Interesting that you've never heard of Salon. According to their website, they have 6 million monthly uniques, about on par with Slate.

Anyway, this John Krich guy isn't just some raving neo-Nazi who's easily written off. He's apparently the Asian Wall Street Journal's main food/sports/culture writer (inte-resting mix of beats) and has been covering China for 20 years. Still a total @ss, but since he's been covering China so long and he was obviously given a mini-soapbox from Salon, his opinions are probably respected by his colleagues. And that's why I'm thinking there might be a problem with the way the U.S. media establishment covers China.

Human rights violations, Tibet, pollution, income disparities, the rights of migrant workers, freedom of speech. Those are all issues in China that should be covered. But to rag on a country the way he did for a spectacular opening ceremony just because it didn't unfold exactly the way he preferred... well quite frankly, I just think it was uncalled for and it was totally hitting below the belt.

Shenping:

I think this is sort of natural, since Chinese and Americans have a lot in common. Both are large, highly populated & highly industrial countries.You're both very nationalistic & patriotic, like to wave flags, and you both think the entire world revolves around you. Both countries have foreign policies that are based 99% on domestic politics. Both want to be major players on the world stage, although China is more quiet about its ambitions.

Shenping, thank you for pointing this out! I think many in the U.S. media often forget just how much the two countries have in common.

David Brooks with the NYTimes had an interesting column recently about the cultural differences that result from a focus on individualism versus a focus on collectivism. I think that might be at the heart of all the teeth-gnashing from the American press at the Olympics. Like I said before, they just don't seem to get it sometimes that people in other countries probably do not think the same way. What looked like "Fascism" to Krich was probably perceived as "harmony" by many people in China, and where he was yearning for a "Janet Jackson moment," people there and all over the world are probably grateful that there was no such thing.