(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-15 07:39

United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi might never have dreamed of having such an impact on Chinese hearts.

Even a week or so ago, few in this country knew, or cared, who she was. Not any more. Her hysterical performance on the China-bashing bandwagon has made her a household name here.

Whether or not she herself takes pride in the overnight notoriety, she earned and truly deserves it.

Of course she is not alone. We have seen others not only in her House, but also in a number of countries in Europe.

Good or bad, one of the side effects of the ongoing China-bashing is that it presents a precious opportunity for the public to see who is who on the world political stage.

The outrage rippling and escalating on and off the Internet these days among ordinary Chinese is truly a surprise for many parties. It might be particularly confusing for Westerners who claim and perhaps even believe they are pursuing a just cause in harassing the Olympic torch relay and siding with the violent mobsters in some of China's Tibetan-inhabited areas.

But instead of sowing discord between the average Chinese and their government, the series of events following the riot in Lhasa have rallied the multi-ethnic Chinese, at home and abroad, more tightly together. More important, the unprecedented solidarity has demonstrated universal spontaneity.

The reason cannot be more obvious - the Westerners, as well as the Dalai Lama and his men, have made a very wrong case this time.

For one thing, they should not have tied politics with the Olympic Games. In doing that, they have not only blasphemed the noble Olympic ideal, which aspires for peace and harmony, but at the same time offended the broad Chinese public, who have been doing whatever they could in the innocent hope to present the world an enjoyable Olympic Games. They have no reason not to be angry.

So, rather than humiliating the Chinese government, they ended up putting themselves to shame in Chinese hearts. Westerners have been blaming Chinese authorities for cultivating nationalist sentiments through patriotic education. No patriotic education could possibly be as effective as the Western media's distortion of facts, and Western politicians' brazen disregard of the truth.

Everyone free of bias can see through the naked hypocrisy Pelosi and her likes have displayed over the past weeks. Next time when they feel uncomfortable about "Chinese nationalism", they should blame their own ham-handed shows first.

(China Daily 04/15/2008 page8)