As news spread in China yesterday that a Chinese fishing boat had rammed and sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat about 32km from a deep sea oil rig that China has placed in waters contested by both countries, the reaction in social media in China appeared overwhelmingly supportive — even bellicose.
“Chinese fishermen are mighty! There are still heroes among the people!” a person with the online handle Hou Ning wrote on his Sina Weibo account.
China’s Weibo forums have been heavily censored in recent months by the authorities, and it was virtually impossible to find a comment critical of the Chinese fishing boat action there.
However, other social media sites showed similar responses, such as on the popular Phoenix, or ifeng, bulletin board.
“This finally shows some backbone,” a commenter in Hubei Province wrote, garnering more than 6,600 thumbs-up signs.
The top-ranking comment on ifeng.com, with nearly 13,000 thumbs-up, from someone in Beijing with the handle Smog in the Imperial Capital, suggested that the Chinese were only doing to the Vietnamese what others have done to the Chinese.
“South Korea detains Chinese fishermen. Japan detains Chinese fishermen,” the person wrote. “Russia attacks them with cannons. A Chinese fishing boat rams and sinks a Vietnamese fishing boat, hahahahahahaha.”
Many Chinese regard Vietnam as a minor southern nation that was once a Chinese province.
Many commentators approvingly forwarded a statement by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Vietnam’s credibility in the international community is “very low.”
“I think the best way to frighten Vietnam is to attack Japan. Kill the monkey to scare the chicken,” wrote a person with the online handle The Ninth Number on My Identity Card Is Eight.
The phrase neatly turns around a Chinese saying that one should “kill the chicken to scare the monkey” — that is, frighten one’s real enemy by attacking a lesser one. The reversal both threatens and humiliates Vietnam, by suggesting it is a lesser nation.
The idea of a master-servant relationship was also highlighted.
“Originally Vietnam was a prefecture of China, today you are independent. Take good care of yourself and that’s enough, how dare you act rashly!” one person wrote.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion