Japan: Support for Tibet

The Global Voices Blog site had a long post about the Japanese support for Tibet and their opinions about the media and Olympics. The post begins with description by the blogger that soon after the rioting began in Tibet, the Japanese began to express their opinions and interests about the issue. "Tibet" became the most searched topic on Japanese search engines, the blogger reports, and Tibet supporters demonstrated in Tokyo early and mid March. He also notes that the Tibet Support Network Japan (TSNJ)set up a blog where the Japanese have been avid posters. The rest of the post has examples (and translations) of some of the posts. Many of the posts blame the Japanese politicians and media for not drawing enough attention or doing anything regarding Tibet and other "human rights" violations in China. There are also posts with opinions about boycotting the Olympics:

独裁共産国家でのオリンピックに参加することを反対します。
そして中国製品を買うことも控えましょう。
奴隷のように働かされている子供・女達が作ったことを思うと購入を躊躇します。
なぜそのような国に他の国は群がるのでしょう？

(I am against participating in Olympics that are in a country that is a communist dictatorship.
Also let's not buy any goods that are manufactured in China.
I hesitate to buy things when I think that children and women were worked like slaves to make them.
Why do other countries flock around this kind of country?)

Other Japanese bloggers question if the Chinese will actually be able to pull off hosting the Olymics, express their distrurbance by the news, and compare the Beijing Olympics to the Berlin Olympics under Hitler.

Again, it's not really surprising that the Japanese questions and criticize China. Although, unlike the newspaper, the blog follows what one would expect from the Japanese given their negative ties with China as well as their proximity to the area in question. One wonders if there is a correlation with the unbias or balancing attempt by the old media such as newspapers compared to the more free form opinion driven role of blogs.