Chinese netizens pissed by their government’s $43bn offer to IMF: “We are living a Third World life.”
Alia | June 21st, 2012 - 6:05 am
Yesterday, China offered $43 billion to IMF’s crisis war chest. The cash injection was justified the same old cliche of boosting China’s influence and voting power in IMF. But Chinese netizens don’t seem to buy into the pitch at all. They don’t understand why China, with millions of people still in poverty at home, has so much money to spare to bail out European people who live much more prosperous lives. To many, Chinese government’s action is like, as netizen sharejoy described, “feeding strangers while you yourself is starving.”
[Chart in Chinese from Netease]
What about us?
老茧1967: “China announced that it will pledge $43 billion to IMF reserves and that the injection fits China’s global status and responsibilities. At the same time, the US is too stingy to pull out a penny. In my opinion, If China wants to promote its status on the global stage, it only needs to treat its own people better – spend more money on its own social welfare, make education and meats affordable to kids in rural areas and give the poor free health care. $43 billion is well enough for all of these!”
平湖春晓: “Outside boarders, you [the government] are burning money to buy face. The result? No country, may it be big, small, powerful or weak, takes China seriously, seeing you as a paper dragon. Everybody dares to extort money from you, seize your fishermen and rob your business. Within boarders, you use high pressure to get stability. The result? No matter rich, poor, in cities or the countryside, everyone is angry. Unrests are happening everywhere. Expect for on documents and Party newspapers, stability is nowhere to be found.”
深蓝灰虎: “Mean to its own people – taxes are as many as hair on a cow. Generous to foreigners – political tribute never ends.”
并非白说: “There is money for being a sitting duck, but no money for its own people. A historical mystery.”
天宫绿茶: “Does this count as selling out your country for vanity?”
快乐_99: “$43 billion. Enough for all our kids in this country to get free education from kindergarten through high school! Enough for all the elderly in this country to have a worry-free retired life! Enough to build beautiful roads to all our rural villages! Enough for everybody to afford health care! Why ignore the basic livelihood of your own people! Sad and disappointed!”
寂寞仙株: “They [the government] said China is still too poor to afford high-quality school buses because China is still at the primary stage of socialism. Yet, one meeting costs us $43 billion. How many schools can be built out of $43 billion? And how many safe school buses can be put to use?”
帅克是好兵: “They’d [the government] rather give for free to foreigner than to help out their own people. One day, we Chinese people will no longer stand being treated like slaves.”
无奈心想事不成: “The real Chinese “people” are all living in the West. We are only Chinese “slaves.” Of course they don’t care what a life we are living.”
国歌头一句: “No matter how much money you [Chinese government] is giving out. As soon as they [the West] see you force-abort a 7-month unborn, they know you are an @sshole. If you have too much say or start to shaping their cultures, it will be a disaster to them. How on earth can they be grateful to you?”
醉看天下001: “The US does the talking. China does the cashing.”
mouseking999: “You [Chinese government] are giving out money all around the world in order to have bigger influence. Yet everybody sees you as an idiot.”
Is China still a Third World country?
Such rhetoric about a poor country helping out rich countries speaks perfect to the responses to a question posted by China Newsweek a few days earlier, “Is China still a Third World country?”
The comments left by netizen 这里一个梦 pretty much summarized netizens’ voices on the topic: “It doesn’t matter whether China still belongs to the Third World camp. What matters is whether the Chinese people are still living a Third World life.”
And the answer, sadly, is yes. 柯台先生 explained: “To countries like North Korea or Afghanistan, China is a developed country, so developed that financial aids of tens of millions of US dollars are just a piece of cake. Yet to the Chinese people, China is still a developing country, as underdeveloped as Somalia.” “When China has advanced into the Second World. Its people are still receiving Third World treatments, “commented 乱墨.
