The Discrediting of the New York Times in the Chinese Media
How Some in the Chinese Media Go About Discrediting the New York Times, CNN, and the Western Media
Original Article for Mei-Zhong Guanxi by Anton Lee Wishik II
An analysis of the article ‘Was the New York Times a bit CNN today?’ is instructive in examining how the Chinese media goes about discrediting Western sources that are deemed to be problematic. Obviously, it’s not possible to generalize about all the Chinese media based on one article from one source. However, regarding the backlash against the Western media since the incident in Tibet, the tendencies found in this article are quite representative of that movement.
The first method of ‘discreditation’ was used against the ‘China’s Inside Game’ editorial from the NYT. This method could be labeled the ‘truisms/superlatives/blanket statements’ method. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with truisms, superlatives, or blanket statements except that when used by the Chinese media, they are often unaccompanied by any sort of supporting evidence. Many times these statements do not serve as conclusions as much as introductory premises in the analysis. Xiao Ding (小丁), the author of ‘Was the New York Times a bit CNN today?’, wrote in the first sentence of his analysis that “this article’s approach failed to be fair and equitable.” Thus, before one shred of evidence has been provided, he moves on with this line of reasoning. He continues by stating that “Hosting the Olympics was absolutely not merely the wish of the Chinese government, but was also the wish of all the Chinese people.” Where this statement becomes problematic is with the declaration concerning ‘all the Chinese people.’ Where exactly is Mr. Xiao getting this information? What about all the migrant workers who are being forced to leave Beijing? What about the activists who have been jailed or warned to stay quiet during the games? What about the 300 million Chinese people in poverty (according to a recent World Bank study)? The Taiwanese who decided not to take part in the torch relay? The Hong Kong reporter refused entrance at the Beijing airport? Tibetans? Even Mr. Xiao would have to admit that using a term like ‘all’ is simply indefensible. A more prescient question may be that even if he were to change his terminology to ‘many’ or ‘most,’ what data would even those statements be based off of? Obviously, polling of public opinion in China is not a common practice. Thus, if this method of argument is indefensible, why is it so ubiquitous in Chinese attacks on the Western media? One explanation is that it denotes assuredness, finality, and pure strength. Why is such and such report biased, anti-China, and wrong? Because, we are meant to believe, China’s entire population of 1.3 billion harmonious people in this vast rising superpower say it is.
A corollary argument in the attack on ‘China’s Inside Game’ is the commonly used refrain that foreigners don’t understand China. Mr. Xiao implores the author of the editorial to spend some time “taking a cram Chinese class and then talking to common Chinese people.” If the author were to do this, Mr. Xiao continues, then of course she would realize the error in her thinking. This line of reasoning is used despite the fact that the author of the editorial is currently living in China and interacting with the Chinese in her neighborhood (possibly by speaking Chinese) in order to gain insight for her writing. In fact, she uses her neighbor’s son as a representative example of how the Olympics are affecting Chinese people, and Mr. Xiao promptly discredits her for not expressing the actual feelings of ‘all Chinese people.’
Another supporting tactic is the use of old Chinese proverbs that seemingly deflate all Western rhetoric and remind us of how silly Westerners look when faced with 5,000 year-old Chinese wisdom. This was used in connection with the second NYT article, ‘Quake Revealed Deficiencies of China’s Military.’ This article included an analysis of how the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) performed during the recent earthquake rescue effort in Sichuan province. Although Mr. Xiao acknowledged the logic and expert testimony included in the article, his defense against Western criticism of the PLA (and thus, China) lies in the old Chinese saying, ‘standing up to talk, doesn’t make your back hurt’ which means something like ‘it’s easy to just sit there and point out others’ deficiencies.’ This kind of use for Chinese proverbs is quite common.
In the attack on this article, Mr. Xiao continues by questioning the premises used by the experts who were cited. These Western experts had emphasized the fact that only 15 paratroopers (out of 6,500) had been able to successfully parachute in to the disaster area. Their conclusion called into question whether the PLA is a well-prepared modern army ready for twenty-first century warfare. Mr. Xiao responds by labeling it ‘excessively sloppy’ reporting due to the fact that they didn’t mention the earthquake’s massive effect on the topography as well as the several days of torrential downpours following the quake. However, upon closer inspection, the use of these details to discredit expert testimony on the performance of the PLA is flimsy at best. In modern warfare, the dropping of thousand pound bombs on cities and infrastructure is common. Thus, a massive change of topography does not seem to be out of the ordinary. Also, it does indeed sometimes rain during battle. Are these valid excuses for the questionable performance of a modern army? Mr. Xiao thinks so, but others may disagree. The most important issue is the use of this reasoning to completely discredit Western experts’ testimony.
The third article in this supposed trifecta of attacks on China by the NYT was titled ‘China Inspired Interrogations at Guantanamo.’ This article stated that a recently discovered report by a former American air force officer proved that the interrogation practices currently used by America at Guantanamo Bay were inspired by Chinese interrogation practices used on American prisoners of war during the Korean War. Mr. Xiao’s defense was twofold. He first introduced a hypothetical situation in which some modern country introduced racial segregation and then claimed it was ‘inspired by American society in the 1950’s.’ The author states that no rational person would blame America for this regression, and thus China should be abdicated from this association to Guantanamo Bay. Thus, in this strange hypothetical, it seems to be tacitly implied that Chinese interrogation practices in the Korean War were as horrible as racial segregation in America in the 1950’s. Of course, what readers are not reminded of, is the fact that interrogation practices at Guantanamo bear an almost exact resemblance to those recorded as being used by the Chinese during the Korean War. Thus, perhaps the word ‘inspired’ is not nearly strong enough to describe the correlation. Is China responsible for what America does at Guantanamo Bay? Absolutely not. However, the aforementioned line of reasoning is used to discount the entire article as a ‘joke’ despite the fact that the validity and the facts of the article, including China’s practices during the Korean War, are never called into question.
Another tactic used against the articles published in the NYT is a tendency to revel in reminding Chinese readers of the West’s, and especially America’s, failings. In his analysis of the three articles regarding China, Mr. Xiao mentions both racial segregation in America in the 1950’s and the failed response to Hurricane Katrina. This is done in order to remind the Chinese that big, powerful, rich, democratic America has its own massive failings, and thus, its high-minded rhetoric and criticisms of China are invalid. Most of these references compare situations occurring in present-day China with incidents that happened in America’s past, although there are some exceptions (i.e. Katrina). During the Tibet incident, it was not uncommon to hear references to what happened to the Native Americans hundreds of years ago. These ad hominem attacks disregard logic, differences in the situations and eras being compared, and the idea that China could learn from America’s mistakes as America has tried to learn from America’s mistakes.
Finally, at one point in the article, it is implied that the West would like to see China fail. Mr. Xiao states that the Pentagon would be happy to focus on the massive amount of capital spent by the PLA on the rescue effort in Sichuan despite its limited success. This kind of reasoning pits the West against China and thus supports all the other methods used to discredit Western ideas. If Chinese readers are led to believe the West would like to see them fail, of course they are not going to give Western ideas a chance. Of course, mention of the massive amounts of humanitarian aid donated by Western companies (including $45 million by Cisco recently) is nowhere to be found.
In conclusion, it should once again be made clear that the methods described in this article are not being attributed to all or even most of the Chinese media. However, they are instructive in describing the indisputable phenomenon in which the Western media has often been under attack in China recently. Mr. Xiao Ding’s article is actually a relatively modest response (as he does acknowledge some of the criticism as justified) when compared with some of the more vitriolic condemnations of Western bias. This article does not dispute the assertion that some bias is involved in Western reporting on China. That seems inevitable. The more important issue is whether that bias is malevolent and excessive and whether the Chinese response is logical and appropriately scaled. This article has addressed the second issue and would argue that there is room for progress to be made.
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15 Comments
Your point about the use of syllogism or fables is very true. I found it funny in my experience in China to find in a discussion that my Chinese counterpart would be using a fable to explain away all types of behavior or events in China, and then realize that in the West we had a similar saying. I would point out that in the “West” we have the same kind of saying, but it doesn’t mean anything. What I learned in China is that you don’t argue with Chinese people. It is not allowed!
Comment on July 5, 2008 03:46 pmbravo for taking that writer to task. I came across his comments - which contained many profanities and racist depictions, as well as some not so veiled racist swipes at women from the Phillipines. I find that whatever salient points he may have to make, they are lost in his vitriolic and crude attacks, and he comes off as nothing more than a boor.
Trolls such as he, either pro, against, or neutral on China, have no place in sane and reasonable discussions about China - or anything else for that matter. It’s too bad the internet has become a substitute for the bathroom wall at the bus station, but there it is, nonetheless.
Comment on July 5, 2008 06:22 pmAnton,
With all due respect, I don’t find this analysis particularly convincing or useful. It would not be a difficult task to write a similar meta-review of the “tactics used in this article to discredit the Chinese media”.
The term “tactic” is itself incredibly loaded. If you do a blanket replacement of that word with “argument”, your editorial suddenly takes on a different tone.
The original author wrote in a pretty informal manner throughout. If he had simply moderated some of his comments (for example, by saying that the Olympics were welcomed by the “great majority of Chinese”), it seems you would have lost a lot of the evidence of an attempt to “discredit” the Western media.
Frankly, there’s good ground for criticism of the Western media in its reporting of Chinese issues. You’re not going to put a serious damper on the groundswell of discontent amongst the Chinese community with this analysis of this singular article.
Comment on July 6, 2008 01:16 amMr. Tang,
I appreciate your constructive criticism.
I tried to make it clear in both my introduction and conclusion that my article was not an indictment of the entire Chinese media, but more an analysis of this one article and the methods it employed (which I don’t believe to be unique to only this work).
I did struggle with what I should call this post, and perhaps I should have titled the article ‘A Case Study: How One Article Went About Discrediting the NYT’ or something similar. In the future, I will be more careful about establishing the scope of what I’m referring to.
Also, I would be quite confident in defending a meta-review of my tactics. Although they almost definitely contain some element of Western bias (I am a Westerner after all), I believe them to be logical and evidence-based (as opposed to the article I was analyzing).
Also, my goal was not so much to dampen Chinese discontent with the Western media as to call into question how some in the Chinese media respond to reports from the West. I think there is a difference there as I have no problem with the Chinese media pointing out Western bias as long as its done in a logical, evidence-based manner.
Once again, thanks for you feedback.
Anton
Comment on July 6, 2008 01:41 amExcellent article, Anton. I appreciate your fortitude and thoroughness. Some bloggers, often Chinese people living in the US and blogging in English, have made a cottage industry out of running post after post detailing alleged US media bias toward China, while jumping on similar attacks from the opposite side (i.e., posts by foreigners criticizing the Chinese media). I wish each and every one of them would read your dispassionate yet devastating analysis. CNN and the NYT are imperfect, but if claims of bias are to be made they need to be supported by facts as opposed to assertions that a founded often on emotion, pre-conceived notions (”the Western media is always unfair to China”) and, occasionally, simple ignorance. I believe they are fully sincere, but they have not analyzed the situation with a critical eye.
Comment on July 6, 2008 03:38 am[...] This is a must-read article that underscores the problem with the whole “AntiCNN” craze. [...]
Pingback on July 6, 2008 04:50 am事实求是！
Comment on July 6, 2008 06:43 amThanks for this article, Anton. Why? Previous commenters said it well enough already, no need for me to gild a lily. And not to worry about feelings of Mr Tang; his problem is that you called the original author out on his BS, and it stung him, too.
Comment on July 6, 2008 07:30 amTo tingbudong: I almost wet myself laughing reading the “a cottage industry” bit in your comment. How true, in general. And how very, very true in this particular instance. Just go to Tang Buxi’s ‘Blogging for China’ at
http://blog.foolsmountain.com/
“Another supporting tactic is the use of old Chinese proverbs that seemingly deflate all Western rhetoric and remind us of how silly Westerners look when faced with 5,000 year-old Chinese wisdom.”
I have not encountered this exactly, or maybe I just have a different perspective. Actually I love those kind of old sayings, I hope they never die out. But the problem is if the people who use them do not understand them and use them as an excuse for evil instead of for promoting good which is what they are meant to do, in the tradition of a culture based on respect for virtue.
‘standing up to talk, doesn’t make your back hurt’, I don’t think it is meant to make westerners seem uncultured, but it meant to say that you should shut up! Why? “Because if you are not willing to help solve the problem, then why do you talk so much” Used in the proper context it does make sense, it’s like someone who always talks about doing good but never acts. In this context of the NY Times being critical of the PLA, this does not make sense, how can the NY Times do the PLA’s job? The NY Times is there to be critical, it is doing it’s job. It’s a newspaper, it talks, that’s it’s role (it’s debatable whether it does it fulfills the role and contributes well to society), but certainly you can’t say that the NY Times should start working with the PLA to improve China’s army, ridiculous!
There a a few of these old philosophical phrases that are twisted to support the party. I don’t know how they sound in their more eloquent terms but, basically a few are:
“If you have done wrong, you cannot say the CCP has done wrong, because first you have to be perfect before you can make a moral distinction/criticism” I don’t know why they find this logical, i think it’s brainwashing. I mean, If I was kinda bad, and some really stinkin’ awful guy approached me and pointed out that I had such and such character defect, if I had no interest in improving my character, I would say, you stink, go away, but if I wanted to improve my character, I wouldn’t care who said it, I would consider it and be on my way.
“If America does wrong, then China can do wrong and everyone should accept America as the standard, as in, two wrongs make a right. The standard is not set by morality, but is set according to whether America does it.” So it seems that a crime committed by America is no longer a crime? Why do Chinese people use America as a moral standard, why do they not strive to be morally superior? is it because communism erase the belief in morality and now it is only about money and getting away with crimes for money?
“Talking about human rights/values = a claim of moral superiority”, which I guess Chinese people can’t believe in because they believe all humans are equally bad animals. With this concept of human beings as animals out for material benefit, how can you reason with Chinese about human rights and values? Some of them just don’t believe in morality and will say you should get off your high horse if you talk about doing the right things and such. This one does not come from Chinese culture though, it comes from communism or something of that nature..
Anyway, thanks for the great effort to look into these really important and fascinating phenomenon.
Regards (- :
Comment on July 6, 2008 04:52 pm“The more important issue is whether that bias is malevolent and excessive and whether the Chinese response is logical and appropriately scaled.”
The answer would be ‘no’ on both counts.
The saddest aspect of all the vitriolic and lame (not to mention hypocritical) arguments used against western media coverage of China is that the Chinese people actually buy it.
Comment on July 6, 2008 07:15 pm“What about all the migrant workers who are being forced to leave Beijing? ….. What about the 300 million Chinese people in poverty (according to a recent World Bank study)? ….. Tibetans?”
It seems that you believed all these people you listed here don’t support the Olympics. It feels like a “blanket statement” to me. Aren’t you making the same mistake yourself?
If 90% of the Chinese people (which is a safe guess) support the Olympics, I don’t think there is anything wrong to use the word “all” figuratively to make a point. As the Chinese saying goes, you are “trying to pick bones out of an egg.”
“In modern warfare, the dropping of thousand pound bombs on cities and infrastructure is common. Thus, a massive change of topography does not seem to be out of the ordinary. Also, it does indeed sometimes rain during battle. Are these valid excuses for the questionable performance of a modern army?”
Soldiers are expected to sacrifice their lives during combats, but not in civilian rescue operations. If you watched CCTV News channel 12 hours a day during the earthquake rescue operation like I did, you would have understood why “only 15 paratroopers (out of 6,500) had been able to successfully parachute in to the disaster area”. Clearly the author of the article got his info from “CNN” and is ignorant on the subject.
“This is done in order to remind the Chinese that big, powerful, rich, democratic America has its own massive failings, and thus, its high-minded rhetoric and criticisms of China are invalid. “
No no no, this is done in order to remind the Americans who criticize China that it’s hypocritical for them to criticize China on these subjects.
“Finally, at one point in the article, it is implied that the West would like to see China fail. “
For ideological reason alone, many in the West DO want to see China fail. It would be dishonest to deny that.
Comment on July 6, 2008 07:50 pmTo XYZ:
Thanks for your response.
To your first point about blanket statements, I definitely don’t feel like I made that mistake. I was simply making the point that any rational person would assume public opinion on this issue to be somewhere between 1-99%. Anything beyond that should be backed up with empirical evidence. If you’re feeling is about ‘90%,’ that’s great, but again, it’s simply your own feeling. I would love to see hard data on this, and I am guessing it would not be far from what you mentioned. Guessing.
You’re use of a Chinese proverb was great although it kind of supported my own contention on how Chinese proverbs are used. It seems to me that they are often used as an arbitrary method for trying to end discussion on a topic.
As for the military analysis, I feel it’s best to stick to the experts on this one. I provided some simple observations that I felt could possibly counteract Mr. Xiao’s commentary, but my main point was that the experts had already spoken on the subject and Mr. Xiao was discrediting their analysis.
Fair point on hypocritical American criticism.
As for the West wanting to see China fail, isn’t it more dishonest to only provide one side of a two-sided issue? I tried to remind readers of the second side.
Anton
Comment on July 6, 2008 08:32 pm@ XYZ:
No no no, this is done in order to remind the Americans who criticize China that it’s hypocritical for them to criticize China on these subjects.
…And the helpless irony of the situation is the hypocrisy of Chinese media criticizing unbalanced reporting by Western media.
The hypocrisy argument/defense is a logical fallacy. Both Westerners and Chinese people know it in their hearts but conveniently eschew it when it is convenient to insult or attack the other side…because it is more fun that way, right? The solution is to get over ourselves and ask if we can honestly give a damn more about the message than the messenger.
Comment on July 7, 2008 01:49 am@XYZ
“If you watched CCTV News channel 12 hours a day during the earthquake rescue operation like I did”
So that’s how people like you spend their time. Unfortunately, we commoners have to work from time to time and we also need some sleep every once in a while, even in the case of a disaster happening in China, so we can’t do the 12 hour a day CCTV brainwash.
Comment on July 8, 2008 10:00 amAnton criticized that the statement Chinese author made about the desire for hosting Olympics comes from majority of the Chinese. If the goal of the Chinese piece is to brainwash the Chinese people, then it would not have worked when a Chinese national reads the article who does not approve of hosting the Olympic games. Of cause, to those Chinese support hosting Olympics, this article would have worked. But it only confirms ones existing belief.
By the same standard of supporting evidence that is used by the original NYT piece, all the Chinese author needed was his neighbor’s son’s opinion. To criticize the Chinese piece of lacking supporting evidence, one has to be fair to criticize the original NYT piece which found its supporting evidence solely on the expereience of author’s neighbor’s 5 yr old son. The difference of the NYT piece and the Chinese piece is in the training of the authors. The American author knows to use his neighbor’s 5 yr old son’s experience as evidence, whereas the Chinese author just assumed. The American author knows to put on a fig leaf, the Chinese author didn’t.
To be fair using the same standard Anton picks out the Chinese piece, one can pick on the NYT piece as well. There are place in the origianl NYT piece, the American author also slipped. Stating “In junior high and high school here, two semesters of history instruction focus on the humiliation of China by Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States during the last centuries.” What year in junior and high school did that happen? How many semesters history is instructed in Chinese secondary schools, what are the topics? Without elaborating, the American author moves on to berate Chinese nationalism.
The NYT piece is full of what Anton calls “discrediation” or “truism/blank statement”, as evident from the NYT piece, continuing on from his comments about instruction of history in Chinese high schools, the American author states “International criticism is described as a continuation of this legacy, and for other countries to condemn the regime is to disparage the Chinese people. Foreign criticism strengthens domestic loyalty to the regime, so the threat of a boycott of the Olympics in August only bolsters nationalism.”
I almost tempted to believe the Chinese piece was playing sarcasm on the NYT piece. So please don’t get all worked up Anton.
Comment on July 8, 2008 11:28 am