最初由 hifuhu 发布
Here is an email I sent to the Citizen.
Sir or Madam,
In an editorial published on 17 October 2003, Mr. John Robson took a pure cynical view of the recent success of the Chinese Shenzhou V as "one part vanity and three parts belligerence." He then carried on to assert that the Canadian Government had better spend the annual $65 million aid money to China somewhere else.
It is beyond the capacity of this letter to alter his worldview. But I feel very much obliged to correct several factual errors in his piece.
In his characterisation of the Chinese manned space program, he failed to mention even once the peaceful use of the manned space capability. It is a fact that, so far, the vast majority of the Chinese space program has been used for peaceful purposes, including commercial lunches of foreign satellites. Would Mr. Robson even see something belligerent in those foreign lunches?
In the same article, Mr. Robson seemed to have a very confused understanding of the contemporary history of the Far East. He ignored the fact that Taiwan question is a question of sovereignty but not ethnicity. He simply trivialised the inspiration to reunite Taiwan with the Mainland as an effort "on the apparent grounds that all Chinese should be ruled by one government because they are Chinese." Where did he get that idea?
He further suggested that the Canadian Government cut the aid program to China. He did not mention that most of those aid programs are no handouts, but joint projects that have mutual benefits.
As it so often happens, some individuals tend to shrug off such comments, as those made by Mr. Robson as miscarriage of Freedom of Speech. Is there an ethics issue to be made here, under the protection of Freedom of Speech? As a personality in the news media, doesn’t one need to back up his comments with facts? Worldview is one thing; fact is quite another. People may have very diverse opinions, but please make doubly sure our comments stay factual.
Fuhu Wang
Ottawa
