Analysis: New US Image Needs New Policies, Not New Office

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, August 02, 2002

Analysis: New US Image Needs New Policies, Not New Office

"Many a new pitcher has been found to be full of old wine," said Rabbi Meir, a scholar nearly 2000 years ago, who admonished his disciples to look not at the pitcher but at its contents.

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"Many a new pitcher has been found to be full of old wine," said Rabbi Meir, a scholar nearly 2000 years ago, who admonished his disciples to look not at the pitcher but at its contents.

The expression found its latest version when the White House tried to improve the country's shaky image abroad by simply setting up an Office on Global Communications on Tuesday.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted for a 244 million US dollar image-building project in the next two years to counter a "Fantasy land of hatred" in foreign media.

This indicates that American politicians have recognized that the country's international reputation is not good and have set about taking measures to improve it.

"Around the world, from Western Europe to the Far East, many see the United States as arrogant, hypocritical, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and contemptuous of others," the prestigious New York-based Council on Foreign Relations admitted in its report.

The Council, however, denied the necessity to change the country's policies to make the United States more popular. Its prescription for improving the image, as it appeared to be, was to set up the office to sell American policies abroad.

However, quite a few Americans have come to believe what really tarred the US image are its unilateral policies, its hegemony and its unjust stand on major international issues.

"It is clear that President G.W. Bush's policies, both before and after the September 11 attacks, have done much to foment hard feelings overseas," an Associated Press report says.

These policies range from withdrawing from the international pacts on global warming, missile defense systems and germ warfare,and an international criminal court to imposing high tariffs on steel imports, threatening war against Iraq, and pulling funds from a UN family planning program, the report quoted US scholars as saying.

Furthermore, Washington's constant pro-Israeli polices have roused resentment among many Arabs and in the Islamic world.

"I must tell you that Arab trust in US influence remains low," said King Abdullah of Jordan in Colorado on Tuesday.

In fact, the US government does not lack powerful publicity tools. The State Department and the White House have long had the offices of information, and the official broadcast "Voice of America" has reached every corner of the world.

Therefore, analysts say the hope for an improved overseas image does not lie in the new office, but in changing its unilateral policies and hegemonic behavior.

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