Journalists

Journalists from all walks of like and representing a variety of media outlets fall victim to the need to comply with the explicitly or implicitly stated anti-China posture. Some have come from being China “correspondents”, with a reasonably balanced take on China, to near hysteria in their paranoia and stridency. Many journalists look to the publication of a book as an alternative means of income and, while anti-China fervour is easy to 'dog whistle', they find themselves trapped in a routine of having to defend their work, even when counter arguments and data emerge to contradict them.

Some, however, have chosen to push back on the rhetoric and try to give a fuller, better contextualised picture of China.

While labelling a journalist as anti-China is problematic, many have openly published documents and books that criticise China or consistently tweet against China, the CPC (Communist Party of China) or Chinese leaders. Many of these journalists frame their criticism as being “against the CPC, not Chinese people” and this is their defence against an accusation of being anti-China.

For this reason, a distinction can be made between simple racist hate by anti-Chinese agents and those who are anti-China (as a state and political entity).

One need not look too far for examples of simple incompetence. Here's an example, highlighted by Theo Fletcher, from a Twitter thread .

Theo writes:

“Wow truly top tier journalism.

You do realise these two are different people? The two sisters have a channel. The blogger featured on CGTN is a different person, she has her own channel. The girl featured on CGTN does videos in Chinese, directed at a Chinese audience.”

Theo: “This is the channel of the Uyghur sisters who got banned on twitter. And unbelievably, the channel you link to when you say “Guli's channel is still alive and well on YouTube” is actually “New China TV”, a Chinese media outlet. You had one job, to link her channel. You couldn't even do that right.”