Luxor graffiti indicts whole of China, says Shanghai paper

A photograph of the offending message ‘Ding Jinhao was here’ was posted online

A 15-year-old Chinese boy named Ding Jinhao has been pilloried in his home country after a piece of vandalism on Egypt's Temple of Luxor, reading "Ding Jinhao visited here", was traced back to his hand.

The Shanghai Daily, China's single daily English newspaper, condemns the young man but puts his crime in the context of wider societal failings:

"This instance shows our families and schools have failed to deliver to the children something that should be expected of any education: moral principles and civic virtues.

"Therefore it is unfair to make a 14-year-old minor a scapegoat for a disease that plagues the whole nation."

Over at Marketwatch, Michael Kitchen is more lenient:

"Not to defend Ding, but Egypt’s ancient monuments have a long history of vandalism. A number of monuments near Cairo still bear graffiti from the French troops who served in Napoleon’s 1798-1801 campaign there."