The Star

February 22, 2007 Edition 1

Your correspondent Hans Pienaar seems a whole lot more obsessed with the Chinese than the Chinese are with Taiwan (Why the Chinese are obsessed, The Star, Tuesday 6 February).

Perhaps he has a life-long ambition in becoming a Sinologist as he seems to have the penchant to follow the media circus (including being invited as a guest to the island of Taiwan) wherever the People's Republic of China delegations happen to be at, whether the delegations are business representatives, cultural exchange groups or something similar to China's presidential visit to South Africa this week.

Believing himself to be a seasoned journalist, he often phrases awkward questions to the delegates who he knows are not fluent in the English language and gloats in their difficulty in articulating an acceptable reply, similarly to how some journalist would snigger when forcing Afrikaans-speaking or Zulu/Xhosa-speaking politicians to reply to loaded questions.

Both his articles of that issue of The Star are demeaning and hypercritical, focusing on the negatives rather than the positives.

He gives the Chinese no credit for any of their achievements, but if he were a true "Sinologist", he should know what they have accomplished since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

After the World War 2, while Japan received US aid to rebuild its country, China received none.

Instead, because of its need and greed, the US supported Chiang Kai-Shek on the island of Formosa because of the strategic importance of that island to the US.

America would have had no qualms in ditching Chiang had he been on the mainland - but they needed the use of the island.

True, the Chinese may have bungled their way through their difficult years, as do many other countries in their infant years.

China may have had some Soviet help in the early years but it eventually found its feet towards the late 1970s.

And now, Pienaar would begrudge them the fact that they are the world's third largest economy in just under 60 years!

The per capita income of the people may be low, but there are no starving people in China unlike countries that have had independence for much longer.

It's pure incitement to proclaim "Chinese apartheid" in reference to migrant labour being kept out of the cities.

In China, migrant labourers are discouraged from leaving their provinces and towns so that they can build up the economies there.

With regard to racism, "especially against blacks", Pienaar has no first-hand knowledge except for hearsay from political opponents of China. His comment smacks of a deliberate statement to drive a wedge against China and the African nations that the country is developing ties with.

Would China invest billions into Africa if it believed Africans were inferior human beings? I'm afraid Pienaar is echoing the sentiments of his own background and is trying to use the Chinese as a means of expressing his own suppressed beliefs.

I doubt if following the media circus would make Pienaar a great journalist like Walter Cronkite or Alistair Cooke: they didn't go China-bashing but had facts - and more facts - and humour.

S Ford

Gallo Manor, Joburg