Unhappy China

Monday, April 06, 2009
Unhappy China

A new bestselling book, Unhappy China, is stirring debate in China and alarm in the West because of its aggressive nationalism. Millions of web pages have sprung up to address the book since its release last month. In the book, five Chinese scholars assert China’s impending superiority as the world’s leader, advocate a hard line against their “enemies,” and express dissatisfaction with the West’s treatment of China.

 
The authors, Wang Xiaodong, Liu Yang, Song Qiang, Huang Jisu, and Song Xiaojun, denounce Western influences and specifically deride the United States for being “irresponsible, lazy, and greedy, and engaged in robbery and cheating.” They blame the United States for causing the current global recession. The authors urge the Chinese people to “conduct business with a sword in hand.” They call for the emergence of a group of heroes to “lead our people to successfully control and use more resources, ridding [the world of] of bullies and bringing peace to good people.”
 
Writing in Southern Metropolis Daily, Jing Kaixuan observes, “When I first heard about the book Unhappy China, I thought it was probably about how laid-off workers were unhappy, or about how peasants who had lost their land were unhappy. Maybe it was about how college graduates searching for work were unhappy, about how stock market investors were unhappy, or about how victims of the poisonous milk powder scandal were unhappy.” Instead, the authors of Unhappy China divert attention away from domestic ills and blame China’s problems on foreign enemies.
-David Wallechinsky, Vivian Kim
 
Unhappy China , and why it is cause for unhappiness (by David Bandursky, China Media Project)

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