Understanding the Chinese Society through the <Super China> Fever: Super China, Big Roar of China

“A Fancy Era of China is Dawning”

Since the late 2000s, China has finally stretched itself and started to have a say in the international stage, which originally abided by Deng Xiaoping’s phrase, “tao guang, yang hui (韜光養晦, hide one’s capacity and bide one’s time)”. Accordingly, South Korea has also started to perceive the rise of China. Even those who have an interest in China would not go beyond recalling an image of ‘Shanghai’s nightscape’. However, this hardly means that one has fully grasped China’s emergence. As the rise of China boasts the overwhelming scale of its economy, military and culture, it is difficult to look at the phenomenon from a single viewpoint.

In this sense, <Super China>, a documentary film produced by KBS (Korean Broadcasting System), which covered the fancy rise of China using six frames, including population, economic and military power, and the Communist leadership, provided the opportunity to realize the present situation of China.

Park Jin-bum and Kim Young-cheol, the producers of <Super China>, were invited for a workshop held on May 27^th, 2015 at SNUAC’s Youngone Hall. A large number of students and scholars came to the workshop and filled up the seats, showing the popularity of the documentary.

The presentations about the documentary given by the producers were followed by a Q&A session. Questions focused on whether the documentary reflects reality. First, a question was raised on the interviewees, saying that it seemed to be biased towards nationalists. However, the producers responded that these interviewees represent the sentiments of the party leadership and that they also have a good understanding of the Chinese leadership as they are close to one another.

In addition, there was criticism that the documentary overestimates China’s ‘softpower’. Regarding this, the producers responded that even though China’s softpower is incomplete, China is at present an economic power and is heading towards becoming a military power based on its economic force. They added that China will become a cultural power as well. Moreover, a question was raised that the documentary was lopsided as it showed only the good sides of China. To this, the producers explained that they intended to focus on the rise of China in the first place, and as a result, the contents about the problems faced by China were naturally shortened.

They added that China is facing many problems in the short term – pollution, aging, and inequality – but in the long term, it is expected that China will become a superpower through economic growth, which can be matched by the U.S.

A Question Posed by <Super China> to Korea and China

The rise of China is truly a ‘threat’. The ‘dragon’ has started to reveal its hidden claws. For example, the conflict on the artificial island in the South China Sea has been threatening South East Asian neighboring countries. The President of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino, even made a comparison between present-day China and Nazi Germany.

In fact, <Super China> does not leave out the dark sides of China. Have audiences in Korea and China missed out on the scenes of underpaid laborers in Chinese-owned Zambian mines holding anti-China demonstrations, Vietnamese fishermen in the South China Sea who have had their livelihood swept away by the People Liberation Army‘s control, and Peru’s depopulated village being threatened by China’s SOE (state-owned enterprise)?

Amid the ‘China threat’ theory, <Super China> poses an important question to Korea: How should Korea adapt and respond to the rise of China? Next to Communist China, which is striving to realize the ‘100-year dream’, there is Korea. This is the reason why we have to focus on the biting aspect of China’s rise shown in the documentary.

“What Kind of Superpower Does China Pursue to Be?”

This is a question asked to China, which lets the country think about the desirable feature of a rising China. The emergence of China can be partially influenced by the persuasion of others. However, its future eventually depends on its own attitude and decision (as it has always been argued).

Last spring, in the ‘book talk’ of Professor Cho Young Nam, Seoul National University Graduate School of International Studies, we could learn that Chinese citizens are excluded from the process of making policy decisions due to the features of China’s system, so China’s foreign policies reflect the will of core leadership of the Communist Party, not that of common Chinese people.

As a result, it is obvious that a gap exists between the perception of people in neighboring countries and that of Chinese people on the rise of China. The fever of <Super China> is hotter in China than in Korea. It is expected that China grasps both the fancy aspect of the rise of China and its flipside that the program did not forget to capture.

Until now, China has maintained a collaborative economic relationship with other countries and emerged into a superpower, holding an enviable position. It is expected that China will become a soft superpower accepting neighboring countries’ concerns and obeying the international rule rather than choosing to become an aggressive and stubborn country mired down in feeling victimized. Just as what Park said in his last comments during the lecture, “China should step forward from a country that arouses envy to a country that wins respect.”

Park Jung Ah (Member of ‘Amigo’)