Sure.
Any nation that would, as China tried last week -- to ****p arms to
another OUT-LAW country, Zimbabwe, for the purpose of allowing
criminal dictator MUGABE to kill off his political rivals after he
LOST a re-election -- deserves all the OPPROBRIUM that the world can
hurl its way!
Suck it up, Chinks! Stop acting sub-human!
Or start acting like higher-class animals!
And close down your polluted Olympic venue!
--------------------
"China Changes Course, Advocating Tempered Response to Its Critics"
By Jill Drew
Wa****ngton Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 23, 2008; A14
BEIJING, April 22 -- After weeks of expressing outrage at Western
protests over Tibet and the Olympics, officials here have begun
tempering their rhetoric in recent days and telling Chinese people to
be "rational" about their response.
In state media, Chinese officials had called the protests in the
United States and Europe "vile" and "blasphemy." On Tuesday, however,
the state-run China Daily said Chinese "should be ready for
criticism."
"As the country becomes the locomotive of the world economy and plays
a bigger part in global affairs, it draws more attention from the rest
of the world," the paper said in an editorial.
The new approach does not amount to China's backing down from
international challenges to its policies on Tibet or human rights. But
with less than four months to go before Beijing is slated to welcome
500,000 foreign visitors for the 2008 Olympic Games, the Communist
Party is trying to marshal domestic sup****t for the same policies that
are drawing international condemnation.
China's move to squelch dissent in Tibet has generated particular
criticism abroad.
"They got their first taste with Tibet. Now they can have trouble
every day until the end of the Olympics," said a Beijing-based
European diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I think
they will become more measured."
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that,
although the government does "not agree with some individual, radical
actions" by Chinese counterprotests, "the Chinese people can express
their feelings in a rational and legal way," she said.
Taking a cue from the government, Web sites and Internet discussion
forums that had been hotbeds for planning demonstrations and boycotts
of Western products and stores have begun deleting posts sup****ting
such actions. Rao Jin, founder of anti-CNN.com, a Chinese Web site
that exposes errors in Western media and publicizes examples of what
it sees as bias, said the site had deleted about 1,000 postings
sup****ting a boycott of Carrefour, the French-owned supermarket chain
that has more than 100 large stores in China.
"If you boycott Carrefour by yourself, that's your own personal
choice," Rao said. "But don't affect the social order."
One activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said
authorities told him "it would not be convenient" to grant a permit
for a new protest at Carrefour.
John Kamm, executive director of the San Francisco-based Dui Hua
Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes dialogue between China and the
United States, said China is faced with "how to do something to
placate international opinion without seeming weak at home." China's
image abroad, he said, "hasn't been this unpopular since Tiananmen
Square," when the government used tanks in a deadly confrontation to
crush student-led protests in the heart of Beijing in 1989.
Zu Jiahe, a professor at Beijing University, said it is unlikely there
will be more large-scale demonstrations of nationalist sentiment in
China. "Students understand what is more im****tant now is the upcoming
Beijing Olympic Games," Zu said. "They won't 'spoil the ****p for a
halfpenny worth of tar,' " he said, using a Chinese idiom.
"Rational patriotism," Zu said, "is a calm, controlled and emotion-
free action. The action should benefit the national interest in the
long run."
Still, emotions among many Chinese people continue to run high. Ouyang
Bingfeng, 21, an exhibition designer in Beijing, said he has been
participating in online discussions about how best to show the world
that Chinese people are unified against Tibetan separatism. "Don't
insult us," he said he wants to tell the world. "We are a 5,000-year-
old, big country and we are unified."
But those who joined in the Carrefour protests for that very reason
are being accused in online forums of being unruly, he said. People
are sending messages saying the Carrefour protests were violent
incidents.
That's a big ****ft from last week.
Ma Ruibin, a 31-year-old engineer in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan
province in western China, went with three friends to a Carrefour on
April 17 and handed out leaflets encouraging people not to boycott the
store, which employs thousands of Chinese and sells many Chinese-
manufactured products at low prices.
"A lot of people called us traitors," Ma said in a telephone
interview. "The patriotic youth are very irrational. Their
overreaction will damage the country's image. We want to show a
different opinion. China is trying to join the international
community. To do that we have to be more rational and open."
Chen Huai Yuan, 26, runs an Internet company that helped popularize a
"heart" icon in the MSN Messenger program meant to express love and
sup****t for China. He said his company first queried 1,800 of its
users about posting the heart icon, which appears next to the word
"CHINA," alongside their screen names. Within 24 hours, 6 million
users had adopted it.
He hopes people keep using it.
"Expressing your patriotism is not only about when bad things happen,"
Chen said. "Nationalism can be a long-term thing."
He said "there's culture shock" as China takes a higher profile on the
world stage. "The Chinese way of thinking is different from the
Western way," Chen said. "In the West, they think Chinese people don't
have human rights. As Chinese, we have social security, we have a
legal system. We don't feel like we don't have enough human rights."
Several people said they were unclear what form their expressions
would take from here, though bloggers are encouraging people to do
meaningful work that earns international respect. Sun Fa, a 28-year-
old protester, said, "Everyone has a different view of what is
rational."
[Researcher Liu Liu contributed to this re****t.]
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042202490.html
|
