Chinese citizens have embraced Valentine's Day traditions as we know them in the West: Beijing street vendors sold the requisite roses, and restaurants offered specials for cooing two-somes. But at least in one department, the mood was less than lovey-dovey.

On Thursday—our supposed day of Cupid— state-run media announced that Chinese people were "disgusted" over recent attempts by prominent Westerners to use the 2008 Summer Olympics as a means of pressuring Beijing to do more to end the conflict in Darfur. Chinese Foreign Ministry officials once again decried the "politicization" of the Olympics, in what is by now a familiar refrain.

The proximate cause was Tuesday's very public announcement that famed American Hollywood director Steven Spielberg had given up his responsibilities as an artistic adviser to Olympic ceremonies because of China's support for Khartoum, as well as a letter signed by nine Nobel Peace laureates urging Chinese President Hu Jintao to change his nation's policies toward Sudan.