Anti-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Western Media

zephyreks@lemmy.ml to World News@beehaw.org – 67 points –
Anti-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Western Media
thediplomat.com
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International sentiment generally negative about country actively committing genocide.

More at 11.

Jokes aside - yeah? Of course there's propaganda about China. I would wager its hard to find a big international power that doesn't have some level of propaganda being spread about it by the other big international powers. But between the propaganda you still find a bunch of real reasons to have negative views toward China's leadership and actions.

  • Uyghur genocide (ongoing)
  • authoritarian rule with huge censorship of outside media I really don't need to go on

Can we add bellicose relations with a lot of their neighbors over the expansionist goals they're pushing?

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I read this ‘article’. There are zero references towards the so called ‘China Bashing’. If it is so rampant, how hard can it be to just link to a few mainstream offenders? It alludes towards a deliberate bashing, once again without any links or merit. I am fully aware that news is hardly unbiased but come on, this is ridiculous.

like, just off the top of my head there's that whole "spy balloon" thing.

A Chinese corporation openly tested those spy balloons over my country a decade ago (allegedly just for monitoring livestock), why is it so unbelievable that they'd use a more polished version on their biggest geopolitical rival?

Give me a source that shows the blatant and deliberate anti China rhetoric about the ‘spy balloon’.

U.S. president Biden ... however stated that it was "not a major breach", and that he also believed that the Chinese leadership wasn't even aware of the balloon. ... On September 17, 2023, in an interview with CBS news, General Mark Milley, the retiring 20th US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China." Technical experts had also found that the balloon's sensors had never been activated while it was travelling over the Continental United States. The general also touched on a leading theory that the reason that it was flying over the United States, was probably because it was blown off-track, where the balloon had been heading towards Hawaii however winds at 60,000 feet simply came into the equation. Miley said, "those winds are very high.. the particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude." c

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023\_Chinese\_balloon\_incident

TLDR: Unbeknownst to China's leadership, one of their balloons blew off-track (hardly a rare occurence). It didn't collect or transmit any intelligence.

But if you watched the media coverage of that incident, you'd likely come to a different conclusion. For example:

Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites, despite U.S. efforts to block it

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/china-spy-balloon-collected-intelligence-us-military-bases-rcna77155

So funny how that all got memory holed and now you have people who genuinely still think it was a spy balloon of some kind (even in these very replies!) because they just never read anything past the headlines and never followed up on it after. Just completely lacking any curiosity or news literacy but will still scoff at the thought of them being victims of very obvious propaganda haha

Have you been following media recently or have you been living under a rock?

That’s not a defense. Opinion pieces can be fine, but if you’re claiming that something is off the charts you should probably have some charts (or any points of data) to prove the claim.

Then... Disprove it? If there's such distinct evidence that counters the article, might as well use it in your argument lol

That's not how the burden of proof goes. The article is making a claim. It's on the article's authors to prove it.

Again, if you have such a strong argument, why don't you use it?

The person is saying the article doesn't prove their claim at all; they're not necessarily saying the article is wrong

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Can you prove that China isn't an oppressive authoritarian capitalist state?

Do I need to? I haven't had a visceral reaction to the article.

For what it's worth, China's affirmative action policies for minority groups put the US to shame. Significantly easier college admissions (despite using a standardized process), extremely generous business loans, proportional ethnic representation in government, vast infrastructure projects to bridge the salary gap, and celebrations of different cultures across the country. Not very capitalist of them, given that these infrastructure projects (while very beneficial to the endpoints) are not profitable.

Nobody else has had a visceral reaction, we’ve just pointed out bad journalism 🙂 Using big negative words might make you feel better, but it doesn’t make them accurate. You’re using them to be dismissive of our points

Treating minorities better than the USA isn't exactly a high bar.

My country also treats minorities better than the USA, it's easy to get into uni, celebrates diversity, has an alright social welfare system and socialised healthcare, does the occasional infrastructure project etc.

Thanks for teaching me that I'm actually living in a socialist paradise rather than a poor, neoliberal capitalist, physically isolated island where private corporations are free to wreck the environment for profit!

Significantly easier college admissions (despite using a standardized process), extremely generous business loans, proportional ethnic representation in government, vast infrastructure projects to bridge the salary gap, and celebrations of different cultures across the country. Not very capitalist of them

Sorry OP but basically none of this has anything to do with not being capitalist. I don't even doubt that China is doing better in those departments than America, but that has more to do with how utterly shit America is at most things outside of building bombs than how communist China is. They should get some kudos for executing a couple billionaires, though, gotta at least give 'em that.

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I have been following media intensively. I am not saying that news about China is unbiased in the western media. I am calling out the lack of any sources in this weak ‘article’

  1. As far as news outlets go, The Diplomat is rather well-regarded

  2. As an opinion piece, sources are usually implicit (since opinion pieces use the reader's own knowledge of current events as the context)

  3. The article points to this article for more context: https://hbr.org/2021/05/what-the-west-gets-wrong-about-china

1 I don’t know this outlet, nor am inclined to use perceived pedigree to determine the quality of news. I’d like to see sources, not news dresses as opinions. 2 Opinion pieces that try to be credible need sources or else I will disregard them as petty trolling. The title makes a bold claim, I want sources backing up that claim. 3 that ‘source’ is also an opinion peace without any sources.

Just show me where mainstream media is deliberately bashing China. If it’s that rampant it can’t be that hard right?

Again, have you been living under a rock for the past few years? You can even look at the top posts of this community.

I’m not the one making bald claims. The onus is on the one with the claims. Just show me some sources!

Again, 🤦‍♀️

The evidence is right in front of you, yet you refuse to see it

Then link the supposed data points backing up this claim.

You’ve refused to do so within this thread, only using “You don’t know!” as a reply.

Link the supposed data or GTFO. That’s what every person has stated and you’ve refused to comply.

Everyone says they have data that disproves it

And nobody's provided any because they can't find it

No one here says they have data that disproves it though?

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that ‘source’ is also an opinion peace without any sources.

?

The source of that article are the authors. One a professor at Oxford, the other a lecturer at MIT. The professor's also written a book about China which is mentioned at the bottom of the article. Pretty weak argument to say that isn't a valid source. A bit like an anti-vaxxer saying an article about vaccination written by a doctor isn't a valid source in an internet argument.

Just show me where mainstream media is deliberately bashing China. If it’s that rampant it can’t be that hard right?

I googled myself, because I was curious. Not necessarily bashing, but plenty of sensationalism. For example, NBC at the time of the balloon incident:

Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites, despite U.S. efforts to block it

Fox:

Spy balloon likely sent extensive intelligence to China, experts say. The Pentagon said Thursday it 'acted immediately' to counter a collection of sensitive information

Guardian:

China ‘spy balloon’ wakes up world to new era of war at edge of space

CNN:

Why the Chinese balloon crisis could be a defining moment in the new Cold War

Wikipedia:

U.S. president Biden ... however stated that it was "not a major breach", and that he also believed that the Chinese leadership wasn't even aware of the balloon. ... On September 17, 2023, in an interview with CBS news, General Mark Milley, the retiring 20th US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China." Technical experts had also found that the balloon's sensors had never been activated while it was travelling over the Continental United States. The general also touched on a leading theory that the reason that it was flying over the United States, was probably because it was blown off-track, where the balloon had been heading towards Hawaii however winds at 60,000 feet simply came into the equation. Miley said, "those winds are very high.. the particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude."

Media: the Chinese are spying on us. Are you ready for WAR?

Reality: the wind blew a balloon of course and by now most of us have already forgotten what turned out to be a nothing burger of a story.

I think that the concern was not that the articles like the ones you link to do not exist. Instead the complaint is that the posted piece did not itself link to them to back up the claim. These were likely quite easy for you to find and it's poor journalism that the author did not put in the same effort.

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Everyday people need to remember the difference between the general Chinese population and the CCP. The Chinese people are wonderful. The CCP is horrific, and working tirelessly to create their own version of hell.

I second this. I love Chinese people and culture, hell, I'm even learning Chinese to be able to communicate with my Chinese gf's parents, however CCP ≠ Chinese people.

However, when you travel in China, you don’t have to travel far before you realise that broadly the Chinese support their government because things are getting better and in many places are on par or better than the west.

I don't think I'll ever voluntarily go to China. I've said bad things about the CCP, so I'll most likely be on some kind of list.

As for your other claims, i honestly doubt it.

I love how you start off by saying you've never been to China and you never intend to go, then immediately discard the claims of someone that's been there a lot.

You're not the only person I know who been to China.

Nobody would deny this. On the other hand, it's the same argument as "not all Russians support Putin" or even---dare I say---"not all Germans were Nazis." It's true that when you live under a despotic regime there's not much you can do about it, individually. And most people would not willingly be complicit in the regime's crimes except to the extent that they have no choice.

But it's true that these regimes do have lots of internal support. They wouldn't exist without that support. And to the extent that this support is manufactured by internal propaganda, people within that message-space will not be able to resist having their own perceptions shaped by it.

So while it's undeniably true that the CCP is not the Chinese people, and that the Chinese people are the principle victims of the CCP, they also are complicit in a collective sense.

I’m being generous. I tend to think that the Chinese people (or people of any country, really) are victims of propaganda. We’d all be less supportive of our various governments if we weren’t constantly told that we’re the GOOD guys, and our enemies are BAD and EVIL.

Does that version of hell include transit, affordable housing, education, upwards mobility, and healthcare?

Yeah: mass transit (transit) into camps (housing) for "re-education" (education), with the chance to get forcefully married to a real Chinese man (social mobility), or end up having your organs harvested (healthcare)

Do you have any idea what happens in China outside of the limited view presented by journalists who have never stepped in the country?

Do people really need to know more? I don't think there are any virtues that could make up for China's treatment of Uyghurs and the people who try to save them.

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A lot of stuff. But that your point basically boils down to "not all of China is about genocide!" is more than enough to know that it's not worth my time arguing with you.

Do you know the context behind Xinjiang or the affirmative action that China takes on its minority groups? Have you ever been to Xinjiang?

Do you know the context behind there's no fucking context to genocide, it's just a fucking holocaust?

"affirmative action that China takes on its minority groups" good god, have the balls to call it what it is dude. China is doing a genocide. If that doesn't bother you, that's your deal, but at least own up to what you are defending

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Chinese healthcare makes American healthcare look good by comparison. It is mostly private and you're expected to bribe the doctors, nurses, orderlies and have a family member stick around the hospital the whole time pestering them or you won't receive care. Same with Education, which is like the American Ivy system times 1000. Housing in China is.. well, just try googling Evergande. Upwards mobility involves either climbing the party hierarchy or "leveling up" from being a rural peasant to being an urban migrant worker with bad hukou.

You got me on transit though, the Chinese have built some amazing trains.

Yeah that's true. As long as there is good transit, everything is fine. That Hitler guy built the autobahn. Must have been a great leader.

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By that, you mean criticism of China's known actions that are detrimental to their neighboring countries and the world?

If you want to call that "anti-China", then sure, but it's an appropriate reason to be, just as appropriate as being "anti-Russia".

Pro-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Chinese Media

Stop the press!

This article is prime "SelfAwareWolves" material...

Countering this in international media by offering more balanced views for a global audience is near impossible as censorship is rife. There almost seems to be a global compact to control the narrative, a propaganda war powered by today’s digital technology.

It's almost like if they want people to not hate their country they should stop being a corrupt authoritarian hellhole

to be clear: the "they" here is the chinese government rather than the chinese people, correct? your comment is a little ambiguous

Oh so like India and America, corrupt democratic hellholes?

Yes, exactly. Most people don't want their governments to copy imperialistic authoritarian capitalist shitholes like China, the USA, or Russia.

The American government being awful doesn't mean that everybody else should copy them and be as awful as they can.

What reference do you have then, though? You've basically eliminated every country of reasonable size: India, China, America obviously, but also Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Nigeria, Bangladesh are in similar states.

Yeah and? I don't want to live in an oppressive shithole, doesn't matter to me if they became oppressive because they were copying China, the USA, Nigeria, the UK or whatever - they'd still be oppressive!

I honestly didn't think that saying "I don't like authoritarian capitalism" would be such a controversial statement...

You've expressed disapproval without giving a solution. How would you ask the US or China to change and why do you think that would work?

I've legitimately got no idea how they can fix their countries (or if they can even be fixed) as I'm more focused on my own country. I do not want my country to copy either the USA or China, and I resent the close relationship my government maintains with both of those oppressive states.

The USA pressured our government into performing illegal searches/arrests to favour their corporations, and the CCP has repeatedly been caught infiltrating our parliament. Those big authoritarian countries just bully smaller states to get what they want, and we need to stop pretending that it's morally justified and normal. It's not okay.

Hi, fellow Canadian!

To some degree there's a need to pick a side, because the alternative is to get stomped on by both (like what's happening now).

Actually I'm not from the Americas (though one of my ancestors did decide to leave Florida in the 1830s or 40s cos he had very dark coloured skin).

And I disagree that there's a need to "pick a side" - both "sides" will stomp on smaller countries no matter what because that's what authoritarian imperialistic powers do.

China is the one county that could just tell Russia to get out of Ukraine. Same with North Korea. Just look at who they hang out with and you know quite a lot.

Why would they? The Global South is completely unaligned with the West on the Russia-Ukraine issue. It's an issue between Russia and the West, not a global issue.

It's a human rights issue. People like you and me are dying.

Why should the Global South care? People are dying there, too. We have a spoiled Western perspective.

For the same reason that the West should care about people being murdered around the world: it's a human rights violation.

Of course they would not. They have chosen to be aligned with Russia. This whole thing is a Russia / China thing.

The entire Global South is aligned on this issue.

I guess they don't matter to you because they're poor.

Most of the global south is aligned in staying out of it as much as possible. Their self interest is to play nice to all sides and play all sides.

It is not the entire global south. I think Australia and Taiwan would both feel differently. Very convenient of you to forget that. From the original UN vote it showed that the Russian invasion was widely condemned through out the world including global south with some notable exceptions too.

Do you even know what the term Global South refers to? Given that you refer to Australia as being part of the Global South, I'm going to assume not.

Don't talk about things you don't understand.

And you would not be correct.

Many countries included in the Global South are in the northern hemisphere, such as India, China and all of those in the northern half of Africa. Australia and New Zealand, both in the southern hemisphere, are not in the Global South

Time Magazine

It was generally agreed that the Global North would include the United States, Canada, England, nations of the European Union, as well as Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and even some countries in the southern hemisphere: Australia, and New Zealand. The Global South, on the other hand, would include formerly colonized countries in Africa and Latin America, as well as the Middle East, Brazil, India, and parts of Asia.

Gendered Lives: Global Issues

Do you just enjoy being wrong?

I know all this. The global south is just pretty inaccurate name for the developing countries aka the third world. It is not at all clear that China should be included. It is also a collection of some pretty much despotic countries though that varies widely. There are also some very questionable trade policies too including cartels, trafficking of all sorts, bribery, corruption, often high population growth, you name it.

While it is true that insane propaganda is off the charts, for example in my own country Australia we're chaining ourselves to the fading star of the usa and the UK militarily despite having:

  • different trade interests
  • different geopolitical interests
  • different cultural interests

all while the usa government tries it's hardest to undermine our economic policy, erase our culture, and distort our politics towards their own demended lines.

There is zero evidence the chinese government does not want to do the same. They have interfered in our media, our education systems, there has been stupid petty trade squabbles with both "sides" using us for their own ends.

When chinese diplomats speak to our media, even in excruciatingly fair interviews, the pattern is the same slimey deny deny deny and legal quibble that usa diplomats engage in. Their media is insanely critical of Australian life too.

There are no good guys in this power struggle and looking for one is childish thinking.

Even this article refuses to address the notion that the chinese government has ever conducted itself in a condemnable manner.

As an American, I thought our cultures were relatively similar being both former British colonies. What different cultural interests are you referring to?

we elected a socialist in the 70s. It ended in a constitutional crisis and his successor was groomed by the CIA. rhymes with certain things no?

we had a publicly owned transport system, telephony, healthcare system, a thriving public service. Then we started getting leaned on.

We had a collectivist culture, government funding for our own media with our own values, then we started getting leaned on.

It goes on.

Even our slang is being replaced, people are pronouncing things your way, the media of the usa is replacing everything and that's intentional government policy.

We had a collectivist culture, government funding for our own media with our own values, then we started getting leaned on.

This is hilarious to point out when you consider Rupert Murdoch has done more to change American politics than probably anyone else in the last 50 years, but you're gonna complain about the US "leaning on" Australia? Sorry but that just screams of shirking responsibility for your own country's problems.

Everything is feedback cycles. Yes there's homegrown bullshit but it's naive to ignore how that is encouraged by for example the usa exporting neoliberalism and encouraging/bullying other countries to deregulate their own markets (like media ownership that lets people like Murdoch rise) for favourable political treatment.

It's naive to ignore that when usa media, usa products, usa megacorps all arrive somewhere that they wont swing the culture.

The usa has almost certainly interfered in our elections ffs.

Being a country the usa has military interest in is incredible corrosive. It's not just Australia where this has happened.

Not Australian or American, but hey it's the internet so why not voice second hand knowledge: I heard Aussies pride themselves on being (relatively) egaliatarian, despising individuals elevating themselves above others. Seems to me about as antithetical to US mentalitity as it goes :)

AU and USA share in a foundation belief that they are "classless societies." I think this is probably true of many ex-British colonies since class is such a dominant and suffocating aspect of British culture.

Australia, like the USA has severe inequality, and the rich there like to flaunt their wealth. A disproportionate number of the crypto grifters ended up being Aussie. And while Australia does have a better social welfare state than the US it is both 1) under attack and 2) was put together almost entirely by one socialist prime minister in 1975 who was taken out after only a few months by a coup.

I think this is probably true of many ex-British colonies since class is such a dominant and suffocating aspect of British culture.

Laughs in India

A lot of the Aussies you'll chat to on the internet don't realise how recent there was heavy segregation even among people broadly considered white now.

If you look at the last names of powerful people even now you'll find that while they're general all white dudes Irish last names are underrepresented, despite being around as long as English ones. A lot of migrants from Greece/Italy/Poland etc were heavily sidelined too.

Lets not even get into treatment of native peoples and non white migrants cause we'll fucking be here all day.

This country is definitely heavily divided by class, last oecd report I read found 4 generation median time for bottom quartile income to next quartile up. That's bonkers.

McCarthyism's back yo! Or, rather, it never really left.

McCarthyism has changed because now the "communists" look different and talk different and aren't white.

*Chandran Nair is the founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow. He is the author of “Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World” (Penguin Random House, 2022). *

::: spoiler Here's a short summary of the linked article


Mainstream Western media frequently engages in relentless China-bashing by regurgitating trivial or fabricated stories without evidence. Positive stories about China are rare. Reporting typically adheres to three ideas - that China is a threat, must be linked to all global issues, and that curbing its rise is legitimate despite hundreds of millions gaining a better life. This betrays an imperial view that the West decides which nations participate in the global economy. The media war is powered by technology in a new propaganda era, with Western outlets assuming conflict is inevitable rather than promoting multilateralism.

Dismantling the dominance of Western media will be difficult but investing in alternative sources worldwide could provide more balanced views for local audiences.


Archive.today link to thediplomat.com


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