US Media Coverage of China Is Often Inaccurate
San Francisco Chronicle’s interview with Zhao Qizhengin San Francisco on September 14,2000
On Taiwan issue
Q： What is the Chinese Government’s attitude to Taiwan?
Zhao Qizheng： Chinese Government’s policy on Taiwan is"one country,two systems，" and"peaceful reunification." Taiwan is a part of the Chinese territory. This is just like a person’s arms and legs are inseparable from the body.
Q： What if the arms and legs are unwilling to be part of the body?
Zhao： Then the body will be disabled and the severed limbs won’t survive either. The body shall never agree to this separation.
Q： What does reunification mean to Taiwan?
Zhao： If you get in touch with the Chinese people living on the mainland and Taiwan,you will find there’s not much difference in the way they live. There are confrontations on many occasions,but when people from Taiwan,Beijing and Shanghai meet,they get along well. Reunification will bring Taiwan a huge market and rich resources,as well as an honoured international status as a part of the entire country. In fact,Taiwan’s direct investment to the mainland is increasing at a fast speed. The relations across the Taiwan Straits are getting closer each day.
Q： Does this mean"join if they want and refuse if they don’t?"
Zhao： If they want to,we heartily welcome them. If not,then it’s against the will of most Chinese people. It’s quite obvious that reunification is a must. But we will try to achieve peaceful reunification.
On US media coverage of ChinaQ： In your speech,you mentioned that the US media made many inaccurate reports about China. Can you expound this?
Zhao： American newspapers often comment on Chinese internal politics and the comments are often incorrect. For example,a New York Times editorial strongly opposed the World Bank to grant loans to a Chinese project which aimed at developing western China. They said we were trying to assimilate other ethnic groups with Han Chinese. That was totally groundless. We are working on improving the local people’s lives.
Q： Is that true?
Zhao： We have no need to assimilate any other ethnic groups with the Han Chinese. If learning standard Chinese language is assimilation with the Han Chinese,then can we say learning English is Americanization or Europeanization? We’ve learnt English,and we won’t Americanize. In the regions where Tibetan people live,teachers use the Tibetan language in teaching physics,mathematics and chemistry. In the US,do you teach these courses in ethnic minority languages?
Q： Maybe a few American schools are doing this. But many people are against it. Are there other examples of inaccurate reports?
Zhao： Too many. The reports on Tibet,for example,are seriously distorted.
Q： Do you think the reports on Falun Gong are also unfair?
Zhao： Falun Gong is a cult,a word which was also used by some US media. But when the Chinese Government declared it to be a cult,the US media stopped reporting so.
Q： The US media treat it as a religion,or a cult. The main reason is because the Chinese Government put them in jail.
Zhao： Only very few organizers who had violated the laws have been arrested. And all of the arrests followed legal procedures. Some US newspapers aren’t very friendly in their wording on China. Chinese Cultural Counselor in San Francisco Ke Yasha mentioned that back in history,an English novelist once created a distorted image of a Chinese named Doctor Fumanchu who was wearing a long pigtail. The figure is known to every household in the US.
Q： What do you think about the reports of Washington Post’s correspondents in Beijing?
Zhao： We often read their reports. Some are accurate,some aren’t.
Q： You mentioned that the Chinese media know to censor themselves?
Zhao： Yes. We give them the principles,but we don’t censor the reports.
Q： After your speech,there were many people asking you questions and promoting their own companies. Were you surprised?
Zhao： None of them came from a major company. Representatives of major companies won’t speak like this. They don’t need to do this.
Q： We’ve talked about three sensitive issues： Taiwan,Falun Gong and media freedom. Your answers were great. You spoke in Chinese but sounded almost American.