China blasts Australia as 'Britain's offshore prison' after gold medallist Horton insults Chinese swimmer
China's guns are out and blazing against Australia, in the latest op-ed posted by state media vehicle the Global Times.
In an article published Monday, the official publication had its claws bared, calling Australia "a country at the fringes of civilisation."
It added that it was "Britain's offshore prison," and that "no one should be surprised at uncivilised acts emanating from the country."
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The op-ed was posted in retaliation to the remarks made by Australian 400-metre freestyle gold medal winner Mackenzie Horton.
Over the weekend, Horton took the Olympic podium at Rio de Janeiro, where he reportedly called Chinese arch rival and silver medallist Sun Yang a "drug cheat." Horton was referencing Yang's doping scandal in 2014, for which the latter had served a three-month ban.
Horton's social media accounts have been set ablaze with numerous troll comments, many of which are from Chinese netizens angered at his taunting remarks.
Sun is the first Chinese man to win a gold medal for swimming.
This is the second fiery op-ed that the Global Times has put out against Australia in the past two weeks. The last one had a couple more choice phrases for the land Down Under, calling it a country with an "inglorious history" and that it was "established through uncivilised means, in a process filled with the tears of the aboriginals."
That one was put out on July 30, shortly after Australia officially endorsed the international tribunal decision that China does not own the South China Sea territories that it has insisted it does.
That op-ed also closed with this particularly scornful remark about Australia:
Australia is not even a "paper tiger," it's only a "paper cat" at best.
Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
