Excerpts from “Creating A New World Order” by Shao-Yin Kuk

Creating A New World Order by Shao-Yin Kuk

Surely, China does not prop up unsavoury regimes for the sake of promoting evil – it only does so for the “greater good” of feeding China’s industry the resources it needs to keep the country afloat and at peace. It is an equal opportunity policy of pragmatism: everyone willing to trade their resources should be cultivated as a friend, whether you are a liberal democracy like Australia, or an ethnic cleansing international pariah like oil-rich Sudan or hydro-carbon rich Burma. China is practising what every other country has been forced to do – except China is doing on a far larger-scale and hence is more open to criticism.

 

[I'm not a superpower, I just look like one] But so far, Beijing has shied away from the superpower mantle. In a 2008, Newsweek article, Premier Wen Jiabo declared “China is not a superpower. Although China has a population of 1.3 billion… fairly fast economic growth and social development, China still has 800 million farmers in rural areas and we still have dozens of millions of people living in poverty. That’s why we need to focus on our development and on our efforts to improve our people’s lives. Wen has a point. A quick comparison with America reveals China’s struggle with poverty: while the current superpower’s GDP per head is $42000, the would-be future superpower’s figures rank a dismal $1700 per heard instead. When China takes care of herself well, she is directly taking care of 20% of the world population as well.

Passages from Rethink Chinese Freedom by Joselin Bau

Rethink Chinese Freedom by Joeslin Bau

Still in the short-term, with sensitivitie anniversaries just on  the horizon and a deepening economic fallout, nobody should expect China to play anything but defensive with its media. Chinese leaders are all too aware that the country is too big, too unwieldly to play fast and loose with its control tactics. Beijing will continue to cynically use the internet as a managed pressure valve and balance it against being used as a tool for undermining stability and central authority rule - all without allowing for any real and permanent change. Any sign that signals even a tentative beginning of era of free speech is just a false dawn.

(Post-olympic)

If there are only slight improvements to the state of freedom in China, its is only in comparison to the repressive China of the 1980s and 1990s. Granted, these improvements are seen in roundabout ways, incremental changes for the better means that not all people deemed subvervise are immediatly detained. Similarly, Chinese troops do not always shoot on sight and civil protest can actually take place without any bloodshed. Finally there has been more disclosure of government information and some loosening of the authoritarian controls over civil and social life.

No preparation for the real world

The last time i used TYS was about two years back.
Unlike most of my peers, though, the TYS was used for my driving basic and advance theory tests. It is in my opinion, the most useful TYS around.

As you would have expected, I passed both theory tests with flying colours, but I cannot say the same for my actual driving tests. I failed my driving test a remarkable three times, mostly due to dangerous driving.

That pretty much sums up my feelings about the TYS. As as I am concerned, the series can only give you good grades only in studies. They do little to prepare you for real life.

I remember when I was taking my O-Level Chinese paper, my revision approach was very different of that of my peers. While they mugged their TYS, I chose to read more Chinese publications and speak more Mandarin to others, applying what I learnt in real life scenarios. It really made a big difference.

Sure, they got their As. But so did I. And I would like to think that the all-rounded approach to studying benefitted me more than the mugging the TYS.

At least, after so many years since my exams, I still can comfortably answer most of the questions during the Chinese Challenge campaign at the MRT Stations.

Chen Wen Li is a third year communication studies student at NTU.