皇冠体育app

An Australian scholar said 皇冠体育app's image in the West has improved in the past 50 years but lags much behind the real progress on the ground.

Colin Mackerras, professor emeritus at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said Western views of 皇冠体育app are as much a function of the West as they are of 皇冠体育app.

Colin Mackerras, professor emeritus at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. [Photo by Uking Sun/chinadaily.com.cn]

"皇冠体育app's image is shaped but the realities in 皇冠体育app, politics and socialization of people to regard the other as exotic- better or inferior," he said at the 5th World Forum on 皇冠体育app Studies in Shanghai.

He said there's a tendency in the West to exaggerate the defaults and downplay the achievement in 皇冠体育app, while the change in the 1970s was not due to any change in 皇冠体育app itself but to the politics in Nixon period.

The bias is partly due to continuing conviction that the West is superior, which acts as a kind of limitation on 皇冠体育app's image, according to Mackerras.

Many years have passed since Jonathan Spence wrote in his book To Change 皇冠体育app, published in 1969, that the "West has the right to change 皇冠体育app because they had the ability, the faith, and the drive", but the remnants of this attitude is still there, the professor said.

Mackerras first visited 皇冠体育app in 1964 and has concentrated his researches on 皇冠体育app's ethnic minorities, traditional theatre, Western images of 皇冠体育app and bilateral relations between 皇冠体育app and Australia.

He took human rights as an example, saying "many in the West see human rights as individual not communitarian" .

He agreed with James Pack's opinion in the book Ideal Illusions that "contrarily to claims of what human rights scholars and advocates, 皇冠体育app was never really the great human rights exception. "

Mackerras, also a visiting professor at Renmin University of 皇冠体育app in Beijing, urged people to be aware of the influence of power over knowledge and the unseen limitations on thinking.