It is Terrible Time to be a University Student in China

The youth of China is desperately seeking a belief to guide their life and work ethics, but they find no help available in their surroundings and there is a dearth of social guardians as well as well experienced psychologist who can show them the path of enlightenment. I am referring to the population born after 1980s and 1990s, who have either passed the college or currently enrolled into. Due to the current pressure of family and society to succeed and always be in the front row (as no one wants their kid to be just average) has caused a mental sickness and also death for many young and bright Chinese students. It is very painful to hear from my friends that almost every month some or other students commit suicide in Chinese universities, due to the mental problem they face.

There could be different analysis behind their pathetic and quick decision to end their life. To me it seems that, the first and foremost reason is being the single born child of their family, they could not have close and intimate friends in their campus life unlike we have in India. I always find my Chinese classmates to be under some kind of pressure which is not only academic but it may have to do something with their family background or feeling of loneliness. It has been noted by many researchers in China that a single parent child is more averse to mental illness than a normal child. The current divorce rate in China is extremely high and it has a direct impact on the mental health of their child. A boy or girl student is forced to live with the only one of his parents (either father or mother) and thus denied the love of another one. I have known many female classmates in PKU who have never met their father after birth and just depend on their mother. These students decide to start earning money at their undergraduate level so that she remains no more a burden on her mother for everything. This phenomenon is rampant throughout the Chinese universities and in near future I do not see any reduction in their numbers.

The second issue could be the lack of proper guiding from the teachers. Some time teachers at the Chinese universities put extra demand from their students which I believe they cannot even ask from their own child. The example could be the outsourcing (paid in terms of writing recommendation letters for them or inviting them for lunch or dinner) of their personal as well as professional work to their students. It could be translation work, collecting data, or writing email for their networks. Although it may benefit indirectly to these students but indeed it puts extra pressure on them in their campus life. I have known many students hanging all the night in their teacher’s lab working on some particular projects. They find some time like they have lost the way and need someone to guide them to the right path, but no one comes to their help. I hope teachers can play a role of good guardian and not just spoon feeder as these students consider them to be their god fathers who can decide their future.

The third reason for the mental sickness of the students in China is their workload. As China in on the verge of becoming a Superpower by replacing the United States, the students are required to match their American counterparts just overnight in both essence and accent. Thank God, We in India do not have to speak English as some Native American speaks. Those working at various call centers (BPO) in Delhi and Bangalore just act to be Americans although their Indian accent is caught easily. Now, all the senior Chinese students have to learn at least two foreign languages which is another source of pressure on them. Just by speaking several languages does not make one into an intellectually sound person. Therefore the rise of China has put an extra burden on the current youth who are forced to be multilingual and not just bilingual. In China you have to have published two papers in national or international journals before you defend your PhD. To my knowledge, neither in India nor in the developed world this rule is applied. This has forced many Chinese students to leave their doctoral studies in the middle way. Chinese universities are also in a race to introduce all the new courses and disciplines which are taught by their American counterparts, but they never realize that the Americans have developed those new disciplines in a century which China wants to do by a great leap forward (I mean in a decade time). Therefore, many of the Chinese students have developed into a monotonous personality to which they can be just the man of their discipline. Do not ask them anything beyond their discipline. China has overtaken India in many technical studies and realms of natural sciences, including the computer science. But Indian students are still supposed to be an all rounder and can think out of the box.

For the same problems, students facing in Western societies as well as India, there is a team of psychological doctors who are providing 24hrs free clinical services to the victims of current mental amnesia, but the result is known to all of us. We always get shocked to read news stories where a student has open fire in a class room in an American top class university campus. Although Chinese universities such as PKU and others are organizing the same kind of psychological camps (心里辅导) the outcome is not as expected. What I suggest is that there needs to be promoted a kind of amicable and intimate relationship among the students itself. A fellow classmate becomes the best doctor and trusted partner for any private or academic issue he wants to discuss. There is an urgent need in make the university atmosphere more harmonious between students and teachers as well as between students themselves. The second reform will require an overhaul of subject courses taught at higher institutions by cleaning the old structure and replacing them with the new and relevant in the 21st century confirming to the need of the rise of China. An alliance between Chinese universities and Indian universities by mutual exchange of students and teachers can also contribute to create a lively and multi-dynamic talent in China suitable for the 21st century. As the growing trends of many top class university students from China are applying to work (as intern) with Indian software firms and multinational companies such as Infosys and TATA group suggests, the obsession of just working with developed countries and their universities might be set to end from now.

---The write is a foreign faculty @Beijing Foreign Studies University and a PhD candidate @Peking University. He can be contacted at: mr.gaoxing@gmail.com

The media in India and China should focus on their soft power

The year of 2009 will be known for the global economic crisis at the same time the media community in India and China were involved in bashing each other and it almost resulted into a proxy war kind of situation. As on 1st of April 2010, India and China celebrates their 60th Anniversary of diplomatic relations, it was important to create bonhomie between them. The conference on 30th march 2010, organized by China Foreign Publishing Group was a right step to bring the media community right on the track. Apart from resident reporters based in Beijing, there were senior media representatives from India, including Karan Thappar (well known TV host) , Suhasini Haider (deputy editor of CNN-IBN), and kanchan Gupta (The Pioneer), who all attended a one day direct dialogue to focus on bringing the media community together. From the Chinese side, it included all and sundry, the boss of the State Information Council (a minister rank) Mr. Wang Chen was the guest of honor. Then the rest were many ex ambassadors to India and the wife of deceased Foreign Minister Huang Hua.

I was invited as a student representative to witness the dialogue taking place not far from the Forbidden City. It was intriguing to know that Karan Thappar was very provocative and covered all and but not the one issues between India and China which were not touched by His Excellency the Indian Ambassador to China. Karan wanted the PRC to come out in full support of India’s UN candidacy, to which Chinese audience took to a corner. Then Karan raised the boundary issue and made it easy for the Indian Foreign Minster S M Krishna who is scheduled to visit China on 7th of this month. To this issue Chinese response was that we need to have patience and let’s do business first. Karan also touched upon many more issues but he expressed that his first visit will change his perception about the way he has been viewing the PRC and its peaceful rise (or development).

Then to my notice was Mr. Verma, the PTI man who has last month moved to Beijng after spending seven years in a row in Islamabad. He made his own point based upon his own experience in Islamabad, and felt very excited after landing in the Forbidden City. Mr. Verma felt Islamabad is more open than Beijing and wanted more session with the foreign ministry in China. Mr. kanchan Gupta of The Pioneer pushed us into the ages of philosophy by quoting several stanzas of the famous Chinese text of I-Ching. His own experience of visit to the Forbidden City, the day before, was eye opening, and made him to prepare his speech all around this one ancient text. Nevertheless, he was very appreciative of what PRC has achieved in a short time and wanted India to repeat the same example. The Indian diplomats at the forum were very miser and choosy in using words, and it seems to me that their PR training is really showing positive result.
Let me also mention here the stereotype Image of India as mentioned by almost all the Chinese high profile speakers at the forum. India along with other three ancient and great civilizations is “never to be slipped-off your tongue” phenomenon for any Chinese speaker. After all the history obsession of China makes it look taller and a more ancient civilization compared to the current sole Superpower. China is obsessed with India’s history and its gift of Buddhism to them, but it will avoid talking of India’s of Rajiv Gandhi and post- reform period. What I observe here at universities when I teach is that the young Chinese born after 1980s and 1990s are much more interested in knowing the current India and her emerging role. But they are deprived of this story from the Chinese state media due to their only obsession with India’s grand old history and the Tang Dynasty’s famous monk Hsuien Tsang’s famous “Journey to the West”.

I wonder if the electronic and print media in the two countries could focus more on the new China and the new India and inform the current young generation who is more liberal and have enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous environment in its neighborhood. My only appeal to both the India and the Chinese media is that, please do learn a lesson from the Chinese speakers, and the right message, if I could read it between the lines, was that it is the soft-power of India and China which should be more emphasized and not just limited to the missile test and military build-up. After all, the world’s largest military power talks about its Soft-power as its legitimate weapons of world dominance.

Note: The writer is a foreign faculty @Beijing Foreign Studies University and can be contacted at mr.gaoxing@gmail.com

on Indian History Writing by Romila Thapar

Indian civilisation, it has been said, was characterised by an absence of a sense of history. This view has been held since the 18th century, when the early Orientalists first read Sanskrit texts and argued that there were no histories of India in Sanskrit. But few attempts were made to explain why this was so, if, in fact, it was so. The search was for histories that would conform to post-Enlightenment European histories, which emphasised a chronological frame and a sequential narrative of mainly political events with some attempt at evaluating sources and drawing out causes. Unsurprisingly, such histories, which were specific to European traditions about the past, were not to be found in India. The one exception that was always quoted was theRajatarangini. This was written by Kalhana in the 12th century and is a history of Kashmir from what he saw as the earliest beginnings.

The insistence on Indian civilisation being ‘ahistorical’ facilitated the claim that the Indian past was being rediscovered by colonial scholarship. This was not altogether incorrect. The deciphering of the Brahmi script in the early 19th century introduced the vast body of inscriptions as sources of history. Archaeological excavations revealed tangible evidence of historical activity. This was done partly out of curiosity about the Indian past. But the more significant aspect was that the texts used for writing Indian history were now supplemented by inscriptions and archaeology. However, the interpretations provided were coloured by colonial policy. The absence of historical writing was attributed to Indian society having been static and unchanging. The recognition of change and the explanation for it is essential to a sense of history. It was a common belief that only societies such as the Judaeo-Christian had a concept of history. This had a clearly marked beginning and end, and an understanding of change determined by a sense of linear progress. India, it was said, knew only a cyclic concept of time that emphasised repetition, whereas a historical sense required linear time to emphasise the uniqueness of events.

Critical enquiry into historical texts has emerged from the extensive discussion of the past in recent times. What is of interest is not so much the question of how closely these texts approximate to our modern notions of history, but rather why they were written, what they were intending to say, and whether they referred back to records of the earlier past. Were the later texts that drew on the earlier intended to create a historical narrative? In India, the historical tradition was expressed in various genres of texts – genealogies, biographies claiming to be historical, chronicles and annals in the form of inscriptions. These tended to provide the official version of social links and events. The oral tradition was also present, although it was largely confined to genealogies and epic poems. These also claimed to be historical. The category that this piece shall focus on, however, is the vamshavali, the chronicle written as historical narrative. These were written in various parts of the Subcontinent, but always pertained to the local area. Their format and content suggest attempts to retain elements from earlier genres of texts as representative of the past.

Thus it was
It has repeatedly been said that only one text in early India could be regarded as history, and this was theRajatarangini. Without doubt this was the foremost of the chronicles, and is impressive on all counts. Nevertheless, it is one among many. A lesser one is related to what is called the itihasa-purana tradition: itihasameaning ‘thus it was’ and purana being ‘that which is old’, the compound phrase suggesting a historical tradition. Chronicles of lesser importance maintained locally often provide a different glimpse of events from depictions in the major ones

An Interesting–if Slanted–Look at the NSG Deliberations over the US-India Nuclear Deal

Posted by proliferationpresswm on September 16, 2008

An interesting—if bombastic—pro-Indian article into the deliberations of the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) the US-India nuclear deal.

Chief points: China mucked up passage by insisting Pakistan also receive a nuclear waiver. Also, the article highlights an interesting wrinkle of the US-India nuclear deal: Indian energy independence from Iran.

The article also expresses the visceral Indian support for the nuclear deal; a sharp constrast from the American public’s ignorance and indifference towards the soon-to-be approved agreement.

From Hari Sud’s article in the UPI Asia Online:

NSG works by consensus, which agrees to opinions reached by the group as a whole. Even one holdout with idealism in mind can put a spanner in the works. This is what a group lead by Austria, including New Zealand, Ireland, Netherlands and Norway did to India’s recent application for waiver. They held out for two consecutive NSG meetings and five rounds of negotiations. Idealism was the motive behind their moves. Under pressure from India and the U.S., they finally withdrew all objections and consented to the waiver of the U.S. prepared revised draft.

China played a negative role. They unenthusiastically supported the waiver, knowing fully well that the U.S. was hundred percent behind the move. They walked out of the meeting once in support of Austria, Ireland and New Zealand. In a bid to scuttle the deal, they demanded an airtight commitment from India to ban testing of any nuclear bombs, although they would not give any such commitment from their side. In addition they made a fresh case for Pakistan to be awarded the same special waiver, given to India. They knew that Pakistan is a nuclear proliferator, yet pleaded their case to endorse the Pakistani government’s support of their strategic plans in Asia. This last minute treachery from China, who earlier supported India, will never be forgotten.

If the NSG had not given the waiver, India still has adequate resources to power its growing economy with local coal and natural gas from Iran. However, this would have quadrupled India’s greenhouse gases emission from the current 1.1 billion tons a year to about 4 billion tons in 20 years and its impact on earth’s fragile environment would have been catastrophic. Nuclear energy will, however, cut India’s emissions by half.

China's vulnerability in Malacca Strait By Hari Sud

China's vulnerability in Malacca Strait
By Hari Sud
Column: Abroad View Published: March 20, 2009
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Toronto, ON, Canada, — The Strait of Malacca is where the Pacific Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. It is the route that China-bound oil shipments take. All India must do to prevent a Chinese invasion of its northeast or Kashmir is to block this route. With its naval build-up of the last 10 years, and especially its recently announced purchases, India could do this.
India has US-made submarine hunter-killer planes – Boeing P-8s equipped with Harpoon missiles – one Russian and one Indian-made aircraft carrier, French Scorpene attack submarines and an Indian-built nuclear submarine with missiles reaching hundreds of miles. It can arm its Russian and Indian-made destroyers and frigates with Brahmos sea-denial missiles, and has shore-based naval attack capability. The Chinese could not cope with this formidable force.

Add to this India's growing network-centric capability and the Chinese are completely outmaneuvered.

If China put together a large force to neutralize India at the western end of the Strait of Malacca, it would weaken its home naval defenses in the South China Sea. Hence, China will continue to posture and send its navy on Indian Ocean cruises – but a formidable opposition is already building.

Moving into the Indian Ocean prematurely was a wrong move on China's part. It alerted India and prompted a defensive build-up to counter China's advances. China's recent deployment of naval destroyers in the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy missions revealed its newly acquired naval capability. An incident concocted by the Chinese press, in which an Indian Kilo-class submarine allegedly confronted a Chinese Aegis-class ship in the Gulf of Somalia, indicated China's deep concerns about the growing prowess of the Indian Navy.

All China's moves in the Indian Ocean – such as acquiring Coco Island from Myanmar and building up Gawadar Naval base in Pakistan – have been to intimidate India. India got the message and has begun building up its own naval forces. Its naval base in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, at the mouth of the Malacca Strait, gives India a big advantage.

China's offensive naval capability away from home has grown exponentially with the acquisition of nuclear submarines. It is refitting a Russian and a homemade aircraft carrier, which may be ready in seven years. Surveillance capability from Coco Island off the Myanmar coast has also enhanced its effectiveness.

Chins has four Sovremenny-class destroyers purchased from the Russians and delivered in 2000 and 2006. These are its most potent warships. Originally designed by the Soviets to attack US naval flotillas on the high seas, the Moskit anti-ship missile is a very potent weapon. But its limited range of 10 to 120 kilometers is lower than the Indian Brahmos sea-denial missile, with a range of 300 kilometers. Sovremenny-class ships also carry long- and short-range ship-to-shore missiles – effective if the Chinese get too close to Indian coastal bases.

China has launched its own “total weapons system” in its Aegis-equipped destroyers, developed from stolen and copied Russian technology to counter US Aegis-class ships on Taiwan patrol duty. Its capability to launch long-range anti-aircraft missiles and sea surveillance is noteworthy, but how closely the Chinese copy resembles the original is unknown.

Most noteworthy in China's naval arsenal is its fleet of submarines. In the last 10 years China has taken delivery of 12 Russian Kilo-class submarines. These, together with two new nuclear-powered submarines – the Jin class to carry ballistic missiles and Shang class attack submarines – are more potent than their ships. Nuclear ballistic missiles on board the Jin-class submarine are meant to intimidate the United States and Japan.

A large mix of these ships and submarines could travel to the Indian Ocean from China's newly built naval dock facilities on Hainan Island and confront India or the United States.

The private intelligence agency Stratfor has concluded that by 2015 China will have two aircraft carriers – one Chinese and one Russian, but refitted by China – and two to four nuclear submarines. But China faces immense challenges in building these. Without outside help, their reliability and effectiveness are in doubt.

India's naval expansion is not far behind. It is adding six conventional submarines from France and 33 other ships in the next five years. In addition, one or two nuclear submarines plus an aircraft carrier of Indian design and a refitted Russian one should be ready in the next two and eight years respectively.

Overall, India currently operates 134 ships, 16 submarines and two, possibly three aircraft carriers. Indian submarines are relatively modern. The French Scorpene submarines are stealth and independent propulsion and can stay under water for long periods. The nuclear submarines will carry 700-kilometer-range missiles.

One Indian nuclear submarine with its indigenous missile system is in the final phase of construction. If the Chinese position a nuclear submarine off the coast of India, the Indians can send their own nuclear submarine into position off the southern coast of China. This tit-for-tat deployment will deny China the advantage.

India's destroyers and frigates are equipped with longer-range supersonic Brahmos missiles and carry Barak-1 anti-missile defense systems. Its aircraft carrier is presently equipped with Sea Harrier jump jets, but these will be replaced with highly lethal naval version MIG-29Ks. The newer aircraft carriers will have more advanced weapons and aircraft.

It is the Indian P-8s, the newly ordered surveillance and submarine hunter-killer planes, that are a force to reckon with. They can pick out a submarine hundreds of miles from Indian shores and “kill” it with Harpoon missiles. Add to this the shore-based defense network and the enemy will have no place to hide or get away.

In addition, India's network-centric battlefield interconnectivity has greatly enhanced the navy's reach. It is a strategic force multiplier. Its availability to any navy enhances the entire spectrum of management including diplomacy, humanitarian assistance, strategic deterrence, trade and commerce and security.

India made its first inroads into network-centric warfare immediately after the Kargil War of 1999. The United States is the leader in this new concept but India, with its vast software development capability, is not far behind. At the moment the Indian navy is just about network enabled and is moving progressively toward the network-centric concept. A huge software and hardware development effort is underway.

Also India's newly constructed Kadamba naval base matches China's newly built facility on Hainan Island. When completed, it will be a naval base, air force station and naval armament depot with long-range missile silos. It is a US$8 billion facility, the third in a series of integrated navy bases on the country's east and west coasts. Kadamba will berth 42 ships, including aircraft carriers and submarines. It will repair and refit all navy ships and naval planes. It is a giant base with easy access to the Indian Ocean.

Hence, by 2015 India will have a formidable naval defense. Most of the Indian hardware has been built with outside help and is highly sophisticated, outclassing China-built hardware.

Therefore, a smaller but deadlier force is what China will face in the Indian Ocean. There is one wild card however – Pakistan, which could take advantage of India's preoccupation with the Malacca Strait to gain mileage for its own strategic aims.

In short, nobody can say that China's navy 10 years hence will be a pussycat. But in the Indian Ocean, China will face a much bigger challenge than it anticipated.

--

( Hari Sud is a retired vice president of CIL Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)

To me it always seemed the American FP is designed to an extent on the theory of Roman EMipre in its hey days. george Bush nevertheless acted the role of NERO in its new disguised form. Even the city on the Hill also designed on the Roman architecture and so the WH. But if we seriously study the decline of Roman empire, we can clearly infer that days of American hegemony is limited and the War in Af-Pak will mark the demise of US as a global police. Lets us recall the story of the fal lof Roman empire as objectively put forward by Gibbon.

According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to the gradual loss of civic virtue among its citizens.[4] They had become weak, outsourcing their duties to defend their Empire to barbarian mercenaries, who then became so numerous and ingrained that they were able to take over the Empire. Romans, he believed, had become effeminate, unwilling to live a tougher, "manly" military lifestyle.

The question obviously arises will who will be the next global police. The analyst will point to China. But China wil say no thank you very much but we do not want ot be global police. But yes we will play a decisive role in the global affairs,and thus we will be a global responsible stake if we borrow the Robert Zoliek terminology over quoted by the western academia. China may take another 30 years to emerge as a super power but it is already asserting her dominant position in the global affairs and is getting ready to take on the American Hegemony in the Asia Pacific region.

The US decline and surrender to Chinese may not be a reality in a short time, but nevertheless the ice is braking down and the paper tiger is going to be exposed by the new Avtar of Chairman Mao. Hu Jintao, China;s fourth Generation leader is a neo-conservative and would not be easily accommodating in the global system of rule setting. Hu is earless to several demands of West when it came to stop the execution of UK citizen in Xinjiang China, and Dalai honeymoon trips to France and Capitol Hill. Hu seems determined to lead China where it will be difficult to look back.


to be contd...

i could have mentioned the Home Town of SHASHA where i spent my spring holiday hits time. I got some stuff at the wikipedia which are useful for having a basic idea about the region:
Hulunbuir (Mongolian: , Kölün buyir; Chinese: 呼伦贝尔; Pinyin: Hūlúnbèi'ěr) is a region that is governed as a prefecture-level city in northeastern Inner Mongolia, in the People's Republic of China. Its administrative center is located at Hailar District, its largest urban area.
Until October 10, 2001, Hulun Buir was administered as a League. The area is 263,953 km2 (101,913 sq mi) and population 2.710 million as of 2004, while the gross domestic product was RMB 21.326 billion. The jurisdiction area of the city is actually larger than many Chinese provinces (and 42 U.S. states), and Hulun Buir is recognized as the largest city in the world by area, although the actual urban agglomeration is just a very small part of the region, and the average population density of the area is very low.
Major scenic features are the high steppes of the Hulun Buir grasslands, the Hulun and Buir lakes (the latter partially in Mongolia), and the Khingan range. Hulun Buir borders Russia, Mongolia, Heilongjiang province and Hinggan League.
Historically, the eastern part of the area is also known as Barga.

Demographics (as of 2000)

ethnic group population share
Han 2,199,645 81.85%
Mongols 231,276 8.6%
Manchu 111,053 4.13%
Daur 70,287 2.62%
Hui 30,950 1.15%
Evenks 25,418 0.95%
Koreans 8,355 0.31%
Russians 4,741 0.18%
Oroqen 3,144 0.12%
Xibe 956 0.04%
Other 1,403 0.05%