From Joe Hung’s Monday column, Don’t try to mix sports and politics:
. . . Beijing could care less about Spielberg’s quitting in protest. As a matter of fact, China has an array of outstanding movie directors who can do the job of the American.
Let’s assume Dr. Hung is using the phrase "could care less" ironically — which is to say, the Chinese government doesn’t care at all. Maybe that’s true; let’s go back and check the reaction at the time:
Officially, the Chinese government has not directly criticized Spielberg by name, expressing only ”regret” over his decision.
Yep, sounds pretty mild. But what about the UNOFFICIAL reaction? The reaction from Chinese Communist Party media mouthpieces?
There, the response was a bit less indifferent:
A biting front-page editorial Wednesday in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, blasted Spielberg for his decision.
”A certain Western director was very naive and made an unreasonable move toward the issue of the Beijing Olympics. This is perhaps because of his unique Hollywood characteristics,” it said.
Over the weekend, the Guangming Daily, also published by the Communist Party, ran an editorial saying Spielberg ”broke his promise to make his contribution to the Beijing Olympics and betrayed the Olympic spirit.”
He ”is not qualified to blame China because he knows nothing about the great efforts the Chinese government has made on Darfur,” it said.
An editorial in the China Youth Daily was equally scathing.
”This renowned film director is famous for his science fiction. But now it seems he lives in a world of science fiction and he can’t distinguish a dream from reality,” it said.
The unofficial reaction is all the more remarkable because Spielberg was NEVER tapped to be a director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the ’08 Olympics. His role was simply to be an artistic ADVISOR to Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
And yet, for withdrawing from such an apparently minor job, the Communist Party of China saw fit to order their media attack dogs to collectively lambaste Spielberg as a naive promise-breaking know-nothing who lives in his own little fantasy world.
Why say all that, if they’re not in the least bit bitter?