| I found this whole LOVE CHINA thing so lame. Can people be more creative in expressing their patriotism/nationalism? It is NOT COOL when 80% of the people on the MSN/Windows Live Messenger list are doing same thing. Just a few more thoughts I have: 1) If the Chinese are so proud of themselves, why do they place so much emphasis on a Western cultural event/creation - the modern Olympics? The Chinese should just say 'Fuck It, we will have no more of this shit - we will NOT host the your (Western) 2008 games, we will create our own China Games (but the world is welcome to join)', if they feel that they had been slighted by Western media (by linking the games and politics). But by the same token, it is the Chinese government that politicize the games, by using the games to showcase China to the world as a new superpower. Investing billions of dollars into Beijing for a 2.5 week event doesn't make much economic sense, unless the goal is project China's new stature to the world. I don't buy that showcasing the Chinese culture argument, or doing it for the spirit of sports. The games have always been used, rightly or wrongly, as a political tool. Therefore the Chinese people should make such a fuss about the Western media politicizing the games, when the original intent of hosting the 2008 games was a political decision by the Chinese government. 2) There are posters here saying that England and France wanted to sabotage China's 2008 Olympics Games by not providing security thus allowing Tibetan protestors to interrupt the flame relay. - First, the flame relay run is really only a symbolic thing of a global party (i.e. Olympic Games) - that's it - the flame doesn't signify anything other than a symbol of a global party. The IOC is NOT a political body. Therefore why should the English or French government (using their citizen's tax dollar) foot the bill for providing extra security to protect a symbol for a party to be held in another country ??? - Second, unlike in China, in the USA, England, and France, people do have the right to protest (unfortunately sometimes those protest do get ugly - but that's the price of freedom of expression). Should the USA, England, France, and elsewhere suspend their citizen's right to freedom of expression while the Olympic torch passes through their cities? I mean, there were much bigger and uglier protests when it came to IMF / World Bank / Economic Summits meetings -- the right to freedom of expression was not suspended in those instances - which had much more importance to the world than the 2.5 week party known as the Olympic games. 3) The talk of boycotts of each other's products are just SILLY. America and Europe will continue buying made-in-China products because the price is just irresistible. Well-off Chinese will continue to queue-up at LV, Gucci, Prada, and other top luxury brand name stores in Shanghai and Hong Kong to buy these European brands. 4) I really do think that the Chinese government, through its controlled media, is stirring up anti-Western sentiments in China. The media in China is creating this sense that the Western world is against China. I can tell you that this is not true - far from it. The majority of Americans are politically apathetic - they care about more who will win the "Next American Idol" than who will win the next American presidency ... and human rights in China and Tibetan status in China are waaay down in their (majority of Americans) list of concerns. Of course there is always the loud minority - the protestors / liberal do-gooders - which is what the Chinese media is reporting / what the Chinese government allows its citizen to read/see through its controlled internet. |
"Love China" Blooms on MSN Messenger