Gadhafi Death Sparks Online Opinions in China

Posted October 25th, 2011 at 1:24 am (UTC+0)
4 comments

A man reads a local newspaper's story on the spread pages featuring a photo of Moammar Gadhafi

A man reads a local newspaper's story on the spread pages featuring a photo of Moammar Gadhafi at a private securities company in Shanghai, China, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. (AP)

Moammar Gadhafi’s (卡扎菲) death on Thursday shocked the Chinese nation, where attitudes toward the former Libyan (利比亚) leader are changing.

There was a time when China described the former Libyan leader as “strongman” in the middle east.  But recently, State-owned media like Xinhua and People.net have referred to him as a “madman.”

On Sina Weibo, there is a page devoted to Gadhafi’s death, and a microblog about the moving of Gadhafi’s body to a secret resting place was re-posted over 2,000 times.

It seemed that public opinion was turning on the newly dead dictator.

Simanan (司马南), a critic who appears on TV and was named one of 10 Most Influential People in Cities by Southern Weekly in 2003, was very vocal about the reasons why Gadhafi is not a friend of the Chinese people.

First, he said:

Reason number one It’s apparently been said that Gadhafi once trained at the anti-Communist training camp in Taiwan. Even though China and Libya established diplomatic relations in 1978,  the Taiwan diplomatic organization in Libya still had the crowned title of the Republic of China until 1997. This was a rare thing to happen with countries that have diplomatic relations with China.

In a separate post, Simanan said:

Reason number two Gadhafi doesn’t dare tear up the contract between the oil companies of the West and Libya, but they didn’t explain at all when they canceled the 2 million barrels of oil that China provided them. The reason might be the vote that China cast for the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970. China cannot get one discounted project in Libya, but only the manual labor jobs building houses and roads and picking up jobs that other people don’t want, even with this Gadhafi was still blamed China for plundering Africa.

Together, the two posts have been re-posted more than 400 times with more than 200 comments.

4 responses to “Gadhafi Death Sparks Online Opinions in China”

  1. Gadhaffi’s death didn’t shock the Chinese only it also shock most Africans ,especially the sub-Sahara area. He died like a hero not like a dog ; dragging his body in the streets doesn’t matter at all. A man is the one who can’t surrender under pressure or threatens.He was not mad as some people said he had rational beliefs et a good common sense. What do you think, being fought by the NATO for more than seven months. In my opinion, it seems to me that the NATO was defeated however it claimed that it was there just to protect civilians but backing rebels 100%.

  2. Laide Aziz says:

    Whatever may be said about the former Libyan leader, he would be fondly remembered for raising and keeping the human development index of his country high. Gadhaffi was an assault to human rights only when conceived from Western philosophical view (individualism). His death was a loss to Africa, but a gain to the West.

  3. Gary Wong says:

    We are exciting that a dictatorship is over.We are also thinking who will be next? Gadhaffi is overthrown by people not by NATO who helps them. Democracy will come ture in China.

  4. Mahasin Abdalla says:

    Am very sad for the Leader death but he as other said without surrended ,he died in the battle field
    If the NATO was not helping the rebels no one can reach him over all they are not real muslim as Islam prevent the killing of the captured persons.
    His dealth is a great loss to Africa as well as most Arabs and to the Libyain themselves.
    May his soul will rest in peace Amin

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