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Q: What's your opinion of the portrayal of China by the Western media?
No I'm not an Wumao, and personally I couldn't think of a more tiresome way to make money. I'd rather have someone pay me to lie in a glass tub full of scorpions and have them slowly devour my face whilst someone blasts Justin Bieber in my ear.
Anyway, this is subject that I'm sure if gonna creative a lot of different opinions, but for me I think some institutions are just as bad at presenting a biased, subjective account of things as some of the news bodies here. Obviously it's important to report the facts about the nasty stuff that happens in China but am I right in thinking there's little positivity (perhaps understandable) towards China? For me, I have to say that Al Jazeera is one of the few news bodies that tried to present an objective view of things. Even the BBC is becoming the voice of the establishment these days.
What do you think?
Darkstar - I agree with your synopsis. Al Jazeera is one of the few reliably objective media bodies now. I used to look at a variety of foreign sources for my South-East Asia news, but the number has narrowed considerably.
BBC News > SE Asia is really disappointing. Not because it is particularly propagandist, but because of the lack of insight. It strikes me that the writers have no particular interest or expertise in China. As with most western sources, it has a shallow understanding of the social or political climate here, so stories just reflect western preoccupations and tend to miss the point.
I guess as with any area that you find yourself possessing localised knowledge about, any generalised analysis will irk you. This sometimes occurs to people using wikipedia. It is a great source of general information, but if you have specialised knowledge about a topic, the commentary will seem frustratingly inadequate.
I get most of my news from South China Morning Post now. It is in touch with the general political atmosphere in China, and much more informed and objective than western sources about regional issues and the Beijing government.
I find all media has slants or bias. The BBC is one of the worst, it is very left leaning and overly politically correct so most of its reports on China are slanted in a negative way.
I agree Al Jazeera is a good site and I use it as a counterweight to the propaganda coming out of the CIA / CNN. However, I try and take a broad brush approach and skim a variety of sites to try and get an overall 'feel'. Then if something intrigues me I'll dig a little deeper.
I use:
BBC, Al Jazeera, Xinhua, CCTV, Sky, CBS, Reuters, News.com (Australia), and of course good old Google search.
darkstar1:
I would say that the BBC is becoming more sensationalist, moving more towards the right-wing reactionary nature of news bodies like CNN and Fox. If you want left wing - The Guardian a good one; also one of my preferred choices of news sources.
Hugh.G.Rection:
The former DG of the BBC himself admitted the journalists of the BBC tend to have a left leaning bias. The Guardian? I wouldn't even wipe my butt with it, except when looking for a job (on Wednesday or Thursday issues iirc).
As for me I want left leaning about as much as I want to dip my haemorrhoids in vinegar!
darkstar1:
Haha, then it seems politics my dear Hugh is a topic you and I should avert in the future :)
boomsticks:
I reckon the Guardian is pretty reasonable when it comes to China. Hugh we'll agree to disagree on our views on all things Guardian, but I reckon even if you're not a "Guardianista" it could be acknowledged that its China coverage is pretty reasonably slanted
Hugh.G.Rection:
boomstick, I couldn't possibly comment as I don't read The Guardian, or at least I haven't done so for a number of years.
It speaks volumes for China's rationality that Al Jazeera was the foreign news agency which portrayed China most favourably, but China kicked them out of the country over one news story.
Scandinavian:
hasn't most news media been kicked out of China at some point ?
Oddly I prefer to read the far right American sources, and then assume the truth lies about, half a mile to the left of which they say. Same thing with Salon, except 2 miles to the right. I like foreign policy, as their authors usually describe their political stance in advance, so no shock. The Diplomat has a bunch of useful idiots writing about China however.
It depends on whether or not we are talking about hard news, which covers what happened without any editorial commentary, or opinion, which is all editorial commentary directed at the 'why' of a given story. This is an important distinction, and its troubling that so many people have so much trouble telling the difference between the two. For the former, I tend to go with AP and Rueters, as in this area everyone, left, right and center, is just cribbing from them anyway. For opinion, I try to read a little bit of everything and agree with the argument I feel is the strongest. On China, the staff at Forbes, Farheed Zakaria, the editorial staffs at Slate, Foriegn Policy, and The Diplomat usually get it mostly right. By an large though, I think that the coverage of China is alarmist in nature, and tends to paint them as the type of amoral, unstoppable, (economic) juggernaut that has our number and is coming to fuck us up that used to populate so many 80s slasher films. This view both over estimates the power of the Chinese economy while ignoring its rather obvious deficiencies, such as a real estate bubble that is all but ready to explode and sink the whole damned economy. Still though "Holy Shit! It's an economic Anton Chigur" makes for a much more exciting story than one about how China really isn't much more than the US's largest trading partner with whom commerce has been at best mutually beneficial and at worse not actively harmful and will likely continue to be so.
I have noticed this too and in my opinion the media selectively report some sides of one incident and perhaps intentionally or unintentionally ignore/hide some other sides.
Look at this example:
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/04/23/china_grades_americas_hum...
I really don't want to get into trouble so I don't want to talk about the content of this over sensitive issue. But please believe me despite I'm Chinese, I am not blinded that much.I know who's doing better and who sucks a lot.
I'll just focus on how the media portray China, and how it is different from the media portray the west .
This is a sentence from the article above:
But as you might expect, the world isn't just sitting around and passively accepting report cards from Washington anymore. Case in point: China has just released its own human rights report on the United States, and it makes for rather interesting reading.
Would any of you bring up the question without being hinted: why China particularly releases a report about the human rights on the US every year? Has there been any Western news media that tells you, it's because China govt feels "hurt" by the China part in the US global human rights reports?
But as Chinese, I think many Chinese people (How many? No idea) and I myself know it's because China govt wants to revenge Washington a little. I actually assume that if US would "ignore" China in the report, China wouldn't bother to release a report either. Is there any China report on Russia or Canada or UK human rights record? No, haven't heard of any. Well I know who is doing well and who is doing terrible. Believe me.
Let's continue reading the foreign policy article:
The Chinese report may not be objective, and the fact that U.S. leaders authorized torture does not mean Washington hasn't done plenty of morally admirable things too. But this gap between America's professed ideals and its actual behavior matters. Not just in moral terms, but in terms of power and global influence too. Smaller and weaker states are more likely to tolerate American primacy if they think the United States is a generally good society and led by individuals who are not just ruthlessly self-interested. They will be more willing to tolerate the asymmetry of power in America's favor if they think that power is used for the greater good.
Now it's a defense for Washington, right? the fact that U.S. leaders authorized torture does not mean Washington hasn't done plenty of morally admirable things too.
I suppose an American generally would feel a little comforted when reading this, that at least "our govt" has done plenty of morally admirable things too.
They will be more willing to tolerate the asymmetry of power in America's favor if they think that power is used for the greater good
Can anyone please help me explain this sentence? I don't understand it very well. What does "the asymmetry of power in America's favor" mean? I am confused. Is it talking about the asmmetry of power between America and small, weak states, or the asmmetry of power between American authorities and the terrorists who got tortured in the Cuba prison?
Anyway it uses the term "for greater good". I wonder if there is any American media that defends China govt policy regarding to the Tibetans and Uyghurs? Some of them want to separate their lands from PRC. However I don't think most of the Majority ethical Han would like to let them go. How would you define "greater good"? Is the Han Majority not "major" enough? Han majority used to be 98% of the Chinese population, which decreased to 92% in the past decades because of the one child policy mainly applies to Han (sorry I'm not very clear about the details ). And I really want to say the western human rights orgs focus too much on the separatists, which can't stop Chinese people suspecting there is no other interests involved. While the most people who suffer from horrible rights violations , regardless of their ethnicity (who are mostly Han because of the population percentage), why the western media spend so little energy on them? Don't we deserve the same rights and the same concern?
You know what? I'm actually happy that there are people and powers in the west that are concerned of the suppressed victims under this eastern regime. But very very sadly, most of your western sympathy is taken advantage of by polical extremists. You guys start with nice hearts, but end up with more hostility ,misunderstanding and conflicts.
I hope what I said could help us know the media better and communicate better. and won't get myself in trouble.
mattsm84:
In that sentence, the author means "weaker" countries. Here "weak" means that they possess much less economic and military clout. So what he means is that other countries will be more willing to tolerate American hegemony so long as they think that America has most people's best interest at heart instead of just being out for ourselves. This report from the PRC is a conscious attempt to contradict that, by reminding them of civil rights abuses.
ohChina:
I didn't think that far about why PRC releases the report on US though. I think it's just an attempt to embarrass Washington. Consciously, of course.
mattsm84:
Maybe, but I would hope that the people at the central committee would realize that the US government is too much of an abstraction to really feel shame or embarrassment over any of what the CCP is pointing out, where as criticisms of China is directed at the CCP and the members of the Central Committee directly because of the way that it holds absolute power over the state. After all, who, specifically, "owns" US policy on Guantanamo Bay? The President should through his control of the US State Department and the Justice Department. However, he and the State Department don't really have the power to set US policy unilaterally. For instance, President Obama, on the first day of his presidency, signed an executive order to close prison on Guantanamo Bay, however the bill which was to approve funding for this order was voted down in the Senate by something like 90 to 6 with 4 not voting. Similarly, the state department can write policy guidelines but it can't enact them, the military does. And neither the military or the state department can decide how to try the detainees. The department of Justice theoretically can, but it then has to take that new policy to a hostile congress to get the funds. What I'm saying is power in the US government is much more defused to lay blame at any one office or person in particular.
accidentally double posted. sorry .
ohChina:
Sorry I don't know why it double posted in 1 second. Help delete this one please. Thank you.
Update:
WSJ today:
On Tuesday, the Japanese Coast Guard said China sent eight maritime-patrol ships to the waters surrounding small East China Sea islands controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing. China, meanwhile, protested the presence in the same waters of a flotilla of boats piloted by Japanese activists.
http://cn.wsj.com/gb/20130424/bas072302_ENversion.shtml
According to WSJ description, it seems that first China sent eight maritime-patrol ships to the waters surrounding small East China Sea islands and meanwhile protested the presence in the same waters by Japanese activists.
What impression does this article give you readers? What does "meanwhile" mean? I think it means two things happen at the same time, right?
Let's look at how Chinese media report this:
Three Chinese ships on regular patrol duty spotted several Japanese vessels in the waters on Tuesday morning. The administration immediately ordered another five ships in the East China Sea to meet the three ships. The eight Chinese ships organized in four formations monitored the Japanese boats from different angles, collected evidence of their infringement upon China's sovereignty and safeguarded national interests, the statement said.
Source link: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-04/23/content_16440120.htm
There is a difference, isn't it?
darkstar1:
Very interesting. It seems like they're painting China as the aggressors in the first one but it's the other way round in the second.
Nessquick:
Yes, there is a big difference, i read it also from several different sources...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324235304578440993450369194.html#slide/7
This whole "western media hating on China" or "Chinese media hating on the west" phenomenon is why I'm so intrigued by the future direction of social media and its influence on the mainstream sources. I sincerely hope that it will have a balancing effect on news media slant on both sides.
While it's not perfect yet, I'm also a big fan of news aggregate services like Flipboard, Google news or other RSS feeds. It's nice to be able to read the same story from several different angles at the same time.
Scandinavian:
completely agree, it's just, if you look at todays online media world, there is the GFW making sure there will be no symbiosis in the exchange of current events. I am awar there are people in China using Twitter and Facebook, and there are people outside China using Weibo, but you do not have the masses from the other camp on these media.
There is no western media. There is a Chinese propaganda organ, and a SLEW, a plethora of media in the 'west'. Yes, there is a 'party line' but news sources in the western tradition have a 'voice'. It may be far-right, far-left, socialist, Fascist or what ever, but only One-party states have a unified 'media voice'. The internet has put a million points of view in front of all intelligent persons. And only crypto-cleptocratic states like China, Russia, and Burma monitor their internet for this reason.
-This will be unpopular with the useful idiots who think the CCP helps them get laid.
