Netizens retaliate with their own biting humor
Chinese citizens, media and embassy blasted Sweden's national broadcaster for "insulting China" during a late-night satirical talk show, which aired a segment filled with racist stereotypes that cast Chinese tourists as uncouth and distastefully ridiculed Chinese farmer culture.
The Chinese Embassy in Sweden criticized the program, which aired Friday night, saying it "spread racism and xenophobia, and incited racial hatred toward China."
"Relevant program staff from Sveriges Television [SVT] argued that this is an entertainment program, an argument which is totally unacceptable and we firmly reject," the embassy said, urging SVT to immediately apologize.
The program Swedish News, a comedy program that includes satirical "news" reports and is broadcast on SVT, Sweden's national public TV broadcaster, produced a satirical "information video" that featured a "prohibited activity" poster outside a historical building showing a squatting Chinese farmer in a straw hat holding a bowl and chopsticks while defecating.
The "report" in the segment also condescendingly instructs Chinese tourists how to use the washbasin in a toilet. The host in the video called Chinese people "racists" and said Sweden advocates equal rights for all, but that "doesn't apply to Chinese people."
China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang on Monday called the SVT program bigoted, prejudiced and an attempt to provoke Chinese people.
The Chinese Embassy also published a travel alert on its website on Sunday, reminding Chinese tourists to Sweden to "improve their awareness of safety and carefully select the residential areas and tourist sites they visit."
The SVT program also showed video of what appeared to be Chinese tourists being manhandled and dragged out of a hotel by local police in Stockholm earlier this month. An investigation into that incident raised serious questions about the treatment of Chinese people in Sweden.
The program also referred to a map of China that didn't include the island of Taiwan - an inalienable part of China - and some part of Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, which "severely infringes on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the Chinese Embassy in Sweden said.
The Xinhua News Agency called the program "disgusting" and exposed the program's arrogance and ignorance.
The entertainment director of SVT Thomas Haar said that the insults were meant to be "obviously humorous" and the program "decided not to apologize," China-based English website jqknews.com reported on Sunday.
The People's Daily also published an article on Monday condemning the program. "China is trying its best to fit into the world, it welcomes sincere suggestions but never tolerates such scandalous 'humor,'" the article said.
Ma Xipu, a scholar at the Development Research Center of the State Council, called the program host's ethics into question. "Apparently he was making use of an incident to exaggerate and vilify Chinese people," Ma said.
The program also triggered outrage among Chinese netizens.
Diba, China's largest online forum, posted a notice on Monday, calling on users to join a plan to bombard the Facebook pages of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, SVT and the program host Jesper Rönndahl at 8 pm on Monday.
Rönndahl's Facebook page has received more than 7,000 negative comments from users as of press time.
Diba users posted thousand of messages showing the SVT host eating excrement and presumably a Swedish man peeing on China's Great Wall. "This is our expression of humor," netizen Qin Quan said sarcastically in his post on the host's Facebook page.
