Source: Global Times-Global Network
[Global Times-Global Network Report Reporter Lin Jianwei Liu Yang] On June 28, the British magazine "Economist" published an article on its social account that angered many Chinese netizens because this article actually compared pigs with Chinese people. Just now, the English version of Global Times received a clarification statement from the British magazine "The Economist".
As shown in the figure below, in a post published at 7:36 am on June 28, Beijing time, the British magazine "Economist" actually wrote: "Pigs ate 431 million tons of food in 2019, 45% more than the Chinese." ↓
Although the article "Economist" itself wants to express that more food in the world is eaten by livestock rather than humans, the British media's comparison of pigs with Chinese people has caused dissatisfaction among a large number of Chinese netizens, believing that this is a manifestation of racism.
Chinese netizens angrily denounced the Economist's contrast as racist and called on people to report it.
On Sina Weibo, some netizens also expressed their dissatisfaction.
On June 30, Beijing time, the Global Times English version received a clarification statement from the Economist. The full text is as follows:
"In a chart, how most of the world's grains are fed animals or used to make biofuels, we observed that 431 million tons of grain were eaten by pigs, which would be the top of the global food consumption rankings if it was an independent country. By comparison, we pointed out that this is 45% higher than the country with the largest consumption of rice and wheat in real life - China.
has Chinese readers contacted us and they objected to this comparison. Considering that we never had any offense, we revised the relevant wording to make our intentions absolutely clear."
Global Network noted that this clarification statement did not apologize, but emphasized unintentional offense. As of the time of publication by the Global Times-Global Network reporter, the tweet that caused huge controversy in the Economist magazine has been deleted.
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