When the news of the earthquake hitting Japan on the first day of 2024 poped out on my cellphone, I browsed the news and hastened to learn what the reaction was from the readers. I found roughly over 70% of the responses to this nature disaster were a simple phrase of four words: "May Heaven bless Japan" (天佑日本), virtually nothing else. Certainly, there were a few readers harboring a feeling of schadenfreude that Japan finally got its comeuppance.

Then I searched the news on the websites of mainland China to see how the netizens would react to the news. Well, there were neither blessings nor abusive words toward Japan. Except for some sympathic words, most critics focused on the latent danger of building nuclear power plants on the islands, which are liable to earthquakes, or the comparison of the different remedial actions taken by Japan and China, respectively. Anyway, all the comments were rational and constructive.

That is the difference in quality between the netizens across the strait.