China's growing clout
The Washington Post, 13 November 2014
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Fareed Zakaria's most recent post is introduced with a comparison of powers between the presence of Russia in worldwide politics and the passivity of China. From there, he leads into a very brief analysis of their inaction--the Chinese government is working with the American one to conquer the looming issue of global climate change. However, despite their agreement, Zakaria brings up the historical hostility China has held towards America, supporting the idea with several books and ideologies. He also takes note of a study conducted by the Christian Science Monitor and their view into anti-Western thoughts among Asians. With this in mind, Zakaria transitions into China's motion towards the progression of their economic prosperity, accounting for numerous organizations and renovations designed to structure financial success. Furthermore, he adds, China has been responsible for the exclusion of the U.S from several of its plans such as the "East Asia Summit" forum. Zakaria finalizes the column with a terse statement concerning a modern Cold War, a short, but powerful note to end on.
Zakaria's central contention regards China's pursuit of financial and economical superiority. Much of its support can be derived from his heavy analyses of recent actions made by the Chinese government and their goals. His methods of support utilize a fair amount of statistics. However, despite his abuse of many logical appeals, most of his rhetoric can also be seen both his appeal to logos and his appeal to pathos. At first glance, the appeal to pathos might strike a reader as almost irrelevant, but once taken into account Zakaria's exigence, it might become clearer: This newspaper, "The Washington Post," is made by an American company for American consumers. The underlying ideas behind this piece concern the U.S's inability to keep up with Chinese ambition--Zakaria's contrast inspires a sense of pursuit within Americans and even a small sense of failure.
Akbar, I agree with you pointing out the author's heavy use of facts and statistics, and much of his claims appealed to reason like you said. However, I wouldn't really call his use of statistics an "abuse," and I didn't see much of the emotional appeal that you discussed. Much of what I saw from the article was highly informational, though perhaps you're referring to some underlying tone which I overlooked. Nonetheless, well done on this post.
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ReplyDeleteZakaria, the statement you set forth in this article is a bit worrying and worth notice when taking into context the American problems we have at the moment. We are dealing with a Russian superpower, and the tension you create with the image of a financially-dominant China brings into perspective even more trouble for the U.S government. You furthered our fears by drawing attention towards nationalistic, anti-Western ideologies embedded within Chinese thoughts. With all this said, I'm not entirely sure where you were going with this column. Are you implying that, despite our most recent agreements, our relationship is headed in the wrong direction?
I commented on Jim's blog, Joe's blog, and Alex Dunbar's blog.
DeleteI think that the parallel between the Cold War and the situation with China is Zakaria's main emotional appeal. If US-Chinese relationships approached Cold War levels, the worst case scenario would be full scale war and the best scenario would be another space race (too bad NASA practically doesn't exist anymore).
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the hostility between China and America, there was a small war known as the Korean War that had a lot of Chinese and American combatants. Why did you classify his logical appeals as "abuse?" Do you strongly disagree with him or something? Your analysis of exigence was actually very good. The idea of scaring the American people into action by talking about how China is winning economically is not unique, but it was a good thing to pick up on here.
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ReplyDeleteStating outright "... appeal to logos/appeal to pathos..." isn't necessarily wrong, but it would be better if you could weave those kinds of things into your other stuff, so it feels more... natural. Otherwise, your explanations were great. As a side note, you might want to identify more strategies/rhetorical devices being used. The appeals are great, but you don't want to get used to JUST the appeals.
ReplyDeleteGreat job - keep it up.