Spielberg Controversy Seen As Plot To 'Demonize' China

BEIJING — Beijing may have made no response to Steven Spielberg's decision to pull out of the Beijing Olympics, but not because it does not feel strongly about what it sees as deliberate attempts to "humiliate" and "demonize" China.

Its slow response may be because — in keeping with its domestic attitudes — it would be unwilling to take the views of a show-business personality seriously.

But its response, when it comes, is easy to predict. "To link the Darfur issue to the Olympics is a move to politicize the Olympics, and this is inconsistent with the Olympic spirit and will bear no fruit," Jiang Yu, a government spokesman, said last month.

Yesterday, the Global Times, the often-nationalistic foreign affairs weekly published by the communist People's Daily addressed the British Olympic Committee's attempts to ban athletes from talking politics. "It is hard to see Western bias dying down in the short term," it said.

The Xinhua news agency, in a commentary written before Mr. Spielberg made his decision public, said criticism over Darfur laid bare a "plot trying to demonize China, and to disrupt preparations."

"China will not tolerate baseless accusations; and firmly opposes the practice of using the Olympic Games to hype up political issues such as Darfur," it said.

The issue is an ideal one for the so-called fen qing, literally "angry youth," a popular term used to describe young men who, while often no lovers of the Communist Party, tend to regard foreign criticism as part of a centuries' old plot against the nation.

While the row over Mr. Spielberg's involvement has received little coverage in the press since it first blew up last April, some "angry youths" have taken their views online. Many asked why China should be singled out as responsible for the actions of the Sudanese government, and said America and former colonial powers were more to blame.

These views were echoed on the streets of Beijing Wednesday. "There is no need for China to pay the bill for the human rights conditions of any other country," a 27-year-old surnamed Mao said.