United Liberty
China and the Media
Sat, 08/09/2008 - 7:32pm | posted by Jason Pye
Has anyone else found the coverage of the Olympics to be a joke? I was running errands on my lunch hour on Friday and listening to the radio, a local news/talk station. The newscast was talking about the opening of the games and how the Chinese showed off their organizational skills. This morning I was watching ESPN and they happened to cover the murder of a US citizen, and relative of a USA volleyball coach, in Beijing. The anchor referred to Beijing as one of the safest cities in the world and made a passing reference to the Chinese government’s ban on handguns.
Not once have I heard about the word communism in any of the media’s coverage of the Olympics and I’ve only seen a couple of stories about human rights protests taking place during the games.
The PRC continues to trample over the individual rights of its citizens and the world refuses to acknowledge the 65 million souls silenced by China’s communist regime.
I am not saying that the United States should have boycotted the games, nor am I saying that we shouldn’t trade or have relations with China. I am simply saying that the media is not giving the whole story about the PRC, both the past and the present. It is grossly irresponsible, but again, I suppose we shouldn’t expect anything less.
To be fair, Beijing *is* one of the safest cities in the world. I lived there for two years and never once felt threatened in any way, or witnessed anything beyond a heated argument. In addition, the 65 million deaths figure is almost certainly inflated, and 95 percent of those deaths came 30 years ago or more. In the last 30 years, the United States has killed many more people than China.
Of course, the rights record in China is extremely bad, but the biggest problems are different from what the American media usually concentrate on. You can read my analysis at
http://razetheladder.blogspot.com/2008/08/state-of-china-as-olympics-beg…
A friend of mine was telling me that China still has communes. It’s still very collectivist. China somehow managed to open up economically without having their government cave in on them as the Soviet Union did under Gorbachev. We shouldn’t treat them like they’ve suddenly liberalized like South Korea or Japan. They still have a demented government.