Do Chinese Wrongly Estimate National Strength?

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Some foreigners think Chinese people overestimate the nation's strength, but a recent survey appears to suggest otherwise. In an online survey jointly conducted by the Xinhua-run International Herald Leader newspaper and a leading portal website, www.sina.com, 51 percent of respondents said that China clearly lags behind Germany and Japan in overall national strength, not to mention the United States. For more than 50 percent of the respondents, it will take at least 15 years for China to catch up with Germany and Japan. About 38 percent of the respondents said that China has a slew of thorny domestic and international problems to resolve and needs at least 50 to 100 years to become one of the world's strong countries. The survey also shows that 63 percent of the respondents believe that a high level of economic development is the key to becoming a strong country. The survey, which had drawn 10,128 votes by 6 p.m. on Jan. 2, headlined under the title "Do Chinese wrongly evaluate China's overall national strength?" in the latest edition of International Herald Leader. Jin Canrong, vice director of the International Studies School at Renmin University, said online survey samples were affected by the characteristics of cyberspace and the fact that a large proportion of Chinese netizens are well-educated. "The survey result may not reflect the broad view of Chinese people about national strength," said Jin. Ruan Zongze, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies, holds a more conservative view about China's ability to become a strong country. He said that, even in 15 years, China has no hope of matching Germany and Japan in terms of overall national strength. "Perhaps for some economic indicators, China may be able to keep up with them, but for overall national strength, no way," said Ruan. Ruan said the fact that a large proportion of the respondents regard a developed economy as the key indicator of a strong country is understandable, but if economic development is the country's sole objective, the consequences -- in terms of environmental degradation for example -- could be very serious. In his view, the key to becoming a strong country is improvements to the nation's institutions. Government should provide a robust institutional system which not only creates favorable conditions for economic development, but also helps the nation deal with the negative fallout of economic development," he said. (from a report by XH)