Intimate approach needed between countries too
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[By Liu Rui/Global Times] |
Some 30 years ago, I read a book called Xiao Lingtong's Travels in the Future published in 1978 by the famous Chinese science fiction writer Ye Yonglie. It pictured beautiful scenes of the future, and even proposed that people could work at home and use a then barely-known tool called "computer" to communicate. It's astonishing to think that Ye was able to predict this long before the Internet was developed.
When mobile phones and Internet became widely used tools in daily work more than 10 years ago, I thought that my dream of sleeping in every day at home was almost here. But so many years later, I still have to struggle through the Beijing traffic every day to make it to the office on time, even though video conference technology lets us speak to and view people anywhere in the world.
And the even more painstaking and tiring thing is that dozens of high-level Chinese and US government officials have to regularly endure long plane trips between Washington and Beijing, with seemingly no clear goals to achieve when they meet.
Technology can provide a channel for us to transmit the most information in the shortest time, but the result is that we have just reached the consensus that we need more time in the same room.
Bosses never consider allowing employees to work at homes a worthwhile deal, even if it would save on office costs. They still strongly believe that people working in a room together is the most efficient way to solve problems. So when the most important two countries in the world have piles of problems to solve, they adopt the only methods they think are useful – face-to-face meetings, shared dinners, and all the other ways colleagues use.
As the two largest economies in the world, the domestic issues of China and the US are more important to other countries than those of smaller nations. China is no less concerned than the US over the integrity of US treasury securities, since it is the biggest lender to the US.
Both countries are deeply involved in issues like Chinese investment in the US, US export controls on technologies and trade protection policies, and the frequent pressure on China from the US to allow yuan appreciation and better protect intellectual property rights.
We've already seen the coining of the term "Chimerica." The expression is externally humorous but suggests the highly intertwined nature of the economies and strategies of China and the US. When Chinese vegetable sellers use the quantitative easing policy of the US government to vindicate their price hikes, American workers blame tires imported from China for stealing their jobs, the US authorities frustrate Chinese companies' mergers with their US counterparts, and US producers are concerned about their movies being pirated in China, can you rely on overseas calls, emails and video conferences to find solutions?
The amount of time you allocate to someone indicates how important he or she is to you. If we try to seek solutions for complicated issues like those above but don't give more time to government officials in broader areas from China and the US to sit together and communicate face-to-face, it will be in vain like letting a couple living apart to solve their marital crisis.
If we still adopt the old views of consider the problems as solely the other side's responsibility, no doubt we will definitely be disappointed every time to the results of the dialogues. I have to wonder, have the bilateral dialogues already become "chicken ribs," tasteless when eaten but a pity to throw away?
Complicated issues vital to a country's overall strategy and development have already been proven unable to be solved by bargaining at the negotiation table.
The answers for those new and sophisticated issues require a joint team established by officials in both China and the US and need prolonged communication between the two parties to work together, rather than simply arguing with each other.
So if we rethink the periodical Sino-US dialogues from this perspective, we will still believe they are of true value, even if they don't bring exciting results.
The author is a CCTV commentator. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
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