While most of the world have praised Swedish activist 16-year-old Greta Thunberg for her speech at the UN’s Climate Action Summit in New York earlier this week, it appears to take a little more to impress people in China.
Greta Thunberg left a lot of world leaders red-faced when she shamed them for “stealing her childhood” and only thinking about money and growth rather than saving the climate.
Meanwhile in China, people taking to Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, have mostly displayed a negative attitude towards the teenager and her speech, though.
“She is a poor girl kidnapped by the thought of white leftists and she herself doesn’t know that,” one user wrote according to South China Morning Post.
“She is just a performing artist. I’d like to say to her don’t talk, show some action. In the western part of China, many people have planted trees to save the planet. They are more entitled to receive the Nobel Prize than her,” a user wrote on another social media app, WeChat.
The user refers to Greta Thunberg’s recent nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing, told South China Morning Post that in the Chinese mainland, public rallies must be approved by the government in advance.
Hence, rallies are not a common practice Xiong Bingqi says while referring to Greta Thunberg’s “radical ways”.
Even so, Zhang Boju considers Greta Thunberg an inspiration and is hoping, she will make the necessary difference world-wide.