EDITORIAL: THE PEOPLE'S DAILY, CHINA

 

Western countries should abandon illusion of world domination

The military attacks on Libya by multinational forces comprising British, French and American personnel have lasted more than 10 days. Reports show that following the development of the situation, the civilian casualties are increasing and the living conditions in the war zone have become unbearable.
The original intention of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 is to restrain violence and protect civilians. Given what has happened in Libya over recent days, people cannot help but raise questions on the intent of the military attacks launched by the multinational forces.
According to statistics by the United Nations, the war in Libya has forced at least 300,000 refugees to flee the country. The tide of Libyan refugees has not only put an unbearable burden on Libya's neighboring countries but also severely overwhelmed international humanitarian actions.
In fact, despite the excuse of protecting the interests of the civilians, these Western countries are seeking to protect their own, including not only economic interests but also the established illusion of dominating the world held by some Western leaders. To them, the hegemony is more important than the U.N. Security Council resolutions and Libyan civilians. The illusion has prompted France, the United Kingdom and the United States to unscrupulously launch the war against Libya.
Following the multi-polarization of the world structure over recent years, many Western countries have seemingly become more mild and humble. They have sometimes been willing to listen to the opinions of developing countries, condescend to discuss global issues with developing countries and even urge developing countries to join them in handling world affairs.
Meanwhile, disputes and friction among Western countries appears to be increasing, leading some scholars to believe that the West is no longer an integrated entity, and generally speaking, the jargon of "the West" is not correct.
However, most Western countries took the same stand on the Libya issue and quickly agreed on military intervention without much discussion. The invisible bond linking them together is their common goal of maintaining Western dominance in international affairs. Western leaders still think they have the final say on all international affairs, despite the changing world pattern. Although there is a growing internal rift in the Western world, they will still hold together when they feel their dominant status is threatened.
Therefore, the future of Libya depends not only on how much longer Muammar Gaddafi will soldier on, but also on whether Western counties will change their old mindset.
It is dangerous to resort to violence in dealing with international affairs. History has proven that violence only makes things more complicated. Western countries are not unaware of the hidden risks, but as long as they hold fast to the old high-handed attitude towards the rest of the world, they will continue to just pay lip service to resolving disputes peacefully through talk.
It is still not too late to bring the Libya issue back to the agenda of the U.N. Security Council. If Western countries can fully respect the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Libya as well as the will of the international community, especially Arab countries, it will be possible for all parties involved to achieve a ceasefire so the violence may not escalate and a bigger humanitarian catastrophe may be avoided.
Certain Western countries have learned their lessons when trying to dominate the world in the past, and repeating the same old mistakes will not be good for the long-term interests of Western countries. They need to better adapt to a changing world. If they are too stubborn to change their outdated mindset, they will only hurt themselves while hurting others.

China should follow own course in political reform

The ideas behind China's rapid rise, which are very different from the mainstream political views of the Western countries, can enlighten us in the process of making innovations in democracy. The underlying concept of the success of China's reform and opening up is "Seeking the Truth from Facts" and its core content is to not to believe in any dogma, but determine tangible merits through inspecting fact.
As a "civilization-type state," China has completely different cultural traditions from Western countries. This is the starting point for us to promote political reform. The most important features of the Western tradition are a series of customs, habits and institutions based on individualism, whereas Chinese customs, habits and institutions are more based on families and the relationship derived from families.
Given the differences in cultural traditions, the right way of constructing democracy should be combining our own cultural tradition to launch systemic innovation while avoiding disadvantages, rather than transforming our culture to adapt to Western culture and a political system under the influence of Western culture.
An important lesson China has learned from the Reform and Opening Up is that the quality of a political system should be judged by its contents and outcomes. Deng Xiaoping brought forward three criteria to define socialism during his visit to southern China in 1992. The first criterion is whether it can promote the growth of the socialist productive forces; the second is whether it can increase the overall strength of the socialist state and the third is whether it can improve people's living standards.
We can draw on the three criteria when promoting our democratic construction. Deng determined the correctness of a socialist policy based on its outcome rather than its form, which greatly encouraged the introduction of creative and seemingly adventurous policies.
It is important for the Chinese government to follow three principles based on its experience from the Reform and Opening Up when exploring new ways to build democracy suitable for its actual conditions.
First, it should take the road of gradual reforms. There is no such thing as a perfect plan. The central government should take into consideration the actual conditions of the country, proceed step by step, conduct experiments and encourage the people to make innovations. It is like groping forward by feeling for stones to cross a river.
As long as we do not stop moving, we will finally find the stones and cross the river, meaning that we will definitely form a relatively sound new democratic system in the end. Like economic reforms, China does not have a road map, but rather a compass. Under the established general directions and strategies, China should encourage each region to carry out bold explorations and experiments so as to gradually find a way to democracy that is in line with both China’s contexts and the conditions of its people.
The second is domestic demand. The reforms should start by meeting China's effective demand and only the reforms driven by effective domestic demand can be relatively stable. Effective domestic demand means the actual domestic demand based on the ideas, culture and conditions of the people in a country, which is the greatest inherent driving force. Presently, China's greatest domestic demand is the development of an anti-corruption system, an intra-Party democratic system, a service-oriented government and a society under the rule of law.
The third is livelihood. This means that China's key task is to improve the livelihood and the development of democracy should pragmatically focus on enhancing the public standard of living in both level and scope, enabling the government to provide the common people with better services and making the people lead safer, more free and more well-off and dignified lives.
A key reason behind the failures of democratic experiments in many developing countries lies in that the countries advanced democracy by simply copying Western-style democracy, resulting in the idleness of the political machine, endless domestic friction and worse instead of better lives for the common people. Naturally, such democratic experiments cannot go far.
China can explore a new type of democratic system that is derived from Chinese culture and absorbs strong points from other democratic systems, which will subsequently overtake Western democratic system in terms of both quality and effectiveness. This will also be an important opportunity for China to make contributions to mankind. As "a civilization-type state," China should never decline to assume such responsibility.
The author Wei-wei Zhang is a professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations (GSD) and visiting researcher at Chunqiu Comprehensive Research Institute.

Commentary: Sordid state of China's soccer game

Excessive love for money is the root of all evils. Even people in the sports world are not free of this craze for money as more in-depth reports on the arrest of three soccer referees have unfolded.
Lu Jun was arrested for taking bribes from local soccer teams. Before being exposed, he was known as the "golden whistle" for his "integrity". He officiated in two matches at the 2002 World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan. Praising the clean soccer administration in the rest of the world, Lu had lashed out at the "black whistles" scandal in China and recommended the setting up of a supervision regime in the country.
Alas, even Lu himself has fallen victim to Mammon.
The other two arrested are Zhou Weixin, an official from Guangzhou province, and Huang Junjie, an active FIFA (or international) referee since 1998.
Such arrests suggest the integrity of China's soccer world is indeed at stake.
China has become a sports superpower, winning numerous impressive international trophies but never in men's soccer, the most popular game in the world that Brazilians lovingly call jogo bonito, or the beautiful game. The national men's soccer team has often performed poorly at the international level, and corrupt practices like match-fixing and illegal betting are to blame for that.
In February, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) announced that during the final weeks of the Super League, half time would be extended from 15 to 30 minutes. It was intended to kick off all second-half games in the league at the same time and prevent referees and players from fixing the outcome of matches. But the move is controversial, because it goes against FIFA rules.
The "professional" soccer league started in the country two decades ago, but its foundation is still unsound. It seems people have used professionalism more to exploit the commercial value of soccer and less to raise the level of the game. So it is not surprising to find "black whistles", or hear about rigged matches, match-fixing, illegal betting and on-the-pitch violence in soccer.
Reforming the operating mechanism of soccer in the country is the only way that the filth of corruption can be cleansed. The aim of the reform should be to let CFA play the role of supervisor and rule-maker without having the authority to run soccer as a business.
Nan Yong, vice-president of CFA, has described match-fixing as a cancer, which needs to be removed.
To remove the cancer and make soccer a really beautiful game, CFA has to get to the root of the disease and destroy all the infected cells, instead of trying to cure the symptoms.