Di's Quiet Moments

China's Danger

2011-08-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

After exactly seven days, which is the time when in Chinese tradition families usually get together and pray for the recent death, you cannot find any articles about the train crash on the front page or even anywhere of Chinese print publications or online media. Rumors say the Publicity Department is urging them to pull off all reports about the accident because it is destabilize the society. People on Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter, are starting to cool down.Just two days ago, Weibo was full of mircoblogs about the accident. People retweets and comments about it. But now, only few of such exist. It is partly because life has to move on, partly because the large possibility that the government is taking some actions.

Angry is the key word. Online public are angry to the accident itself, to the way the government handled the rescue, to the attempt that the government wanted to cover the truth, and to the process of investigation. The Prime Minister Wen Jiabao held a press conference just two days ago, which is six days after the accident. Before that, no one from the central government has come out to take responsibility and say something to the angry and puzzled public. Even him, Mr. Wen has not explained everything. When reporters asked him questions like who placed the order to open the rail traffic without figuring out the cause of the problem, he did not answer it but just say that he and the President Hu Jintao placed saving lives at the first place. No one was satisfied with the press conference, but that's the best Chinese public can get.

Today, I accidently read an article from Foreign Policy about the collapse of the Soviet Union, Everything You Think You Know About the Collapse of the Soviet Union Is Wrong. The author Leon Aron anayzed many possible explanations about why the Soviet Union ended dramatically at that time. Bad economy? No. Outside pressure? No. It was because of the country is spiritual intolerable. Corruption, lack of self-empowerment, and long repressed people are the key forces that brought the Soviet Union down.

Since 1991, the international world has been pointing its target to China. If the big brother Soviet Union has left the Communist group, then China must be the next one. Even today, many scholars still believe that China's communist system will collapse, or it has been changing as China has adapted itself to a capitalistic market system, although China call it "socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics". The Party has been very cautious not to go down the same path as the Soviet Union by censoring the media and focusing on economy as many believe that porous economy was one of the main reasons that Soviet Union ended its history.

Chinese has been satisfied with the government and the country for the past two decades. The country's GDP growth is somewhere between 8% and10% almost every year since mid-1990s. As long as the economy is growing and people are satisfied with their income, there is no point to overthrow the government.

However, things are starting to change recently. One of the most striking issues is government corruption. This is not new for any country in the world. When there is power, there is corruption. The difference is that whether the political system is designed to eliminate the corruption. In China, there is no such system to effectively decrease corruption. Although there are certainly laws, rules, government departments to encounter corruption, the reality is that nothing is stopping corruption and the situation got worse to the extent that the conflict between the public and government cannot be reconciliated.

Thanks to the Internet and the power of online social networking sites, stories of conflicts between government officials and public has been leaking and spreading out. We see many of such stories coming out everyday. The government censors traditional media, but the trend of online networking seems unstoppable. However, nothing is more than commenting and retweeting. So far there has been no action taken place.

I see the same feelings among Chinese bloggers and the people from the Soviet Union. There are lacks of morality in both societies. One example Aron mentioned in his article is that a fruit seller upraised not because he was jobless, but because he was beaten by the authority after he went to talk to them about his problems. We see many similar stories in China. People have no where to go when they are in trouble. They should have been allowed seek help from the local government, but some people got threatened and even beated to death . That is why a whole family of six in Hunan province decided to suicide because their real estate license had been in detention for 15 years and they tried everything to get it back but in vain. So finally they went suicide just to get attention of the authority.

We have seen many similar stories happening every day in China. In the past, when people cannot get help from the local government, they usually go and visit the higher level. Now they do not need to travel all the way to the province capital or Beijing, not that it is effective to solve any problem; they go online to post their stories and cry for help. It is more influential to gain supports from online. And it has been proven that the public opinion online can make things different. Couple of months ago a young man Yao Jiaxin was driving a car and hit a woman. He got off the vehicle and saw the woman was memorizing the license place number. Not wanting to get in trouble, he killed the women by stabbing her several times. This story was widely spread online and people all expressed their anger toward this incident. Finally, Yao Jiaxin was executed with death penalty last month(see article from msnbc). Some lawyers stood out and say if there was no such public attention, he would have no be dead by now. The public attention brought pressure to the court and the authority, as it seems that not killing the young man would not appease the public.

From the big picture, it is actually a good sign for China. Internet, especially SNS, is acting as a platform so the public can discuss issues and take active parts. There was no such channel before because of the unique political system. Now Weibo, a lucrative business is shifting the country. Many celebrities are using it, which brings many fans and their friends. According to its website, there are more than 100 million users on Weibo now. The microblogs about the train crash alone are more than 10 millions, making it the top topic now. Media is censored, but people can talk about the real China on Weibo. Although Weibo is also censored, but the communication speed is so fast that manually deleting posts cannot make much difference.

Many people say China is getting ugly with so many unmoral things going on. It is not that China is now ugly, it has been ugly for decades but only until now people can read about them and talk about them. Truth has been always impended by censored traditional media. There are bad things about every country, and China is standing in front of a mirror and facing the reality. With this change, the Party has to adjust itself to the trend if the ruling party position has to be saved. Otherwise, there will be a moment when people cannot stand the country's corrupted system longer like the Soviet Union. An unstable China will eventually harmful to the world.

Asian Wives

2011-07-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

After that striking news on how Wendi Deng saved Rupert Muroch during a hearing, my Chinese twitter was full of retweets and comments. While most Chinese are shocked by her excellent volley ball skills of slapping that protestor, Americans say words like:

Now everyone wants an Asian wife. Not only do they produce top notch students (Amy Chua) and ensure the household runs smoothly, they also take care of the family business and are effective bodyguards.

No matter whether most American males agree, the truth is that having an Asian wife brings you a lot. Sometimes Asian wife is a symbol of status. I personally know many rich people in the United States have Asian wife, and that percentage is somewhat higher than you thought. That would probably contribute to the opera, Madama Butterfly. The tiny, virtuous, mysterious Asian women become a fortress that males from other cultures like to conquer. A friend once told me that having an Asian wife by the side looks good if you are in a banquet. Not only that, since many Asian countries are rising, especially China, having an Asian wife would help a businessman in different ways.Yeah, there must be love involved, believe it or not.

US is a diverse country. You can't blame those Asian women by marrying rich white Americans. There must be probabilities that couple from two different races marry each other. The interesting part is that how they got there in the first place and how people from their home country see them.

I'm a Chinese, so I will take Chinese wives as an example.You may still remember Amy Chua, the tiger mom. Her book was a bomb that aroused a large discussion on how to raise kids. As a native Chinese, I was very surprised by how big the discussion turned into. Although many Chinese parents still adopt that old education style under the table, no one encourages it openly. The trend of parenting in China is leaning toward While some people see a sign of culture emerging, I sense a confidence lost. People around the world admire American style of education, but Americans are seeking otherwise.Chinese do not care what she says as the Americans do. They consider it as a new way of mocking Chinese culture, or adversely regard the phenomenon as a triumph, as one example of the many that some Chinese media use to fill the gap within nationalism.To Americans, Amy Chua's view of education subverts their conception, especially she is a highly-educated scholar at Yale.It means that Chinese strict parenting is beginning to gain ground.

I once met an American friend on a work occasion where most people come with their spouse. His wife is Chinese, so we talked a little bit about her and I asked why she did not come.He told me their son was going to a summer camp soon so she was busy taking care of that. Then he added, you know how Chinese moms, they care too much about their kids. He was not complaining but saying it with a proud face.I realize that Chinese moms has a branding of caring family and kids, if not too much. And then the husband is enjoying what the wives do.

During my stay in the US, I met several Chinese wives like Ms.Deng. They are either born and raised in the states or come to the US when they were young. Of course, no one has a more legendary life as her. But they all share a common character that is they all tried to debrand themselves so as to integrate into the society, no matter intentionally or unconsciously. A friend of mine once told me that she struggled to tear off the tag of being a Chinese American. She tried to stay away from the Chinese American social circle and defend every time when someone brings up her Asian look. But she couldn't change much. All we see is that most Chinese Americans make friends with other Asian Americans, just like Chinese oversea students often only hang out with other Chinese students.It is hard, but it doesn't mean it is impossible. In order to break the glass ceiling, one has to be very ambitious and boldness, which is exactly opposite to the Chinese culture.

This is a process of detachment with side effects. Anyone who have read Ms. Deng's experience would know what I am writing about. The Chinese women I know that dating an American or married to one are somewhat alienated from their old social circle. It is not that they are willing to lose those friends but the fact that they are becoming so Americanized is making them discard their old habits. I personally know some Chinese who stayed in the US for a long time despise the recently arrived ones because they see “improper” manners of the latter. Interestingly, they were used to such habits before they leave their home country. There are two reasons behind it. First, if you want to climb up the ladder, you have to meet more "white" Americans. Everyone knows that not many Chinese or American Chinese have their place in the elite group, the so called upper class. Second, being in a social group full of Americans pushes you to adapt your living style. One old Chinese lady visiting her granddaughter once compaint to me that her granddaughter let the air-conditioning on for all night and she cannot stand it because she felt cold and noisy. But her granddaughter who just came to the US two years ago says her American-born boyfriend can't sleep without the AC on. Obviously she chose to stand by her boyfriend.

It is reasonable to choose an easier life style, especially when you moved to another country, the first thing that everyone do is follow everyone else. It becomes more difficult to insist old habits when the whole environment has changed. For example, almost every Chinese student who study in Los Angeles has a car, because the city is very spread out and it takes forever to travel by public transportation. If you know China well, you would know that not many families have a car, although this situation is starting to change. Those families do not own a car not because of the cost, but because there is no need to have a car if the public transportation is fast and convenient. It is all about the society you are living in.

From the views of those who reluctant to be actively Americanized, fighting to climb up is despicable in some ways. No mater if it is because of envy or conservatism, the result is that the two kinds of people do not coexist in the same social circle any more. Sometimes my friend and I talked about Ms. Deng because she is an icon to Chinese women who want to be successful in the states. I can feel subtle sense of sexual discrimination from the discussion. Men are allowed to do whatever they can to reach their goal, but women who sleep their way up should be ashamed. This is actually common in every culture.

But, there is always a time to go home. I know a very successful Chinese American wife who once worked in the government. After she stepped down from her previous position, she turned her wheel toward China, her home country. She's very smart to think that she is a Chinese American and she looks Chinese and she can speak Chinese. Why not take advantage of that and do business with this fast growing economy with such large market? Another Chinese lady I know who married to an American politician has a close relationship with the Chinese embassy and consulate. She plays a positive role in the communications between the two countries. Also, Ms. Deng recently produced the movie Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a story about Chinese women. And her titles are always related to Asia.

Amire should be paid to those Asian wives because it is not easy to collect back the identity you once discarded. It is not bandwagoning. It is just smart. But be careful! Not everyone has the capability to handle those wives as Rupert Murdoch.

Obama at USC

2010-10-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Obama was on USC campus giving a public speech. I wouldn't miss a chance like this to see the President, so I went. Obviously Obama was there to support the Democratic Party at the Mid-term election. I guess this is part of the good thing of having a system of direct voting. The political leaders have to deeply engaged with the public. So this can be a benefit for the ordinary people, if you do interested in him/politics.

People waiting in line

I arrived on campus around 8 am, and there were a relatively long line waiting. Some people even started standing at 6 am. People were well-behaved and quiet. There were some people cutting the line, which is quite surprising to me because in China we all talk about how people in Western countries, including America, behave well and never do things like cutting lines or leave garbage everywhere. But you know what the truth is. Anyway, we were lucky because at a time people in the front started to leave the line and rush to another place. We didn't know what happened and we thought we should do the same. At the point we were about to leave the line, someone from the volunteer group told us that we shouldn't leave the line. So everyone calmed down. Then I realized that I was standing among the 6 am people, which means that we suddenly made a "cut" to the front of the line.

Handsome first aid team

I stood in the line for about three hours before we were allowed to go through the security check.People were still flowing in to the rally. You would be amazed by how long the line still was. Similar to all public events, food, drinks, large bags are prohibited, even umbrellas were not allowed although it was raining earlier that day. The process was quick. Then we run into the destined field. I got a prefect spot by the fence at the non-VIP section. It's no where close to the podium but we had a pretty clear view. That was around 11 am.

The program didn't start until 12:15 pm. All we did was standing there and talking. At the meantime, some secret service officer showed up at the roof of the Doheny Library。 The podium is right at the front stairs. At around 12 pm,Obama's chopper arrived at the Expo park, south of USC campus. He was arriving in motorcade.

the program field

LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa opened the rally at 12:25 pm. He is an excellent warm up person. Suddenly the rally became a rock star concert. People were screaming, yelling, being super excited. Then Jerry Brown,Barbara Boxer,Kal Penn and USC student leader gave speeches. It was all about the election and cheer up the depressed mood toward Democrats.

Finally, Obama came out at around 1:45 pm. The entire rally suddenly heated up. I actually was too tired to shout out, but I try too keep my passion and tiptoed to see his face. Although the programs are democratic, I feel that many people see Barack Obama has little to do with partisanship. For many Americans and foreigners like me this is a perfect opportunity to get closer to the president.For me, although I study politics, I'm still not used to the negative ads and how they attack their opponents. However, this rally is not about election to me; it's about seeing a celebrity.

secret service on the roof

I did listen to his speech though that's not my aim. Obama's speech is nothing new. He basically tried stabilize people. After he was elected, the U.S. economy is slowly recovering, but people think the pace is too slow. According to a survey done by Daily Trojan, students have less confidence in the government than the previous year. Many people expressed doubts about Obama's executive ability. So Obama's speech concentrated on the basics, which is to appease the public and canvass for the Democratic Party. His basic point is that it is going to take time for the economy to be back on track. It is also going to be tough. He later asked people to continue supporting the Democratic Party.

From 2008 to the present mid-term election campaign, I found Obama's arguments have not changed much. Basically he has two points: first is attacking the policy of the Republican Party, second is to call change within the United States. The transformation takes a long time, and need to adherence.

After the speech ended, Obama shook hands with the audience in the front and on stage. At that time my legs were almost unconscious, and were not even able to bent. Even so, it is still worthy. There aren't many opportunities to see the president. It id even more difficult to see Chinese President. It is also good to feel the enthusiasm of the people around me at the rally. I think the benefits of direct elections is that ordinary people have opportunities to directly contact with candidates. But on the other hand, I see the cost of democracy, which I will discuss in the future.

Working at PCIP Members Weekend

2010-10-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I had a chance to participate in Pacific Council's Members weekend as a membership and programs intern. For those of you who are not familiar with Pacific Council on International Policy, it is a non-profit membership based organization focused on policy issues of special resonance on and to the West Coast. Here's our website, where you can find all our members, events, news, and special trips.

Savilla (my supervisor), Alex (also an intern), and me

I started working as an intern three months ago. I have been working on many tasks, such as programs research-topics, speakers, tour sights,and etc, membership database management, recording transcription of programs and conferences, and some other office logistics. Through these duties I learned a lot about how the organization works, what is their true values and mission, how different departments work together. This is very important to get involved with a company, especially as an intern, because sometimes interns don't get opportunities to ask why. But by listening to the recordings and researches, I got the chance to know better who I'm working for and with.

Although I had a pretty good idea of PCIP, I wouldn't say it until I meet the very important component of our organization, members! The Members Weekend is a fantastic opportunity to get to know most of our members, who came to join us for lectures and receptions. The good thing of being a staff is that I had the opportunity to greet members as soon as they arrive and also by serving at the registration table. This sounds simple, but not to me as an Chinese native who has been in the U.S. for only 2 years. Not only I have to deal with language issues, I also need to be active and confident most of the time. This time it is not just about me, it's about the organization as a whole. Let me put this way, social at MW is not just about personal connection, it's just what a staff should do to make the event more comfortable to members.

On the other hand, I have to say that I did get some leverages of being a staff when communicating with the guests. I'm not a random person who wants to talk to them. I work at this organization and I can just say: hey, I'm new as a staff, just wanting to know members here. I think this is a perfect networking practice for me. Not only because there were so many high level people, but also because I have to talk to them. This is one of my duties.

The result is quite decent. I approached to the people I wanted to talk to. Most of them are experts on China since my area of focus is in East Asia security issues. Mr. Harry Harding was on one of our plenary sessions, so I got the chance to chat with him. When I told him I'm from Shanghai, he started to discuss with me about the Shanghai Expo. He told me that he wrote a blog piece saying why Shanghai Expo is a yesterday's fair. His opinions are always on the edge and challenging to tradition. I also talked to my professor Philip Seib. He's the head of USC Center on Public Diplomacy. We talked about our project on Expo and other things.

Besides working, our communication director was kind enough to let staff to attend some sessions. So besides communicating with members, I learned a lot from hearing speakers talking about the current hot issues, which I will discuss in my next blog. It is a little different from the lectures I normally see at school. It's more of a peer communication rather than teacher-student thing.

All in all, I think I'm lucky to attend the MW as a staff. Although I was exhausted at the end, I still think it's worthwhile for helping me building my career and in terms of knowledge gain.

New Project on GlobalRencai

2010-09-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

Besides my project for Shanghai Expo, I also participated in a project called GlobalRenCai. It is sponsored by former deputy mayor Joy Chen. Her idea is to create an online community for PRC students who study in the United States to find their right career in the States. Right now, she has a career blog, on which she writes all sorts of issues related to career.

Joy is a Chinese American, so she has this strong feeling of helping PRC students struggling for career in the U.S. She also has expertise in this area because she was in charge of human resources when she was working in the government. Now she uses her knowledge and social connections to help the students.

I remember meeting her the first time at her house at the Venice beach. She and her husband talked with me about how I think of this project and what are the possible directions that it may go into. At that time, all she has was the blog and her exposure on some Chinese fashion magazines. No concrete plans for how to approach the PRC students, and no idea about the content.

GlobalRenCai Logo

But now, we have a team of nine people working on GlobalRenCai and we have already pulled off two focus groups and a comprehensive survey aiming for understanding the needs of the students. Click the link and fill the survey if you're a PRC student studying abroad. We set up a Renren page (Renren is similar to Facebook but in Chinese), partnered with other popular pages. Right now Joy’s page has more than 2000 followers and the number is still growing. We decided to hold events like social networking occasions, job information session, and career tips workshops, starting from University of Southern California.

Every person in the team has a special duty. My duty is to translate all her English blog posts to Chinese because she cannot read and write Chinese. I also manage her website by updating links, fix html problems, and do the tagging. I’m also the designer of the survey that is currently collecting responses from PRC students. We use Qualtrics and I must say, the survey is very sophisticated and well designed. We will use the result of this survey to determine the content of the blog and to better help the students on their career needs.

Wait and see what we will get is fascinating. I wish this project can really help PRC students to build a better career in the future and I’m enthusiasm about this.

Mass Entertainment vs. Elite Culture

2010-07-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this topic for a very long time, maybe since 2005 when the Super Girl singing contest was extremely popular in China. It's the Chinese version of American idol, by the way. I wasn't able to figure out the situation in China back then because that was the only time when China face such huge nationwide entertainment shift. Well, it's hard to say it was a shift, we should probably call it a shock. You could see everyone was talking about it and everyone feels emotional about it. Then, all of a sudden, many other TV channels started to copy this program model and there came a severe competition among the Chinese local TV stations.

Chinese version of "Take Me OUT" - Fei Cheng Wu Rao

Another TV show which is a Chinese version of "take me out" is taking on the trend now. 24 women stand on the stage and choose their perfect boyfriend. There has been some matching shows on Chinese television, but not like this one. It is branded with "new style" and has a very fast-pacing tempo. More interestingly, these women's comments on men are quite explicit, which is rare in Chinese TV shows.For those who know about Chinese, we don't really say bad things in the face of others, especially on TV. It turns out that people like to watch that and they enjoyed the highest viewing rate in China.

Both popular shows have faced regulation from the administration, which no doubt affected the viewer rate.We say Chinese media is censored or controlled by the government, which is not quite true in respect of their fund sources. In deed, back in the 1980s, Chinese media has already shifted from government fed to market driven. The government no longer provides direct funding to these media. They have to look for their profits from advertising and eventually from the audiences. But at the same time, Chinese media are still under political control of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. Whenever there is "inappropriate" shows or contents, the SARFT releases a document or notice to criticize and stop the trend.

SARFT released an announcement for better management on these talent election shows and for matching shows later. By better management they mean more strict qualification processes and more rules on when to air the show and how long it should be, and things like that. I looked into the announcement and found out that the reason was quite simple: these shows contain some unhealthy elements that would hurt viewer's interests. I read it as a some kind of protection over the public.They think it is better just to ban these so called unhealthy appearing on TV. And for what?

Well, you can say that is for political purposes and many analysts have said that.The biggest lesson that the Chinese government has learned was that never let go of the mass media. They should have total control over these outlets and strangle the evil in the cradle. Or you can say from the good side, the government is trying to take care of the people, especially children.

Two years ago when I first came to the U.S. I had a TV without a cable attached. Before they stooped the signal I can still watch free satellite programs. I didn't know much about American shows, so I watched everything from Jerry Springer to Oprah. No one was telling me what to watch and I don't even have an American friend who can tell me which one is a good show. So sometimes I stay at home in the morning watching people fighting on the stage. Then I realize something.That is not healthy for me. I realized that myself because I think watching people fighting is neither entertaining nor meaningful. You probably have known this long time ago. But it took me a couple of week to realize that and I stopped watching it for good. But the show still continues and I believe some people just love it otherwise the show won't be on air.

Then it all came down to the same old word: freedom. But I don't want to talk about it in the political realm but entertainment. In China, television is not only the media for entertainment. In a lot of times, it is a means of education and propaganda since it is closely linked to the higher administration. What about the needs of the audiences? And at most of the times, public taste and the so called elite aesthetic standards are in contradict.These local TV stations have been trying to break the barriers over and over again because of the severe competition in broadcasting media. These TV channels are taking the risk of breaking the rules or exploiting the loophole in the regulation because of the economic consideration, which also reflects the public opinion.

Let's not just simply conclude it with having human rights or freedom in China. From the stand point of Chinese government, I think this is the time for them to reevaluate their strategy on entertainment regulation, especially when the needs of business and government are conflicting. In addition, this is the era of internet.Young Chinese are becoming the opinion leader in China. How to deal with them is probably the priority now.

Introducing My New Research Project on Shanghai Expo

2010-06-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

Recently I was involved in a research project named Nation Branding at Expo 2010 Shanghai. It's a very edge cutting yet entertaining project mainly about how do countries portrait themselves using nation branding efforts to the Chinese audiences during the Expo.

My two colleagues Chen and Cesar are in Shanghai videotaping the interviews, while I stay in LA maintaining the website and be supportive. Basically my job is to make sure the videos are shown on the CPD website and sometimes communicate with the LA team and Shanghai team.

This project is going to be 12 weeks long. Each week we will feature one country, which means that there will be 12 countries in total. We plan to make 2-3 videos for a certain country every week. The videos will contain segments on certain topics. For example, there is a video on South Africa's co-branding with World Cup.The project is launched in early July and so far three countries have their videos on.

The latest videos are on U.S., focusing on student ambassadors. We interviewed some student ambassadors working at the U.S. pavilion, either introducing their daily job or sharing their thoughts and opinions. Take a look at the side bar

If you are in China, which is not likely because of the firewall, you can also watch our videos on Tudou.com. Just follow the link above and you'll find all the info.

PD Lessons from a Chinese New Year Gala

2010-02-23T21:21:00.000-08:00

Last weekend marked the Chinese Lunar New Year as we begin celebrating the Year of the Tiger. Chinese people have a tradition of watching the China Central Television (CCTV) New Year Gala on television on New Year’s Eve. Some compare the New Year Gala to the Super Bowl game in terms of how much each event attracts peoples’ attention. It is true that almost every family has their New Year’s dinner with the TV Gala on, and it has become a must-do activity of that night. The Gala can also be viewed as a microcosm of Chinese society — provided you watch it closely enough, given that it serves as another channel for the government to deliver messages. Internal propaganda? Definitely. But I see it as a way of paving the road for public diplomacy.

Screenshot of the New Year Gala

CCTV is one of the official mouthpieces of the Chinese government, reporting directly to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Needless to say, most of CCTV’s programs, if not all, are politically deliberated. The Chinese New Year Gala is a perfect platform for internal propaganda because of its high viewership and influential nature.

This year, at the very beginning of the Gala, Uyghur dancers appeared before other dancers. Such a display is unusual because no such arrangements have ever occurred previously. Next, there was a show in which two Uyghur singers sang a song praising the Party’s policy in Xinjiang. Only Uyghur singers and dancers performed in it, which is also very rare. This was followed by a stock show featuring Chinese minorities dancing altogether which was supposed to symbolize the harmony of the ethnic groups, living with the majority Han community. These programs reminded me of the riots in Xinjiang last July.

While I was not attracted to this particular program, I was able to appreciate it as a Chinese government effort to educate the public. When it comes to public diplomacy, the role public diplomacy can play domestically is often ignored. But when internal propaganda works, the diplomacy efforts gain public support in a variety of ways, and especially with activities involving citizen diplomacy.

Another phenomenon that caught my eye was that the United States was mentioned several times in comic talk shows and sketches when comparisons were made between the U.S. and China. The actors read lines such as: “Chinese should not lose face in front of Americans” and “See the U.S. even comes to us for money,” followed by the sound of applause. Chinese people like to hear such patriotic language which reinforces the “China Rising” era. These sketches demonstrate where China positions itself in the world and how the Chinese see the U.S. in this period of economic downturn.

This year’s Gala theme may reflect the fact that many Chinese welcome nationalistic sentiments right now, especially among the post-80s generation. The targets of this nationalistic sentiment are Japan, India, South Korea and the U.S. Recently, many issues, such as the sale of weapons to Taiwan by the U.S., the Google-China quarrel, and the Dalai Lama’s White House meeting, have complicated the relationship between the U.S. and China. Regardless of the message offered by the Chinese government and the international community’s human rights agenda, the Chinese people themselves may have different viewpoints on such issues. Good public diplomacy is about trying to listen to the voices of the Chinese people and trying to understand what shapes these sentiments.

This blog is originally published on the CPD Blog.