{"id":1594,"date":"2014-06-18T12:15:32","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T12:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=1594"},"modified":"2014-06-18T12:15:32","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T12:15:32","slug":"from-doctors-to-kings-who-are-chinas-old-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/from-doctors-to-kings-who-are-chinas-old-friends","title":{"rendered":"From Doctors to Kings: Who Are China\u2019s \u2018Old Friends\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

5:46 am HKT Jun 17, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

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People\u2019s Daily Press
\nChinese journalist and blogger Fang Kecheng turned heads five years ago when he compiled a list of the instances in which China\u2019s feelings had been hurt by people abroad, as catalogued by party newspaper the People\u2019s Daily. (The ultimate tally? According to Mr. Fang\u2019s count, at that time the feelings of the Chinese people had been hurt at least some 58 times by Japan and 27 times by the U.S.)<\/p>\n

This year, he\u2019s again created waves with \u201cThe Old Friends of the Chinese People.\u201d Published this spring, Mr. Fang\u2019s book examines the question of who, according to state media, has been awarded the title of an \u201cold friend of the Chinese people\u201d and why.<\/p>\n

China Real Time recently spoke with the author via phone from Wisconsin, where he is currently pursuing a Ph. D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison\u2019s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Edited excerpts, translated from the Chinese:<\/p>\n

What prompted you to research China\u2019s \u201cold friends\u201d?<\/p>\n

When I was at the Southern Weekly [newspaper] in spring 2011, it was the time of the Arab Spring and a lot of people were talking about it online. People were talking about Egypt\u2019s Hosni Mubarak and Libya\u2019s [Moammar] Gadhafi, who were being unseated. They were being called \u201cold friends of the Chinese people.\u201d At the time, there was a kind of joke that the world had three big kinds of endangered species: pandas, golden-haired monkeys and China\u2019s \u201cold friends.\u201d At the time, there were orders that we couldn\u2019t directly talk about [the Arab spring]. But \u201cold friends\u201d was something that we could use to talk about it indirectly, and meanwhile people were interested to talk about it. So I thought the phenomenon was worth researching.<\/p>\n

You previously wrote about China\u2019s \u201churt feelings.\u201d How did this work build on that?<\/p>\n

In 2008, when I\u2019d just become a graduate student, I wrote a blog about which countries have hurt the feelings of Chinese people. The blog was shared widely. At the time, I\u2019d used the People\u2019s Daily database to search, and to see in what kind of context people were considered to have \u201churt the feelings of the Chinese people.\u201d Those most frequently raised were Japan, America and NATO. I thought this strategy was pretty good, as the paper is the party\u2019s mouthpiece, so it\u2019s a pretty authoritative source. When it came to which people were officially considered \u201cold Chinese friends,\u201d I used the same method. There were 601 people who were considered China\u2019s old friends.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nFang Kecheng
\nWho were China\u2019s best friends? Were there any surprises?<\/p>\n

Apart from [American journalist] Edgar Snow, there\u2019s also Cambodia\u2019s Norodom Sihanouk. The country that produced the most \u2018old friends\u2019 for China was Japan, followed by the United States, though the U.S. didn\u2019t have even half so many as Japan.<\/p>\n

As for profession, it varied according to the period of time. The book is divided into four sections, each dealing with a different period. The first is pre-1949, in which the \u201cold friends\u201d designated by the Chinese Communist Party were mostly authors and journalists. They came to China to interview the Communist Party, produced positive reports and helped the world learn about the existence of the party.<\/p>\n

There were also doctors, the most famous of who is [Canadian] Norman Bethune, who came to China to help people, to tend to those injured Communist Party members. I think those who came before 1949 were the purest of China\u2019s \u201cold friends.\u201d At the time, there was no way to predict the outcome of events, but they still chose to help the Communist Party. Many were full of idealism and feeling when they came to China. I personally admire them.<\/p>\n

And after 1949?<\/p>\n

After 1949, those called \u201cold friends\u201d were mostly leaders of the Third World. At the time, China was rather isolated globally. The Cold War had erupted and it was being cold-shouldered by the United States.<\/p>\n

The third period is mostly composed of those who helped China re-establish diplomatic relations. For example, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. Nixon\u2019s reputation in the U.S. is very bad, but in China it\u2019s very good, because when it came to establishing relations with the U.S., he played an important role. Even after Watergate, in China, he was still very popular.<\/p>\n

The fourth group is comprised of those after economic reform\u2014those who helped China enter international organizations. For example, the famous prior head of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, who helped China become the host of the Olympics.<\/p>\n

Does official media continue to use this term at all?<\/p>\n

Yes, but less and less frequently. Many \u2018old friends\u2019 have died, and this word isn\u2019t used that often in foreign relations any longer. According to data from the People\u2019s Daily, since 1997, the term has been continuously on the decline. There were some high periods of usage: in 1978, during reform-and-opening up, when China needed the help of \u2018old friends\u2019; the second was in 1990, after the Tiananmen Square incident, when China was really isolated and needed its \u2018old friends\u2019 to help it recover its international relations. The last was in 1997, when Deng Xiaoping died, and Hong Kong returned to Chinese power, so many country\u2019s leaders were making condolences or congratulations, and many were being referenced as \u2018old friends.\u2019<\/p>\n

My statistics only went as far as 2010. In that year, there were just 17 people who were named \u2018old Chinese friends.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

During the publishing process, did you run into any problems with censors?<\/p>\n

Not too much was changed. I did some self-censorship. For example, one of the most famous \u201cold friends of China\u201d is American journalist Edgar Snow. His second wife\u2014they were married in 1949\u2014is Lois Wheeler Snow, who was also considered an \u201cold friend\u201d of China. But in 1989, after the Tiananmen Square incident, she was shocked and angered, and used her status to try and express her protestations to Chinese leaders. She found it was of no use. When she heard of Ding Zilin, of the Tiananmen Mother\u2019s Group, an organization made up of mothers of victims, she wrote Ding Zilin a letter and tried to give her money. But the letter and monetary donation were intercepted by the government. When she came to China, she was also prevented from seeing Ding Zilin face-to-face.<\/p>\n

So this was a story that you voluntarily excised?<\/p>\n

I voluntarily on my own evaded this kind of sensitive topic before the book ever reached authorities. This kind of story is worth writing, but I had no ability to write it in my book. I just wrote in the forward, \u201cThere are some \u2018old friends\u2019 who\u2019ve always paid attention to the rights of Chinese citizens,\u201d and what I meant by that was her.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Edited from an interview with Te-Ping Chen<\/p>\n

From:http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/chinarealtime\/2014\/06\/17\/from-doctors-to-kings-who-are-chinas-old-friends\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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