American sinologist travels China for new book
china.org.cn / chinagate.cn by Li Xiaohua, November 28, 2014 Adjust font size:
Professor Shen Dingli at Fudan University writes that Mendis has a "deep understanding of Asian civilizations" and his book is "another landmark work comparing Chinese and American national discourses and the future of their relations. . . . His book cautions Beijing and Washington to balance their dreams so as to assure a pacific world order."
At the recent APEC Summit in Beijing, President Xi Jinping reminded his counterparts that China would continue to promote a more inclusive Free Trade Agreement for Asia Pacific (FTAAP) to realize a shared "Asia Pacific Dream" for all people in the region.
Commissioner Mendis explains that President Barack Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "has overlapping trade interests among the Pacific countries that already have a multitude of trade agreements with China, like Australia and South Korea, and possibly with Japan … China is ahead of the learning curve and President Xi is quietly leading the world, as America is pre-occupied with ‘old' Europe and the ‘chaotic' Middle East."
The United States must "return to its original vision to be a commercial nation," the professor advised. He said that the first U.S. President, George Washington, sent his first trade ship, the "Empress of China," to Canton (Guangzhou) in 1784 loaded with ginseng and said that the "new nation" wanted to leave the colonial masters in Europe behind to create a "new world" with the Middle Kingdom. Mendis believes that China and America are destined to join hands to create a mutually beneficial "commercial civilization" to make the world a better place.
As he travels around China, Professor Mendis is researching another book about Sino-American diplomacy and Beijing's foreign policy with Chinese characteristics and Confucian morality and ethics.
Photo: Ambassador Cui Tiankai invited Commissioner Patrick Mendis for a dinner reception at the Chinese Embassy in Washington to celebrate the 65th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, before Mendis' teaching tour of China.
