Opinion | Let's Bury a Myth — Western Journalists cannot be Trusted

By Philip Yeung, a university teacher

PKY480@gmail.com

I no longer trust the West or its press.

When it comes to China, both are driven by utter negativity and hostility.

The Fourth Estate, once honorable, is now third-rate.

In its Watergate heyday, reporters were worth their weight in gold by landing big scoops. These days, they pander to press barons and their base, catering to extremism, nativism and ignoble populist instincts. Reporters just write their biases, and stop doing what journalists do best-- ferret out the truth, however inconvenient.

Journalism once functioned as a check against government excesses. Now it subserves the official geopolitical agenda, like an ugly political organization, dragged down by the gutter ethics of social media.

The world is now bitterly divided. Much of the blame belongs to an irresponsible press. In this dangerous era, when America tries to corner China with a circle of military alliances, the press remains silent, or worse, fortifies America’s ill intentions. China has no choice but to arm itself.

They fail to see that China’s only fault is in being too successful for America’s liking.

Regrettably, China is a clumsy communicator. The stridency of its wolf warrior diplomats in defending their country is taken as prima facie evidence of China’s innate aggressiveness. Its ideological label as a communist country doesn’t help either. No one in the West is listening to China.

China thus remains the most misunderstood major power. Its unique strength is in its economic energy and national unity. You only have to look at the case of Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei CFO who was recently released after three years of unjust detention in Canada. Her return let loose an outpouring of national celebration by 1.4 billion people never seen before for the homecoming of a single Chinese citizen. You are not fighting the communist party. You are fighting the entire Chinese population.

The press has painted the Chinese government as a monster oppressing its people. This big lie is couched in terms of defending the rights of its citizens. The truth is: they don’t need your help. China is busy promoting shared prosperity, not the abridgement of freedom. Chinese people are living in the best-governed country in the world: safe, stable, purposeful, and technology-friendly. No country is better at handling natural disasters and the pandemic or economic inequality. Western writers, in their wishful thinking, keep predicting the coming collapse of China.

Their biggest failure is in failing to report the biggest story in human history—800 million people being lifted out of poverty. Against North Korea, Venezuela or Cuba, you know that China is no ordinary socialist country. It is marrying 5000 years of Chinese wisdom to the transformative power of technology.

Success has fundamentally changed China. Addicted to success on a grand scale, it is becoming the most rational and dream-driven country in the world. Perhaps that’s why America is so scared of this totally reinvented country.

True, the journalists’ job is to ask negative questions. But if it degenerates into one-sided negativity, you are a danger to world peace. What has China done to deserve three alliances against her—Five Eyes, Aukus and the Quad? Reports on Xinjiang are pure fantasies. What’s happened to your journalistic curiosity: why is Tibet in peace and prosperity, and Xinjiang in trouble? Could it be the devilish work of Islamic terrorists? Similarly, why is Hong Kong in turmoil and Macau the picture of peace? Who’s behind the mess?

China is guilty neither of invasion nor expansion. Taiwan, the South China Sea are its front porch. But America is using both to wall China in.

America’s grand strategy is to stop China’s rise. That is not exactly a noble objective, is it? If China had been doing to Hawaii what the US has been doing in Hong Kong, funding separatists and violent attempts to overthrow the local government, America would have declared war on China.

China can’t be intimidated. It will react forcefully against unprovoked hostility. That much is certain.

The Western press only has a knee-jerk reaction towards China: China is all bad, all the time. Your so-called reports on China are nothing but foregone conclusions. To publish anything slightly favorable to China in any Western news outlet is an impossibility.

Western reporters are doing no thinking, or looking. They are blindfolded by their biases, and marching alongside the US army, urging conflict with China so they can write about it.

Having illegally invaded other countries, wantonly killing millions, America is noble no more. Is diversification of global power such a bad thing? Why should we blindly cuddle selfish American “exceptionalism”?

The world is full of hate (America itself is seething with hate): hate speeches, hate crimes and organized violent hate marches. Never is humanity more hate-filled. Trapped in the sterile binary thinking of democracy against so-called authoritarianism, journalists are fanning the flames of hatred, a job executed brilliantly by Fox News and its copycats. The Republican Party, in this Trump era, is a party of falsehoods. You have failed to keep them honest. By embracing hyperactive interventionism, you are endorsing America’s endless wars against humanity.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

You don’t deserve to be called journalists. You don’t deserve to be read or listened to at all.

Let’s bury a myth. The free press in the West has ceased to exist.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.