Yang Rui鈥檚 Presentation at the Foreign Press Center of Japan Nov.26, 2004 in Tokyo

cctv.com 11-30-2004 15:37

Hello, ladies and gentlemen,

I鈥檓 very pleased to be invited by the Foreign Press Center of Japan to address the issue of regional integration and the role of the media.

I was in Japan 17 years ago as a young interpreter for a UNESCO meeting. Today I am here, bringing a young and open heart from an old nation. Dramatically, I traveled to three of our neighboring nations in the second half of this year alone: Thailand, South Korea and Japan to either cover regional issues or to explain how the Chinese look at such concerns. I would say my personal travelogue highlights the unrivalled openness of China and the active response we enjoy in Asia.

I鈥檓 proud that I was able to interview foreign ministers from Thailand, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Bangladash and secretary general of ASEAN, Mr. Wang Jinrong within a short period of time this year. These are in-depth dialogues on substantial regional issues. They are about our common future in East Asia.

The consensus that we had with these distinguished guest speakers is the strong and common desire to establish, first of all, a free trade area and, secondly, a common community which has political implications as well. Now this growing momentum is partly motivated by the established European integration and perhaps, on a broader base, by the strong incentive to establish a new multi-lateral political order the world over. Namely, to get rid of the cold-war mentality of zero sum game and initiate win-win cooperation in economic areas.

Just a few years ago, people in our neighboring countries were talking about China threat because of our entry into the WTO and especially the formidable flow of FDI into China, plus the drastic increase of oil and gas supply to an energy-hungry China and the ensuing hikes in fuel prices.

They feared that, backed up by its growing economic strength, the PLA will pose a threat to the US security interests in the West Pacific Ocean and to the Spratley Islands as well as to the what we call Diaoyu Islands. And our claim over gas and oil reserves in East China Sea will be allegedly supported by the bulging defense budget, they so feared. The latest fanfare about our submarines in the Japanese waters, unfortunately, may have fueled the tensions and suspicions.

Now, these concerns have either been proved wrong or remain yet to be corrected.

Part of your doubts may come from a lack of transparency in China鈥檚 decision-making process. Sure, our political and social system is different from some of the neo-industrial nations in Asia despite the same oriental cultural aspects on authoritarianism seen in Singapore and Malaysia. But the 1997 financial crisis in Asia proved that China鈥檚 central grip on the financial sector has its absolutely legitimate ring of truth in that the RMB did not slide accordingly, preventing the regional economic situation from deteriorating further. This sense of responsibility was appreciated in Asia and beyond.

The vision of establishing free trade area by 2010 with ASEAN is being translated into action. The ASEAN plus three and the 10 plus one frameworks are going hand in hand to ensure common prosperity in Asia. And the Bogor Declaration of APEC says that by 2020, all developing nations have to knock down trade barriers. A broader spectrum of free trade mechanism is emerging on the horizon.

Ladies and gentlemen, the rise of the Chinese economy turns out to be a huge business opportunity for our neighboring countries in either East Asia or Southeast Asia, because, according to our statistics, China suffers trade deficit with most of them in the rapidly growing trade ties. As the biggest workshop of the world, we start to import enormous amount of raw materials, machine and technologies from you. Through these mutually beneficial economic exchanges, victims of the 1997 financial crisis are walking out of the traumatic shadow and gaining confidence and even political stability. China is more open than Japan in the 1980s when Japan had trade friction with America.

Last year, our friends in Asia were caught unprepared by SARS, which was said to have come from China initially. There was indeed something terribly wrong with the local governments in Guangdong and in Beijing in the early days of the outbreak. But the new Chinese leadership, which came under fire from the international society, quickly and decisively reversed its attitude and a people鈥檚 war was launched to reduce and minimize the threat of SARS. Similarly, this government is beginning to face square the growing menace of HIV/AIDS, a shame that the Chinese authorities had tried to shun before 2002. Our apology and the determination we shared with our ASEAN friends at the Bangkok summit illustrate an emerging prelude to the formation of a common community, that is the political will to solve regional problems through joints efforts and by taking confidence-building measures. A code of conduct has been approved by China and those ASEAN member states concerned to shelf disputes over the Nansha Islands in South China Sea and to adopt common exploration of the potential energy reserves.

Next, Let me talk about the most important and equally frustrating Sino-Japanese ties and the role of the media in particular from my perspectives.

China had border clashes with both India and the former Soviet Union. But we have completely solved the territorial issues with Russians during President Putin鈥檚 recent official visit to Beijing and through years of hard but constructive negotiations. Progress is being made in the bilateral negotiation between India and China over their border disputes. In both cases, officials and scholars agreed that it is due to the growing mutual trust that we are able to sit down and to seek a solution.

But distrust is the major stumbling bloc between China and Japan. We had two major devastating wars. In both cases, China was invaded first. Like in Japan, annual commemorative activities are held in my country to pay tribute to the war victims. In your case, you will not forget the nuclear elimination of two cities overnight. In our case, it is the Nanking Massacre which claimed over three hundred thousand lives within a few days, something that only the 1994 Rwanda massacre could match in our living memory. The huge sufferings and misery of the Chinese will take years to heal largely because of the controversial visits by Japanese officials to the Yasukuni Shrine. All other bilateral issues may be negotiable accept for historical ones. They have a lot to do with the Chinese national feeling and dignity. We tried to forget and forgive in the early 1970s when bilateral relations began to normalize but ended up being reminded of the tragic past time and again by the Yasukuni visits which enshrine 14 class-A war criminals.

What will be done to defuse the current political tensions? I highly appreciate the Japanese initiatives to activate the atmosphere and to do what you can to pave for the way for holding high-level political talks. But historical issues concern the core interests of the Chinese. The public sentiments cannot be ignored in both countries because all politics is local.

The media have the responsibility to defrost the freezing political ties and to help promote mutual understanding.

Now, Japan has become China鈥檚 biggest trading partner. Japanese-made products can be seen in every quarter of the nation if not in all urban families. The diligence, industrial superiority and technological know-how of Japan have impressed and benefited the Chinese enormously. And to be honest, your ODA, which is viewed by many as the flexible way in covering the war indemnity has helped our education, environmental protection and the construction of infrastructure over the past two decades. Japan enjoys a long history of learning from Chinese traditional culture. Your Dunhuang studies have put the Chinese scholars to shame. Our poem and Buddhism have influenced quite a few generations in Japan. Lu Xun, the most respectable Chinese writer for me, has a deep and broader influence here in Japan. I have no great difficulties in reading the names of public places in the streets of Tokyo because of the omnipresent Chinese characters. But the Chinese characters are disappearing from the streets in South Korea perhaps due to the rise of nationalist sentiments in the ROK. However, China is receiving most overseas students from ROK than from any other nations with Japan being a very close second. This minor linguistic aspect alone highlights the necessity that the three powers in northeast Asia have every good reason to join hand in seeking greater regional cooperation.

China and Japan face common challenges.

Following the Sept.11th terrorist attacks, the fight against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction become the top concern of almost all governments along with other untraditional and transnational threats, such as drug-trafficking, money laundry, environmental degradation and illegal immigration. China鈥檚 leading role in brokering the six-party talks and its determination to help de-nuclearize the Korean Peninsular wins international recognition and claim.

A more open, prosperous and stable China will help bring about a peaceful rise of potentially the biggest economy.

But let me correct one misunderstanding which is quite popular among my fellow countrymen. Major threats to China are not coming from outside but inside. This dynamic but still poor nation needs to, first of all, tackle poverty, illiteracy, poor social justice and corruption and to coordinate development between the more prosperous east and the underdeveloped west within the nation. Well, this is an unparalleled nation-building project. No alien forces are able to endanger China鈥檚 security interests accept for the Chinese themselves. We need to prevent the secession of Taiwan and to ensure the national unity. Domestic concerns top the agenda of the new leadership. China stands ready to seize the strategic opportunity of peaceful times to concentrate on its own domestic modernization. The scope and depth of our modernization can only be matched by your Meiji Restoration. This more urgent domestic agenda means a lot to community building in East Asia. But, the rosy picture is that China鈥檚 constructive and mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation with neighboring countries in East Asia will, in return, help reinforce its domestic re-construction.

Dialogue instead of confrontation is gaining momentum. The last thing the Chinese central authorities want to have at this moment is major conflicts that may derail its agenda for the on-going complicated and ambitious social transformation.

The name of my program is called Dialogue on the English Channel of China Central Television. I was often invited to have diplomatic functions and dinners with overseas diplomats in Beijing. I keep our door open to have direct and honest dialogues with our Asian neighbors and friends. That is perhaps why I have been brought here today to face the audiences directly not through the cold cameras in the tiny studio in our CCTV headquarters in Beijing.

Thank you for your patience.

Yang Rui

Host and executive producer

Current Affairs Department

English Channel, CCTV

Editor:Xiang  Source:CCTV.com