The farce continues

Chinese ambassador warns of backlash:

The ambassador warned that negative media coverage and the protests that have dogged the Olympic torch relay were damaging the west’s image in China.

“Many who had romantic views of the west are very disappointed at the media’s attempt to demonise China. We all know demonisation feeds a counter-reaction,” she said. “Many complain about China not allowing enough access to the media. In China, the view is that the western media need to earn respect.”

Don’t you love political leaders who ignore reality? Sweetheart, from my experience of living in China, Chinese people don’t have a truly romanticised view of ‘the West’. They just see it as an opportunity to get out of China, make some money, and return (if they don’t manage to get citizenship) to live a more comfortable life.

And there’s that “If I repeat the lie enough, it will become fact” effort of claiming how happy most Tibetans are to be overrun by Han Chinese. I’m ethnically Han Chinese and I know this is complete bullshit.

See also Made in China. We should all be more frugal anyway, whatever our political stance. In my fantasy world, the best way for China to move forward, both politically and economically, is to be split into several smaller, more manageable, independent countries — the place is simply too big to be run in a remotely effective manner, hence the ridiculously crappy state it’s in. I can’t quite see the CCP going for that, though.