China and the Western media

Résumé du document

It's an open secret that the western media will always reflect in negative light what is regarded as unfriendly or threatening by the Western world. It appears that China finds itself in this position. But while it's true that China's media sources are routinely censored and notoriously unreliable this does not provide the Western media with an excuse to publish and broadcast misleading images of China that prevents people from understanding this country. This controversy has been around for a long time but began to spread after the monks' protests in Tibet last March. Beijing singled out Western news outlets that produced allegedly biased coverage of these events. Why raise this issue when it is know that the Chinese authorities control its national media and prevent foreign journalists from seeing everything they should be able to see? At this time, the critics weren't just the Chinese government, but also from the Chinese netizens from all over the world.

Extraits

[...] Most Chinese people consider that China is so wide that they prefer a tied government, which ensures economic prosperity to a democracy, which would lead to chaos. Now, the question is: how much of this complex story figure in the Western media? Almost nothing and that's because there is a cultural incomprehension between the two worlds. B. Explaining the Chinese view: the lessons taught by Chinese philosophy - China's absent culture of debate François Jullien, who is a Professor of Chinese Philosophy and Literature, tackles the issue of the cultural misunderstanding between China and the West. [...]

[...] Confucius thought stresses on harmony. - The lack of a historical concept of resistance against a power Chinese philosophy never introduced the concept of resistance against a power. So democracy is not a concept inherent in Chinese culture or political philosophy. In fact, it is in complete opposition to Confucian ideology, which stresses harmony and obedience. Intellectuals always depended on the Prince. That's why in China people have always heard one only and monopolistic voice: the one of the emperors and now the one of the CCP. [...]

[...] Truth has never been a central topic, whereas it was the case in the European thought. Chinese thought did not go though the tension between myth and discourse, mythos-logos, which is the starting point of Greek tradition. The classical Chinese thought thinks in terms of polarities, combinations (yin and yang, heaven and earth) (dongxi = East-West = thing). The terms are opposed and complementary, there is an interaction: the Chinese thought thinks in terms of a process. Our thought seems to be very isolating compared to the Chinese thought. [...]

[...] [3rd: demonization:] I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs[1] they've been for the last 50 years.” goons and thugs = voyous et malfrats On this occasion Cafferty was offering his strongly held opinion of the Chinese government, not the Chinese people - a point he subsequently clarified on The Situation Room on April This type of discourse is of course not commonly used by Western journalists. But these comments reflect a hidden hostility towards China that nobody dares talk about out loud. While it is true that China has a bad human right record, health/food safety problems, and a bad environmental image, matters arising from there should be broadcasted with a balanced view. C. [...]

[...] Beijing singled out Western news outlets that produced allegedly biased coverage of these events. Why to raise this issue, knowing that Chinese authorities control its national media and prevent foreign journalists from seeing everything they should be able to see? Because at this time, the critics did only come from the Chinese government, but also from Chinese netizens from all over the world. So first we'll identify the showings of a biased Western media Next we'll see the possible causes of this bias against China, involving a cultural misunderstanding (II). [...]