Imbalance in Mutual Understanding Between Chinese and Americans
Post-speech Q&A at the National Press Club in Washington，D.C. on August 30,2000
HICKMAN （off-mike）： I would like to introduce some of our special guests： Minister Liu Xiaoming,the DCM of the Chinese Embassy,and our former ambassador to the People’s Republic of China,James Sasser. Senator Sasser and Mrs. Mary Sasser,welcome,glad to have you here.
Please give your name and affiliation,and start on the left. We will alternate from the left to the right.
Q： Mr. Zhao,last June I was in China on a tour,among other things,going down the Yangtze River,and we visited the Three Gorges Dam site,which,of course,is a very important project for the development of China. In talking to people,I got to know something about the background. I was surprised that most of the Chinese I spoke to knew about the connection with the United States,and the development of the Three Gorges Project going back all the way to World WarⅡ,including a famous engineer by the name of John Lucien Savage,who developed the Coolie Dam,Boulder Dam and many of the other great dams in the United States. He was also a consultant who made some of the original suggestions for building this dam on the Yangtze River or control the flooding and as a multipurpose dam,which was the role of the TVA.
And I was surprised because most people in the United States don’t know about John Savage,and very few people know about this connection with the U.S. and the TVA to the Three Gorges Dam. It seems to me that in many respects,and on my tour,I realized that the Chinese seem to know more about the United States than Americans know about China.
I was wondering how,since you have an advantage in one sense because you have a very large Chinese speaking population,the Chinese population,in the United States,whereas as you pointed out yourself,Americans in China are a rather small group.
Are there any plans to try to,after this 28-day campaign,create something more permanent，also utilizing Chinese living in the United States to share what they know about China? Have you given this any thought? I think this would be very important because the good work that you have done this month really should continue.
Thank you.
ZHAO （through translator）： Thank you for your question.
You described just now a real imbalance of understanding between China and the United States that is due to a series of reasons. For instance,the Chinese are able to read a lot of American literature in translation,but unfortunately,not many works of Chinese literature are available in English translation. Oftentimes,what Americans know about China has come to them very indirectly. They get to know China through American films or American TV.
Furthermore,the United States has many Americans of Chinese descent living here. These people very naturally become bridges to help facilitate understanding.
When we have misunderstandings about the United States,very often Chinese-Americans will come to us and say,“No,it isn’t that way. You have got it wrong. It’s this way."
China and the United States really are physically very far from each other. It takes over 12 hours to fly from one to the other. Because of this,many Americans don’t have a chance to go to China.
I think your suggestion is a very good one. We need to have a constant,long-lasting unbiased way of introducing China to the United States. It is a matter of helping each other to know each other better.
Many Chinese acquire a lot of what they know about the United States by watching American films. So,they assume that this is what the Americans think about themselves,and therefore it must be true.
When some American movies portray America as a very violent place,Chinese see them,and say,“Oh,well,the United States must be a very violent place."
There was a Chinese who tried to rob a bank in China. He put a stocking over his head and told people："I learned this from an American movie."
But Chinese tend to overestimate the degree of reality in American movies,because our movies try to be closer to reality.
Chinese movies are sometimes overly fixated on getting all the realistic details right. So,somebody may criticize a movie,saying,“No,you’ve got the costumes all wrong. The action takes place in the Qing Dynasty,but the actors are wearing Ming Dynasty costumes."
Because Chinese movies tend not to be very imaginative and they are not very romantic,they don’t have much of a market in the United States. So,that is our fault,and we need to find better playwrights and better authors.
But I do appreciate your suggestion,and we should find some way to put it into action.
Q： First,I want to congratulate you,Mr. Minister,for hosting the FORTUNE Global Forum in Shanghai. You have provided an opportunity for many of us here in America to see the extraordinary progress you have made in that great city. It also provided an opportunity for the chairman of AOL to meet the chairman of Time Warner and to make a marriage,which started in Shanghai. I would ask you,Mr. Minister,of your views and the views of the Chinese people about the Internet and its development in China. Is this something you welcome,embrace? Or is it something that you look at with some reservations and qualifications?
ZHAO： We know that AOL and Time Warner first started dating in China.（Laughter）
So,let’s say that they were first smitten with each other in Shanghai,and got engaged in Beijing. But actually,the heads of both companies are friends of ours. So we congratulated both Mr. Case and Mr. Levin. We know they are getting married in October.