How I became the most hated woman in China

Jane Macartney in Beijing

I woke up today to find myself infamous. With great excitement, a Chinese friend called to tell me that I had become an overnight sensation. It would seem I am the most hated person in China today. Or at least in my persona as The Times correspondent.

It took but a moment to track down on the popular news website www.sina.com that The Times topped the list of the most commented news items in China. The number of pages already runs to 105. Comments exceed 11,335 – fairly high even by standards in a country where the Internet is the top forum for discussion – and the number is rising steadily.

I was able to watch, live, as new comments popped up all day. This should hardly have come as a surprise. My office telephone has been ringing off the hook with furious calls from Chinese enraged after the Foreign Ministry spokesman on Tuesday said a Times commentary by Simon Barnes that compared the Beijing Olympics with Nazi Germany's 1936 Olympics was "an insult to the Chinese and world people".

One caller threatened death to Michael Portillo, author of a similar piece in The Sunday Times . Others reserved that fate for me. It is easy for someone in China to assume that I wrote the piece – after all The Times website is now blocked most of the time, thus making it rather hard to find out just how The Times has covered the unrest in Tibet that provoked this outburst of popular anger.

For that is what it appears to be. This does not look like some orchestrated hate campaign against The Times – although the Foreign Ministry and many local newspapers and websites have fuelled the fire with daily attacks and comments against the perceived bias of the Western media in their coverage of events in Tibet.

The stream of invective reflects a deep-felt nationalist pride that has the Olympics at its core. These games are, after all, for most Chinese a moment when they want to celebrate, with the world, their achievements in development and prosperity of the last three decades.

Many Chinese tell me in casual conversation that they believe that the Games will demonstrate that their country has finally emerged from its humiliation at the hands of Western powers during the 19th century.

Not a few comments take up the nationalist theme by reminding Britain of the damage it inflicted on China with the Opium Wars of the 19th century that forced open treaty ports to trade.

Many voice fury at the burning (by Britain and France) of the Yuan Ming Yuan – the Summer Palace of the Qing dynasty emperors. (Although they don't mention that the action was partly in retaliation for the murders of members of an international diplomatic delegation that included a Times correspondent.)

Others are less thoughtful. "Ban all journalists of the Times of England from reporting in China" or "Be aware, there will be a settling of accounts". Then there is "The Times is just a smaller and smaller newspaper" or, simply, "Abominable."

The Times is far from being the only Western media organisation to be accused of an anti-Chinese bias since the start of the Tibet unrest. Several German television and print media have been criticised, among others. The China Journalists Association has said some coverage "betrayed the basic principles of accuracy and objectivity".

The American television station CNN has come in for particular opprobrium. Indeed a university student has set up a special website, www.anti-cnn.com, devoted to showcasing misleading or incorrect use of photos. The Times features here too for misleading photo captions. And a new phrase – "Don't be too CNN" – has entered the Chinese vocabulary to mean "don't ignore the truth."