Opinion | The BBC ramps up Anti-China paranoia, yet again
By Tom Fowdy
On Monday, the BBC unleashed two anti-China stories on its website, both stemming from the highly sensationalist and provocative investigation show: Panorama. The first, which is the lead story as of the time of writing, is titled: "New images show Chinese spy balloons over Asia" accusing China groundlessly, and even citing a former CIA analyst to do so, of spying on neighboring countries with the loaded description of a "spy balloon".
Then, the second article called, "The tech flaw that lets hackers control surveillance cameras", takes an exclusive aim at Chinese-manufactured security cameras made by Hikvision and Dahua, claiming that they can easily be hacked through a security vulnerability. Strangely enough, it does not explore any other brand of security camera amidst this investigation, which of course ties into a convenient narrative attacking these cameras with unfounded paranoia as part of an attempt to decouple them from the UK market.
This manner of articles are typical of the politically motivated Anti-China paranoia which has often been present in the BBC's editorial process and guidelines. Sometimes, the BBC can of course do distinctive independent journalism, such as for example recently, its expose of a "monkey torture" ring in both Indonesia, the US and other places of the world. This is a decent public interest story because it holds criminals to account about something that is morally outrageous.
But the articles regarding China, in these instances, are not public interest stories, they are "agenda pushing", that is deliberate editorializing in the bid to intentionally provoke fear of China for both international and domestic purposes in order to further the foreign policy agenda of which is agreed with the United States. The program, Panorama, is notorious for its agenda-pushing and sensationalism under the guise of such "exposes". It is more so entertainment even than actual documentary-based journalism, which usually places all its targets in an exceptionally bad light and uses dishonest methods to do so.
First, regarding Spy Balloons. The Spy Balloon hysteria is a means used by the United States, stemming from the incident at the beginning of the year, to promote suspicion against China. Despite the fact that the US has the largest spying system of any country on the planet, strangely enough we don't hear about this from the BBC, at all. Instead, the narrative that China is continually spying on other countries is pushed, aggressively. The idea that the balloon is intended for "spying" is itself misleading, but has been entrenched in the name which is then presented as apparently neutral public discourse. In doing so, it is designed to undermine China's relationships with other nations, particularly its neighbors.
Secondly, security cameras. The US has been waging a war against Hikvision and Dahua in as much as it has Huawei, using the opportunistic pretense of "national security" to exclude them from domestic markets and then force allied countries to do the same, or otherwise to tie them to allegations of human rights abuses. An illicit campaign is being waged against the presence of these companies in the British market, which has included the use of lobbying by Hong Kong activist groups to pressure major companies and institutions to drop their usage, such as the supermarket chain, Tesco (a very ethical company apparently!). Recently the UK government also said it would drop them from "sensitive sites" but has resisted a push for an outright ban.
The idea that a security camera can be hacked is not a new thing, but the misleading material presented in this documentary is the assumption that only Chinese-manufactured security cameras are prone to being hacked, as if no other brand could possibly have any vulnerabilities, and therefore latching this on to the spurious narrative of "state control" which has never been proven. But one thing which exposes this hysteria is that Hikvision cameras are being used by MI5 and MI6 around their own headquarters, showing they really don't take the security threat narrative too seriously and its all-political theatre.
In reality, all of this is about either attempting to suppress China's technology companies, or diplomatically isolate China. In both aspects there is a glaring hypocrisy and double standards at bay because the BBC happily omits that the US does all of these things, yet doesn't offer that as balance or scrutiny. The point is to provoke fear, distrust, paranoia and therefore, distancing from Beijing. The BBC world service never misses an opportunity to put a negative story about China on the front page of its website, and once again we see more of the same from this Foreign Office manipulated institution.
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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