Opinion | One narrative, one smear
By Tom Fowdy
With the upcoming Belt and Road forum in Beijing, which will be attended by delegates from over 140 countries, including many heads of state from all over the world, the mainstream media have predictably gone into overdrive on the negativity surrounding the project. As the BBC runs today: "Belt and Road Initiative: Is China's trillion-dollar gamble to transform the world working?" which predictably, is all about "debt traps" and "expanding influence." It is just one of many stories running scorn on the initiative, with a previous one last week talking about a "railway to nowhere" in Kenya, as well as a "but at a cost" story pertaining to Sri Lanka and South Asia.
As the recent article concludes: "Beijing's trillion-dollar experiment has created a powerful tool to wield influence. But the question is whether the world wants a Chinese-led world order." Many other outlets follow with a similar narrative, with Reuters emphasizing how Xi Jinping is on the back foot and how the BRI is "shrinking." Nowhere of course in any of these articles is credit given where it is due, while others toss in negativity surrounding China's economy and lending as a reason to withhold capital. If you take it all at their word, you might believe the BRI is a colossal waste of money that has not achieved anything and yielded any benefit for the participants except to China itself. Even Reuters subtly placed emphasis on describing the BRI forum as a "smaller" one despite the fact that multiple heads of state are attending from all over the world.
The Western media has an obsession with drawing strong, fatalist conclusions pertaining to the projects of states which they deem to be opponents. This is especially so pertaining to China, where no matter what the circumstances may be, every single development is depicted as a net failure caused by the policies of Xi Jinping which means a pessimistic outlook for China. This is usually warped into a broader narrative explaining in both political and economic terms, why people and businesses should stay away. For all intents and purposes, it is a form of psychological pessimism that is designed to undermine China's appeal and status. To some extent it has worked, hence I wrote about before how the US "killed the Chinese dream."
Because of this pattern of reporting, it is already represented as fact in Western press that China's economy is in a terrible situation even though for all intents and purposes it is still in positive growth territory and the same cannot be said for many Western countries. Likewise, every single international development is depicted as evidence of China's deemed isolation, aggression, assertiveness, or whatever, completely out of context. Similarly, if China claims it achieves something, or it stages an event or attempts to assert leadership, you get a media cycle of articles seeking to fundamentally discredit that. Hence, China's "vaccines don't work," China's space station launch is a "danger because of falling space debris", you get the idea.
Therefore, the BRI, the largest and most comprehensive foreign policy vision China has, is depicted with zero-sum negativity which attacks China's motivations, achievements and benefits to participants accordingly. Hence you can build an entire railway through Laos connecting the country like never before, but it's bad because it's a "debt trap" and as one infamous Reuters piece noted, it's going to cause the next pandemic. You hear about the projects that fail, are renegotiated, or even canceled, but the successful ones you just pretend they don't exist or you just overshadow them with an emphasis on debt.
The lopsided reporting of the BRI ultimately creates a Schrodinger's dilemma. On one hand, the BRI is deemed to be failing, shrinking, declining, and shunned because of its perceived incompetence, debt traps, etc but on the other hand it is depicted as an imminent threat to the world order and a grand project of Chinese expansionism of which must be countered by a never-ending circus of western counter-alternatives which will certainly finish it this time. Many of these projects are little more than all talk, and are poorly organized and often reactionary with the simplistic goal of countering Beijing, rather than offering a comprehensive vision for global development targeted at the global south.
Sure of course it is true the global geopolitical environment is more challenging now, but when was that only China's problem? The media view whatever challenges Beijing faces in a deliberately biased and misleading light which subtracts context and aims to score political points, which is why throughout the course of this summit we will learn nothing objective about China's achievements or forays from such coverage, because it is designed to mislead, to discourage, to undermine and downplay, than to show the world otherwise what the BRI has brought about.
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.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | Does the Israel conflict herald the end of Ukraine?
Comment