By Keen Zhang
zhangr@china.org.cn
"Our country, right or wrong," the American naval hero Stephen Decatur once proclaimed. This is what Chinese people, especially the young generation, believe. The Western world never thought when they weighed in on Tibet issue, which they believed is "good-intent". The opinion of the West has been furiously responded to by the Chinese people's ever rising patriotism.
Granted, patriotism can sometimes be blind and dangerous, but that is what Chinese are now. At first, the major view point was simple as black and white: Pro-China is good, anti-China is bad. Choose your side now.
But as more and more well-educated and intellectual Chinese join in, Western media is put on its heels. Anti-cnn.com, set up by a young grass-root engineer Rao Jin, is a symbol of Chinese resilience. Another notable campaign is the Youtube video, "Tibet was, is and will always be part of China", generating millions of clicks and comments.
Even so, sources complained to China.org.cn that YouTube.com and social networks website Facebook.com were starting to reduce the videos' pro-China influence by cutting the clicks, censoring the comments and deleting Chinese users' IDs and groups.
To the Western world's surprise, many Chinese, who have received higher education overseas and some who have even lived abroad, have turned their backs on Western media because of the media circus.
Last weekend, tens of thousands of Chinese people took to streets and squares from Sydney to Seattle to voice their opinions to the Western media, which downplay and ignore the number of Chinese in their reports, censor Chinese people and flags, and even mistake Chinese for anti-Chinese protesters.
French companies and their products, including Louis Vuitton, L'Oréal and Carrefour, will soon be surprised to find themselves boycotted, according to a widely circulated appeal among Chinese on the internet, which may not result in massive loss for French investors but will surely send out a message to the French people. "It is a slap on their own face," the Global Times commented on the pro-Tibet chaos.
While the West criticizes Chinese for “excessive nationalism" and often labels China as "state-funded and controlled", when any spontaneous protests against the West occur, the West fails to realize their own faults.
"Many Westerners are ignorant," Luo Shuang told China.org.cn. The young woman studied in Britain for years and now come back to China for building her own jewelry business. She said she had traveled to 14 European countries and met many very nice people there. But when they talked about political issues regarding China, like the current Tibet issue, even her best Western friends would not listen to her but simply labeled her as "brainwashed" before they even checked the facts.