News Commentary: Let’s talk about China’s current national credit with facts

News Commentary: Use facts to talk about China’s current national credit Recently, the international community's distrust of China has been released through various channels, both political and economic...

Recently, the international community's distrust of China has been released through various channels, both political and economic. Even the success or failure of dirty cooperation between Western businessmen and the Chinese government has been exposed to air. This is something that has not happened since the mid-1990s, which means that China's national credit is collapsing.

Political distrust can be judged by the international reaction after the trial of Gu Kailai. Since this case is highly internationalized from the persons involved to the disclosure of information, the whole world is watching how the Chinese government handles this difficult case, and hopes to use this case to measure the level of China's rule of law. As a result, people only see a trial show with "designated jurisdiction, designated lawyers, designated auditors, and designated results." In addition to the conflicting statements about the involvement of a third party in the killing and the drug used to poison Heywood, the trial failed to provide a convincing explanation of Gu Kailai's motive for killing Heywood, leaving all kinds of suspense.

The British "Daily Telegraph" expressed complete doubts about the transparency and fairness of this trial. On August 12, in "The Sensational Legend in the Final Chapter of Gu Kailai's Confession, Doubts Still Remain," it was pointed out that a source informed that Gu Kailai's trial had been rehearsed repeatedly in advance, and even CCP officials pretended to be British diplomats attending the hearing. The dream of "ruling the country according to law" that was once believed by foreigners and that the United States spent a lot of dollars to promote China has already made many participants doubt it. This trial can be said to have dealt the final blow to this dream.

Skeptics extend this distrust to the relationship between foreign investors and senior Chinese government officials - this was once the relationship that foreign businessmen believed they should establish most to adapt to China's institutional environment. They believe that Heywood's death by poisoning is a serious warning to foreign investors going to China to do business. As if to footnote this concern, the British "Independent" and the American "New York Times" coincidentally reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating the bribery case in China of Sands Corporation, controlled by U.S. gambling tycoon Sheldon Adelson. The investigation revealed a complex and shadowy mix of Chinese political and business interests. And pointed out the fact that this kind of dark combination relationship is difficult to end well. For example, China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange will investigate Sands' subsidiaries for various violations, including that the use of funds does not match the use declared to the government (in fact, this situation is very common, and when the relationship between the two parties is good, the Chinese official will fake it). Documents show that China’s Commerce Ministry and courts froze the bank accounts of some Sands subsidiaries and their company registrations. In the London Olympics held in this atmosphere, Chinese athletes were questioned a lot. The British "Daily Telegraph" published Brendan O'Eill's commentary article "Why do we British regard Chinese athletes as liars and monster robots?" on August 2. It mentioned that after a Chinese badminton player was disqualified from the competition because he was found to have deliberately lost, the British media was in a wave of excitement. They believed that this incident proved that the Chinese are sneaky liars and they do not know what fair competition is like the British.

What best illustrates the deep doubts about China's national integrity is the doubts about China's economic data. Although this suspicion has often bubbled up in the past, there is no consensus. Even in 2010, WikiLeaks exposed a confidential cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, revealing that on March 12, 2007, Li Keqiang, then Secretary of the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee, had dinner with the U.S. Ambassador at his residence. At that time, Li said: China's GDP figures are "artificial" and therefore unreliable. He said that when assessing Liaoning's economy, he focused on three numbers: 1. Electricity consumption, 2. Railway freight volume, and 3. The amount of loans issued. But even so, many overseas economic analysts deliberately ignored this news. But recently that skepticism has spread to the economy. A report in the New York Times on June 22 stated that local governments asked China's power plant managers to falsify power generation data to prevent the central government from truthfully understanding the extent of the economic slowdown. On July 25, 2012, an article titled "Four Reasons Why You No longer Trust Chinese Leaders" was widely circulated. It mentioned, "When it comes to economic operation issues, we believe that we can no longer trust Chinese leaders."

The Wall Street Journal finally couldn't stand it anymore and wrote directly to Zhongnanhai, saying that "from those who firmly believe that China is in a bear market to investment bank analysts who are bullish on China, everyone doubts whether the economic growth rate is lower than official statistics." Therefore, they demand to know the actual growth rate of China's economy.

As if all the above suspicions were not enough to show the international community's suspicion of the Chinese government, on August 15, the documentary "Deadly China" completed by Peter Navarro, a professor at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Irvine, premiered in Los Angeles. The 80-minute film combines interviews and investigative reports to expose the Chinese authorities' disregard for human rights, condoning the proliferation of unscrupulous food and counterfeit goods, and the worsening of the U.S.-China trade deficit, which has brought fatal crises to the Chinese people and the entire world.

From the "China fever" that started in 2001, to the high-profile promotion of "China's peaceful rise" in 2005, accompanied by Joshua Reimer's advocacy of "the Beijing Consensus will replace the Washington Consensus", to today, China's national credibility has been fully doubted by external observers politically, economically, and ethically. Whose fault is it that the country's credibility has been damaged to this extent?

I think we should still blame the Chinese government (including those in the political and business circles who represent China in dealing with foreign countries) itself.

From the late 1990s to 2009, the mainstream attitude of Western countries was that they were very willing to believe in China. Many countries, including France, even wanted China to be strong in order to contain the United States. Occasionally, some observers will express doubts about China. In August 2001, the Far Eastern Economic Review published a report titled "The Republic of Cheats," which described how the "People's Republic of China" had degenerated into the "People's Republic of Cheats," which for the first time raised doubts about the integrity of the Chinese people. Carsten A. Holz, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, wrote an article "Have China Scholars All Been Bought?" published in the Far Eastern Economic Review, Issue 4, 2007, which was a painful review of China. In order to please the Chinese government, scholars receive a variety of research opportunities and information. "We please the CCP in the following ways: raising certain research topics or not raising certain research topics, reporting certain facts or ignoring certain facts, the language we use, what we teach and how we teach it." He listed a long list of facts that hurt his colleagues. The article deservedly received a cold reception.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln has a well-known saying: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." The integrity of the Beijing government is now doubted by the whole world, which is enough to prove one point: lying and spreading rumors is morally self-destructive, and it will eventually lead to political destruction.

>Excerpted from "Voice of America"