.bmp)
.bmp)
BEIJING:Armed with her laptop and her indignation, Zhu Xiaomeng sits in her dorm room here, stoking a popular backlash against Western support for Tibet that has unnerved foreign investors, Western diplomats and, increasingly, the ruling Communist Party.Over the last week, Zhu and her classmates have been channeling anger over anti-China protests during the tumultuous Olympic torch relay into a boycott campaign against French companies, blamed for what they see as their country's support of pro-Tibetan agitators. Some have also called for a boycott against U.S. chains like McDonald's and KFC.On Friday and Saturday, protesters gathered in front of a half-dozen outlets of the French retailer Carrefour, including a demonstration in the central city of Wuhan that drew up to 1,000 people carrying Chinese flags and singing the national anthem, The Associated Press reported. On Sunday, protests continued in Xian, Harbin and Jinan, The AP said, citing Xinhua, the government news agency.In Beijing, about 50 demonstrators carrying banners held a brief rally at the French Embassy before the police shooed them away on Saturday.For the moment, however, most of the outrage is confined to the Internet. More than 20 million people have signed online petitions saying they plan to stop shopping at Carrefour, Louis Vuitton and other stores linked to France because of what they see as the country's failure to protect the torch during its visit to Paris two weeks ago. In a survey released on Friday, Xinhua said 66 percent of those who responded said they would stay away from Carrefour during a monthlong boycott planned for May.Public indignation has also been directed at Western news outlets, which are blamed for what is seen as one-sided coverage of the torch relay and what has been perceived as an anti-Chinese bias in their reporting on the disturbances in Tibet. In recent days, foreign news outlets here have been swamped by angry phone calls; two music videos circulating on the Internet assail CNN with expletives and lyrics like, "Don't think that repeating something over and over again means that lies become truth."The boycott call, spread through millions of text messages and postings on the country's most heavily trafficked Web sites, provides a window into technology's growing power to mobilize a country whose political passions are usually kept in check by tight government control.Although Communist Party officials have the ability to block text messages and Internet traffic they find objectionable, the censors have until now allowed more leeway for boycott organizers. In many ways, they have been feeding the outrage by publicizing the threat by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to skip the opening ceremonies and by repeatedly calling on CNN to apologize for remarks made by Jack Cafferty, a commentator who called the Chinese government "goons and thugs." The network has expressed regret for offending the Chinese people, but officials here have dismissed the response as insincere.But in a sign that the government may now be worried about the intensity of popular passion, Xinhua said Friday that it was time to curb nationalist zeal. While it lauded the boycott crusade, it advised people not to complicate the government's aim of encouraging foreign investment in China."Patriotic fervor should be channeled into a rational track and must be transformed into real action toward doing our work well," the agency said.On Saturday, it issued a stronger warning, highlighting government concern that anti-Western sentiment could affect public attitudes during the Olympics, when 1.5 million people are expected to arrive. "Every son and daughter of China has the responsibility to show to the world in real action that China welcomes friends from all countries with open arms and will deliver an outstanding Olympics," it said in an editorial.On Sunday, a similar message of restraint was repeated in a front-page editorial in The People's Daily.In the past, the government has encouraged nationalistic outbursts and then quashed them when passions grew too inflamed - or when the protests had achieved the political purpose officials envisioned. In 1999, the authorities gave free rein to a brief spasm of anti-American protest after the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade; in 2005, they allowed even larger anti-Japanese demonstrations, which were fueled by anger over textbooks glossing over Japan's wartime atrocities in China.
During marches in several Chinese cities that year, the police stood by as eggs and rocks were thrown at Japanese consulates. A few weeks later, officials pulled the plug by shutting down the organizers' Web sites and filtering out anti-Japanese messages.
As in the days of Noah....
