This isn’t altogether surprising – however noble your cause, it’s difficult to forcibly wrest a torch from a girl in a wheelchair without it looking a bit off. The amazing thing is that there are any sensible voices left in China after stunts like that. The overall effect of the protests has been to unite the Chinese populace, from the most open-minded overseas-educated intellectual to the dirtiest-fingernailed mine worker, behind their government in the face of what feels like an overwhelming foreign media assault. Name one self-respecting country whose population wouldn’t do the same.

The lack of any major reporting of the pro-China crowds doesn’t help persuade the locals that western reporting is balanced and unbiased, and well-educated people are now seriously asking whether it makes sense to place more faith in the BBC and CNN than their own news channels – the “at least we know how our bastards work” theory. Detailed fiskings of western news stories are also newly popular, cf. anticnn.com. It is perhaps not surprising that it’s only these newsgroups who get noticed in China – but then who in the UK is aware of, say, Southern Metropolis Weekly (which has been adopting a much more moderate pro-freedom of speech stance than the average PRC citizen).