Western image of China

[vinhlong]

This weekend I attended a conference of the Youth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, which is a youth organisation of the liberal political party in my country. The theme of their conference was China. What I found shocking was that they actually knew very little about China, and that their image of China was very much based on what they hear from the news broadcasts, which is generally limited to China's economical growth, China's lack of human rights, China suppressing Tibet, and China threatening Taiwan, with actually no deeper knowledge beyond these statements. I was wondering how is it in other countries?

[simc]

Similar I suppose. Many people base their opinions on the news without giving it too much deep thought. Most people don't have in depth knowledge on issues like Tibet or Taiwan.

People often have political ideas which they strongly hold as well, and that tends to give people a certain view of the world. Liberal parties (not counting America where "liberal" has a different meaning) have pretty much the opposite ideology to Communism, which is why people at that conference held strong opinions about China.

Edit: corrected a grammar mistake

[simc]

Speaking of which, the Act party in New Zealand, who call themselves "the liberal party", do a lot to attract Chinese voters in New Zealand. The only other language website is translated into is Chinese. They have recently got to replace one of their MPs with Kenneth Wang, who joined their party because his life in China had taught him communism was "not the best way".

I'm starting to sound like a paid advertisement, but I don't have any intention of voting for them.

[frozenmyth]

Most Westerns really do not have either the interest to know more or the knowledge of China.

Yeah, many people know that oh yeah China. That's another country in the East right? Yeah they have a lot of people and they are Asian looking.

When it comes to things such as China has 1/5 of the global population, 5000 years of "claimed" history, has 56 ethnic groups, most of its population settles on the east coast, etc

The majority of Westerners simply do not have the interest to even care the slightest about that part of the world. "They all look the same" may be what goes into their mind I think.

People learn and believe what their own people present to them through differet medias. Most people do not have the time in life to care about what are true and facts but rather what they "prefer" to or "choose" to believe. Will most Chinese believe what Westerners tell them about the world or will they believe what other Chinese tell them?

Will most Westerners believe what their people tell them about the world or will them tune in to what the Chinese voice?

Facts or mere what we think are true? Do most of us have the time to really verify and find out? Probably not. Some of us could choose to truly broaden our mind though.

China is not like Europe where there is much more similarities in culture, people, mentality, etc. It's the East and has existed about as long as a major part of the world we know today through its history. Yet, most Westerners just began to learn more about China, thanks to wars and modern travel systems, since when? A couple of hundreds years ago?

[xuechengfeng]

People in America, that I've come into contact with, generally have a negative opinion of China because we have been brainwashed for quite a number of years to think Communists are backwards morons.

[Quest]

Lets face it, most people know little about the places outside their hometown. It's not just a China thing or a Westerner thing.