COM223: Persuasive Writing: Writing for Strategic Communication Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

• Persuasion
• Something all of us already do
• What are some examples?
• Persuading our kids to eat more vegetables?
• Persuading our partners to watch a certain movie?
•  Persuading a friend that dogs are better than cats?
• Persuading our boss why we should not be transferred to another department?
• Not just about presenting our own arguments, but also

Logos: Aristotle’s most preferred method
Pathos: Human weakness necessitates its use; effective as a way of concluding oration (Cicero)
Ethos: One needs to appear both knowledgeable about the subject and benevolent; good to establish ethos at the beginning of the oration
(Cicero).

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U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS
Give friendship a chance

By Joan Chen

I WAS born in Shanghai in 1961 and grew up during the Cultural Revolution. During my childhood, I saw my family lose our house.

My grandfather, who studied medicine in England, committed suicide after he was wrongly accused of being a counter-revolutionary and a foreign spy.

Those were the worst of times.

But since the Cultural Revolution ended in the late 1970s, I have seen unimaginable progress in China. Changes that few ever thought possible have occurred in a single generation.

A communist government that had no ties to the West has evolved into a more open government eager to join the international community. A state-controlled economy has morphed into a market economy,

greatly raising people’s standard of living. It’s clear that the majority of the Chinese people enjoy much fuller, more abundant lives today than 30 years ago. Though much remains to be done, the government has made rapid progress in opening up and trying to be part of the global community.

Last month I went to China and spent four weeks visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Chengdu. The people I met and spoke to are proud and excited about the Beijing Olympics. They believe the Olympics are a wonderful opportunity to showcase modern China to the rest of the world.

Like many Americans, most Chinese people are disturbed by the recent events in Tibet. But after watching the scenes of violence and arson by the rioters, the Chinese believe the government is doing the right thing is cracking down to restore order.

The Olympic torch was carried through San Francisco. In a resolution criticizing China, Mr. Chris Daly, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said protesting against the torch relay would ‘provide the people of San Francisco with a lifetime opportunity to help 1.3 billion Chinese people gain more freedom and rights. To his credit, Mayor Gavin Newsom did not sign the resolution.

This statement could not be further from reality. For one thing, the Chinese are proud people. They want freedom and greater rights, but they know they must fight for them from within. They know that no one can grant them freedom and rights from afar.

The stigma of Western imperialism and the Opium Wars remains a strong reminder of the past, and Chinese people do not want their domestic policies to be dictated by outside powers. They also do not want the United States to boycott the opening ceremony of the Games.

The US boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow and the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles accomplished nothing. A US boycott of the opening ceremony in Beijing would be counter-productive for relations between the two countries. For decades, anti-China human rights groups in the US have spent millions of dollars denouncing China.

To many Chinese, it seems that this lobby is the only voice that’s acceptable or newsworthy in the US media and to the US government. But times are changing. We need to be open-minded and far-sighted. We need to make more friends than enemies.

Remember what a little ping-pong game did for Sino-US relations in the 1970s? Let’s celebrate the Olympics for what they are meant to be – a bridge for friendship, not a playground for politics.