Ding Gang, a senior desk editor at People’s Daily published an op-ed in the paper, via Chinaelections.org:
A Western film director is so “naive and simple-minded” that he has made an inopportune move on the issue of Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Games by linking it to Darfur issue in Sudan, and this perhaps exhibited the “unique” qualities of this Hollywood celebrity. Nevertheless, the “naivety or innocence” shown by a few Western media seems all the more ignorant and funny.
The bid to link the Darfur issue to the Beijing Olympic Games does not commence as off today. With regard to this issue, it is believed that about two million locals have fled their homes and some 200,000 people lost their lives in the five-year conflict. The issue is neither created by China, nor has nothing to do with its Africa policy. China in the last two years made actove. painstaking efforts to settle the Darfur issue and sent batches of peacekeeping troops to the region. A growing number of people across the world have been aware that joint efforts of the international community are in an urgent need to tackle the issue, and so it is unfair or unreasnable to link the issue to the upcoming Beijing Summer Olympics.
Read also: Why China Should Not Fear Open Debate by Victor Mallet on Financial Times.
