They refer to themselves as a developing nation and when they talk about it, they stress it for all to hear. Without any doubt, China is a superpower and because of their influence on the world stage, China is a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council.
Recently, the Chinese government, through the Department of State Council Information Office under the Ministry of Commerce organised a Seminar for Press Officers and Journalists in Beijing from November 26 - December 9. Ninety-five participants from 43 countries attended the Seminar.
China feels hard done by the Western media and as such they invited these people to Beijing so that they could get for themselves first hand information about the country. According to Chinese officials, the Western media always reports negatively about them. At the core of this bad publicity is Tibet. In fact, they get so distraught when they relate the Tibet story.
They say whereas there are positive stories that could be reported about Tibet, the Western media always chose to report the non-stories. They accuse the Western media of, in some instances, publishing pictures of soldiers and/or policemen assaulting Tibetans and they would deliberately say they are Chinese when in fact they are not. The Chinese officials advocate a balance of reporting from the Western media.
Tibet has become a sore in the eye of China. When the Western media talks about human rights abuses in China they always refer to the Tibet issue. But for Dr Yao Junmei, from China Research Institute, there should never be an issue about Tibet because Tibet has always been a part of China since the 13th Century. She said at that time, the United States of America didn't exist and as such they are not better placed to talk about the relationship between Tibet and China. Yao indicated that since the 1949 revolution much has been done to empower the Chinese people. She pointed out that in April 2009, a National Human Rights Action Plan was adopted.
She said China is one of the only 26 countries in the world that have such a plan in place. "China is the first large nation of the world to propagate its national plan," Yao said.
Yao said China is doing well comparatively when it comes to women empowerment. According to Yao, women in China represent 48.5 percent whereas the proportion of women employees in the world stands at 34.5 percent. Yao added that the family planning policy in China is geared towards controlling population in China.
The policy of one child per family came into effect in 1978. According to Yao, the West and their media think this is a violation of human rights as people are not given a choice in as far as they can decide how many children they want to have. But prior to 1978, the Chinese people could have as many children as they wished.
