PORI Express: Chung’s Blunt Words (Reposts from Facebook Page “Chung’s Blunt Words”)

2023-01-31

Letter from the WAPOR President (January 2023)

……thank you fellow members for electing me to this position two years ago! I will do my best to fulfil my duties, but I will need help from every one of you!

Taking up this position is a real challenge! The whole world is facing unprecedented problems on all fronts. To us in WAPOR, our primary concern shall remain to be professional integrity and quality for the wellbeing of humankind.

In our 75th Anniversary Conference in Dubai, we had the precious opportunity of reviewing our own history, and then ventured into the next 75 years and beyond. Knowledge growth is not linear, so let us aim at achieving more in the next 25 years compared to what we have already achieved over the past 75 years!

In my own soul-searching exercise, I have concluded that there are three core values for WAPOR, namely, Liberty, Quality and Humanity. I explained them in Dubai: Liberty is the right to let people’s voice be heard, it is the right to conduct and publish scientific research on what people think. Quality is the application of scientific methods, the development of professional standards, research techniques among professionals and representatives across different disciplines. Humanity guides us to apply our knowledge to mitigate disasters and conflicts, to promote the common good of humankind. Enhancing Humanity should be our ultimate goal. I consider these three core values to be equally important to our entire WAPOR community, whether at the “central”, “regional” or “individual” level.

In the two years ahead of me, I shall be the number one servant of the WAPOR community. I now appeal to each and every one of you for your continued support of me and WAPOR, so that we can work together to serve humankind based on the core values we believe in.

...Read MoreWAPOR shall not be an organization limited by boundaries, whether geographical, ethnical, cultural, or epistemological. Over the past 75 years, we have developed very successfully in areas of conceptual, methodological, professional, and cross-cultural studies. We shall treasure our achievements, but we shall also break new ground, like the application of advanced technologies, the breaking of barriers between different sciences, and even the integration of science and art. In terms of organization, we shall work closely with our sister organizations around the world, our own regional chapters and country representatives who will be our link with the general membership. We shall promote diversification and bottom-up initiatives in different areas and domains of WAPOR development, rather than homogeneity and top-down directives.

Our common mission, after all, is to let the voice of the people be heard. For this purpose, people should not be divided, and we ourselves should not be divided. I personally look forward to seeing a borderless world united by a common humanity, one day, and I will use the next 100 days to be a period of intensive consultation and consolidation. Let us work together for a better world!

Link: https://wapor.org/letter-from-two-wapor-presidents-january-2023/

2022-12-11

The Ones and Twos of Opinion Research

Mao Zedong’s merits and demerits were split 70-30, according to Deng Xiaoping in 1980. Deng Xiaoping’s own split was also 70-30, according to surveys conducted by the POP Team in February 1997. We do not have any data on Jiang Zemin.

In February 1997, the POP Team summarized Hong Kong people’s appraisal of the merits and faults of modern Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai Shek, with figures obtained in 1995, 1996 and 1997. Now we don’t have any. Is it a loss? We leave it to the historians.

Do we need these conclusions? This is a question for historians, but for the basis of such conclusions, opinion researchers may be able to help. However, history is constantly being rewritten, and public opinion is always on the change, so the questions of when is the best time and what is the best conclusion cannot be easily answered.

...Read MoreChina’s first emperor has died for more than 2,000 years, the appraisal of his rule is still inconclusive. Scientists recently announced that DNA samples collected from Greenland permafrost can be traced back to 2 million years ago. They had the samples 16 years ago, but could only wait until now for technology to advance.

The same is true for our team. The conditions are not yet mature and the risk is not yet released, there is no rush to conclude any research. We will preserve the data as much as we can, just like scientists preserving their DNA samples, in order to facilitate future research.