Misbehaving tourists shouldn't spoil the fun for everyone else

My views or actions in noway represent Britain. I know because I retired from the world of politics at age 10, following a failed bid for class prefect, writing off the chance of ever becoming a diplomat, or an ambassador, or even a celebrity, all of who are expected to export some kind of Great British image.

So I was a bit surprised to see in this paper a comment piece that suggested I am directly responsible for the way people view my country of birth.

OK, the comment was actually directed at Chinese tourists, branding those who misbehave abroad as "clueless nuisance-makers" sabotaging China's soft power efforts. But I couldn't help thinking how I would feel if the author had been talking about the British.

My countrymen certainly have their detractors. In Europe we're seen by many people as drunken louts, while in the United States we're regularly pilloried for being stuck up and having bad teeth (only half right, in my case).For a country with a population of 60 million, both visions are broad generalizations.

It is perhaps sad that we tend to judge many on the actions of a few, namely those who make the news for doing something stupid such as etching their name into an ancient relic. A Chinese teenager accused of the latter in Egypt made headlines last year. But did you know two US tourists were also recently caught doing the same thing at Rome's Colosseum?

I guess the US Congress must be drawing up a bill right now to punish badly behaved American tourists. No? So why does the Chinese government feel the need to do so?

This month, the China National Tourism Administration introduced a measure that threatens to blacklist citizens who are found being unruly idiots in other countries, and urged tourists to report any bad behavior they witness to authorities back home.

Perhaps it's an image thing, that China feels it needs to win "hearts and minds", as the comment piece put it, coincidently echoing a phrase used by former British prime minister Tony Blair and former US president George W. Bush to describe their governments' propaganda campaign in the Middle East in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

Then again, maybe China just likes imposing rules on its people that developed countries-the self-proclaimed justices of civility - would never entertain.

Letmebeclear, I don't condone stupidity, but if it isn't criminal or dangerous, why does a government need to intervene? Most countries have laws against the more-serious complaints recently levied against Chinese tourists - fighting on airplanes, damaging relics, sexual harassment. If guilty, they will face punishment.

But to lump such things in with "removing (their) shoes on public transport vehicles (and) creating a foul smell", as the author of the comment piece did, is simply ludicrous. I was unaware the Chinese have a monopoly on foot odor.

Yes, a lot of Chinese are going abroad - 100 million last year, according to the State tourism administration - but I don't think I'm going out on a limb by predicting that the vast majority will do so without breaking the law.

Surely, isn't tourism all about seeing other cultures and, potentially, learning from them? If threatening tourists to behave or face a "blacklist" deters just one person from doing that, it's simply counterproductive.