This thought occurred to me while watching ‘Castle’ last evening. It’s the 6th or the 7th episode in the 3rd season which I don’t think is aired in India yet. If you have watched Castle before, you’d know it’s about a female detective and a male fiction writer solving cases (mostly murders) together. There is of course high likelihood you haven’t because I watched it one day when there was a marathon on FoxCrime and never heard of it ever since. My boyfriend got hooked and so I got to watch the next seasons from off the Internet.

Anyway, the point is that the suspect in this episode is a “Chinese spy”. There is this astrophysicist who gets killed mysteriously. Castle and Detective Beckett are investigating the case. In the process, they learn that ‘high power Federal organisations’ are also after the killer (who might have some “important” “confidential” data that the victim downloaded). When the high power Federal Official explains the situation to Detective Beckett, he mentions the “Chinese spy”. It is not inconsequential that they sent him to prison for life when they finally catch him (and he is portrayed as someone who could kill ruthlessly even after he gets work done).

It was appalling (considering my views of America, it shouldn’t have been. But that’s another debate altogether!) that the only way in which they would address him is “Chinese”. It brought back gory memories of how the Russians were treated by American Cinema, through ‘beautiful mind’ and so many others (that I am glad I don’t remember the other painfully rhetorical films I’d watched about Russia)! Just to make sure I wasn’t over reacting, I tried Googling! And look what I found!

China Vs America: fight of the century!

Chinese “space-wars” with America: A Wikileaks report!

Noam Chomsky says this and this.

Congressional Research Service found this out!

Going through these documents, I’m convinced it is not a coincidence that it’s reflecting in American media. It wouldn’t be too long before China becomes the next Russia (considering all the things they have in common!) India isn’t very friendly with China either, is it? When is Vijaykanth going to start defeating Tamil speaking Chinese ‘terrorists’, I say?

Jokes apart, this reminds me of the shortest conversation about American Foreign Policy that I ever had. After talking a wee bit about 9/11, I said “At any rate, war is bad!” The person in front of me quickly replied, “well dear, the world is not flat either!”

Stumped, that I was!