The BBC has a write-up about Chinese netizen reactions to the demonstrations in Tibet and during the torch relay. C-blogs like EastSouthWestNorth, Danwei, and Mutant Palm get a shout-out and there’s a link to a music sample of a popular tune called “Don’t Be Too CNN.”
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33 Comments
It is not just CNN that is getting bashed by Chinese netizens and CCP-supporters. Read the commentary regarding Carrefour and the May 1 demonstration against doing business in their Chinese stores. It basically reads as “the west and EU are are running an anti-China campaign, thus they release so many reports of bad things in China and this is not right”.
Believe it or not.
Kung-fu star Jackie Chan to chop down Olympic protesters
http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/o.....page_id=46
How convenient for the CCP that the Chinese torchbearer in Paris was not only attractive, but also wheelchair-bound.
#1,
I guess the Chinese cops were busy handling Tibetan protesters in town, right?
Tibet and Palestine
By URI AVNERY
“Hey! Take your hands off me! Not you! You!!!”–the voice of a young woman in the darkened cinema, an old joke.
“Hey! Take your hands off Tibet!” the international chorus is crying out, “But not from Chechnya! Not from the Basque homeland! And certainly not from Palestine!” And that is not a joke.
* * *
LIKE EVERYBODY else, I support the right of the Tibetan people to independence, or at least autonomy. Like everybody else, I condemn the actions of the Chinese government there. But unlike everybody else, I am not ready to join in the demonstrations.
[Click Here for More...]
I thought this post would be about Richard Quest getting busted for meth in NYC.
Netizen Kim,
Please stop being a lazy cut-n-pasting turd.
A simple link (with perhaps a brief quote) would be fine.
“Andy”, that *might* apply if “Netizen” had any observation to make. As it is, we have no idea what he is trying to say.
#6: “I thought this post would be about Richard Quest getting busted for meth in NYC.”
I thought you were joking, but it’s true:
http://www.latimes.com/enterta.....9214.story
Where I live, there was a huge Chinese rally for the support of the PRC and to protest Western media for colluding to ruin China’s Olympics. You Westerners are jealous of China’s growing might and are taking out your hatred and frustrations on China, reporting false and biased reports to stir up trouble and hate against China.
If the US leaves Korea, Koreans will have to start speaking Chinese my ass. Wish that all you want, but I think it’s the Western countries - especially the US, who should be afraid of the growing might of China. Their real target is to bypass you (not tiny Korea) and put you under their thumbs.
“cm”, was that support for the PRC or the CCP? Do Chinese there make such a distinction?
If there’s a difference, I haven’t heard of it. Is there a difference? Have a look at these Chinese made American 짝퉁 weapons. Don’t laugh. Read the bottom of the article. They start out with copying without license, until they learn to surpass the original. You Americans seriously need to do something about American defense tech leaking like a boat with big swiss cheese holes. Thirteen Chinese Americans caught spying last year alone, what about the ones who didn’t get caught?
http://news.chosun.com/site/da.....00710.html
Good luck with that. The Chinese government itself estimated a few years ago that it would take 50 years for China to reach the development level of Korea and 80 to achieve fully developed status. Those projections assume continuous rapid development with no serious disruptions. The biggest obstacle to development is corruption, and I see no signs that the central government’s occasional chicken culls have scared the monkeys.
In any case, the US should not worry about China. The US should worry about the US. If China eventually surpasses us, it will be because we failed ourselves. That’s why I hate to see our resources squandered overseas while very real threats to long-term economic growth and stability are found right here at home.
@Net Kim:
Your cutting and pasting of long articles is getting on a lot of people’s nerves. I scroll down past them without reading and encourage others to do the same. For Pete’s sake, Net, why don’t you speak for yourself instead of having someone else speak for you?
“eventually surpass us”? I think they already did, in a sort of way. Can the US survive without Chinese lending you money?
Look for US political and economic policies to reflect this new standing, more and more in the future. Don’t piss off your bankers.
Yes, we could. Our standard of living would depreciate considerably but not down to the level of the average Chinese. China is powerful but not more powerful than the US. To wit, CM, would you rather live like the average Chinese or like the average American?
And remember that Hideyoshi’s real target was China, not Korea, but it was Korea that got burned and looted.
No one hates China here. What the CCP has to worry about is not the outside world.
China has uncertain neighbors and borders. India, Vietnam, Korea and etc…all have historical beefs and experience with an expansive and aggressive China.
China has repressed minorities. Tibetians are just one of them. Minorities whose ancient cultures have turned into nothing more than money making circuses by the Great Han race.
Also…
How exactly is China a military threat to the US or Europe? They going to attack Europe through Russia?
Any attempt to send the Chinese Navy toward the US will immediately be spotted by Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.
Push to Shove in Space? What is China going to do? The US Space shuttle with its cargo bay starts picking Chinese satellites like ripe cherries from earth’s orbit.
Please, no more laughs about the Chinese Military.
I agree that it’s turdish of Netizen Kim to cut-and-paste that whole article (but then Netizen Kim is a turd, after all); I’ve used my amazing admin powers to excerpt and leave a link.
The article linked is a good one. I’m glad the turd passed it on with his recommendation. If he leaves more links instead of wholesale cut-and-paste, it would be desirable.
Netizen Kim: Turd or not, I’d be glad to e-mail you an explanation of how to link things using HTML.
He doesn’t even have to bother with HTML. He can just cut and paste the link.
Netizen Kim, it’s really your source that some Holers take offence with.
Supposedly there is a difference between the Party and the people. One has power and the other is currently subservient to the power. If you do not see a difference, then I wish you wisdom because you do not have it now.
Hey “R. Elgin,” where are the tanks? Where are thugs? Looks like there’s a major protest going on…guess you were wrong about China. As usual.
Why don’t you learn something about China before you open your mouth a make a fool of yourself. Your mischaracterizations of China as a totaltarian state are so far off base, I wonder what reality your living in.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200....._NmMVvaA8F
The protests had begun on Saturday, erupting in front of Carrefour stores in Beijing and four other major cities — Wuhan, Kunming, Xi’an and Qingdao — according to witnesses, photos and media reports.
In Beijing, demonstrators also appeared outside the French Embassy and the Beijing French School.
Protesters in Xi’an carried pictures of Jin Jing, a disabled, little-known fencing athlete who has become famous in China after clinging stubbornly to the torch while a Tibet supporter tried to wrestle it away during the Olympic torch relay in Paris on April 7.
France-based Carrefour said in a statement last week that it has always supported the Beijing Olympics. Carrefour is the second-largest hypermarket in the world after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. It has 122 stores in China employing more than 40,000 people.
There has also been a backlash against Western media organizations, especially broadcaster CNN, for what is perceived as biased reporting on recent unrest in Tibet and neighboring provinces. Foreign journalists have received threatening phone calls and emails.
And you still think there’s a difference? The overwhelming majority of overseas Chinese would support their government in China, on the issue of Tibet, Olympics, and many other things.
@#20 and 21:
The relationship between the people and the CCP can be understood by looking at the Chinese flag. The four outer stars represent the workers, the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie (small business class), and the national bourgeoisie (business class). The four smaller stars encircle the larger star, which symbolizes not “the government” but “the leadership of the Communist Party.”
At the moment, Chinese are showing strong support for their government, but that is a natural human reaction to perceived foreign disrespect of China. Elected or not, there’s nothing a government likes better than foreign paper tigers, i.e. enemies that don’t really pose a threat.
“enemies that don’t really pose a threat.”?
Really now. How many westerners really care about some country that they’ve never even heard of. This whole controversy is as phony as they come. Chinese are right, it’s jealousy and fear mongering at play to derail the games. Average westerner couldn’t care a hoot about average Tibetan or average Chinese.
The new mortgage bankers are really pissed off now.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....ional/home
Here’s a good article questioning ethnic nationalism or pride of overseas Chinese.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....9/BNStory/
@#23:
Whether or not Western demonstrators really care about Tibet is irrelevant to the fact that they and their demonstrations pose no threat to China. They are merely a nuisance. Who cares if Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy stay home? The games survived previous boycotts. The USA had a rousing good time in ‘84 without the Soviet Bloc. Boycotting Carrefour, which could not even stop the demonstrations if it wanted to, is as stupidly nationalistic as Americans eating freedom fries.
FYI, I am not sympathetic to the demonstrators at all. I see them as useless at best, harmful at worst because they feed Chinese nationalism. To appreciate the ugliness of this nationalism and irrational netizen frenzy, read about the fall of paralympic torch bearer Jin Jing from martyr to traitor after she voiced opposition to the Carrefour demonstrations:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200804b.brief.htm#030
EastSouthWestNorth has lots of good posts about Chinese public and netizen reactions to the demonstrations and Western media coverage.
Don’t bother with irrelevant tu quoque arguments. This isn’t “China bad, America good.” Criticism of another country does not imply that one thinks one’s own country is free of blame. A rational discussion deals with each issue on its own merits. I’ve made my views on Iraq very clear on numerous threads.
#6: In hindsight it’s not surprising that Quest dude was using mother’s little helpers; too much manic energy.
sonagi: Boycotting Carrefour, which could not even stop the demonstrations if it wanted to, is as stupidly nationalistic as Americans eating freedom fries.
I don’t think you can really compare the freedom fries incident to what has repeatedly happened in China. To my knowledge, during the whole controversy over Chirac’s betrayal at the UN over the Iraqi campaign, there were no anti-French demonstrations, no threat of violence and no French property was destroyed. We basically jeered the French privately and that was that. The Chinese government has a record of punitive actions against countries that speak out against them. Chinese demonstrators destroyed an American consulate in the aftermath of the accidental bombing of a Chinese consulate in Yugoslavia, and inflicted major damage on other consulates and the embassy.
The level of Chinese vitriol in response to criticism is part of an old tradition. Anything less than worshipful obedience and admiration is cause for Chinese anger. This sense of entitlement is encapsulated in the Emperor Qian Long’s edict to King George back in the 18th century “Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!”, when the Chinese viewed Britain as a minor tributary state (to China). There are a lot of people who view the Communist system as being the source of Chinese xenophobia and arrogance. I think it’s more the product of thousands of years of Chinese propaganda. The fact is that Imperial Japan’s attitudes probably owed more to the bits of its culture borrowed from China than from Western ideology.
The Austrian, Spanish and Ottoman Empires were at different times referred to as “the Sick Man of Europe”. These empires are now history. There is a case to be made that they ought to be resentful of that description, now that their circumstances are much diminished. But it is Chinese who get all ticked off at having been described, at one point in time, as being the Sick Man of Asia. This is in the here and now. You don’t get anywhere near as much resentment and anti-Western vitriol from Asian countries that were completely occupied by Western countries. But China, which ceded mere fishing villages to the West and had them developed into major metropolises, is keeningly resentful of the West.
Bottom line is that the average Chinese has an overdeveloped superiority complex and sense of entitlement to worshipful admiration. Combine this with China’s two-millenia tradition of territorial expansion during times of military strength, and we have both a long-term goal and the fuel (bodies) with which to achieve that goal. Any of China’s neighbors that isn’t feeling nervous is brain-dead or deluded by notions of yellow solidarity.
An American gets slapped around a little in Zhuzhou, Hunan (home province of the late Chairman Mao):
Here’s an email we received from a volunteer teacher from an Ivy League university volunteer programme in Hunan Province (who shall remain unnamed to protect the identities of everyone involved) — a chilling account of an attack on his colleague by an anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou. The matter has been brought to the attention of the US Embassy in Beijing and should serve as a warning to all Caucasian readers, particularly those living in second-tier cities, to avoid large crowd gatherings at all costs during these crazy, crazy times. Our foreign correspondent friends in Shanghai and Beijing have been receiving death threats on their mobile phones and through their faxes, but clearly, this is something else:
Last night [Editor's note: Sunday, Apr 20] around 7pm my friend was attacked by a mob of about 150 people outside the Carrefour in Zhuzhou, Hunan (near his placement site). When leaving Carrefour some of the crowd started shouting at him and he tried to say he didn’t have anything to do with the Olympics, but 3 men started to push him and then he was hit in the back of the head at least 3 times. He started to run, and the mob chased him. He jumped into a cab, but the mob surrounded the car and started shaking and rocking it. The cab driver was shouting at him to get out. Then they started hitting the car. The crowd was shouting “kill him! kill the Frenchman.” He called the Field Director while in the back of the car. The cab driver abandon the car when he saw police coming. Two police made there way though the mob and managed to drive the cab away. The Field Director alerted [a certain public official]. The police got him another cab and he took it from Zhuzhou to the field director’s home in Changsha. He spending the night here in Changsha and is likely leaving China as soon as possible.
[My colleague] is only 22, an American (not French), and a volunteer teacher. He graduated from [university] less than 10 months ago. If he can be attacked anyone can be. The situation in central china is becoming much worse very quickly. He has been cut up pretty badly by the glass and the people trying to grab him.
I didn’t think the situation and protests were anything to worry about before now, but if the mob had gotten him outside of the cab he could have easily been killed.
Foreigners need to be more aware that this is a real danger and MUCH more careful around the protests here in central china.
Im also sending this letter to the embassy.
People need to be more much careful.
“An American gets slapped around a little in Zhuzhou”
Reminds me of the American soldier who was stabbed in Haebangchon back in 2002. That was worse.
Obviously non-Chinese (why was the warning only for “Caucasian readers”?) should avoid Carrefour in China for a while.
So come to China and enjoy our warm hospitality!
Chinese, too, should avoid Carrefour for awhile. The fenqing turned on torch martyr Jin Jing, calling her a traitor and worse after she expressed opposition to the demonstrations outside Carrefour.
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