South Korea: April 2008 Archives

At the Danwei Plenary Session last month, moderator Jeremy Goldkorn issued a proviso before the discussion began: he would be referring to the western media and the Chinese media, even though "western media" is not, by any stretch, a homogeneous creature. One of my good friends, and sometimes contributor to this blog, has complained vociferiously that "the west" doesn't exist and should, at the very least, be defined before discussion can continue.

Traditionally I have overlooked this. To me, "the west" means white, English-speaking countries: Europe, the UK, Ireland, Australia, United States, Canada. Perhaps it's also a code-word for "colonial" powers (although it doesn't fit each of the countries I listed). Chinese people I have met have told me that media from these countries - and the power they hold as a collective - is unduly influential on a global scale; thus the campaigns against networks such as CNN over their news coverage.

"The West" is now the bogeyman to the Chinese: "The west" was responsible for past humiliations, "the west" is ruining the torch relay, "the west" doesn't understand Chinese culture. In fact, in a previous post, we get a psycho-analysis of a western mind.

This is all fine and good, but overlooks some glaring omissions which came to light this week. First, to blame "the west" for the FT movement is ridiculous; the Tibetan Government-in-Exile is based in India, for starters, and last I checked it wasn't a card-carrying member of the west. Nor is Japan part of the definition of "the west" that I offered above, and look how they handled this past weekend's torch relay stop in Nagano:

Protesters hurled rubbish and flares Saturday at the Beijing Olympic torch and brawled with Chinese supporters in a chaotic Japanese leg of the troubled round-the-world relay.

At least four people were injured in the scuffles in the mountain resort of Nagano, where more than 85,000 people packed the streets including Chinese students who turned the town into a sea of red national flags.

After relative calm elsewhere in Asia, the torch met at least hundreds of protesters here ranging from Buddhist monks and pro-Tibet demonstrators to nationalists, who provocatively waved Japan's old imperial flag.

Protesters threw trash, an egg, a tomato and flares as the torch was paraded through the streets despite more than 3,000 police guarding the route, who had raised security to a level usually accorded to Emperor Akihito.

The torch, which was run through Seoul on Sunday, didn't fare much better:

The Olympic torch relay has met with more protests and scuffles on its latest leg in Seoul, the capital of South Korea....

...One human rights demonstrator tried to rush at the torch shortly after the run began from Seoul's Olympic Park, in an attempt to hinder the relay.

South Korean policemen rescued a man after Chinese students attacked him during the torch relay.

To be fair, the report from Al Jazeera says that pro-China demonstrators vastly outnumbered the people protesting Chinese government policy. But the conclusion remains the same: people feel angry enough about China's policies that they are compelled to turn out and protest the torch relay.

There will be conspiracy theorists, probably in this comments section, that will say India, South Korea, Japan, et al have all been influenced by the west, are "slaves of the west", or whatever convenient excuse people choose to create. But the bottom line is the FT movement - and the backlash against the Chinese government (not the people, I'm at pains to add) - is far from a western phenomenon.

My colleague at Tianjin Television asked me over the weekend why "westerners" like the Dalai Lama so much. My response was that the Dalai Lama is, largely, respected by people in countries all over the world. China is the lone country which continues to demonize him. I suppose there is a possibility that China's assessment of the Dalai Lama is correct, but I doubt it.

What I'd like to know is how "the west" is defined in China, and how China feels about fellow Asian countries also protesting the torch. Because this time, France had nothing to do with it.

Mind you, neither did Carrefour.