| One other thing to clarify-- When I was emphasizing that China should diversify its foreign language education (to provide a more equal emphasis on German, English, Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, Korean and so forth, rather than having mandatory English), the main reason for this is seeking *balance of power* in the West. Obviously, there are other reasons-- such as Germany's economic strength and high-tech talent in the EU, Japanese and Korean technical prowess, Hindi's cultural cachet and the widespread use of Spanish and Portuguese. Ensuring that Chinese students have expertise in a broader variety of languages, and not just English, increases your ability to defend China directly in the media of these nations, while also increasing your ability to do business and innovate technologically with these nations, especially upon mastering other big scientific languages like German and Japanese. But the other reason: The neocons' anti-Chinese power base is in English-speaking countries such as the UK, Canada, the USA and Australia, and so long as there is an "English-language consensus" (i.e., "English as the international language of the West"), then the neocon-dominated, anti-Chinese media will continue to be the chief information source throughout Western countries. The English language news is translated into e.g. French, German, Spanish and other languages, and since the original source of this news so frequently has an anti-Chinese bias, this same bias is passed onto other languages, and an "anti-Chinese bloc" thereby arises and solidifies in the West. Obviously English should still be **one of the important languages** that Chinese students study-- I'm just advising that you diversify to other big languages like Spanish, Japanese, German, Russian, French and Arabic. Try to publish your scientific and technical papers increasingly in Chinese of course (with pinyin transliteration as needed) and encourage Mandarin as an international language throughout the world. But when it comes to communications to the outside world, diversify the languages that you choose. English should be "nothing special", just one of many Western languages used for communication. I've noticed that India for example, and Arab countries, are already doing this-- diversifying the languages of communication that they use. Many dispatches are of course in English, but increasingly, technical papers and sophisticated publications are produced in languages such as German, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi and Arabic. As I'll explain below, if anything it's increasingly looking like Portuguese (and Spanish to a degree) might offer a lot of advantages as a "big Western language" as opposed to English or even German, and not just because of the strength of Brazil, where Portuguese is the main language: It really seems that Brazilians and Portuguese-speakers lately have been the fairest-minded toward China in the midst of this Olympics mess. If China does this as well, then English loses the "information privilege" that allows the neocon-dominated English-language media to dominate Western thought. In fact, because Chinese is so widely spoken, this will also help to accelerate the day when Mandarin becomes the global language. It's the old idea of achieving victory, by throwing your opponents off balance and keeping their eyes on each other, rather than unifying against you. Rather than giving English the extraordinary privilege of being "the Western language," just make it one of many which you use to communicate with the West. (Portuguese-- with Brazil's rise-- Spanish and German especially are overtaking it already in many spheres as "the big Western language.") As I said, the views in many of these countries also tend to be more fair-minded toward China: I'll correct my statement earlier and say that Brazilians and Portuguese-speakers in general, in my experience, tend to be the most pro-Chinese in the Western world. German-speakers and Spanish-speakers too, although based on overall reactions to this torch mess, both based on polls and anecdotal observations (I can speak Spanish and Portuguese), it seems that the Brazilians and Latin Americans (Portuguese-speakers especially, and Spanish-speakers as well) have been the ones to most staunchly defend China against the propaganda. Obviously, the sooner that Mandarin Chinese becomes the main global language, the better for you, since you can more easily defend your side of the story. Trust me, this is already happening-- schools in South America, Germany and Eastern Europe in particular are increasingly emphasizing Chinese, as are Australian and even USA schools-- and people all around me want to learn Chinese. As a suggestion, you might accelerate the process of Mandarin Chinese "going global," by facilitating software and other tools to publish in Chinese, using both the Romanized pinyin and the Chinese characters. I've found among a large number of my friends, that they more rapidly embrace Chinese and try to learn the language, when they can start learning grammar and vocabulary in pinyin. Even more so if they can convert Chinese characters in documents to pinyin-- if anything, pinyin Chinese documents represent one of the easiest languages in the world to learn (due to easy grammar and vocabulary), and I already know of some engineers and scientists in Europe and the USA who want to publish high-level scientific papers in Chinese. Many want to start with pinyin if possible while learning the language. Obviously, everyone here does intend to eventually become fully proficient in the Chinese characters as well, it's just that pinyin can help as a "bridge" for Chinese as an international language by making the introduction a little less intimidating for people not used to the characters. Once people are able to communicate in the pinyin well, then they feel more comfortable gradually mastering the Chinese characters as well. It's a practical matter, that's all. |
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