The Missing Quotation Marks Leads to Misunderstanding of Premier Li’s Intention
Today I saw the article Premier Li: the Way of “Burn Incense Whenever See a Bodhisattva” Must be Changed or Premier Li: the Way of “Visit a Temple Wherever See it” Must be Changed appeared at many media.
I was shocked at the first sight of the title. Wasn’t wrong? How could Premier Li oppose to companies showing respect to the Buddha and Bodhisattvas? This doesn’t follow the CPC policy on freedom of religion!
Don’t worry, let me read it further. Oh, actually, Premier Li used a metaphor expression.
Yesterday, Premier Li hold another executive meeting of the State Council. It is decided that the administrational barrier for enterprises and individuals to carry out business startup and innovation should be further cleared up, followed by the implementation of five effective rules to significantly facilitate the company investment, reduce the pre-approval formalities, advocate online investment program verification and approval and release the maximum vitality in private investment.
In the past, though the concentrated pre-approval is a kind of reform and innovation for administrative review and approval, it still requires enterprises to apply for stamp and approval one division after another, just like burning incenses in the temple. It is very often for the enterprises to encounter hard access, bad looks, endless walk-around and tired negotiation. We have conducted statistics for the division, stamp and affair handling duration required in pre-approval formalities around the country, which is called competitiveness statistics. It really turns out an incremental trend from the eastern to the western region. Sometimes, an enterprise has to wait for over one hundred days, get and visit over one hundred stamps and departments for the formalities. On the other hand, casual denied cases in pre-approval process are quite often. Many enterprises and individuals complain about this.
After Premier Li took office, he has been engaging in simplifying administration and decentralizing authority power to change the current situation. The remarks “all people involved innovation and business startup” delivered by him during the World Economic Forum in Tianjin are not an empty talk. At first the overseas investment verification is cancelled, followed by reduction in pre-approval formalities and release of online review and approval, reading the unprecedented administrative simplification, which is applauded greatly by enterprises and investors.
Premier Li is humorous. Like President Xi and also like the Buddha preaching the doctrine, he is good at using the simply and easy to understand metaphor to explain truth and guide the related departments to undertake change. He uses “visit a ‘temple’ whenever see it” and “burn incense whenever see a ‘Bodhisattva’” to review and criticize the administrational defect before reform. The word “change” indicates the Central Government’s decision to remove the barrier for enterprises and individual investment, change the complex review and approval process in the past, and implement innovation for the practical and efficient online concentrated review and approval for investment programs.
Therefore, our reporters should advocate a positive atmosphere, rather than using attractive but misleading titles. Possibly, if they are translated into foreign languages, misunderstanding would be inevitable. Don’t you think so!
If the reporter wants to express the real meaning, just addition of quotation marks will be OK.
We can see that if the title is changed to Premier Li: the Way of “Burn Incense Whenever See a ‘Bodhisattva’” Must be Changed or Premier Li: the Way of “Visit a ‘Temple’ Wherever See it” Must be Changed would more accurately reflect the meaning of Premier Li’s metaphor.
