The world needs real China experts

World
Europe

Editor's note: Matteo Giovannini is a finance professional at ICBC in Beijing and a member of the China Task Force at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The last 40 years have seen what market analysts call an economic miracle elevating China from a poor and underdeveloped country to an economic power at the forefront of technological innovation and adoption. The booming economy has attracted the interests of entrepreneurs, politicians and more in general stakeholders interested in understanding the secret sauce of China's rebirth.

China's rebirth can be considered not only from an economic or political perspective but also in terms of soft power. China has been able to communicate to the world its culture through the opening of Confucius Institutes with the purpose of teaching language and culture to foreigners living in other countries.

Stephen Perry, chairman of 48 Group Club, a British business association committed to promoting China-UK trade, speaks at an international trade forum in Beijing, May 15, 2012. /VCG Photo

This initiative has been modeled on similar organizations such as British Council, Instituto Cervantes, and Institut Français with the aim of giving a taste of language and culture by providing classes to students in their native countries.

The next step has been providing government-funded scholarships to take the learning experience to another level inviting students to China. Students eventually have the chance to look for jobs in China in order to get a complete language, cultural and corporate background.

Unfortunately, it is quite easy to observe many people that have never been through this route but are still considered or even worse, self-labeled as China experts in their respective countries. I strongly believe that in order to get an understanding of another culture it takes years of experience in the field and in the case of China, it probably takes decades with no shortcuts.

Nowadays it seems that everyone with a laptop, an opinion and an audience is all of a sudden an expert even if he or she has never stepped foot inside China. What I have observed is that there exists an inverse relationship between years of experience in China and the declared expertise.

At one side are those with zero experience in China or maybe just a couple of corporate years that suddenly become columnists, books writers or speakers at TED events. On the other side are those who have spent decades in China, the so-called China hands, who genuinely don't consider themselves as experts but simply observers.

This is quite worrying considering the complexity of the economic and political landscape of the 21st century and the importance and weight that China has acquired. This leads from my point of view to three critical issues that must be solved.

Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister, delivers a keynote speech in Chinese on the 7th World Forum on China studies and speaks highly of the call to build a community of shared future for mankind in Shanghai, China, December 12, 2018. /VCG Photo

First, every country and government nowadays needs real China experts who can provide a correct representation of facts and channel the information to the leaders based on an absolute understanding of the issues at stake in order to make better decisions and provide real value added to the respective countries.

Second, China expert must be fluent in Mandarin Chinese because language is an essential tool for the understanding of a country. I don't think I have ever heard any Chinese declaring to be an expert of the U.S. or UK, even though he or she studied there and is able to speak the language.

On the contrary, it is quite easy to find Westerners self-promoting China experts or Belt and Road experts with their Chinese ability limited to “ni hao” and “xie xie”. Governments should cooperate to foster new experts and make scholarships and experience in China a priority.

Third, in order to understand the Chinese economic miracle, it is necessary to get a knowledge of Chinese history and culture. For Westerners living in China, this can only be achieved when avoiding spending time in the safe environment of an “expat bubble” observing things from a distant perspective but instead trying to immerse entirely in the culture of the country that is hosting them.

It will probably take years, if not decades, to see a real change but patience and persistence of China from one side and the growing interests of new generations for China will definitely lead to a world of better understanding and more cooperation.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com)