With the heat of the events slowly dissipating, cool observation and assessment of the strong reactions is now slowly emerging.China perhaps 'over-reacted' to Taiwan trip By Jason Leow BEIJING - A Chinese scholar has acknowledged that China's response to Mr Lee Hsien Loong's Taiwan trip last month may have been an 'over-reaction'.
On the Internet, the public vented strong criticisms that forced the Chinese government's hand in reacting to Singapore, Professor Liang Yingming noted.
But while China's official response was calibrated, the grassroots reaction bordered on chauvinism, said Prof Liang, one of China's few but prominent academics on South-east Asia.
'The government has always wanted to build a relationship with Singapore based on mutual equality and friendship.
'But the Chinese people's nationalism has become very fierce, particularly now that we have grown rich after 20 years of opening up,' he said in remarks that were his 'personal views'.
Prof Liang, retired from Peking University, was speaking to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China yesterday on China's evolving diplomacy with South-east Asia.
'I hope you don't take the nationalistic feelings to represent entirely the Chinese government's position. Of course, the government will find it very hard to control the people's feelings,' he said in response to a question from The Straits Times.
'This nationalism is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the government can use it to rally the people. On the other hand, narrow nationalism can lead to chauvinism.'
The Chinese displayed 'this kind of narrow nationalist feelings' at Mr Lee's Taiwan trip and later at the Japanese during the Asian Cup final in Beijing, he said.
In 1955, he went to China from Indonesia to study at Peking University, then stayed on to teach history there before turning to scholarly research on South-east Asia. The 73-year-old is a Chinese citizen.
He said Chinese nationals looked at overseas Chinese 'as if they were our own people'.
Hence, their anger with Singapore, which is seen by people here as fundamentally Chinese.
But he added: 'Times have changed. The overseas Chinese are already citizens of other countries.'
In a speech he made earlier to the club, he noted that China's trade with South-east Asia was predicated more on politics than economics.
Proof that trade with the region was not a top priority: By last year, China's trade deficit with the region hit some US$16 billion (S$27.5 billion) and South-east Asia accounted for just 3 per cent of China's total foreign trade, he noted.
Still, China would want strong economic ties with the region to ensure there was peace and stability to focus on growing its own economy and resolving the Taiwan problem, he said.
Straits Times - 20 August 2004
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/eyeoneastasia/story/0,4395,268239,00.html?
dont hate us because of that