Jackie Chan once said that "too much freedom" is a bad thing and that "Chinese people need to be controlled" for their own good. Which is why Max Fisher of the Washington Post isn't all that surprised by the actor's anti-American views expressed in a recent Chinese TV interview:
- America, he said, is the "most corrupt" nation in the world. "Where does this Great Breakdown [financial crisis] come from? It started exactly from the world, the United States. ... [But] now that China has become strong, everyone is making an issue of China."
Chan went on to fault any Chinese citizen who publicly criticizes China, especially to foreigners. "If our own countrymen don’t support our country, who will support our country?" he asked. "We know our country has many problems. We [can] talk about it when the door is closed. To outsiders, [we should say], 'Our country is the best.'" In general, his tone in the interview is more pro-China than anti-America, but it's still hard to reconcile his contradictory "condemnation of the country that has helped make him so rich," writes Fisher. (More Jackie Chan stories.)