China caricatured yet again in a blockbuster

I am among the few people who have yet to see Roland Emmerich's new blockbuster disaster film, 2012. I don't like this kind of movie, and its end of the world scenario is not only pseudo-scientific nonsense, but diverts popular attention from the real slow motion disaster overtaking the planet - man-made climate change.

Several weeks ago, a very good former student of mine at the Beijing International Studies University, gave me another reason to avoid this film. After seeing 2012 in Australia, where she is doing graduate work, this young lady emailed me to say "the Chinese that appear in the film are all warlord-like PLA and Tibetans."

She then asked, "Why can't foreign directors see the improvement in Chinese society? Why do they present only the negative and sometimes untrue side of China?"