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Several days ago, ESWN posted a translation of a Tianya post titled “What is the reason China’s younger generation is losing confidence in the Western media?”

More than a decade ago, a Chinese diplomat gave a speech in which he narrated a story. At a certain UN meeting, the British representative condemned China for not being sufficiently democratic as usual. The Chinese representative retorted, “Your country has been promoting democracy in Africa for more than a century, but how is it doing now?” The British representative shut up …

This is one example of the western nations promoting their values. They have many methods, including hard and soft methods. The hard methods involve the United States and Great Britain pushing democracy in the Middle East, but all they got was a quagmire. The soft methods involve the western media using their international speech rights to say awful things about countries which do not have western-style democracy. China appears to be the constant target of the western media. This is understandable, because Chinese-style democracy is different from the western style and China has blazed its own trail. The easiest to say that your stuff is good by sayingthat the stuff from the other side is bad. The western media are very good at that and they can pull these types of reports out of thin air. If you want to go back further in time, there was the front page story in TIME magazine in 1997. If you want something closer in time, there are all those stories about the Olympic torch relays earlier this year.

If there are no western tourists coming to China and no Chinese studying overseas, the western media could say whatever they want and they own the international speech rights. If you cannot see for yourself, you have to trust them. But times are different, as more and more western visitors come to China and more and more Chinese tourists travel overseas.

According to the statistics, only 280,000 persons traveled from China to overseas between 1949 and 1978. That would be fewer than 10,000 persons per annum. In 2007 alone, 40 million Chinese citizens traveled overseas, while 56 million foreigners came to China.

The western tourists are perplexed because China is completely unlike what their own media are reporting. The overseas Chinese students are perplexed because very few western media reports have anything good to say about China. Why?

The western media which own the international speech rights think that this is the only way to show off the superiority of western values. But they are mistaken. Those who have seen the real China realized that they had been deceived by the western media. Meanwhile, the hypocrisy of the western media are made known to the Chinese people going abroad and they become ever more patriotic. Even if the majority of western media were to switch positions today, they are merely reflecting the true state of affairs because the western tourists have seen too much and the television broadcasts are live. However, the western media will inevitably revert to true form.

Some western media may be perplexed by the fact that they used to be able to report whatever they want without meeting any protests from China. How is it that any negative comment that they now make will draw a lot of protests?

This is because the customarily arrogant western media may not have realized that they had lost China! They are losing the admiration and trust of the Chinese youth. Over the past three decades, the Chinese government has led the country to an astonishing economic growth, and many citizens have benefited from it. The Chinese who travel overseas during this period are the rapidly rising middle class and the intelligentsia. When they see the good things in China being badmouthed in the western media, what else is this but hypocrisy?

Ultimately, the Chinese people want to achieve prosperity and national power through democratization. But the western media seem to only want democracy for the sake of democracy and they don’t care what happens to China afterwards.

The Chinese form of democracy guarantees first and foremost the right to survive and develop. But the western media wants to promote its own form of democracy according to its own ideas. They don’t care what happens to a country afterwards. For example, the United States went into Iraq to promote democracy. When things don’t work out, they bail out. What does democracy in Iraq matter to the United States? In the past, Great Britain and France have promoted democracy in Africa, until the continent became the Third World within the Third World? What does democracy in Africa matter to Great Britain and France?

The promotion of these double standards has only exposed their hypocrisy in front of the Chinese and foreign people. This is something that the western media did not imagine. If they want to keep up with the times, they should correct their mistakes. Since they are the media, truth should come first. In reply to a question a few days ago about the suspension of a Chinese journalist in Germany, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said that the media ought to observe the basic rules — to report in an objective and fair manner. This is easier said than done for the western media.

Following that original post were dozens of comments in agreement:

作者：声声夺人 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:45:28

楼主说的很对
其实根源在他们自己
他们的新闻都是假的
自然失去我们中国人的信任！

What the original poster said is so true.
Actually, the root of the problem is themselves.
Their news is all fake [inaccurate],
naturally losing the confidence of the Chinese people.

作者：加密之心 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:46:51

我从来不相信西方媒体
所以自然没有西方媒体失去我这一说
那些垃圾新闻机构
都是反-=华势=-力的帮凶！

I never trust Western media
so I can say the Western media did not lose my trust.
Those garbage news agencies
are all accomplices of anti-China forces!

作者：人间美丽 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:48:42

我一般只看国内的新闻
因为外国人不了解
难免戴上有色眼镜
支持楼主！

I usually only watch domestic news
because foreigners do not understand
and inevitably wear colored glasses.
I support the OP!

Now, I know what you’re thinking…and it’s pretty much what I’m thinking.

But let’s take a look at what some other Chinese posters on Tianya were thinking:

作者：公子为 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:59:10

奇怪！
西方媒體怎會失去中國年輕一代的信任呢？
你能看到西方媒體嗎？
反正我是看不到。

Weird!
How can the Western news media lose the trust of China’s younger generation?
Can you see the Western news media?
I know I can’t.

作者：不知道风向 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:08:16

咱看过西方媒体吗？连凤凰台都看不全，总是莫名其妙出广告。

Have we watched Western news media before? We can’t even watch Phoenix TV in its entirety, always strangely cutting to commercials.

作者：做玻璃砸弹弓 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:15:36

楼主说的很对
其实根源在他们自己
他们的新闻都是假的
自然失去我们中国人的信任！
————————————————
是呀，哪有我们新闻联播真实啊，
我们新闻联播第一句都是：今天是某年某月某日农历某月某日，从不出错，太真实了。

What the original poster said is so true.
Actually, the root of the problem is themselves.
Their news is all fake [inaccurate],
naturally losing the confidence of the Chinese people.
————————————————
Yeah, no where as true [accurate] as our news networks,
Our news networks always begin with the sentence: Today is what year, what month, what day and what month, what day of the Lunar New Year. Never wrong, exceedingly [accurate].

作者：干死楼主全家 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:19:38

不好意思，作为中国年轻一代，还不知道信任为何物。
也不知道什么是媒体，只知道CCTV。。

Sorry, but as part of China’s younger generation, I still do know what trust/confidence is.
I also do not know what is news media, I only know CCTV…

作者：sccdzm1188cn2 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:20:56

声声夺人
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快来看庞大的四字4+1毛队伍啊，靠，发了３次都发不出

[List of users, their registration dates/times, and their last activity on the website. It shows that many of the "replies" supporting the OP came from accounts that were recently registered in rapid succession]
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Quick, come look at the enormous amount of Wu Mao Dang [50 Cent Party], shit, it took me 3 tries to post!

作者：几许悠 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:24:25

楼主能看到西方媒体吗?我咋看不到了.

The OP can see western news media? I can’t see anything.

作者：stackhouse1201 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:25:04

哇靠，恶心透顶的five 毛

Holy shit, the Wu Mao Dang [50 Cent Party] is too disgusting.

To be sure, many Chinese are still quite wary about the Western media, especially following the coverage of the T!betan riots earlier this year. Most educated people around the world definitely acknowledge that biases do exist in Western media, for many reasons and of which some of which are understandable while others are not. Moreover, we also know that bad news sells in the West and hearing the Chinese demand that Western media do more “balanced” reporting by including more positives about China just isn’t going to happen.

Westerners often scoff at the Chinese for having the audacity to criticize Western media. Just look at how blatantly propagandist and biased the Chinese media can be. But, to their credit, many Chinese are fully aware that their own domestic media is far from objective even as they chastise Western media. To them, it isn’t about Chinese media being better or Western media being better, it is simply about pointing out the fact that when one side is wrong, they’re wrong.

For those of us observing the often heated dialogue between the critics and defenders of China, we sometimes forget that the Chinese are not a homogeneous band of stark raving protesters, internet vigilantes, and comment trolls. True, the Chinese often don’t help themselves by reverting to defensiveness whenever a foreigner is part of any discussion on China’s problems, but we do have to admit that them doing so isn’t wholly incomprehensible.

There is ample diversity of opinion and thought amongst the Chinese even if that expression is sometimes controlled and threatened by the central government. Unfortunately, most Western observers are incapable of reading the Chinese required to venture onto the major Chinese-language internet forums like Tianya. If they could, they would certainly see much that would upset them, even disturb them, but they would also hopefully see much to reassure and encourage them from comments like those above, made by Chinese who are not only rational and reasonable but also blessed with well-tuned propaganda bullshit meters and incisive wit.

The Chinese are not idiots. If nothing else, they’re survivors. Unlike many of us who have somewhere to escape to, they often have little choice but to deal with the world they live in, state-sponsored mouthpieces and all.

By the way, Roland Soong @ ESWN is one of my favorite blogs covering China, always providing tons of translated material (along with Jack Kennedy @ GVO and Fauna @ chinaSMACK). I simply wish Roland would set up an RSS feed for his Brief Comments Section, as he posts a ton of good stuff there that I often miss. His RSS feed only seems to contain his less frequently updated material from his Blog Posts section, and I don’t always get a chance to visit his website. If anyone knows something I don’t about that, please let me know.