Taiwan: could public opinion in China bring war a step closer?
- Discussion of a potential attempt to take control of the self-ruled island has grown louder and more confrontational
- But having fuelled the discussion, Beijing has reasons to continue to manage public expectations
Published in early November, the article ended by calling the past 100 years “the bloodiest century the human race has ever seen” and saying that attitudes around the world towards war had become more pacifist.
“Too many lives have been lost in the two world wars,” it said.
Although not written by Liu himself, the article left Liu under fire from nationalistic bloggers in China. “These so-called anti-war [opinion leaders] are mostly running dogs of Western values,” one blogger said on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. When contacted, Liu, through his assistant, declined to comment.
The row was one of the many that have erupted online in recent months over whether Beijing, which views self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province, would be justified in going to war to bring the island into its fold.
