China Hush has translated a rather long screed in the form of an open letter from an outraged Chinese to President Obama. The letter is interesting not for its unremarkable message but rather because it provides a useful archetype of how a Chinese fenqing, or angry youth, thinks.
Much of the letter consists of a denunciation of the Dalai Lama, whom the author brands as a ‘terrorist’, followed by the usual declaration of China as a ‘peace loving country’ somehow unique in the world.
As I’ve pointed out recently the two concepts mentioned above are interrelated. The Chinese government propagates an image of being a peaceful country so as to distinguish itself from the various foreign powers who carved China up in the 19th and 20th centuries as well as to provide an ex-post-facto justification for why its conquest of Tibet was somehow one of liberation rather than imperialism. In order to pretend that there is no legitimate opposition in Tibet, the Communist Party labels the Dalai Lama as a villain and blames all unrest in the region on his influence.
A caveat, lest you think I’m grouping all Chinese in with this particularly outraged young man. His views are reminiscent of ultra-nationalists and do not correspond to the vast majority of Chinese people. Then again, the fact that over 6,000 others have ‘dinged’ or supported his post indicates that quite a few people in this country feel similarly.
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