While the world makes a concerted effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s approach to educating the public about the outbreak is puzzling and, more importantly, not helpful, if not counterproductive.
With the coronavirus crisis worsening, governments across the globe are looking for a pragmatic approach to handle the situation. As more cases are confirmed, medical experts are becoming more anxious to find a solution. Needless to say, if timely actions are taken to fight the virus, more precious lives can be saved.
Yet, instead of focusing on openness and transparency, China is seemingly busy working to save the face of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), rather than people’s lives. Beijing first refused to acknowledge the outbreak, then tried to blame other countries for it.
The reason is ultimately attributable to the Chinese authoritarian political system. The ruling party to all appearances is determined to hold on to power, no matter how badly the situation deteriorates.
On Monday last week, the Chinese Ministry of Education, in conjunction with People.cn, the online counterpart of the People’s Daily, invited four professors to produce an online presentation entitled “A Lesson on COVID-19 and Political Consciousness for University Students in the Nation.”
The speakers were Beijing’s Tsinghua University professor Ai Silin (艾四林), Renmin University of China professor Qin Xuan (秦宣), Beijing Normal University professor Wang Binglin (王炳林) and Central University of Finance and Economics professor Feng Xiujun (馮秀軍).
They are all well-known and are among the most prestigious academics in China.
They primarily addressed how Chinese President Xi Jingping (習近平) and the CCP have taken the lead in responding to the virus crisis. The speakers put great emphasis on Marxism, and two of them explained how Chinese had successfully fought quite a few wars since the 1950s, giving the Korean War as an example.
Separately, each of the professors gave a 30-minute speech to raise awareness of patriotism among young Chinese.
The problem is that they seem to have misinterpreted Marxism in a manner that would hardly convince young people. For example, the concept of responsibility for “protecting our home and defending our country” was mentioned several times to remind younger Chinese of their task to help overcome “the disease struggle.”
Patriotism has never been a core Marxist principle, because the state is supposed to wither away after a communist revolution. What is more perplexing is that it is not clearly explained how national disease prevention efforts could be turned into an effective tool for indoctrinating the students.
Moreover, the speakers referred to history time and again, but hardly touched on Marxist concepts of history, which are pregnant with the idea of progress by moving the society to a higher level of development. Where is this idea of progress in the lectures of these academics?
These lessons will not register with young Chinese, but rather leave them wondering where the CCP and Xi are leading them to?
Huang Yu-zhe is an undergraduate studying political science at Soochow University and has been accepted to National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Law and Interdisciplinary Studies.
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
A recent scandal involving a high-school student from a private school in Taichung has reignited long-standing frustrations with Taiwan’s increasingly complex and high-pressure university admissions system. The student, who had successfully gained admission to several prestigious medical schools, shared their learning portfolio on social media — only for Internet sleuths to quickly uncover a falsified claim of receiving a “Best Debater” award. The fallout was swift and unforgiving. National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and Taipei Medical University revoked the student’s admission on Wednesday. One day later, Chung Shan Medical University also announced it would cancel the student’s admission. China Medical
Construction of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) started in 1978. It began commercial operations in 1984. Since then, it has experienced several accidents, radiation pollution and fires. It was finally decommissioned on May 17 after the operating license of its No. 2 reactor expired. However, a proposed referendum to be held on Aug. 23 on restarting the reactor is potentially bringing back those risks. Four reasons are listed for holding the referendum: First, the difficulty of meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets and the inefficiency of new energy sources such as photovoltaic and wind power. Second,
RSS