President Jinping,
I would like to talk to you about the upcoming Yulin dog festival. As you know it has stirred up much controversy world wide and serves as a black eye for your country and the your party.
I am not writing this to ask you to ban the eating of dog meat, I understand cultural differences and that if that ban is put into place it should be the will of the Chinese people and not foreigners. What I am writing about is the inhuman torture that takes place leading up to, and especially during the Yulin dog festival.
What are the worlds concerns?
- The Yulin dog festival was started recently and has no basis in tradition, yet the excuse of cultural and historical precedent are used to justify the festival.
- Many dogs die during transport due to horrible conditions, with infection and crushing weight being placed on them. Also being packed several to a cage and having that cage thrown on and off trucks causing broken bones and lacerations leading to pain and illness.
- The dogs are tortured to dead because it is believed (without any justification) that the suffering makes the meat taste better. Because of this the dogs are beaten, hung, boiled alive, burned alive, and skinned alive.
Eating the meat of a humanly killed animal is fine, even if other countries keep that animal as a pet or worship it as a god, but torturing an animal is unacceptable. And yes I know we here in the west are not perfect and animals suffer, but if a town in a western country held a festival like the dog meat festival in Yulin the authorities would shut it down and lock up those responsible.
Why should you care?
I don’t know you and won’t assume anything but even if you don’t care about the well being of the dogs, you should at least care about the image that this festival gives your county. Right now there is a social media campaign to stop this festival and it’s worldwide, obviously the people are showing the worst pictures to get there point across, this is leading to a negative view of China as a whole.
I know you and the party are doing your best to foster a positive view of China around the world, as such this festival is undermining everything your doing by making people around the world think all Chinese people are torturing dogs. It’s not fair, I know, but as I’m sure you know people associate what a small group does with the county as a whole, and so China will be held accountable for the crimes of Yulin in the worlds eyes.
Another issue I’ve seen going around on social media is that the Nazi’s had better animal rights than China does today. Now people are seeing that and will assume that if the Chinese are have worse animal rights then they must also have worse human rights than the Nazi’s, and I’m sure that is not the image you want for your country.
What should you do?
Obviously I don’t know how your government works, and I’m in no way qualified to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, but I’will give some ideas from a outside perspective that could help rescue China’s image from Yulin.
- Pass the animal rights legislation that has been introduced.
- Crack down on anyone violating the legislation and inhumanly slaughtering the dogs.
- Don’t just fine those you arrest, put them on trial and jail them if found guilty.
- Make it very public that the government is cracking down on this and that the Yulin dog festival will not be allowed.
Until you and the government put a stop to this festival China’s image around the world will only get worse, and the more people see it the harder it will be to change their minds and get back on their good sides.
What are the pictures the world is seeing?
