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Wen Jiabao’s Speech in Harvard
December 12th, 2003
Chinese Premier Wen’s four day visit to USA is an important tour. I find it quite interesting that he gave a speech a Harvard business school. I have to say after reading different news sources about his speech, i’m quite impressed.
1. he admitted human rights problems in china. although providing no solid proposals to improve the situation, he mentioned “Reform and opening-up creates conditions for the advancement of human rights, and the latter invigorates the former.” (source)
2. he supported democracy. “China’s leaders want democracy, the conditions are not yet right for contested elections for senior officials. China is such a big country and our economic development is so uneven. To start with, I think the education level of the population is not high enough” (source) - this i quite agree. I’m not sure whether chinese would truly appreciate democratic election at this point of the stage. i am worried that democracy would not be truly democratic due the huge number of corruption exists in the government. think back to the very first election in Republic of China that led by Sun. What a failure huh? but then who can judge when is the right time for china? i find it interesting how peking duck mentioned even tho singapore is not a democratic country, it manages to provide “people nearly all of the freedoms they crave.” what will work in china should not be judged by outside forces. so i also applause his statement “China is a large developing country. It is neither proper nor possible for us to rely on foreign countries for development. We must, and we can only, rely on our own efforts.” (source) every country has its own problems and needs its own unique solutions.
3. i really like the way he handled the interruption by a woman who stood up to call for Tibetan independence. no matter how legitimate you think that woman’s protest is.. Wen managed to make her look bad. he said “I will not be disrupted because I am deeply convinced that the 300 million American people do have friendly feelings towards China.” the woman was removed from the audience for the interruption and i doubt anyone was impressed by her “bravery”. at least i am not.
After Wen’s visit with Bush, Bush changed his tone on Taiwan issue just about 180 degrees. I don’t think I want to get into why. Just interesting to note.
I’ve been trying to read many different news sources describing Wen’s speech. i haven’t yet found one that’s negative. most people thought Wen was amiable. I’m happy to have him as a premier for china.
news sources i’ve read:
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/business.bg?articleid=1058
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/12.11/01-china.html
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,224879,00.html
http://fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200312/11/eng20031211_130140.shtml
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/12/11/2003079112
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8130123%255E1702,00.html
