China, Philippines at Odds Again Over $100,000 Donation Amount to Victims of Typhoon Haiyan (Photos)
If it can be helped, China's netizens don't want any part of their country's money donated to the victims of super typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
"I don't think China should actively assist the Philippines," one user of Sina's Weibo microblogging service, China's equivalent to Twitter, wrote. "China needs to help those from Hainan and Guangxi provinces which also suffered from this typhoon."
While Haiyan did made a rampage in the world's second largest economy, its death toll of eight people compared miserably to the Philippines' which as of Thursday morning is on the brink of hitting 2,500, the figure which the Philippine President Benigno Aquino said could be the maximum from this super typhoon.
"As a taxpayer I strongly protest giving aid for the Philippines," another Sina Weibo user wrote.
The Chinese government is being chided by global media for its scant donation of a measly $100,000 compared to the U.S. which promised $20 million, Britain's $16 million, Vatican's $4 million, Japan's $10 million, Australia's $10 million and New Zealand's $1.7 million. Taiwan, a China breakaway province, pledged $200,000.
"Our country is also suffering from the same natural disaster, but we still offered help to you [in the Philippines]," one user wrote. "If you do not appreciate our help, give back our money."
Relations between China and the Philippines are icy and tense because of an ongoing territorial dispute over a cluster of islands, which both claim sovereignty, located in the South China Sea.
But the Global Times, China's nationalist tabloid, believed such disputes should be relegated to the background in the spirit of helping a fellow nation, and an Asian at that, in its trying times.
"Current island disputes are only a brief moment of history," the tabloid said in a Tuesday editorial headlined 'Island spat shouldn't block typhoon aid.'
While the dispute "deserves our serious attention... it shouldn't stop us from doing what it necessary," it concluded.