Opinion | Land Protest Obsession shows the BBC's inherent bias against China
By Tom Fowdy
Over the weekend, a small land protest took place in Hong Kong. A group of residents were protesting against land reclamation to the east of the city, and only 100 people attended. Despite it being a fairly uncontroversial and trivial event, the protest was soon astroturfed by the BBC who placed it as one of their leading stories on the world service headlined as: "Police monitor first Hong Kong protest since 2020".
Despite the event having nothing to do with high-level politics, and only local grievances, the article unsurprisingly descended into a lecture about the national security law imposed in 2020, describing China as having "sweeping restrictions on the rights and freedoms of people living in the territory." The piece subsequently sought to insinuate against the role of the Hong Kong Police, despite the fact that the event passed without trouble or incident.
In covering this minor event as major news, it was notable that the BBC did not give as much traction to large-scale unrest in both France and Israel lately, with the former becoming enveloped in large-scale violence between protesters and police with over 100 people injured. But apparently, this small development in Hong Kong is of much more grave significance, with a clear narrative being pushed pertaining to the city's national security law and China as a whole. This rings alarm bells, yet again, to those who assume the BBC is an "impartial" and "unbiased" service.
The BBC World Service is a legally separate entity that was created for the fundamental purpose of pushing the narratives of the British Empire in former colonies and areas of influence. The service's institutional culture consolidated during the Cold War, as many countries Britain ruled over gained independence and became subject to revolutionary and post-colonial movements. As such, the World Service comes under the direction of the British Foreign Office who provide instructions on "areas of interest" and funding.
For example, Rishi Sunak's government integrated review announced the other week that £24 million would be pledged to the BBC to "combat misinformation" in "countries influenced by hostile states"- in other words, pushing narratives in countries that are close to China and Russia. It is no surprise on this note that the BBC's reporting pushes absurdly negative coverage of China on an industrial scale, largely in line with the foreign policy agenda of the United States, which has only deepened in recent years. There is no commitment to impartiality or balance when it comes to this.
It is therefore inevitable that as a former British colony, the BBC has been relentless on its agenda pertaining to Hong Kong, where it seeks to astroturf all criticism and opposition of the government wherever possible, no matter how small the story. During 2019-2020, the BBC gave blanket coverage to the anti-government riots and unrest in Hong Kong, delivering a one-sided approach that stuck to the editorial line of describing all opposition as "pro-democracy". In doing so, it failed to give any scope to the sporadic violence committed by protesters, or how the United States weaponized and encouraged the events in the city for political gain.
After the riots were ended following the imposition of the national security law in the summer of 2020, the BBC has continued to push a vendetta against the legislation, depict China's influence in the city as intrusive and illegitimate, and likewise paint the depiction of Hong Kong as an authoritarian hellscape. It makes no acknowledgment that peace, order and stability have been returned to the city. All of this stems from the frame of mind that Britain and the west continue to act as "rightful guardians" of Hong Kong and that the sovereign state that it is a part of, China, ultimately ought to have no jurisdiction over it.
As the recent story shows, the broadcaster has no intention of letting that narrative drop, even to the point of making a small land protest into a major headline story. Every local grievance, and every single act by the police, even if it is monitoring a protest as protocol and doing absolutely nothing, must be whipped up and depicted as an act of grand oppression on behalf of the Chinese government against the autonomy of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. But for most people in the city, the riots are passed and life goes on. Some people have left to Britain yes, but it's quite clear at this point that the "grass is not greener on the other side" and they have swapped one of the best cities in Asia for the dystopia created by the Conservative government in an economically declining country, but at least the BBC can tell them it's China where they would be miserable, right?
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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