We?

When I began this documentary, I began with questioning Spielberg’s resignation ‘over Darfur’. I started off my research with the civil war and history of Sudan but when the riots in Lhasa and the other provinces broke out, I started reading about that. I did not foresee that the anti China sentiment was just about to overflow in sync with the start of the Olympic Torch Relay. Scouring the internet for news, articles and blogs I began to realize that there is a pro China stance from many Chinese people, not just on the mainland, but the ones overseas and- individuals born overseas. The main surge of complaints are what this documentary started out being about; the unfair coverage of western media about China and the boycotting of the Olympics. Although when I began, there only existed biased reporting about various issues. And then on 14th March, the riots in Tibet broke out.

What made many Chinese (both mainlanders and overseas) break silence and garner a sense of ‘nationalism’ or national/cultural pride/defense was the fabricated photographic reports from CNN, FOX (SKY), BBC, German N-TV, N-24 and Bild Zeittung. The most infamous response to this is the site ANTI CNN (http://www.anti-cnn.com/). A rather crude looking site with some crude YouTube videos, the most infamous being Tibet WAS, IS and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China (a rather heavy handed knee jerk reactionary video). Despite being crude looking, it does have some interesting links and some dubious links (see The Secret Truth About The Dalai Lama- Christina Rosetti’s claim that the Dalai Lama is in fact a Nazi supporter). There are many blogs by many young Chinese mainlanders who range from being as attacking as their counterparts to the more calmer and mindful in their response. A good piece, translated piece originally written by student Mengsha recites her experiences as an ethnic minority ‘Zhuang’ in relation to the China- Tibet issue.

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/04/us-and-them/

It occurs to me though that this eruption of ‘war’ of East vs West in cyberspace is large. I was surprised to find that many overseas Chinese were defending China despite having probably lived in overseas countries since birth. Chinese people do not normally speak up for their rights, let alone defend other peoples. This includes the overseas Chinese. Chinese people are more likely to walk away than to argue against you, especially if you aren’t Chinese.

Thus the camaraderie of Chinese around the globe in protest is an interesting phenomenon. Not only because of a sudden collective of Chinese people speaking out in defence of China but also the sense of overseas Chinese people rising to the sense that they are part of this collective ethnicity, culture and history that they feel want to defend/protect.

We must make a distinction here; when the Chinese (both mainlanders and overseas) are speaking in defence of China, I suspect they are defending not the Chinese government/regime but the culture of Chinese, as a collective people, as a nation. Although at times, some seem to not be able to make that distinction and their defensive argument has the voice of nationalism (political). In effect, if ones argument or standpoint isn’t clear, the response you receive is based on this. On Danwei.org, an intriguing short piece on YouTube videos, which asks if this might be "the world's first international user generated propaganda war?".

http://www.danwei.org/video/youtube_propaganda_war.php

On which I left my own comments.

Here’s another I wrote comments to but are unpublished:

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4948/

It’s not a good article AT ALL and I don’t mean by way of it’s leanings, just by the way it’s written. And it’s not at all good representation of Spiked which actually has some funny articles by it’s editor Brendan O’Niell. Spiked actually has it’s own section that challenges ‘China Bashing’.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4506/

The important thing to remember when the water divides is not which side one is on, but to understand the issues, the complexities of them, the intentions of each voice bearer or collective. Instead of standing on either side, two can share the space in the middle. If one can identify with our cultural background despite geography and protect our shared object of interest (ie ‘Chinese’), can one not try to identify with whom we are trying to protect that object from?

J


* The issue of ‘Chinese’, being ‘Chinese’ is under discussion. What does being ‘Chinese’ mean?

** The ‘object’ of ‘Chinese’ by this I mean whether it is Chinese people, the Chinese government, the land of China, the collective nation, the culture and traditions of Chinese. People are defending different things and they may not necessarily know which ones they are as sometimes it may seem all rolled into one. �