Is China the Demon Western Media Makes It Out to Be?

By David Starr

A strictly B/W, hopeless scenario. That’s how the Western media reports on the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

And it’s not surprising, not because the media is telling the whole truth, but because China has committed what could be called a “sin” in the capitalist world. Implementing and practicing socialism. 

That’s the bottom-line reason. 

Not that China has exactly been a workers’ paradise. But it has had positive achievements. Essentially, the government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have lifted about 850 million people out of poverty over the years. 

And I would say it has practiced its own version of democracy, which is somewhat contrary to the bourgeois version of democracy. And I would say that both versions have had positive results. 

There have, of course, been the negatives. China has historically resorted to repressive measures. But so has the United States. And I would say the U.S., more so, considering its imperial foreign policy and especially nowadays with the crackdown on domestic policies, in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Reporting on China by the Western media has not really allowed looking at the shades of gray. In The Diplomat, Chandran Nair, founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow, puts forward a direct look at the Western Media:

“A key feature of Western mainstream media today [and I also add in the past] is the relentless China-bashing. It is off the charts and tiring, often involving regurgitated trivia or fabricated stories with no evidence to support callous statements about the country, demonstrating a deep lack of understanding. But such stories continue with no end in sight.”

Nair further writes that “censorship is rife,” with an attempt to control the narrative resulting in a propaganda war with the use and abuse of today’s technology.

Nair points out that there are three core ideas in the reporting on China. First, that China is a threat to the world, which is “relentlessly reinforced at every available opportunity.” Second, China is accused of being a link to every threat that affects the West. Real or imagined; mostly imagined. Third, that everything must be done to stop China, resorting to using illegal or unfair means. 

So, what is the Western media saying about China? Examples of headlines make it clear. (But don’t believe me. Google the headlines.)

The New York Times (United States): “China Builds an Economic Fortress as Global Tensions Rise.”

The Independent (Britain): “In Xi’s China, even internal reports fall prey to censorship.”

Der Standard (Germany): What China Is Doing Is Much More dangerous.”

Le Monde (France): “It is far from certain that China will emerge economically victorious from the current chaos.”

ABC News (Australia): “China’s ethnic unity law puts Taiwan on edge.”

Let’s take a look at China’s ethnic unity law, this from Breakthrough News (The China Report). This gives a much more nuanced view about the law.

In an interview with a European woman who has been living in China for 18 years, there again is a nuanced view, and she points out the positive aspects of China. The title of the segment is, “China Don’t Need Democracy,” but I would argue that China has its own version of democracy.

Then there’s intellectual and author Kishore Mahbubani, who was shown on a segment of Global Insight Hub where he hits back at Western reporters who ask the same old repetitive and negative questions about China.

What some see as negative about China is its Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Many words could describe it, but it resulted in acts of ideological extremism. It got to the point of absurdity, where Red Guards were fighting Red Guards in the attempt to claim that they upheld the ideas of Mao, thus resulting in a cult of personality. 

What kept the government running, though, was the Middle Path Movement, led by Zhou En Lai. This maintained some form of stability. Zhou took it upon himself to try and protect those who were deemed “counter-revolutionary” by the more extreme elements of the Cultural Revolution.  

In the end, after the wave of ideological extremism, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was called in to prevent further chaos.

But what about the CCP? It’s been accused of heading a one-party state. Actually, I could, in a sense, say that the United States has been a one-party state for over 100 years. What I mean is that both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have had the goal of maintaining and expanding capitalism across the world. 

They are ideologically capitalist parties. And they are the same in that way. They’re like two tendencies of one party. Yes, there have been arguments among them but they have the same bottom-line goal: capitalist rule.

Believe it or not, there are tendencies with the CCP. And policies have gone back and forth between government excess and distributions of power based on those tendencies.

But even though some degree of capitalism is practiced in China–because capitalism makes up the current world order–the socialist policies of the CCP have had positive results. That’s because socialism prioritizes social justice and equality, and China has priorities in people having access to healthcare, education, etc. To reiterate, China has uplifted about 850 million people out of poverty. Meanwhile, capitalism feeds on the unequal relationship between capital and labor, where private monopolies are strengthened at the expense of the working class and the poor. 

The Trump regime has shown capitalism’s true colors, but not for the benefit of many people. What the regime has also shown is the right-wing’s true fascist colors; and corporate neoliberals, fearing socialism, move to the right.

The Western media will largely continue using negative propaganda, trying to show that China is in a hopeless scenario. However, that propaganda is becoming more outdated, and there are many people worldwide who know better than to believe it.