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Book 'Unhappy China' stirs a controversy

By Fu Qi and Li Huizi | March 27, 2009, Friday | Print Edition

"UNHAPPY China," a book released this month asserting China's power to lead the world and calling for a radical change in its foreign policies, has caused a stir among some experts and scholars, but has failed to strike a chord among average Chinese.

"Unhappy China -The Great Time, Grand Vision and Our Challenges," intends to "spur, stimulate and wake up" the intellectuals, according to Song Qiang and Huang Jisu, two of a group of five authors, dubbed by analysts as "grassroots intellectuals."

The other three are Song Xiaojun, Wang Xiaodong and Liu Yang.

The book argues that "with Chinese national strength growing at an unprecedented rate, China should stop debasing itself and come to recognize the fact that it has the power to lead the world, and the necessity to break away from Western influence."

The book says "the current financial crisis reflects an overall corruption of the American society."

The book advocates more stern foreign policies.

"We should incorporate retribution and punishment into our diplomatic strategies, especially when dealing with Sino-French relations," referring to the meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Tibetan secessionist Dalai Lama last December.

The authors believe ordinary citizens should not be deprived of national development benefits, and that China should have the ambition to re-establish the world order, assume a leadership role among nations and achieve industrial upgrading during the current global financial crisis.

The book comes at a time when a series of events seemingly stirred the nationalistic sentiments among Chinese, such as the public sale of two Chinese cultural relics in France by the global auctioneer Christie's, the dispute of sovereignty over the Nansha Islands with the Philippines, and Western countries' tolerance for the Dalai Lama.

During his recent visit to Europe, the Dalai Lama garnered quite a number of honors, including honorary citizenship in Rome and honorary citizenship in Venice the next day, before arriving in Germany to receive the German Media Prize.

Last year marked a transition for China to step up upon the world's center stage after it hosted a successful Olympic Games, sent the country's first space-walking astronaut and surpassed Germany to become the third-largest economy behind the United States and Japan, the book said.

"But we still feel suppressed that we are sometimes condemned or criticized by the Western world," said Zhang Xiaobo who masterminded the publication.

Zhang was one of the authors of the 1996 bestseller "China Can Say No."

Released on March 12, "Unhappy China" was widely regarded as a follow-up to the 1996 bestseller which, observers believed, signaled the awakening of nationalism among some Chinese intellectuals.

The book was translated into eight languages.

Some of the group of "five grassroots intellectuals" authored both books. Most of them are experienced journalists, editors or TV commentators.

Huang Jisu, one of the five authors and a sociologist and editor of the Chinese version of the Journal of International Social Sciences, said in the mid 1990s that many elite Chinese "blindly admired the Western world and begin to lose confidence in China," but still some intellectuals did not believe China was like "a drowning boat with little hope," - a prevailing thought at the time.

It was in those years that radical intellectuals in China started to speak out against the Western world's shortcomings and reaffirm China's confidence in depending on itself.

Superficial and arrogant

"Both books are about interpreting China-West relations," Zhang explained. "The only difference is that 13 years later, China's role has turned from 'leading itself' into 'leading the world'."

A commentary on news365.com.cn said the book gives full vent to Chinese nationalism and anger toward Western bias about China but in a superficial and arrogant way.

"However, it's necessary to have such a venting," it said.

Although the book is a hit among some academicians and scholars, it doesn't seem to resonate among ordinary readers.

Major book retailers, such as the Beijing Book Mansion in downtown Beijing and the Zhongguancun Book Building, have stocked the book on inconspicuous shelves labeled with "Chinese politics."

Usually best-sellers are placed at entrances for special promotion.

"It does not sell well," said a saleswoman. "Few people linger at this section."

A customer surnamed Wu told Xinhua that the book was "detached from everyday life," and in a time of economic meltdown and heavy work pressure, she would not pay attention to it.

At Douban.com, a popular online community for book, movie and music reviews, the book has been harshly attacked. About 300 out of 400 Netizens gave the book a poor rating.

It was merely "a scrambling of random and irrational thoughts," one post said.

At an online community of major Chinese portal sina.com.cn, a large majority of the 163 blog posts discussing the book voiced opposition.

A Netizen said the book's title was eye-catching and just for the purpose of promotion, while the content was poor and radical.

"It tells us China is good enough. Don't be self-critical. Don't be caught in internal problems. The West is just a paper tiger. What else? Nothing else."

Some scholars also expressed their dissatisfaction with the book.

Shen Dingli, deputy dean of the International Relations Department of the Shanghai-based Fudan University, said the book was "too extreme and nationalistic," which shows some Chinese intellectuals are ridiculous and actually demeaning their own nation.

Shi Yinhong, professor of the Beijing-based Renmin University of China, said the book written by the leftists was full of criticism but lacked "constructive suggestions."

(The authors are senior writers at Xinhua news agency.)

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