The whole situation with T_bet has gotten out of hand.  From the blocking of Google News and Youtube to the San Francisco torch protests, and the closing of the Nepal-T_bit border, including stationing Chinese security forces in Kathmandu (talk about national sovereignty & autonomy that China values so highly), to Chinese attacking Chinese who support T_bet independence, this has really gotten out of control.

As if this could get any more absurd, today I was I was verbally attacked (albeit on the internet) by a Chinese person who was upset that I wasn’t equally outraged at CNN’s coverage of the T_bet situation.  He claimed CNN’s coverage was damaging to China’s reputation and full of complete lies.
My response:
1) I haven’t seen any of CNN’s coverage therefore I can’t agree or disagree;
2) I’m not in T_bet, nor have I been following the historical-political situation; therefore, I am in no position to say what is truly happening or who is in the right;
3) I am not the outlet to which you should be expressing your grievances because
a) I already live in China, not in the US,
b) I do not control CNN, and
c) I don’t even own stock in CNN.
4) Perhaps you should be a little more open-minded about the whole situation and try to see both perspectives.
5) Did you ever consider maybe it’s the Chinese media that is telling the lies?
6) Since when did China have a good reputation to begin with in the English-language press?

Perhaps what’s more embarrassing and damaging to China’s reputation is that Chinese people are searching for fellow countrymen’s pictures and information on the internet to hunt them down and throw rocks at their house all in the name of nationalism.  (I sure the West can still remember what happened last time a population had feelings of such extreme nationalism (think WWII).)

Maybe the reason the Chinese government maintains the Great Firewall of China and heavily censors the media is not for self-preservation, but to protect foreigners (expats) from the violence and anger that ensues when Chinese citizens don’t like what foreign governments or news media say and do. (That was a joke, by the way.)
P.S. If this doesn’t get my blog blocked in China, I don’t know what will.