Reports on China: Recent Episodes
Andy Boreham
Andy Boreham, a New Zealand journalist and filmmaker in Shanghai, critically analyzes Western media reports on China.
Most of us already know that ASPI, or the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, produces reports about China that are based on falsities, conspiracy theories, disinformation, and outright lies, but we don’t often get a black and white, crystal clear example of their tactics in action. Today I’m excited to present you with indisputable evidence that key members of ASPI, and their friends in Australian media, comfortably and confidently engage in lies and fabricate disinformation in order to coax the Australian public into believing that China is a threat, all so that their main funders, the military industrial complex, can make bucket loads of money through defense contracts and, ultimately, war with China. Let’s get reporting!
WATCH THIS PODCAST AS A VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwZq29BME7k
Following US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi entering Taiwan recently, many around the world are wondering what's next for China-US relations, which don't just impact those two countries, but the entire planet. Today I was very lucky to have a chat with Professor Wu Xinbo, Dean of the Institute of International Studies as well as Director of the Center for American Studies at China's prestigious Fudan University, what he thinks is on the cards.
Watch this podcast in video format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jABHEobW4UM&t=22s
I just wanted to record a quick video today to talk about Nancy Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan yesterday, despite stern warnings from China that doing so would be crossing the reddest of red lines. At the time of recording, Pelosi is about an hour away from making a speech there, but that’s moot at this point. To be honest, I really didn’t think she would go through with it, mainly because it is such a foolish, selfish, short-sighted thing to do, but she did anyway, and now the US will have to deal with whatever consequences comes next... and they will come. I strongly believe this comes from Pelosi’s lifelong personal grudge against China. She’s 82, very much nearing the end of her career and wanted to go out with a bang, so to speak, in a selfish, moronic move that she was strongly advised against taking, even by her own colleagues.
Watch this podcast as a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYvSs9cJs_k&t=13s
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region last week, sending Western media into a flurry and highlighting how embarrassingly little they really understand about the region. US ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, also showed he probably needs to study a bit more with an awfully awkward tweet. But did we expect anything else? Let’s get reporting!
Watch this podcast on video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Ca1_qMxAc
Sri Lanka is currently in a state of chaos, after the country’s President was forced to flee following a massive uprising. Sri Lankans are demanding changes after government corruption and mismanagement led to bankruptcy and record inflation, meaning citizens can no longer afford food, fuel or medicine. But our favorite anti-China forces are at it again, trying to gain traction for their latest propaganda point: that the island nation is in chaos because of Chinese “debt-trap diplomacy.”
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was tragically gunned down during a campaigning event and died some hours later. Before the identity of the gunman, a Japanese, was known, many Western pundits were suggesting the Chinese could be to blame. After that, they shifted their tactic to Chinese netizens apparently happy that Abe is dead. So is it true? Are Chinese celebrating the death? Let’s get reporting!
It’s been 25 years since Hong Kong, a part of China taken by brute force after China destroyed huge amounts of heroin Britain was illegally smuggling into the country, was returned to the motherland. In more than 150 years of British rule, the people of Hong Kong were ruled by white Governors undemocratically installed by London, who often violently suppressed the people’s calls for more say. Despite this, Britain is still having a hard time coping with the fact that Hong Kong is now rightly back with China. Let’s get reporting!
It’s now 25 years since Hong Kong was returned to China, following 156 years under British rule. As you can imagine, the West are having a hard time coping with China’s celebrations, despite the fact that Hong Kong was initially taken by brute military force after Britain’s illegal shipments of heroin to China were confiscated and destroyed by the Qing Dynasty. Here’s a quick history.
The same week that the US enacted a new law accusing all businesses in Xinjiang of slave labor and banning their import, California rejects a move to end the slave labor or prisoners in the state.
China has announced new regulations requiring live streamers to dress respectfully and to not offer professional advice unless they are qualified to do so, but is the West happy?
And the US congress now has a new target for human rights allegations: China’s LGBT population. But, hasn’t the Supreme Court just suggested gay rights could be the next target after Roe v Wade was struck down?
Let’s get reporting!
Watch this podcast as a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkcaJfqDtMk&t=40s
Today is a terrible day for the #uyghur people, and the US is to blame. After decades long struggles with terrorism, violence, and poverty, China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region finally started to see prosperity and quality of life improve in the past few years. But the US government does not want that, and is determined to bring poverty, violence and destabilisation back to the region. Today they enacted their most recent weapon: a new piece of legislation designed to hurt the Uygur people.
➡ Why the US wants to destabilize #xinjiang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vet24VwWkGc&t=83s
➡ Uyghur Tribunal Top 5 Inconvenient Facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfWJ9kG5TbQ
➡ Uyghur Slave Labor Debunked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-Rq2iUYPY
➡ Uyghur Slave Labor Debunked Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZG4hHKCIr8
Follow me on Twitter: @AndyBxxx
But the most infuriating thing is that the legislation states, as fact, that China “arbitrarily detained as many as 1.8 million” ethnic minorities “in a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps” where they are subject to “forced labor, torture, political indoctrination, and other severe human rights abuses.”
What’s the problem with this? It is absolutely and utterly false, and there is absolutely not a single piece of credible evidence to back up any of these claims. Anywhere you look.
While many of the world’s defence representatives wasted time acting like children and “trading barbs” with China at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, New Zealand’s defence minster Peeni Henare stood out from the pack, using the opportunity to have adult and fruitful conversations with China.
Follow me on YouTube: www.youtube.com/ReportsOnChina
Many of the world’s defence representatives are in Singapore this weekend at Asia’s top security meeting, the Shangri-la Dialogue. As expected, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wasted no time wasting time, suggesting China is becoming “more coercive and aggressive” in the region. The funny thing here is that when he talks about the “region,” he’s actually talking about the territory directly surrounding China. That’s massively ironic, considering the US has some 800 military bases around the world and is at war a majority of the time.
Free speech has long been held as one of the fundamental merits of Western-style democracy, not just in the US where it’s apparently guaranteed by the First Amendment, but all around the Western world. One of the main attacks on China, for example, is that Facebook is banned here, apparently a sign that the population is muzzled.
Follow me on Twitter: @AndyBxxx
Watch as a video: http://www.youtube.com/ReportsOnChina
Free speech as a Western virtue, though, was dealt its final blow recently as Western governments and tech giants pushed for the shutting down of Russia’s foreign language news outlets, RT and Sputnik.
Their claim was that Russian outlets promoted “systematic information manipulation and disinformation by the Kremlin".
Many in the West have heralded the blocking of RT and Sputnik as the right thing to do, despite it going against everything the West apparently stands for.
Please don't forget to hit like, leave a comment and subscribe – it really does help my content get seen by a wider audience.
China’s press is often described as among the most restricted in the world, but that’s because you’re judging it using Western standards. Today I’ll give you all a quick introduction into Chinese media, and explain the most basic and important difference between the news media here in China, and its Western counterpart. Let’s get reporting!
Watch on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ReportsOnChina
Follow me on Twitter: @AndyBxxx
China is often given the ominous title of one of the most restricted news media scenes in the world. In the annual World Press Freedom Index, China is always right at the bottom of the list, and my home country New Zealand sits proudly near the top. I’ve worked in the media in both places, so I think I have a pretty unique insight.
In 2021’s World Press Freedom Index, China ranks 177th out of 180 countries, beating out only Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea. New Zealand, on the other hand, is celebrated in the top 10... number 8, to be exact. But what does “press freedom” mean, and why should it matter?
Today is the last day of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, but since it’s Sunday I thought I’d try something different and just sit down, grab a cup of coffee and have a chat with you guys about the absolute mess that was Western media coverage of the games. So grab a cuppa, get comfy, and let’s get reporting!
Follow me on Twitter: @AndyBxxx
Watch this podcast on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ReportsOnChina
It’s been an interesting few weeks trying to highlight the hypocrisy, and oftentimes it’s been quite taxing. But I’ve come to the conclusion that the coverage of Beijing 2022 is the perfect case study for just how deceptive, biased and unprofessional Western media is today.
It all began when that Belgian Olympian broke down in tears after realizing that China would not let her go and see her girlfriend in the Olympic Village after she tested positive for COVID on arrival...
Eileen Gu wins a second gold which will no doubt send ABC journalists into another screeching fit, COVID cases inside the Beijing bubble plummet, leading some Western media actually praise China’s COVID success, and Western media still aren’t seeing a correlation between hideous anti-Chinese reports and the huge uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes in the US. Let’s get reporting!
Eileen Gu has just taken her second gold and third medal of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, making history in the process. Congratulations to Eileen, her team, and Team China. Unfortunately, it’s too early for reaction from the US media covering the games, but I’m expecting some uplifting and empowering reports on the 18-year-old snowboarder. Ha!
Bloomberg reports that COVID cases inside the Olympics bubble have dropped dramatically following strict controls and quarantines on the 435 positive cases that began arriving in Beijing for the games last month. Their story which, tellingly, is filed under ‘politics’, says: ‘Virus cases in China’s Olympic bubble fall amid COVID zero curbs.’
They go on to say: ‘The number of Covid-19 cases at the Beijing Winter Olympics is dwindling as the closed ecosystem China developed to insulate the event from the virus succeeds in catching and containing them.’ Well, it needs to be said that this is only a surprise to those outside China, but hey, welcome to reality.
This is significant because foreign reporters and diplomats have been allowed inside China for the first time to witness zero COVID measures first hand, and are not allowed to fall back on the lazy “well, that’s what the Chinese government says” claims of falsified statistics.
This has led other US media to a point where they cannot further ignore China’s COVID’s successes, meaning they too need to stop with the propaganda and report reality.
The Wall Street Journal, in a shocking about face, announced: China’s ‘Zero-Covid’ Policy Holds Lessons for Other Nations. They say: Ever since China adopted its policy of stamping out every Covid-19 infection, outsiders have wondered whether it could last. With each new, more infectious variant, “zero Covid” has required more vigilant and frequent crackdowns on daily activity.
And yet it has lasted. And seen from inside China, the results are remarkable. Foreigners in Beijing for the Olympics may be confined to a dystopian bubble in constant fear of being quarantined. But outside the bubble, life in the city looks close to normal with stores, museums and offices operating and subway and road traffic in line with this time of year in 2019. Americans only now are moving on from the coronavirus. Most Chinese did so back in 2020.”
Despite having to sneak the “dystopian” word in there, the general message of the Wall Street Journal’s story is fair and honest.
US media are still drawing a blank when it comes to the uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes there, following the hideous murder of a Korean-American woman in New York’s Chinatown a few days ago.
The Guardian reports: SF police data shows 567% increase in reports of hate crimes against Asian Americans.
“Preliminary data from the San Francisco police department showed reports of incidents where police believe an anti-Asian bias played a role jumped from nine in 2020 to 60 in 2021, a 567% increase, in the city of 875,000 people.”
As usual, though, they fail to take into account the huge increase in anti-Chinese reports in US media and, in pure California style, lay the blame squarely on former President Donald Trump.
Last year the New York Times unironically asked: Why Has There Been a Spike of Anti-Asian Hate? Let’s take a quick look at some recent anti-China content in US media.
Another Asian American woman is murdered in the US, but Western media sycophants still refuse to see a link between this violence and the massive increase in anti-China media reports there, and ASPI’s self-titled Google Maps expert Nathan Ruser, mad that his amateur report has been debunked, has come to their defense. Also today, an American athlete says he was blocked from Twitter for criticizing US media reports on Beijing 2022. Let’s get reporting!
Follow me on Twitter: @AndyBxxx
Follow me on YouTube: http://youtube.com/ReportsOnChina
Another Asian American woman has been murdered in a random and senseless attack in the US, this time a young Korean American who was followed home by a stranger and then stabbed to death. This comes after countless other random attacks on Asians there, including a woman who was randomly smacked around the head with a baseball bat on the street, and a woman was pushed in front of an oncoming train on New York’s subway. But mainstream media there refuses to draw a link between these random, violent attacks and the increase in anti-China propaganda that now flows freely from US media.
Nathan Ruser, a co-author of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Uyghurs for Sale Report, came to their defense, stooping to name calling which just further goes to show how unprofessional and unhinged he is. He called for his followers to report my account, saying: This lazy & irresponsible tweet by a State-media Tankie continues the misogynistic & racist trope of attacking Asian Women in the media. Now explicitly blaming them for hate crimes. Please report this misogynistic piece of trash (the tweet and person)
I replied, pointing out that Nathan is just mad about my recent videos detailing Jaq James’ legal obliteration of his terrible report, which pointed out that instead of helping Uyghur people, his report took away the human rights and livelihoods of thousands in Xinjiang. I asked his followers to watch my video and see the damage he has caused.
What did he do? You guessed it, he hid all of my replies so that no one can see just what an inept and gutless person he is. It’s always funny when Westerners who love to argue that Chinese media needs more freedom stifle freedom of speech.
But it did get me thinking. Why is this amateur Australian ASPI sycophant supporting US reporters? I think it’s clear: ASPI is not an independent think tank, they are all working together. I just hope next time they skip Nathan and get someone more adequate to help write their reports, at least for their own credibility.
Finally today, the South China Morning Post, in an uncharacteristically fair piece, reports that US skier Aaron Blunck says his Twitter account was suspended after praising Beijing 2022. First, let’s take a quick look at what he said.
According to SCMP: The 25-year-old said his Twitter account was then suspended, as he resorted to Instagram to protest the social platform’s unexplained decision, reposting a fan’s comment that read: “Aaron Blunck [is] out here telling the truth and getting punished by his own government.”
Blunck further shared a commentator’s tweet accusing the US government of being behind his account being shut down: “Twitter has executed the order of the Western ruling cabals … Punishment comes pretty fast.” Blunck tagged Twitter and asked: “what’d I do?”
The Western media has a new #1 enemy, who they’ve decided needs to be crushed and discredited at every chance. No, it’s not terrorists... it’s not the Russians. It’s not even coronavirus. It’s China.
The vast majority of Western reportage on China, whether it be from the USA, Germany, the UK, Canada, Switzerland, Australia or New Zealand, is negative and unbalanced, presenting China to the world as a dangerous, dirty dystopia, where 1.4 million live terrible lives under the control of the violent Communist Party of China.
Of course, this is far from the reality. But any attempt to get the truth out about China, especially by foreigners living here, is often met with derision, accusations of CPC funding, and claims of brain washing. Western media have also begun going out of their way to discredit foreigners who dare to say anything positive about China, with special reports where they twist facts and stain reputations.
But, believe it or not, this is nothing new...
On this day exactly 50 years ago, American journalist Edgar Snow passed away at the age of 66. Unfortunately he died just a week before then-President Richard Nixon made his famous 1972 visit to China and would never get to see the normalization of relations between the two nations. That historic visit was made possible, in part, thanks to Snow’s famous 1937 book, Red Star Over China, a book that showed the world, for the first time, the reality of China’s revolution, the Communist Party, and its leader, Mao Zedong.
Snow, too, was attacked and tarnished by Western media. Accused of being pressured by the Communists to paint a romanticized image of the revolution. Some even blamed him for the eventual success of the Communists in 1949.
So why was his work so important, and why is it still so important today?