It is now fully established on the left that China is an evil and racist country.
At the handing-over ceremony for the site in the East End of London where the Chinese embassy is to be relocated, the ambassador boldly proclaimed that it would “write a new chapter for a China-UK golden era”.
Three years later, before the redevelopment has begun, those hopes appear in tatters after councillors in Tower Hamlets voted to consider naming roads and buildings in the surrounding area of the site Tiananmen Square, Uyghur Court, Hong Kong Road and Tibet Hill, to assert “support for the freedom and diversity of our borough”.
In a move that is likely to infuriate the Chinese government, the councillors said they welcomed the relocation of the embassy from the West End but “we must continue to make clear where our own standards and principles apply”.
The motion was passed after months of campaigning by opposition councillors for the local authority to issue a statement about human rights abuses by China, in light of Beijing’s purchase of the Royal Mint site in the borough for its embassy. The repression of Uighur Muslims is particularly sensitive for Tower Hamlets, which has the highest proportion of Muslim residents (38%) of any borough, according to the latest census.
The motion states: “This council resolves that Tower Hamlets council investigates whether roads or possibly new buildings near the location of the proposed Chinese embassy could be renamed appropriately as acts of solidarity with historic symbols or placenames of Chinese significance; for example Tiananmen Square, Tibet Hill, Uyghur Court, Hong Kong Road and/or Xiaobo Road (in memory of Liu Xiaobo).”
It’s a weird sensation, to come to the understanding that normal leftists have come to the understanding that Chinese are effectively some kind of white supremacist hate group.
This is r/WorldNews right now:
The implications of this are pretty wide. It’s a new thing that is now going to be applied across the board.
I think it’s especially notable that they’re going all the way back over 30 years ago to the supposed Tiananmen Square Massacre, because that’s a way of saying “you slant-eyed fiends were always evil.”
It’s in some large part China’s own fault for literally doing zero PR, ever, which has left them in a place where the Western media can just say, “look at his tiny eyes, framed high on his round face… he’s planning something!”
The military industrial complex was obviously able to use the media to stir up hate against Russia pretty easily, but Russians are white, and this fit into the narrative of “evil white people.” In fact, Russia was the last white Christian country.
But China is neither Christian nor white. They are just intelligent and orderly (and both of those thing get a lot of asterixis), which apparently is enough to be considered a threat by modern leftists.