●Chinese Netizens Question Obama_自考专本|专升本|高升专|高升本|在职研究生-学历教育网

http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?no=385800&rel_no=1Chinese NetizensQuestion ObamaNetizens askthousands of questions before Obama's China visitJay Hauben(jhauben) Published2009-11-23 11:33 (KST) Last week, thegaze of netizens in China was put on the visit of US President Barack Obamathat was to occur Nov 15-18. As part of his visit, a session was planned inShanghai where President Obama would answer questions form a live audience ofstudents and young people. The US Embassy in Beijing also requested thatnetizens send questions for President Obama some of which would be included.Xinhuanet and People's Daily, both national news media in China, also requestedquestions from net users. Within days, they received thousands of questions.Blogs (1) existwhich regularly translate netizen posts and discussions into English thatappear first in Chinese. Quickly, some translated a few of the submittedquestions.(2) The questions translated covered a wide range of topics.Many questions hadan internationalist perspective. For example:"It wasproven that Iraq did not have WMD. Can you represent the US government inapologizing to the Iraqi people and make war reparations?""I want toask President Obama, how do you deserve the Nobel Prize? Please behonest!""Americansoldiers are not welcome in Afghanistan so why are you still there killingtheir civilians? Why are you going there to 'provoke' them to become humanbombs? Right, it's your anti-terrorism business but it's innocent civilians whodied. Before you were there, they had a better life.""Mr.President, do you think it is a little ironic to receive the Nobel Peace Prize whileAmerican troops are deployed all over the world and involved in two wars?""Almost everyUS president waged a war. Will you do that during your term of office?""I am veryconcerned about the Middle East. I remember during the election campaign, yousaid that if Iran is willing, the United States and Iran have contact. I wouldlike to know what kind of contact with Iran? Have the two sides talked on how?In addition, how do you look at Israel's policies?"One netizen,rather than asking President Obama a question, gave his advice:"Obama, foryour soldiers and all the peace-loving people around the globe, please stopyour invasion of the world!"Many of thenetizens questioned what they see as a double standard in US foreign policy:"How would Americansfeel if our leader hugged Osama Bin Laden like US presidents did to the DalaiLama? The meeting would hurt our feelings, and we are all hoping for mutualrespect in this relationship.""If in theUnited States expression of the will of the people is democracy, then when theChinese people express the collective will, what do you think that is? Did someof you think about the US policy toward China but did not consider theexamination of the Chinese people's wishes? What is the reason so many Chinesepeople are very disgusted with some American politicians?""If somedayHawaii wants to separate from America, will your government and people supportit? If one country uses the excuse of helping Hawaii to protect its people tosell them weapons, in order to keep balance between Hawaii and US, will youstill support the 'friendly' relationship with that country?"The US wants Chinato strengthen its currency because China has such a large trade surplus. Thetheory is that a stronger currency will make exports more expensive and thuscorrect a trade imbalance. But a netizen asked:"If exchangerate caused trade imbalance, then the Korean won and the Australian dollarshould be appreciated since the two countries had trade surplus for a longtime. Based on this, I want to know, as US President why don't you think moreabout how much US plundered from the world's laboring people with depreciationof its dollar? Even with appreciated Chinese RMB we can't buy Unocal!"Some had economicquestions for President Obama:"Chinese HongKong will probably introduce EU dollars to its financial system. What do youthink?""I am moreconcerned about economic issues. All along, the United States is the world'sliberal economic model to learn from. Many countries saw, the United States asthe 'teacher.' But with the financial crisis, many people have asked, and now'teacher' is a problem, we "students" how to do this? Can you talkabout economies from the point of view of developing countries?""Many peoplethink that the dollar in the international monetary system is in a position ofhegemony. For other countries the existing system is unfair. With the UnitedStates as the largest vested interests, will not the future of theinternational financial system face increased obstacles to reform?""Your countryalways complains about the trade imbalance with us. Then why don't you lift theembargo of high technology products on us? We can make all low tech goods. Sotell me why and what we should buy from you?"There were alsoquestions about Obama's personal life and some comments wishing President Obamawell and hoping for good relations between China and the US.Besides therequest for questions, the US Embassy organized ahead of Obama's visit a liveexchange of questions and answers between a dozen or so well known Chinesebloggers and the US diplomatic mission in China. The character of the questionsasked by the bloggers seemed somewhat different from the character expressed inthe questions like those above which appeared in English translation online.Some of thebloggers showed concern about the efforts by the government of China tosupervise the content available on the internet. One asked "whether Obamawill update his Twitter and Facebook as usual while in China?" Thatappeared as his way to point out that Twitter and Facebook access is sometimesblocked in China.Many of the otherquestions were also serious. For example, Peking University journalismprofessor and author Yong Hu asked what the US saw as common values betweenChina and the US.Rao Jin, founderof the Anti-CNN website that scrutinizes China coverage in foreign media andexposes distortions, commented that the youth in China better understand theWest than the youth in the US understand China. He asked if President Obamawould be able to promote more exchanges between Chinese and American youngpeople.He also broadenedthe criticism of media control by commenting that with the CIA's increasedspecial powers, he was worried:"I amconcerned. I am a user of Gmail, Facebook and Twitter, which many people aroundthe world use. The CIA can use special means to enter those services and obtainpersonal information. How can users like us be guaranteed that our personaldata are secure? Also, I know that the USA has enacted certain laws to monitorthe personal email information. Will the Internet control and filtering in thename of anti-terrorism violate the human rights and personal privacy of allusers?"Thousands ofnetizens in China commenting on a political event is not unusual. There areover 350 million internet users in China and that number is steadilyincreasing. More than 100 million of these net users come online for publicrather than simply for personal and entertainment purposes. They regularly readand post comments and questions in online forums. Among these are netizens whoact as watchdogs over the Chinese government and society.Every year since2003, there has been dozens of national netizen commotions around social andpolitical issues, sometimes exposing fraud or corruption or questioninggovernment actions or explanations, sometimes discussing foreign events likedisruption of the Olympic touch relay. They have become a normal aspect ofChinese society.By the example oftheir questions to US President Obama for his visit to China, netizens in Chinahave applied their social concern and added a new input mechanism for foreignpolicy consideration.Notes:(1)For example: Fool's Mountainand EastSouthWestNorth(2) See for example, "Chinese Netizen Questions For Obama During HisVisit" by Python at ChinaSmack