain attempt to redeem this post – I am hearing and seeing some anectodal evidence that swine flu is hitting Beida and Tsinghua. Of course, it could just as well be a spate of bad colds with the winter arriving: the symptoms are indistinguishable, with the exception of the feverish desire to upload travel clips to YouTube that characterises H1N1 (oh no!). But a lot of students are calling in sick, and one Beijing hospital has had 6,000 calls in the last two days.
Down the street from the crumbling Mao-era tower block in which I live, there is an up-class, yellow-painted, high-gated primary school, fancily called ‘Benzhen Bilingual Montessory School of the Arts’. In the mornings – if I didn’t oversleep – I often pause to watch the young kids there rehearsing various kinds of dances, and wish I went to that school instead.
In between my tower block and the one opposite it (the structural integrity of which I have more confidence in), there is an open space for the community, which on weekends is monopolised by the new craze of two-wheel skateboards. Middle-aged ladies often dance there, either to the silent rhythm of tai chi or to the crackling sounds of an old boom box.
What kind of dancing do these generations, from two very different Chinas, indulge in? Here’s a video I took last time I passed by:
Postscript – I’ve just noticed that this is the 100th post on Six. I am now going to treat the above video as a happy birthday dance just for me …
Did you know that Chairman Mao drank a refreshing draft of Coke before stepping up to declare the birth of a nation on October 1st 1949? (A shameless advert taken in a Macdonald’s in Beijing, as is obvious from the reflection.) ä¸å›½äººæ°‘从æ¤å–èµ·æ¥äº†?
On this blog, one of the jobs I give myself without anyone asking (mental note: must stop doing that) is to keep an eye on news related to Tsinghua and Peking University, my campuses this and last year respectively. Well, skimming through the Beijing Times (京åŽæŠ¥çº¸) on National Day I came across this article, which is so strikingly newsworthy that I simply had to translate it and share the knowledge. Nitpicking is welcome, but go easy as this is my first translation.
As an aside before we begin, I have not come across this particular cat at Beida. But every lunch hour last year, as I walked from my classroom to the noodle canteen, I would pass a dozen excessively plump felines lounging on the grass, surrounded by food which passing students had thrown them. Occasionally one of the cats would deem it worthy of the effort to reach out a swollen paw and grab some of this food. Mostly, however, they just sunbathed, melting in their own comfort.
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Beida’s “Academic Cat” attends the school’s classes
On the campus of Peking University, there is a cat who for five years has taken class together with students, winning the deep affection of teachers and students. Now this cat is a hot topic online, and has become famous as the “academic cat”.
Yesterday afternoon, your reporter came across this cat at a teaching building in the East quarter of Beida. With the exception of a small stump in place of its tail, it is by no means different to an ordinary tabby cat. It unhurriedly ambled into the building, then with pattering steps passed proficiently through the winding hallways. On the way, it received the treatment of an honoured guest, its fans looking on every now and then. Passing by the toilet, it even exhibited all the fine training of a “cultured cat”. It leapt up to the hand-washing basin, using its front paws to open the water faucet, bobbing its body down to begin drinking, and when finished it skillfully shut the water faucet and spun around to go out. However, possibly because the onlooking students were too many, in the end it didn’t enter a classroom to sit in on class, and left.
According to young Liang, the first Beida student to post this online, this stray cat frequently attends class, beginning from 2004, and its popularity is growing. Because its tail is severed, everyone familiarly calls it “short stump”. “Short stump”, when taking class, has refined academic tastes, philosophy and art class are its favourites. For a long time, everyone has become used to the unusual, tacitly recognising it as a member of class, and never chasing it out. One time, when “short stump” had to leave halfway through class, one of the teachers personally opened the door for it, joking “I haven’t been teaching the class well, my apologies!”
After “short stump” became well-known, many people expressed a desire to take her in as a pet. Liang says there are already compassionate people who construct housing for the stray cats on Beida’s campus and feed them regularly. But “short stump” is the only cat who goes it alone, and doesn’t like that lifestyle. Nethertheless, the attentive Liang has noticed the change in “short stump” after it rose to fame: “Because it’s often watched by others, it isn’t as carefree as before, it’s a little short-tempered, so we would be better not to disturb it’s life.”
