I was totally oversold! my goodness! such high expectations I'll be shivering with nervousness but anyway I am here, I have to answer the call so on it's a great pleasure to be here since I joined CCTV 20 years ago I have been doing one thing actually since I entered Nanjing University to study English in 1993 I has set the goal for myself to be a bridge between China and the rest of the world and for the past 20 years after I joined CCTV I've been doing just that Now China has entered a new era what does this mean to me? now a host of an opinion show on CGTV formerly known as CCTV news or CCTV International or CCTV 9 in all the international TV of CCTV before I give you my answers I would like to share with you a personal story about my serendipity with China Daily In 1995, I won the first ever national public... English public speaking competition organised by China Daily the first of its kind in China, I won and then I represented China to participate in the International public speaking competition I won again and there was being received by Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh as part of Horner and thank you (Lao Huang Li) Anyway he asked me jokingly: "So you also speak Chinese?" Anyway, my topic, 20 years ago was about choice and you know China was undergoing reform and opening-up for about 15 years so we Chinese for the very first time in history had the abundance of choice in our daily lives what did choice mean to me back then as a college student and I divided my answers in three parts opportunities, challenges and responsibilities 20 years later, or over 20 years later I'm standing on this main stage facing a very similar question what a pleasure and what a coincidence and I think it is only fitting that I give the answers in a similar structure but this time I'm going to talk about challenges first then the opportunities and finally my responsibilities as I become more confident of Who I am and how the future will be looking like so, let's go China into a new year challenges China enters the new year with greater confidence but with a certain image deficit and trust deficit I call it this way because of the ideological differences between China and the West China has always been the subject or target of Western mediacriticism or scrutiny sometimes downright bashing based on false hoods for instance this is the kind of a political cartoon you will be reading on the Western press about China's ambition words number one: Crushing the US along the way that was John in December 2014 and now China has defied all kinds of predictions of it I shall go back yeah Now that China has defied all kinds of predictions of a regime collapse or economic hard landing Western observers and commentators are at a loss of words to explain the China phenomenon the one-party dictatorship how come it can make it and the resulting feeling among the general public in the West I describe it like this could be a superiority complex mixed with the well durmand possibly iced with envy and jealousy on the other hand China has also been a stick scapegoat for some domestic policy failures in Western countries In the US for instance that the loss of jobs has been blamed squarely on Chinese competition In the mainstream US media again A Western political cartoon: China Currency So have you moved away yeah politicians they would put unfair pressure China to score domestic political games reinforcing the generals the public Jenthe general public's skepticism and Mr.misunderstanding about China by the way that, that picture reminded me of asentence in Kung Fu Panda Does anybody know what I'm talking about that famous line was when the Jaguar was telling the Panda what can you do sit on me did a ring at home Anyway, so that was the kind of the kind of scapegoating China had to suffer as a result, we're looking at the kind of trust deficit and image deficits In the Western general public A survey conducted by the committee of 100 last year for instance found that the majority of Americans responding to that survey 73 percent think that China's growing military power and 63 percent of the respondents think that China's growing economic power is a potential - a serious threat Last October in the asia-pacific region the mixture... the picture is also mixed Last October right before the 19th National Congress of the CPC The Pew Research Center, a leading US survey company did a survey to find out, uh, find out about how China was viewed in the eyes of eight asia-pacific countries and the survey found little consensus as to whether or not China's economic growth was more of a good thing or a bad thing For their country, most people in that region thought that China's growing military power was worrying and many in the region thought that China's growing power and influence in the asia-pacific was a key concern greater than their concern about the United States but the picture is not all doom and gloom As we say in Chinese, in every crisis we see an opportunity let's look at the opportunities we're faced with in the international media, in the near future Now the world's impression, as I said about China although mixed in some parts in some regions Generally have been positive let's look at a survey carried out jointly by the China internet foreign languages publishing administration and the global research firm Cantor MillwardBrown and Lightspeed what they found out after talking to people aged 18 to 65 in 20 countries is that in general, people have a positive view about China the score is six point two two out of a total of ten G cooler but still in the positive territory and the survey also shows that China's image in developing countries people's eyes is much better than in the eyes of people in developed countries there you have the comparison in developing country 6.9 and in developed countries: five point six so there's a difference there and the trend has actually been reinforced over the past year according to a Gallup poll released last Thursday we all know this company very famous The world's population are more approval of China's leadership than the leadership of the United States in 2017 and we can look at the figure, the median approval of the USA's leadership has dropped to 30 percent whereas their approval of China's leadership has increased to 31 percent the difference is really small by the way but still we are head ahead than the United States which is good news so looking at the numbers, I wonder why China have been able has been able to win more hearts in the eyes of the world's people especially in developing countries President Xi Jingping gave his answers in his research to the 19th National Congress of the CPC he said, China's transformation offers a new option for other country and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence and it offers Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind I think that is a very significant paragraph for decades the words: developing countries had a very very limited choice when itcomes to their development path Economically they were given that Neel liberalized prescription you have to take it is good for you but in the end, they were exposing themselves they were opening up their domestic market and industries without prudence exposing themselves to financial crisis or economic crisis before they could build up a solid economic foundation outside aid and assistance often came slowly with low efficiency and with many strings attached politically, most countries had to take side in order to get their protection or safety the world was either friends or foes and when this when the Cold War ended the Cold War mentality stayed on nowadays still countries developed ones and developing ones have to cede part of their sovereignty for their safety in international affairs we also see a gloomy picture one or two countries candictate how things are run the fundamental values and principles that have been enshrined in the UN Charter have been ignored together with the, for instance the ultimate prudence against the use of force the importance of peaceful solutions to the issues We're faced with the importance of cooperation together with solidarity and unity since the Trump administration came into power last year the trend has become even more worrisome national interests have been put to a level higher than our joint commitment to this world and to... I'm not going to say mankind, going to say humankind I learned my lesson and major country's responsibilities to the world is beingturned into calc... carefully calculated bargaining chips I don't like that, so, the world is being poured into two different directions one is based on ideology and conflict driven the other is inspired by the inspiration for common prosperity and cooperation driven I think the words people are making up their mind about where they want to go that is the historic responsibility we are faced with in this, in this new and new day and age and this is in my eyesthe soul of CGEN in this new era our mottle see the difference is just right to the point so while china has a great story to tell the media marketplace is also shifting in profound ways and here lies the second opportunity I want to talk about Traditionally, traditionally people have relied on TV relied on a few Western correspondence or commentators expertson information and opinions about China but now it doesn't have to be like that We are here, CGTN is there, China Delhi is there so people have a lot more information according to some statistics statistics over the past year the international recognition of the brand of CGTN has increased from 13 percent to 30 percent the 12.8% of international viewers when they want to find out about a China related story they were tuned tous an increase of 4% also in some parts of the world for instance in France, in the Philippines and in five African countries our viewership has jumped by three quarters, extremely considerable and on the new media platform, the, the growth has been Xnancial within one year the followers, the total number of followers of CGTN on all international platforms and domestic collapse platforms totaled over 95 million, CGTN is now the world's number one news account on Facebook and it's the same picture across the board for Chinese media, for Chinese international media so indeed, by the way, we have a lot of people watching us on their mobile devices real-time, unedited this was just not possible a couple of years ago so indeed another great opportunity for all of us here However let's not forget our international counterparts are also vying for greater influence they are also doing the same thing and the fight for the international microphone is set to become uglier so in this day and age how can we in the international media of China make a real impact what is my responsibility there you go 95 million, yes, thumbs up to ourselves responsibilities ok the point, we are a weeknight opinion show on average during each episode we'll talk about two topics, we'll invite two to three guests to come and express their opinions and have adebate or agree with each other and they come from different parts of China and different part of the world topics are indeed wide ranging, from hip-hop music to blockchain from environmental protection to nuclear non-proliferation, you name it it's like a fast food restaurant town say within less than 15 minutes I have to bring out enticing dishes for the audience for them to consume before we move on to the next course so, there you go, I see myself sometimes right so there are different ways to do it you can throw some raw ingredients together heat it up in the microwave oven and then just serve it carelessly or you can think about it, design the recipe I designed the, the menu, yes! find the most original and fresh ingredients cook in a way to bring out the most natural flavor and present with warmth and a touch of style I choose the second approach, it sounds simple but is not easy because everystep in that process counts first you have to find facts and fact-finding is essential for us because facts is what opinions are based upon if you get the facts wrong or incomplete you risk forming the wrong conclusion a good example was this piece of video I think many of you have watched this this went viral on the social media even many mainstream, international media edits it's about US President Donald Trump feeding the fish the idea was people were laughing at him for not respecting local customs or in jeopardizing the fish's life because he...after a fused boom fall he just dumped the whole bowl of fish feed into the pond people say, look you're trying to kill the fish because the fish will keep eating however if you take the entire piece of video you would see that he was simply following the example of his host Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe because of Abe did that first and then he did that but people purposely cut out the first part and try to make fun of him a lot of people fell for the trap it's very very slippery ground Secondly, how do you organize the discussion so that people can most easily follow you how do you lay the groundwork, where do you start, where do you finish how do you give every... let's not watch that how do you give every guest an equal amount of time to speak whether or not I agree with what they say this is the usual lineup of an average discussion there, nobody is speaking yeah! we have absolute equality and tranquility there, but on adaily basis you have to give everybody a fair amount of a talk and let me tell you there live, you know, nobody tells them what to say so they come and say I don't agree with what China is doing and you have to let them finish their sentence and you have to do that if you, if you, if you call yourself in international media if you want to be credible Finally there are the technical aspects the, the camera work, the lighting, the makeup, the, the wardrobe behind every single aspect, real work has to go in to really make the show a professional production some of you might say professionalism is important but is that going to be enough to give China a stronger voice what about the bias that China has been suffering is this weapon powerful enough? Well, I understand the desire to be more assertive and I want to be assertive sometimes when I'm supported by facts but I believe, believe we always face the danger of putting our feelings in front of our reason putting our opini...opinions in front of the axe, the facts while China is offering the world a new option, a new approach or the Chinese wisdom let's not forget it is something that is unprecedented in human history China has never done it, the world has never seen it it is likely that we might have detours, we might make mistakes we might bump into problems and it's natural that the world is going to misunderstand us is going to be critical of us, it's going to be afraid of us our responsibility is not to oversell the China wisdom but to document and explain the journey of China's rise let history be our judges President Xi Jinping said not angling, that is our team by the way President Xi Jinping said and I love the sentence not angling for compliments I would be content if my integrity fills the universe well, the Chinese people working hard to make China a stronger country and help building a community of common future for humankind my job is to tell China as it is, not more, not less one topic at a time, one show at a time it is not only a challenge, but also a pleasure as it has been speaking with you about it today as I always wrap up at the end of my show follow me on facebook or twitter using the handle, the @pointwithlx today, I'm adding one: follow me on Weibo using @Liuxin CGTN download the application called CGTN to watch our show on our own mobile devices or go to youtube and look for "CGTN The Point" Thank you very much!
