Honeymoon over for China and France
Posted: Friday, April 11, 2008 10:59 AM
Filed Under:
Beijing, China
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News producer
BEIJING – Last November, during a state visit by French President Nicholas Sarkozy to China, the Chinese-language media here spoke warmly of Sino-French historical relations.
"From a personal perspective, Sarkozy has a deep China complex," the state-run news agency Xinhua wrote approvingly. "He has visited China three times and was very happy to meet President Hu Jintao. During this year's spring festival he had a function for Chinese residents in France and said, ‘I'm a friend of the Chinese and I have deep feelings towards China.’ To choose China as his first stop in Asia shows his high attention."
Capping off the three-day love fest, the French president and his delegation of business executives flew back home with more than $30 billion in business deals.
And the central Chinese government was reassured it had an ally within the European Union, with whom China's relations were growing increasingly frosty over trade and economic issues as well as Beijing's human rights record.
But that honeymoon period seems to have come to a crashing end, following the Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay last Monday.
Fury against France
But ever since newspapers and TV broadcast images here of anti-China demonstrations in Paris and protesters attempting to disrupt the torch relay, France is no longer considered a good friend of the Chinese people.
Especially not the French press corps, whom Chinese-language media here have accused of distorting coverage of recent unrest in Tibet and of siding with anti-Chinese protesters (or, in Chinese media coverage, "criminals" or "separatists") who turned out in force to disrupt the torch relay.
An editorial posted today on the Chinese government's website says:
"We Chinese translate France into ‘fa guo,’ which literally means a country that honors the rule of law. The translation itself shows Chinese respect for that country. However, from the joy of headline stories, the editors, reporters and lawmakers who are educated by the French civilization suddenly lost ability to tell right from wrong, and chose adamantly to side with the law-breakers and the criminals."
Ordinary Chinese people are taking matters into their hands.
Boycott les bleus
On Thursday, word began spreading in the Chinese blogosphere to boycott Carrefour, a popular French supermarket chain, in Beijing on May 1, which marks the 100-day countdown to the Olympic Summer Games.
On one Internet bulletin board, writers urged the boycott because of perceived French support for the Tibetan independence movement. One writer claimed Carrefour has been donated a lot of money to the Dalai Lama.
The Carrefour boycott in Beijing follows a growing Web-based campaign urging consumers in China to stop buying French goods, including widely-recognized brands like Louis Vuitton and L'Oreal.
And, one might wonder, whether there isn't some coincidence that a black-and-white photograph of a nude Carla Bruni, Sarkozy's new wife, was sold at Christie's auction house for $90,000 to ... a Chinese collector.
