Chinese tourists must act like envoys abroad

People spitting or urinating in public, coming to fisticuffs on aircraft with flight attendants and fellow passengers, vandalizing cultural relics and removing shoes on public transport vehicles creating a foul smell. These are just a few of the litany of revolting behaviors that we have come to tolerate in our everyday life in China. But imagine Chinese people doing the same overseas and what that could do to China's soft power.

Such behaviors have largely negated the billions of yuan the government has spent to increase China's soft power. The ongoing effort to boost China's image and win over more of the world's hearts and minds is being unwittingly sabotaged by some of its own citizens.

These symptoms seem to have set off alarm bells in the halls of government, as they should, for the government recently announced that people behaving improperly while touring overseas would be blacklisted.