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Bill Bachmann
Foreign Policy examined the most popular searches in the main Chinese search engine Baidu to find out what they the citizens of the PRC think about rest of the world. Like other search engines, Baidu has an auto-complete feature, that is, proposes to end the phrase according to the most common requests of other users. For instance, the Chinese believe that “Russian love to fight”, Italy is “weak”, and United Kingdom is “small yet strong”. The Chinese people are also puzzled why Finnish people have “good English”, Denmark “kill whales” and Turkey “opposes China”.
A significant number of Chinese users queries is related to the history, the newspaper notes. They are interested in the murder of Jews in Nazi Germany, as well as why the Germans still hated Hitler. Residents of China are wondering why Italy had not been severely criticized after the Second World War, and why Portugal had not participated in the war. Due to Chinese language features, the question “why France could not defeat Germany” may refer to the hostilities, as well as to football.
Another topic of interest for the Chinese is the issue of borders and independence of individual countries. Baidu receives requests, like why Portugal did not join Spain, and Vatican City - Italy, why not unite Austria with Germany and whether Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are independent.
source: foreignpolicy.com
A significant number of Chinese users queries is related to the history, the newspaper notes. They are interested in the murder of Jews in Nazi Germany, as well as why the Germans still hated Hitler. Residents of China are wondering why Italy had not been severely criticized after the Second World War, and why Portugal had not participated in the war. Due to Chinese language features, the question “why France could not defeat Germany” may refer to the hostilities, as well as to football.
Another topic of interest for the Chinese is the issue of borders and independence of individual countries. Baidu receives requests, like why Portugal did not join Spain, and Vatican City - Italy, why not unite Austria with Germany and whether Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are independent.
source: foreignpolicy.com
