BBC World recently broadcast an item about the song Don’t Be Too CNN (做人不能太CNN) that has gained a lot of popularity with Chinese Netizens. The rap song is aimed mainly at the perceived vilification and distorted reporting by US cable TV news station CNN on how the Chinese government has dealt with the violent incidents in Tibet beginning last month.
The Chinese government is also angry about CNN’s reporting, saying it is partial to the Tibetan movement and misleads Western viewers with its reports on how the Chinese government cracks down on peaceful Tibetans.
China was especially angry about an incident on CNN’s show Situation Room, where host Jack Cafferty commented on the many incidents during the international leg of the Olympic flame relay, with human rights groups and pro-Tibetan protesters often hindering the flame on its journey.
Cafferty said: “Well, I don’t know if China is any different, but our relationship with China is certainly different. We’re in hawk to the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq, for one thing. They’re holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper ... I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”
China felt insulted and the statement set off a wave of protests, both from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and from Chinese people at home and abroad, against some Western media, like the BBC and CNN, for spouting “anti-Chinese” opinions.
China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) and Liu Jianchao (劉建超), director-general of the foreign ministry’s information department, separately stated that the Chinese government was angry over the incident. The ministry demanded that CNN “take back the vile remarks,” and issue a “sincere apology” to the Chinese government and people.
During a meeting with a delegation from the two leading Japanese parties, Chinese President and CCP Chairman Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) expressed the opinion that Western countries who thought of boycotting the Beijing Olympics using the issue of human rights in Tibet as an excuse were involved in a planned conspiracy.
The riots in Lhasa started on March 14 and sparked a wave of attacks against the Olympic flame relay, setting off a show of cyber-nationalism by Chinese Netizens.
According to the most recent statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center (中國互聯網絡信息中心), there are 210 million Chinese on the Internet, making China the second most Internet-connected country after the US. This large group called on the Chinese population to boycott the well-known French supermarket chain Carrefour because it was rumored that one of the company’s major shareholders was giving financial assistance to the Dalai Lama, who is said to be “splittist” and wants to overthrow the Chinese government.
Other reasons given for boycotting the French supermarket were that the French president and government, who reproached Beijing for the way it handled the Tibetan issue, and that during its tour through France, the Olympic flame was interfered with to the point that it was extinguished several times. US fast food chain KFC is also on the list of targets for a boycott.
Chinese Netizens have set up the Web site Anti-CNN.com to strike back at CNN for cropping photos of Chinese military quelling the riots and fabricating news. Many MSN users have put a “red heart China” in their screen name. A patriotic Internet petition calling on Chinese people from all over the world to oppose “splittism” and protect the Olympic flame has been supported by more than 5 million people, showing the patriotism and unity of Chinese Netizens.
The Chinese government’s enthusiasm for the Beijing Olympics is to a certain extent a projection of national sentiment wishing to wash off the historical humiliation of being invaded and partially colonized by Western powers. The Games are used by China to show how the Chinese people have stood up, and how the country has risen using the same development strategy as rich and powerful countries.
This rising sense of national self-respect and patriotic sentiment were meant to flourish and shine when the Olympics are opened in Beijing this August, but instead this sentiment has been hurt by those people and groups who advocate or support the idea that China is a threat. Chinese nationalism found a place to grow in cyberspace, and once again China’s intellectual classes and Netizens have shown their care for their country and public affairs, and their will to act on it.
This kind of bottom-up protests or protests developing from intellectuals down to the proletariat has given the Internet an epoch-making and almost revolutionary role in terms of political and public participation in connection to many events.
Some examples are the May 1998 anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia, the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in former Yugoslavia in May 1999, former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) statement that relations between China and Taiwan are on a “special state-to-state” basis in July 1999, the collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet over Hainan in April 2001 and former Japanese prime mister Junichiro Koizumi’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine.
Cyber-nationalism promotes and intensifies Chinese nationalism, but it is a double-edged sword: On one hand, the Chinese government can use cyber-nationalism to support its foreign relations, diplomacy and military policy, and domestically as a political, economic and social support for Beijing’s legitimacy.
On the other hand, the Internet also fosters reactionary speech and action because online discussion and debate can spark offline political and social movements. If the actions of China’s authorities don’t meet the expectations of Netizens and the general public, then public power that began as a nationalistic and patriotic force, wanting to defend China against the rest of the world, could turn into a voice that isn’t satisfied with what happens within the country. It could become a force that Beijing can’t control.
After the protests against Carrefour stores as well as the French embassy in Beijing, the People’s Daily, the CCP’s official newspaper, published an article saying that China should cultivate the attitude of a “great power.” The article demanded that the public be rational, and said that taking care of one’s own things is now the highest form of patriotism.
This shows that the Chinese government might be worried that the growing protests would further harm a national image already damaged by trouble in Tibet. The government is afraid that the image of a peacefully rising China it has worked so hard to create will be increasingly questioned and that Westerners will start to believe that it is in fact a non-peaceful rise that threatens the economies, militaries and democratic values of Western countries.
According to a survey spanning the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy published in a recent issue of the British Financial Times, 35 percent of respondents saw China as the biggest threat to global stability, more than the US’ 29 percent and more than Iran and North Korea.
Mark Leonard, executive director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that: “The story of the last five years has been about economic opportunities. The story of the last six months has been about China as a threat in Darfur and in Tibet,” and as a result, the impression foreigners have of China has changed.
Sports are never completely free from politics, and the modern Olympic Games, which have been held for more than 100 years, are no exception. The 2008 Beijing Olympics are China’s chance to do away with the humiliations of the past two centuries and officially enter the global community, facing the world and demonstrating the important political aspects of China’s rise. But it also offers an important opportunity for China to look at the position and role of the power of its people, especially its Netizens, in the top-to-bottom structure of China’s government tradition.
Hung Chin-fu is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Graduate Institute of Political Economy at National Cheng Kung University.
Translated by Anna Stiggelbout
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