#British Magazine ##经济学人杂志 #
Text/Junjian
A recent bizarre remark by the British magazine The Economist sparked outrage among Chinese netizens, with a post in the magazine openly claiming that "pigs eat more food than Chinese", a discriminatory remark that provoked widespread criticism, after which The Economist chose to delete the post and "clarify".
(Strange remarks by The Economist)
According to global times and other media reports, the original article of The Economist openly claimed that pigs around the world ate 431 million tons of grain in 2019, which is "45% more than the food Chinese eat". The post actually corresponds to an article titled "Most of the World's Food Is Not Eaten by Humans," where The Economist argued that one of the important triggers of the food crisis was that food was consumed as feed, and that "pigs eat more than Chinese" came from. Obviously, "The Economist" deliberately compares Chinese, and its sinister intentions are known.
(Industrial pig farming consumes a lot of grain)
(The United States turns a lot of food into biofuels.)
The Economist's strange remarks immediately sparked a chorus of invective, with CGTN host Liu Xin angrily denouncing "people can't write this kind of content", and Chen Weihua, the European bureau chief of China Daily, angrily scolding The Economist, a magazine run by a group of "racist pigs". Many netizens also accused The Economist of being "disgusting", and some people mentioned that the United States uses 40% of corn and 25% of soybean crops for biofuel technology, and asked Why is The Economist selectively invisible? Regarding the phenomenon of Western countries using food as biofuels, it has become more prominent because of the recent Conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the Western countries themselves have imposed sanctions to restrict Russian energy exports.
(Russian farmers sowing wheat)
Obviously, "The Economist" is engaged in a double standard play routine, and its disgusting face has been exposed. After being angrily criticized by netizens, The Economist pretended to "clarify", claiming that they "had no intention of offending" and revised the content of the article, but at the end of the article, it still emphasized that because China is a big consumer of wheat and rice, it was compared in the original version. At the same time, The Economist deleted relevant social media posts and re-posted that "human beings only ate 13% of the corn on the planet" in 2019. Despite The Economist's pretense, it can be seen that the magazine does not actually intend to apologize and is still looking for a way out for its malicious behavior.
(The Economist revises its views.)
And it should be noted that Western public opinion has long been creating the topic of "Chinese eating meat", such as "Chinese eat meat tropical rainforest smoke", "China's animal husbandry produces half of the world's pork, affecting the climate" and so on. Combined with these malicious and provocative remarks, and then looking at the post of The Economist, it can be seen that its motivation is not simply to engage in disgust, in fact, this is part of the "public opinion war" in Western countries.
(American sailors grilled on the deck of an aircraft carrier, feasted, and gulped down meat.)
In the final analysis, Western countries have long been arrogant and prejudiced against a wide range of countries and regions such as Asia, Africa and Latin America, and the normal development of China in recent years has made some people feel "uncomfortable", in order to cater to some "political correctness", the Western media always intentionally or unintentionally smear China, which has both the essence of interest orientation and the embodiment of hidden intentions. The Economist has deleted this time, but similar things will probably continue to appear in the future. We must not be silent about such malicious attacks, but should resolutely clarify and solemnly question them. Bad-intentioned behavior like The Economist will end up being boring.