The Visitors

The international legs of the Olympic Torch relay are over.   What has the world learned about China and the Chinese, in the past few weeks?

Something like this.    An allegory from Monty Python’s, “The Visitors”:

Setting:     House = The Torch’s “host” countries of Britain, France, America, Australia, Japan, South Korea, et al

Dramatis Personae:    “The Visitors” = the embassies and mobs of students from the People’s Republic of China

Unintended Consequences 101: An Australian Response to China’s Arrogant Display of Nationalism at the Canberra Torch Relay

Update

Since this story was published, I received another tip-off from a reader who alerted me to some personal accounts of three Canberra residents who were present at the Canberra torch relay.  Their unpleasant encounters with the pro-China thugs were published on 26 April 2008 in The Canberra Times.

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The arrogant display of nationalism by visiting Chinese during the Canberra Torch Relay may have invoked some unintended consequences that will yield perverse effects contrary to what China originally intended.   The propaganda exercise orchestrated by the Chinese Embassy in Canberra showed little respect for Australia’s social values and national integrity.  The damage they have inflicted on Australia-China relations is nearly catastrophic.

The extent of the damage can be seen from the following comments to the latest Crikey Report about the Canberra Torch Relay:

Canberra Torch Relay: 50 Chinese Terrorise Little Girl

Loathsome bloody cowards.

One woman called Marie said she was mobbed by screaming Chinese students as she tried to watch the relay go past. She had to be rescued and escorted away by police….

…

Alistair Paterson, 52, from Lake George outside Canberra, said he was standing with his seven-year-old daughter on Limestone Avenue with an older couple, their teenage son and two other young women when they were attacked by a group of about 50 people draped in Chinese flags….

…”I got a flying kick in the leg, another bloke was hit in the head with a stick with a Chinese flag attached to it and our banners were torn down,” Mr Paterson said….

…”This gang of thugs rolled right through us and we had kids with us. My daughter was still shaking an hour later and is very quiet even now.

Will Roland Soong or Richard of The Peking Duck – or Xinhua – call this a “PR victory” for pro-Tibetan protesters?   Will they call this terrorised seven year old girl the “Australian Jin Jing”?

Pigs will fly first.   And I don’t expect to see Dan Harris of CLB flying by my window anytime soon.

Kevin Rudd and Bugs Bunny: Separated at birth?

 

It’s cartoon time again!

Dramatis Personae:

“The Crusher” =  The People’s Republic of China

Bugs Bunny     =  Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Scene beginning at 5:23 =  The consequence of Rudd’s diplomatic panache, prohibiting any Chinese military or police from participating in security measures for the Canberra torch relay.

 

(Photograph of Kevin Rudd from the Sydney Morning Herald)

 

"The Martyrdom of Jin Jing" Sickens Australians

 

Many Australians, including Olympic legend Dawn Fraser, Australian National University Professor Geremie Barme and one of this blog’s commenters named Aodaliyaren have openly expressed their contempt for the publicity stunts of the Beijing Olympics’ public relations agencies. These stunts are deliberate attempts to obfuscate the Chinese government’s unwillingness to fulfil its Olympic promise to cease its intransigent habits of human rights violations and to peacefully resolve ethnic tension in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Brendan O’Neill the cartoon character, Part Two

This is a follow-up to our most recent post about the self-parodying Brendan O’Neill.

His most recent article about the Blueshirt Thugs who have invaded Britain and France to escort the Torch of Shame, is beneath contempt and does not warrant any detailed analysis or response.    Suffice it to say (or, you can read his article for yourself, and thereby waste your time), his thesis is that there are no logical or otherwise intelligent reasons for Britain, or France, or (soon) Australia to object to, or to protest against, the gang of Chinese thugs who escorted the Torch in London and Paris, other than reasons based on blinkered racial stereotypes.

It’s Not Just About Tibet.

From today’s Daily Mirror (UK):

 

The tracksuited Chinese security men guarding the Olympic torch are highly-trained killers from crack military special forces units, the Daily Mirror can reveal….

 

Thirteen Chinese security men surrounded the torch as it was carried through London and wrestled with one protester as he tried to grab it from TV presenter Konnie Huq.

 

Konnie said: “The men in blue perplexed everyone.  Nobody seemed to know who they were.  They were very robotic, full-on, and I noticed them having skirmishes with our own police and the Olympic authorities.

 

A Challenge to Olympic Torch-bearer Bai Jian

This is our response to a story of a recent Chinese Olympic Torchbearer in London named Bai Jian, which has been translated by the Australian “China Hand” Geremie Barme (pronounced “Barmy”) and published in the China Digital Times.

Our first observation is that the first 20 (twenty) paragraphs of Bai Jian’s essay are entirely about his personal story of financial difficulties, absolutely irrelevant to any reasons to protest against the Olympic Torch relay. His implied message seems to be that the main purpose of the Olympic Torch and all that it represents is to raise Chinese individuals like himself out of poverty. That’s rubbish.  China’s Olympic Torch – whatever it symbolizes and promotes – certainly does not promote charity or compassion, let alone any rule of law in which real prosperity can be cultivated and endure.

Thus, Bai Jian’s implied appeal to the ethos of charity among the Western cultures which the Torch is visiting, is a distraction, an irrelevancy and a dishonest attempt by China’s Central Propaganda Department (who control everything Bai Jian tells to Western audiences) to appeal to European and American ethos of compassion and charity which are not shared by the Chinese Communist Party, who to this day remain avowed Leninists who abjure and contemn any beliefs in charity or compassion.