Xenophobia in China

Fareed Zakaria, in The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, makes the enlightening point that the West has very little to fear from the reforming Chinese government, but lots to fear from the xenophobic and ultranationalistic Chinese people.

China's crazy blame game lists some of the conspiracy theories popular in China these days from the article:

- Cigarette smuggling is an attempt by international tobacco companies to disrupt government tax revenue.

- Junk clothes are dumped into fishing villages by unscrupulous Western businesses to pollute the environment.

- Hollywood movies spearhead the cultural invasion into the pure and beautiful minds of Chinese youth.

- Japanese tourists lure Chinese women into hotel rooms to humiliate China on the anniversary of the outbreak of war between the two countries in 1931.

- Trade is a battleground. High imports of competitively priced plastics or grains in one year are meant to cripple domestic industries, while a low tide of high-tech transfers constitutes an embargo on China.

- SARS is a gene-based weapon manufactured by the United States for use against the Chinese, according to a new book just published by Social Sciences Publishing House in Beijing.