Negative Essay: Does China Matter?
1. Introduction
Does China matter? When Gerald Segal, Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, asked that question on Foreign Affairs in 1999, he argued that China, “a middle power”, only matters because of a “theatrical illusion of power” perpetuated by the West. Therefore, it does not matter if China does not matter.
Now 15 years later, the answer to that question is still affirmative, yet the explanation has become complicated. Of course China matters. It is a country with a population of 1.3 billion; the world’s second largest economy and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
Then the next question would be, “to whom it matters?” Today, from the United Nations to the World …show more content…
Recipients’ attitudes towards main international NGOs have shifted from suspicion and caution to deliberate violence, said Pierre Micheletti, former president of Médecins du Monde France . Micheletti argued that as the non-governmental aid is currently dominated by one model of organization, funding and operational visibility, humanitarian aid needs to be de-Westernized: “We have a new challenge: to imagine a humanitarian movement that will not be a strict copy-and-paste reproduction of the model we bring with us today,” Micheletti …show more content…
China began to provide foreign aid in 1950 to other Communist countries, but it wasn’t until 2011 that China published its first white paper of foreign aid that gave an official account of how the money was distributed. One way to approach the debate over perception is to use the media discourse as a forum to assess conflicting opinions. This paper would use the Philippine Typhoon Haiyan that killed over 10,000 people in 2013 as a case study to examine China’s perception on humanitarian action. Three days after the typhoon hit the Philippine, China’s initial $100,000 donation made international headlines saying the world’s second largest economy donated less than IKEA
Does China matter? When Gerald Segal, Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, asked that question on Foreign Affairs in 1999, he argued that China, “a middle power”, only matters because of a “theatrical illusion of power” perpetuated by the West. Therefore, it does not matter if China does not matter.
Now 15 years later, the answer to that question is still affirmative, yet the explanation has become complicated. Of course China matters. It is a country with a population of 1.3 billion; the world’s second largest economy and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
Then the next question would be, “to whom it matters?” Today, from the United Nations to the World …show more content…
Recipients’ attitudes towards main international NGOs have shifted from suspicion and caution to deliberate violence, said Pierre Micheletti, former president of Médecins du Monde France . Micheletti argued that as the non-governmental aid is currently dominated by one model of organization, funding and operational visibility, humanitarian aid needs to be de-Westernized: “We have a new challenge: to imagine a humanitarian movement that will not be a strict copy-and-paste reproduction of the model we bring with us today,” Micheletti …show more content…
China began to provide foreign aid in 1950 to other Communist countries, but it wasn’t until 2011 that China published its first white paper of foreign aid that gave an official account of how the money was distributed. One way to approach the debate over perception is to use the media discourse as a forum to assess conflicting opinions. This paper would use the Philippine Typhoon Haiyan that killed over 10,000 people in 2013 as a case study to examine China’s perception on humanitarian action. Three days after the typhoon hit the Philippine, China’s initial $100,000 donation made international headlines saying the world’s second largest economy donated less than IKEA