US film star Sharon Stone has now placed herself under the scrutiny of China's millions of netizens, possibly dethroning CNN as cyber enemy number one.
The American news network incurred their wrath when its commentator Jack Cafferty called Chinese products "junk", adding that “I think they’re (the Chinese) basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”
CNN eventually gave in and apologised for Cafferty's comments when the extent of public fury in China over the incident became more apparent, and it pretty much became the dirtiest English letters in the Chinese language. An anti-cnn.com site was created ironically to monitor biased reporting, and endless debates went on even in foreign media, with overseas Chinese joining in the row.
The CNN incident happened in early April, when Chinese pride was still badly bruised over the hijacking of the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay by activists to attack China's policies in Tibet. Nationalistic fervour was stirred up among Chinese, not least in cyberspace where online communities within China's socially closed network speak out.
All that patriotic passion had barely had a chance to calm before the country was again thrown together by the tragedy of the Sichuan quake. Stone could hardly have picked a better time if her plan was to piss a couple of millions of Chinese off.
Now her movies will no longer be shown in a major cinema chain and an online survey says 90 percent of Chinese will not forgive her. A major fashion magazine publishing group will no longer allow her image to be published. Several entertainment media content providers in China have banded together to banish the name "Sharon Stone" into oblivion, by eliminating all references to her on their sites.
Radical? Maybe. But Chinese media and businesses are realising the force of a full throttle from an enraged public. Woe to the magazine that decides to forgive Stone.
Time Magazine very recently published a report on the earthquake that at first glance appeared neither incendiary nor controversial.
"The Walls Tumble Down" published May 15 on its website reported
For most of China's long history, earthquakes and other calamities have been viewed as both portents of change and a test of the ruling government's "mandate of heaven." Many Chinese point out that Mao Zedong died only months after the Tangshan disaster. The Wenchuan quake is being discussed in similar terms in Chinese Internet forums, restaurants and tea shops, often generating an inchoate anxiety about possible cataclysms to come or punishment for past wrongs. Some commentators find significance in the fact that the quake hit just where the vast Sichuan plain meets the foothills of the Himalayas, the geographical and ethnic boundary separating China from Tibet — where Chinese troops put down bloody protests against Beijing's rule in March, sparking global protests that sullied China's image as it prepared to host the Olympic Games in August. Others gloomily point to a series of other recent tragedies — destructively cold snowstorms, an outbreak of disease that left dozens of children dead, a train accident that killed 72 — as evidence of some kind of heavenly displeasure.
Many Chinese online communities and readers seized upon those two words "heavenly displeasure"and in turned showed their displeasure, as they pointed out the fact that Time and CNN have the same owners.
In an interview with Taiwan media on May 12, Singapore's Minister Mentor noted,
" When Lee Hsien Loong was Deputy Prime Minister, he visited Taiwan. The Taiwanese media made big play of his visit. Beijing objected and suspended all government to government negotiations with us. Our Free Trade Agreement with Beijing has still not being signed after four years. New Zealand that started this negotiations after Singapore, have concluded the Free Trade Agreement. Beijing uses its economic and political clout to counter acts it sees as against its interests. Boycotting the Beijing Olympics will not be cost-free unlike boycotting the Moscow Olympics. The Soviet economy was of no interest to the rest of the world."
From the leadership to the average Wang on the street, any perceived insult will be dealt with by the Chinese, quite simply because "face" matters. And when it comes to unleashing fury, China scorned is both able and willing to give any scorned woman a run for her money.
