Paris Conference Video Series: Jean-Philippe Béja

China is indeed living interesting times this year. The Tibet uprising, the tortuous Olympic torch relay, the nationalistic resurgence these two events have triggered and the terrible Sichuan earthquake are all testing the country’s mettle.

There is much cause for pessimism, that the regime won’t ease its grip on the developing of human rights and civil society, that the Beijing Olympics will fail to open up the minds of censors and bureaucrats.

But Jean-Philippe Béja, one of the world’s foremost China experts, told the Paris conference there is cause for optimism, that Chinese society is answering their government’s obsessive means of control with remarkable resilience.

In the conference’s closing speech, Béja, Research Director of the International Relations Studies Center in Paris, also dealt with the following issues:
--How the Chinese Marxist Government contradicts Marx himself when it comes to press freedom.
--The way Western powers humiliated China in the past is very much still in the minds of the Chinese.
--What triggered the recent wave of nationalism in China.
--Change is possible in China and journalists can play a crucial role in this change.
--Regardless of the enormous obstacles, positive changes are happening every day in China.