Rising anger as
Chinese feel under attack



CAM MacMURCHY
TimesColonist.com
Sunday April 20th, 2008

No American TV personality is more famous in China right now that Jack Cafferty. He shot to stardom this week, but not the adoring kind.

Cafferty, a curmudgeonly talking head on CNN’s Situation Room, described China’s leaders 0as “basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”

While Americans and Canadians are used to boneheaded remarks from TV pundits, the Chinese aren’t. The comments have drawn the scorn of millions of Chinese, just weeks after CNN was roundly criticized here for “biased” coverage on the Tibet riots.

In fact, CNN’s Beijing bureau chief, Jaime FlorCruz, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, which also issued a stern public rebuke over the comments.

CNN offered an apology that noted Cafferty was referring to the Chinese government and not the people and that he has a record of criticizing governments of all stripes. The Chinese government quickly rejected the apology as inadequate.

Only here could an offhand remark by a TV commentator in a foreign country become an international incident.

But this is just the latest in a string of events raising tensions in China. The Tibetan unrest, Olympic torch relay protests and the subsequent media coverage have been driving a wedge between the Chinese and western countries.

Many Chinese tell me western journalism is “biased” against China and that torch protesters “don’t understand Tibet.”

Chinese friends have asked why we’re “trying to hurt China.”

All this has stoked nationalism to almost frightening levels. Last week, in a show of solidarity, millions of Chinese changed their names on the popular MSN chat service to “Heart China.”

On May 1, Chinese people plan to boycott French retail giant Carrefour in response to the torch relay protests in Paris, where a protester tried to grab the torch from Jin Jing, a disabled Chinese athlete. Jin has become a national hero after photos of her defiantly protecting the torch were posted online.

These conflicts have highlighted the deep cultural difference between the West and China.

On Tibet, both sides have completely different narratives. Westerners generally believe the Chinese military invaded sovereign territory in 1950, forced the Dalai Lama into exile, began a system of “cultural genocide” and eliminated religious freedom and human rights. To many westerners, this is black and white.

The Chinese see it in black and white too. They believe they liberated Tibet from a backward feudal system and have invested in economic development to lift many Tibetans from poverty. They also believe Tibet has historically been a part of Chinese territory and that foreigners have caused China endless suffering (the Opium Wars, annexation of Hong Kong, foreign settlements in Shanghai, Tianjin and elsewhere; burning and looting historical sites in Beijing).

And they believe that as China’s one moment to shine — the Olympics — approaches, foreign powers are again trying to rip the country apart and keep it from succeeding.

China has a victim complex. Talk about severing part of its territory is like ripping open a still-bleeding wound.

All of this is fuel for China’s already smouldering nationalist embers.

Sadly, people like Grace Wang have felt the consequences. She’s a freshman at Duke University in North Carolina who attempted to get the pro-Tibet and proChina protesters on campus to communicate. As a result, she’s been branded a “traitor” by the Chinese and her parents’ address in Qingdao has been circulated online. Manure was dumped outside their apartment and they’ve gone into hiding. One online commentator said Wang should be “burned in oil.”

Wang wasn’t even proTibet. She simply promoted conversation between the two sides. But in today’s China, it’s a “with us or against us” attitude, with Chinese victim status and a renewed assertiveness at its heart.

As for Cafferty, many foreigners have wondered why the Chinese couldn’t just laugh off his comments. After all, in Canada we have been the butt of jokes on U.S. TV for years — look at South Park’s famous Blame Canada song. Or imagine if the U.S. lodged a formal complaint every time somebody criticized the Bush administration on TV. So what’s the big deal? For one thing, Chinese television is all state-owned and any opinions offered are officially sanctioned by the state. The idea that an anchor could speak his mind on any topic is incomprehensible here. Many Chinese view Cafferty’s remarks as representing CNN or even the U.S. government. This gives his words far more weight and explains the high-level response. Also, the remarks confirm the worst conspiracy theories many Chinese hold about the West.

Whatever the background, nationalism, a victim mentality and two opposing sides that see their own positions as inherently noble are a dangerous mixture.

cmacmurchy@gmail.com

The chinese government has once again taken such a small little blurb on TV and made it front page news.. They chinese government really are a bunch of goons.. They're communists for crying out loud!!