Journalists can help improve China's image

The truth is that journalists across the world, from whatever country and political system, share an unspoken bond. They struggle with the enormous burden of trying to explain complex politics and economics to a large audience in a clear and understandable way. It is not an easy profession.

China has bred some outstanding journalists and has been trying hard to improve the quality of journalism. More of such journalists－and their work－should be shown to the world. That, alone, would help improve up China's image.

Finally, the most effective Asian leaders will always insist on mounting an aggressive foreign outreach policy. Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew spent long hours with Western journalists who he thought would actually listen. Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra would occasionally kick an annoying Western journalist out of his office, but he also opened his office doors to them in an unprecedented way. You cannot get your message across if you don't talk it up. Two astute prime ministers of Japan with whom I was favored with interviews would berate their media staff for a lack of imagination in their foreign outreach efforts.

China these days is such an important country that how it is perceived around the world is vital not only to it but also to all of us. Misperceptions can marinate into dysfunctional distrust and poisonous assumptions. The value of China and the US moving forward side-by-side (instead of submarine-by-submarine) is enormous. At the moment the two sides are far from having the relationship set at an optimal level. This has to be improved, and Chinese journalists can help do that.

The author is distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.