On September 4th, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal newspaper headlined “Chinese Gate-Crashers at U.S. Bases Spark Espionage Concerns: Washington has tracked about 100 incidents involving Chinese nationals trying to access American military and other installations”. It became the leading front-page ‘news’-report of the print-edition the following day. So, that ‘news’-paper’s editors and managers not only published it, but gave it the top billing, over even any financial news (which supposedly is that newspaper’s strong point). This entirely speculative ‘news’-report was based solely upon U.S.-Government sources (plus one who formerly was that but now is a senior fellow at the Pentagon-funded CSIS think tank).
The same day, the Chinese Government’s Global Times newspaper bannered in response: “WSJ’s hype on espionage threat from China an insult to readers’ intelligence”, and opened: “Some American media outlets are indistinctively portraying Chinese nationals as spies. Yet instead of proving the so-called espionage threat from China, they have only exposed how dumbed down and crude US propaganda tactics are, which is even insulting the intelligence of American readers.” It asked and then answered — this time only from Chinese (mainly Governmental) sources:
Who are the “incursionists”? The WSJ claims these are “people who say they are following Google Maps to direct them to the nearest McDonalds or Burger King, which happens to be on a nearby military base,” or Chinese nationals who said “they have a reservation at an on-base hotel.” The article said there have been 100 incidents involving Chinese nationals trying to access American military and other installations. Yet at the same time it finds it hard to skirt around the truth — “no cases appear to have resulted in espionage charges.” In other words, it means the WSJ knows this is another baseless defamation.
Given the lengthy description by the WSJ, US military bases are as easily accessible as public libraries. Anyone find it plausible?
US military bases have the most stringent level on both physical and cyber security measures, and are not places for ordinary people to make incursions in such simplistic ways. Hyping up that Chinese people poses espionage threat via such low-level approaches is an insult to American readers’ intelligence, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times.
It closed by saying that
a growing number of ethnic Chinese scientists switched their affiliation from American to Chinese institutions, amid chilling anti-Chinese sentiment in the US.
Ultimately, time will prove that the US’ malicious and low-level propaganda war will only backfire.
At the time of this writing, on September 6th, there are three reader-comments. One is relevant to the article, and says:
I am a 72 year old retired US antitrust attorney with a BA and MA in International Development — and I have to say I agree with this article and for years have observed that the US mass media appears to have an agenda to demonize Russia, China and Iran, let alone Syria, Palestine and Cuba among other sovereign states that do not follow Washington’s orders. I have long considered it racist and misogynistic, and in the past few years it has become even more pronounced and dangerous — considered by many US intellectuals to be paving the way for more hybrid aggression and outright war, whether by manipulating politics of sovereign states, for example Syria and Ukraine, or by facilitating attacks by client states, especially Israel. The sorry state of mass media and education in the US render democracy a meaningless slogan useful only to manipulate a gullible public. Beware. Be vigilant.
The other two blamed “zionists,” under the false assumption that Israel, or maybe even all Jews, are behind the lying here, and that no non-Jew is. That belief exemplifies “how dumbed down and crude US propaganda tactics are, which is even insulting the intelligence of American readers,” but apparently some of those dumbed-down readers are even reading the Global Times. Their comment wasn’t about the article but instead about Israel (or maybe all Israelis) and/or all Jews (and no non-Jews) causing whatever falsehoods that people believe. A false underlying assumption in both of those is that the world is controlled by all Jews, instead of by all billionaires — i.e., that being a billionaire isn’t what makes a person be untrustworthy and dangerous; being a Jew or otherwise a zionist (which, actually, some Jews are not), is. It makes no sense at all.
By contrast, the relevant comment placed this Global Times article into its broader context. I think it did so in an entirely truthful way, as I had, in fact, already documented on 23 October 2022, under the headline “IS RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE REALLY WORSE THAN AMERICA’S & UK’S INVASION OF IRAQ WAS?”. That article discusses those two prior instances in which ‘news’-media stenographically transmitted, to voters, falsehoods which were “based solely upon U.S.-Government sources” (as-if those Governmental allegations were instead proven truths, though all were actually outright — and already known — lies).
So: which is more trustworthy — China’s Government, or Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal? What does the historical record show? And is that record not clear, beyond any reasonable doubt?
Reposts are welcomed with the reference to ORIENTAL REVIEW.
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