Comments on: What if China is Right About “Western China?”

By: Josh

Josh — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:33:34 +0000

Shame on me indeed!

By: nanheyangrouchuan

nanheyangrouchuan — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 00:59:58 +0000

What a bunch of wet noodles. Do you really think that the PAP and PLA are acting any differently against upitty TWCs than against peasants who protest about being driven out of their homes for a brand new factory/apartment complex/etc?

China is reacting the only way it knows how, with brutal and devastating force and that is why there is a territorial lockdown.

Now about the riots, ask yourselves why is it that a Xinhua camera crew “just happened” to be in the area with a camera rolling when “TWC monks” kicked down the door of a Han owned business?

And there should be riots, this country has been getting squeezed and its people “harmonized” for 50 years while the world turned its back in favor of the potential of 1 billion customers.

Shame on all of you.

By: stan

stan — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:43:45 +0000

It is interesting seeing westerner being not as negative against the chinese government for a change. I think how the chinese government reacted towards the media was very communist like when a riot occur, and they are a communist country after all. However, from what i saw from Hong Kong news report and video from youtube(Thank God for camera phone and the internet) you can clearly see that the riot was a riot and not a peaceful protest. Both side just exaggerated something that was very simple, and what disgust me is when people bring Olympic to the picture. People like Richard Gere who wants to boycott the Olympic is what bothers me. Have him ever consider the atheletes who put all their hardwork for this event and the nation who spend years for it.

ps. nice site by the way

By: hehe

hehe — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:50:42 +0000

The news picture “harmonisation” mustered by CNN just tells you what the Chinese government is afraid of. Remember, CNN, like it or not, is powerful, and CNN is not the only one which is capable of harmonising.

By: Skoal

Skoal — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:37:41 +0000

Josh, I agree with you. What suprises me most is that it seems to have caught them off-guard, so I think their first reaction was they didn’t know what to do, other than seal off the area in case they need to control the information. Everything I have read indicates that the initial responses were justified. The only thing I feel is wrong is them trying to lump the riots with the protests. They seem to have let the protests progress, as long as they were peaceful, but when gangs of youth (for lack of a better description) took advantage of the situation and became violent, that seems to be when they responded. Now, they are blaming the violence on the march. I think they would have been much better off to just come out and say they realize the riots were different, then it would have looked like they respected the peaceful acts.

The problem is that most of the information is coming from the groups just across the southwest border, since they were not allowing more coverage, so many foreign news services seemed to include that information since there was so little to go on. That agrees with Eric’s point, as western media is a business instead of agendas (unless you believe the likes of Fox News). So, media needs to report something, so with no actual journalists there they can only report both sides of the propaganda war.

There is no room for violence, so the powers are right in stopping violence to protect people (on both sides, since more violence results in casualties on both sides) and to prevent property damage. Also, they need to keep it from escalating, as some will be more and more bold as August grows closer (who’s brilliant idea was it to have the torch pass through that area?). If they let if keep flaring now, it will only cause more mayhem closer to the games. As far as rounding up people, I hope they are able to get the ones involved, and not just suck up a bunch of people who they want to associate with the riots. What good comes from these actions anyway? I don’t care which side of the issue is right in regard to the past (well, I do care but I am not sharing my view with anyone, since it is just an opinion). I just hope everything is peaceful, both in the times up to the games, but far beyond that.

Scott

By: ERIC

ERIC — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:16:05 +0000

i highly doubt that international media would paint a just picture of whatever the response is. this is not so much bias for china as media’s natural tendency for the melodramatic. drama sells.