US netizens on Chen Guangcheng’s arrival in NYC: “Why is he here?”
Alia | May 20th, 2012 - 4:51 am
When the world’s major media (except Chinese ones) and people on Weibo and Twitter are all celebrating the arrival of Chen GuangCheng, China’s blind activist, in New York City. Someone is clearly not happy.
It’s not Global Times, a major English-language newspaper in China who once denounced Chen as a tool and pawn of the US. It’s the US netizens who are unhappy. In fact, they are not really “netizens” per se, they may just as well be seen as “Americans” – US has an internet penetration rate of 75% +.
(Chen made a miracle escape from house arrest and fled to the US embassy in Beijing, which lead to quite some diplomatic drama between China and the US. A deal was made subsequently in which Chen was allowed to go to New York University for law school.)
Comments to an article titled “Chinese activist who fled house arrest lands in US” on Yahoo!.
Why is he here?
Who is paying for his stay?
Stupid politics again
This is so unfair
No, these are not cherry-picked negative comments. Almost all comments are negative – “almost” only because not all were read. After hitting “more comments” 6 times, not a single word of welcome can be found, as of the time of this post at least.
Of course, these may not be representative of the US general public. Nevertheless, a situation like this once again rings an alert to me and maybe many other China bloggers and reporters who, in many cases, are trying to make sense of China through its active online population. Comments from a few hundreds of netizens may make good stories or provide different perspectives, but in no means do netizens’ reactions, however unified, represent the whole picture, especially considering that China has a population of 1.3 billion and only a little more than 30% of that number are internet users.
[...] the rest of the year. The unofficial chatter, on the other hand, was more on the miracle escape of Chen Guangcheng, China’s blind activist, to New York [...]
I have noticed that Twitter is a much better platform for small business owners to network and find business rather than Facebook. The positive with Twitter is that you can strike up conversations and have good discussions, which is a bit more difficult to do on facebook. Yet, as mentioned in the article I don’t know many people personally that you Twitter unless they have a business, so it is certainly limited in growth unless they change something to attract a wider population.
this whole “taxpayer” thing is so tired and nauseating. There is a bloc of people in the US that respond to ANYTHING with “why do I have to pay for this” whining and I have zero mercy or sympathy for those fools. They represent the worst of our (US) society: idiots who pay for drones to slay Arabs/bailouts for bonuses, yet bring up “my taxpayer money” whenever a young hippy protests against the government or a blind peasant escapes oppression. America is sick.
Then you pay for it dick face
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[...] Americans welcomed Chen not with cheers but, in comments collected by Offbeat China, with complaints about the burden he would place on the US taxpayer. The combined hourly rate of the several US officials who negotiated on his behalf is likely quite [...]
Anybody in the States who asks why he is there hasn’t been watching the news for the last several weeks. All three that I’ve seen have had major pieces on him and his troubles…which prolly means the commboxers want to read their own remarks “up in lights” so they make sure to castigate whomever they can.
I’m happy he made it, but I worry a little about the rest of his extended family.