Talk about media bias
How do you say ‘whiplash’ in Chinese?
The Washington Post put the word “whiplash” in its headline. The media on mainland China stopped hammering the United States this past week, and began emitting news articles (or what passes for news articles in Red China) glowing about Sino-U.S. relations. All it takes is a trip to San Francisco by Xi Jinping to do the trick.
The ChiCom media reported on the “positive, comprehensive and constructive” talks between Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden. Which consists of quite a change from articles recently edited in Beijing.
The meeting must’ve been wonderful, because the word got around the ChiCom newsrooms: Be nice. Be more than nice.
“China and the United States’ respective successes are opportunities for each other,” read a commentary released by Xinhua, a state news agency; the Red Chinese aren’t allowed to read much more than that. “Great power competition is not the backdrop of this era and cannot solve the problems facing China, the United States and the world.”
The Washington Post was good enough to link to the official news site of the Beijing government. Here’s what we found there about the Biden/Xi meeting. Or maybe the Xi/Biden meeting:
“Xi Jinping pointed out that the world today is undergoing major changes unseen in a century, and China and the United States have two options: One is to strengthen unity and cooperation, work together to address global challenges, and promote world security and prosperity. The other is to adopt a zero-sum mentality, provoke conflict between camps, and lead the world to turmoil and division.” Okay.
“The two heads of state recognized the efforts made by both teams to discuss and establish the guiding principles for China-U.S. relations since their meeting in Bali, and emphasized the need for mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, maintenance of communication, prevention of conflicts, abide by the United Nations Charter, and cooperation in areas of common interest.” Okay again. But also, this:
“Xi Jinping profoundly explained the essential characteristics and connotation of Chinese-style modernization, as well as China’s development prospects and strategic intentions. Xi Jinping pointed out that China’s development has its own logic and laws.”
Well, let us profoundly explain that international law forbids intellectual property theft, and Red China is a big offender in that category. Last month, this country’s FBI director said China poses an “unprecedented threat” to innovation across the world.
“China has long targeted businesses with a web of techniques all at once: cyber intrusions, human intelligence operations, seemingly innocuous corporate investments and transactions,” Christopher Wray said. “Every strand of that web has become more brazen, and more dangerous.”
We profoundly note that that kind of stuff wasn’t mentioned in the Chinese media this week.
We also profoundly missed any mention of fentanyl in these Chinese media articles.
The not-so-free and not-so-independent media did mention a point of contention, even if it was buried in the glowing prose:
“Xi Jinping elaborated on the principled position on the Taiwan issue in depth, pointing out that the Taiwan issue has always been the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. relations. China attaches great importance to the relevant positive statements made by the United States during the Bali meeting. The United States should embody its stance of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence’ in concrete actions, stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification. China will eventually be reunified and will inevitably be reunified.”
Stop arming the free Chinese? That wouldn’t be very American.
The People’s Republic of China isn’t the people’s, isn’t a republic, and doesn’t represent all of China. The free Chinese are governed in Taipai, and that government ought to continue. We hope it does. With Beijing’s permission. Or without it.
But we were impressed by all the nice comments over the week in Red China’s media. Somebody on a Chinese platform called Weibo said this about the coverage: “I haven’t been online for two days . . . a look at the trending topics shows the atmosphere between China and the U.S. is as if a couple in an arranged marriage fell in love.”
The post was later removed. Considering all the nastiness in the Red Chinese media over the last few years, it was a pleasure to see such sweetness, for a change, when the topic of the United States came up.
Whiplash? We pulled both hamstrings.