Eric's Beijing Diary

Watch the video above. It’s an excellent example of how news agencies like CNN tend to mold a news story to fit a predetermined narrative. In the video above, at about four minutes in, you see and hear a doctor (with his back turned to the camera) who is describing how almost all villagers have shown COVID symptoms. But then he says, “but now everything’s fine.” Why didn’t they translate that?

Later, they visit a hospital and find a local lady who is willing to talk to them. She tells them that lots of people got sick, but the symptoms were mild, and they recovered quickly. It is to their credit that they were able to find and interview this lady. But then thy basically discount her statement with these words: “but in rural areas like this, experts say there's likely far more silent suffering.” What experts? You see, the lady’s statement didn’t fit their desired narrative, so they discounted it by presenting fabricated data they pulled out of thin air. That’s not journalism.

In fact that local lady was telling the truth. That is exactly what happened in Kunming in the middle of December. I had a mild fever for a day and a half, which I brushed off as a seasonal cold. But later I found that everybody I talked to had gotten sick at the same time. China had been hit with a new form of the virus which spread much more rapidly, but was also much milder. China’s zero-COVID policy was cancelled partly because of the riots in Shanghai, but also because the rates were going off the charts. They literally lost control of it, as my blog post from that period shows.

But it turned out that losing control of it was a good thing, because the new rapidly spreading strain seems to have created the herd immunity that China was lacking before because of the zero-COVID policy. The point is that by the time this video was made, COVID was basically over. But CNN didn’t want it to be over, so they discounted their own report and concluded with the word from fictitious “experts” that the pandemic was still raging.

Now take a look at the report below from France 24, France’s English language news channel:

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It concerns the subject of gerrymandering, which they blame for the devastation of a small town in Ohio. The video features a Democratic party chairman, who is fuming because, according to him, gerrymandering keeps the Republicans in power, so the Democrats are unable to pour lots of taxpayer money into a dying community. But the community is not dying for lack of taxpayer money. It is dying because of the closure of two local plants which were the lifeblood of that community's economy. If you weren’t paying attention, you would miss it, because it is mentioned only in passing about four minutes into the video:

In Manchester, budget cuts were coupled with the closure in 2018 of two nearby coal-fired plants.

That is absolutely the only mention of that important fact in the entire report. Instead of discussing those plant closures and the impact they had on Manchester’s economy, they focus on gerrymandering, because (they say) it has kept the Republicans in power. The Democrat solution to every problem is to throw money at it, and the Republicans aren’t letting them do that. But in this case the Republicans are right. It is sad to see a community die, but you can’t pretend it isn’t happening just by propping up that community with the money the industry used to produce. When our loved ones die, of course we are sad. But we have a funeral and bury them. We don’t hire a taxidermist to make them look like they’re still alive. That would be grotesque.

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

Years ago when I was teaching in North Dakota, I went to visit my friend Roger who lived in a town called “Wheelock.” He had just purchased the town post office for $250. It was a pretty little town, but it was a ghost town. The old grain elevator stood there silently keeping the secrets of the years, and posing politely for the picture nobody was taking. I can't remember now if it was that building or the town garage where I walked in and saw job orders laying loosely on the desk from the day before. Except it wasn't the day before. I picked one of them up and looked at the date. It had been lying there for many years—undisturbed by the elements (because it was inside) and undisturbed by people (because there were literally no people).

I walked with Roger to the old Lutheran church where there was a plaque on the wall with a bunch of names. Founders of the church, I guess. To my surprise, one of the townsmen named on that plaque was my great uncle. It wasn’t really a surprise, because Uncle Tonnes was known to be a churchman. But I mean surprise because I don’t remember dad ever saying anything about Wheelock. And when I think about it, I have to laugh, because the visit I am describing took place in the eighties, which is longer ago now than Wheelock had been a ghost town at the time I visited it. Time, you see, just keeps rolling on.

Is it sad to see a little town like that die? Sure it is. But how can you turn back the clock? When homesteaders first came from Norway, there were each given a quarter section of land (160 acres). But in western North Dakota, as dry as it was, you couldn’t seed every acre. You had to leave every other field fallow. So 160 acres was actually 80 acres. Not really enough to make a living. So farmers eventually sold out to their neighbors and went to California or somewhere else, or got a job in the city. Farms got bigger. But if the average farm grows from 160 acres to a thousand acres or more, what happens to all those original farmsteads and the communities they fed? Fortunately, in flat North Dakota you could hire a house mover to move your house into town. I don’t mean a truck that pulls up to your house to get your furniture, I mean a truck that literally picks up your whole house and takes it away from the place where you had thought it would always be.

So the people left and the towns died. What would you do if you lived in one of those towns? Spend your life hoping that the government would come in and prop your town up to make it seem like it was still alive? Maybe you would feel like doing that. And maybe you would need the advice of a state senator like the one mentioned in this report, who could tell you kindly that sometimes you do have to move. It was good advice, actually.

What I am getting around to is that the process of a town becoming a ghost town is something that cannot always be avoided. And the complete failure of this report to even consider that robs it of any credibility. The Democrat party official says, "The people in Columbus literally are taking money from towns like this to give tax cuts to very wealthy people instead of investing in what would turn towns like this around." That's just not honest. Refusing to pour money down a rat hole is not "taking money." The government is not taking money from this town. They are merely refusing to give it money that would be wasted, because it's only function would be to delay the inevitable at great cost to the taxpayers. We can argue about this with respect to the specific details of a particular case like Manchester. But for France 24 not to even mention the issue is inexcusable. This is not objective reporting. This is propaganda.

At the end of the video is a brief story of a young man who wants to be a girl, and is afraid that the people in power (Republicans) will not allow him to play against girls in competitive sports. we are just supposed to assume that this would be a violation of his rights. But decent people have very good reasons to be opposed to this. If you were a father, would you want your daughter to have to compete with this guy? If that idea doesn't bother you, you aren't much of a dad.

And speaking of dads, where is the dad in this picture? Not even a mention of fatherlessness and the challenges it presents for a young man growing up into adulthood. An honest reporter would at least be asking the questions, don’t you think? But this isn’t reporting. Journalism is about asking questions and finding out what is going on. But this entire “report” is built around reinforcing predetermined conclusions. It’s fine to discuss gerrymandering, but in this video, gerrymandering is really not relevant. Gerrymandering is a smoke screen—a way of blaming the Republicans for not endorsing policies, the wisdom of which is not open to debate as far as the makers of this video are concerned.

Labels: Economics, Propaganda

Read with interest Li Xing's glowing review of the Chinese media in the China Daily last Friday. The gist of her article is that American news media outlets tend to focus on domestic news, because that is the only thing Americans are interested in. Although her criticism may seem a bit extreme, since national news outlets in the US do discuss international events, it must be admitted that there is a lot of truth to what she says, especially for someone who has had the opportunity to compare American news services (she refers specifically to television) with what is available on CCTV. Viewed from that perspective, I tend to agree with her, because I do watch CCTV 9, the 24 hour English Channel.

As I mentioned in a post a couple weeks ago, there is a misconception among foreigners in China regarding Chinese news outlets. Some seem to be under the impression that every news report they see in China is propaganda dictated from the highest echelons of the Party. In fact, much of the time, even government news outlets are left alone to do their job, as long as they do not present reports that portray the Communist party negatively. CCTV is a very high dollar outfit, which the Party keeps handy to use for its purposes. But this means that if you are watching news about something going on in other parts of the world, the coverage can actually be quite good.

The problem in China though, is that local news is quite limited. China is great at reporting about what is happening on the other side of the world, as a distraction from what is happening here in China. Most notable recently is the blocking of any mention of the protests in Inner Mongolia. Go to any Chinese media outlet web site, and do a search for any news about the Inner Mongolia protests last week. Nothing. These protests are profoundly significant, because they are the most volatile protests in 30 years, and because Mongolians are usually held up as an example of a minority that generally gets along quite well with the idea of being Chinese, while still retaining their cultural identity. But news about these protests is completely unreported in the Chinese media. This is a very common occurrence in China. In China I have actually been told, "If I want to know what is going on in my country, I need to ask a foreigner." Chinese people tend to be the last to know about what is going on in China.

But it isn't just local news. CCTV does have some very informative news reports about news in other countries. But it also puts out misinformation when it is ordered to do so by the Party. And they don't announce it. In all the years I have been in China, I have never heard an announcement like "We interrupt our newscast to bring you some misinformation from the Communist Party." They just sort of slip it in and hope you don't notice. For example, several years ago, when China was going through a "hate Japan" phase, I was watching CCTV and there was a report on the buildup of the Japanese military. Those of you who know the history will know that, in fact, Japan doesn't have a military. It was proscribed by the constitution MacArthur wrote for the Japanese people after World War II. Japan does have a defense force, but it is a rather docile outfit. I suppose the CCTV propagandists felt that if they showed an actual clip of the Japanese defense force, it would not inflame emotions the way they wanted, so they slipped in some footage of the North Korean army. You can imagine my bemusement. I'm listening to a report on the buildup of the Japanese "military," while the North Korean army is goose stepping across the screen. You might wonder how they thought they could get by with that. I suppose they figured they had kept the average viewer ignorant enough so that they wouldn't know the difference. They would have to have been quite ignorant indeed, because the North Korean army has a very distinctive uniform. It doesn't look at all like the Japanese defense force. But, sad as it is to say, I would venture that the majority of viewers bought it hook, line, and sinker. Maybe that's why, when I tell people that I am from Japan, they often respond with "We hate Japanese." That hatred is very carefully crafted by China's government media, and swallowed whole by viewers who have been discouraged from thinking critically from the day they were born, and proceeding throughout their entire education.

So the two problems in China are lack of information, and misinformation. American viewers have the opposite problem. It is information overload. And that overload includes a very high dosage of trivia. Americans are so busy trying to find out which movie star is having an affair with whose husband, that they don't have time to even think about anything really important. So Americans tend to know a whole lot about really trivial stuff. American students are not discouraged from thinking critically the way Chinese students are. They would never tolerate the propaganda foolishness that Chinese people take for granted. But the problem with Americans is that they are never really required to think at all. So Americans also do not tend to think critically. This is why I have often said that the two most ignorant groups of young people I encounter are Chinese young people and American young people. The Chinese are ignorant because they always have only half the story (if that)--the half the Party wants them to have. And Americans are ignorant because they have very independent ideas, but precious little truly important information. News outlets in America are largely driven by advertising, so they publish what the people with the most money want to read or see. News outlets in China are not all controlled by the Party. There are many independent news outlets that are not required to publish Party propaganda. But the Party can and does order them not to contradict the Party line, and also forbids them from publishing articles relative to certain issues the Party does not want the people to know about (such as the current unrest in Inner Mongolia).

Now, that having been said, I do watch CCTV. I like being able to walk in and turn on the TV to get a quick news report. When I first moved out here to the village, I thought perhaps I would not get a TV. But I found that I missed CCTV, so I finally got a small 13 inch TV. I don't watch it a lot, but I do like having it available. And it's a refreshing reprieve from the information overload and incessant advertising of American television. But you do need to watch it critically.

And I buy the China Daily every day. The China Daily has some fascinating feature articles about ordinary people in China. I say "ordinary," but in fact, many of them are actually quite extraordinary. When it comes to national and international news, however, China Daily is rather pathetic, except for the reports from international wire services. There are "debates" in the China Daily, and they are announced as "debates" in big letters to show that China allows "debate," but the "debates" are sterile and boring, because they can never touch anything political. You would absolutely NEVER see a debate about the merits of allowing Tibet to be independent, or whether or not China has a right to take Taiwan by force. Never. You see debates like, "Should apartment buildings in South China be equipped with hot water radiators like the apartment buildings in North China?" But this is reasonably easy for we foreigners to live with, because we have so many other ways to get information, and it is easy for Chinese people to live with, because if you've never been allowed to think for yourself, you wouldn't know what you were missing.

Li Congjun, president of the Xinhua News Agency, wrote an interesting OP-ED piece on this subject for the Asia Wall Street Journal the other day. His article complains about the imbalance in the flow of information between East and West (much more information flows from West to East than from East to West), and suggests "negotiation" to address this problem. He talks about establishing international "rules" that will correct the imbalance. Reading between the lines, what he seems to want is for the Western media to place more control on their output, so that China's media controls won't look so obvious. This will help the international media to become an "active force for promoting social progress." It's not going to happen, Mr. Li. The purpose of the media is not social engineering. It is about allowing the free flow of information, so that free citizens can make informed decisions. What Mr. Li doesn't say, is that a big part of the imbalance of the flow of information from West to East has to do with news about China.

Zhao Ziyang was the premier who refused to approve the Tiananmen Massacre. He was very influential in introducing economic reforms in China, and had a lot to do with the initial opening up of China after the Cultural Revolution. But he fell out of favor with Deng Xiaoping, because he refused to approve the slaughter of young people at Tiananmen. He was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.

Zhao Ziyang died in January of 2005. I remember reading about it in the Wall Street Journal at the coffee bar. There was lots of information about what Zhao Ziyang had done for China (in terms of economic reforms), along with several editorials concerning the state of reform in the Country. After reading and mulling over this information for a couple hours over a cup of coffee, I walked out into the street and bought a copy of the China Daily. The sum total of everything the China Daily had to say about Zhao Ziyang's passing was encapsulated in one terse article. The one statement that caught my attention was

In the political turbulence which took place in the late spring and early summer of 1989, Comrade Zhao committed serious mistakes.

What mistakes? And mistakes according to whose judgment? Chinese young people are not allowed to ask questions like that.

This was not [supposed to be] an editorial. It was a regular "news" report. But this is my problem with China Daily. Articles in the China Daily read like they were written by middle school students who still don't know the difference between an editorial and a news report. Blatant editorializing in "news" articles is so common, one wonders how in the world those kids ever made it through journalism school. I have no idea. As a consolation, there are usually several articles from international wire services, which are written by professional journalists according to Western standards of journalism.

One of the most famous pictures of Tiananmen is the picture of Zhao Ziyang going to the Square to warn the students that the Politburo had decided to bring in the tanks. Standing just behind him in the picture is his young assistant, who, of course, is Wen Jiabao, the current premier. Naturally, I was very interested to hear what sort of tribute Wen might pay to his former boss during the period of his passing. Nothing. Not a whisper. I was absolutely dumbfounded. Sometimes I think China is a very strange country. Li Congjun seems to hope that western media outlets would impose some of this strangeness on themselves so that China's strangeness would seem less horrifying. God forbid.

China is changing. The government's decision to block Facebook during the Xinjiang trouble has spawned a silent revolution, particularly among young people. When I first came to China, young people seemed to be mainly uninterested in seeking access to web sites that were blocked. But the blocking of Facebook and Youtube changed that. There has been an explosion of VPN's among Chinese young people. Go to Google or Baidu and type in "VPN," and you'll see what I mean.

Last night, I went to the prayer meeting at church. One of the items we were praying about was the autonomous regions of China. I mentioned the trouble in Inner Mongolia, which resulted in a scene I have seen played out over and over again in the years I have been in China--intelligent, educated professional people plying me with questions, trying to find out what was going on in their own country. It is a scene you cannot quite imagine if you have never lived in China.

Labels: Chinese Media, Propaganda