In a convincing takedown of Western magazine editors' portrayal of China-India relations (yes, they wisely implicate themselves), Christina Larson and Adam Minter of Foreign Policy argue that it's time to "retire" the Indian tiger and the Chinese dragon "mascots." They're clichéd. Not to mention the Indian elephant and Chinese panda!  Editors are all too reliant on putting them in simplistic, often misleading images of civilization clashes or cooperative endeavors. Singling out The Economist, Time, Newsweek, pre-Bloomberg Businessweek, and numerous non-fiction titles in a humorous "Cliches of the Century" slideshow (itself a lampoon of an Economist article), they call out various clichés and urge the editors to "try to do better -- it's getting pretty tiresome out there."

Here's one example depicting the dueling sets of mascots from the slide-show, which can be viewed in full here:

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Erik Hayden