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Mr Herve Ladsous is worthy of his title as French ambassador to China, for
he knows his host country pretty well - at least in one matter.
He said on Monday that he learned from Chinese tourism officials that "the
Chinese government has not issued any notices discouraging tourists from going
to France" and "I believe them."
French media reported earlier this month that the Beijing municipal
government had issued "an order" to local travel agents asking them to "withdraw
trips to France from their catalogue of tourism destinations".
It is true that the number of Chinese tourists to France has decreased
dramatically in the past few weeks; but to attribute the sharp decline to a
fabricated order by Chinese authorities is utterly ridiculous. How naive one
would have to be to believe such a rumor.
A little reasoning will lead one to wave off the rumor as being unworthy of
mention.
Would the Chinese government be so stupid as to take such an ostensibly
ludicrous move? What would it gain from it? Would it do any good to anybody?
AFP said that an official from the Beijing tourism agency told its
reporters that no such order had been given and that it had "simply reminded
Chinese tourists to be careful about their security".
Probably that advice was where the rumor originated. But it is normal for
any government to warn its citizens against possible security problems they may
encounter when traveling in a foreign country. How can it be interpreted as an
"order" of "boycott"?
The drop in Chinese tourist presence in France, and Europe as a whole, may
stem from various causes.
First, summer is not a busy season for tourism. Second, the rise in air
fares triggered by the oil price hike may have deterred some tourists. Third,
the earthquake that caused heavy casualties in Sichuan has adversely affected
Chinese people's mood, who traditionally choose not to take merry-making trips
away from home at such sad moments. Fourth, there were some citizens who stated
that they would boycott France in their overseas travels as a result of the
anti-Chinese actions in the country when the Olympic torch relay was on in
Paris.
Even if a boycott were the main reason for the decreasing number of Chinese
tourists in Europe, it is of their own will. Why did our Western friends insist
that it was a move by the Chinese government? Didn't they see how angry the
Chinese people were when the torch relay was repeatedly disrupted in some
Western cities?
Some people in the West seem to believe that the Chinese people are living
under a totalitarian regime. They tend to think that the Chinese yearn for the
Western world. They would not accept a scenario that the Chinese resist an
opportunity to see the Western paradise.
The Chinese did once view the West as a sort of paradise in the 1980s when
the country began to open to the outside world and they saw for the first time
that lives in Western countries were not like what they had thought it to be. In
later years, as exchanges became more and more frequent, the Chinese people
learned that there were also dark sides in the West and that every country had
its own advantages and disadvantages.
The biased attitude some Western people displayed toward China during the
torch relay has caused a kind of disillusionment with Western "democracy and
freedom" in some Chinese people, especially the young people.
The Chinese people's knowledge and understanding of the Western world has
become more realistic. Ambassador Ladsous seems to know this well. |
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发表于 2016-7-9 23:50:06