The front page of yesterday’s China Youth Daily carried an admonition for the media in China in the current heated political climate: don’t exploit patriotism for sensationalist reporting to attain higher newspaper sales or television ratings. In other words: cut the hot air.
Written by Xu Baike (徐百柯), editor of China Youth Daily‘s Freezing Point Weekly (冰点周刊), the editorial attempts to add some context and perspective to the current political discourse between China and the US. Xu quotes recent statements by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese vice-chairperson (副主席) Xi Jinping (习近平) where both agree that the South Pacific Ocean is actually large enough for both the US and China. While Clinton said the South Pacific Ocean is ‘vast’ (辽阔), Xi described it as extensive (宽广) – large enough for two superpowers.
Yet if Hillary Clinton and Xi Jinping agree that the US and China can co-exist in the South Pacific, why is still there so much shrill commentary in China about the US? To Xu, certain commentators in China still remain locked in an old-fashioned way of looking at the US. All these people see in the US is a country that wants to keep China down. The US won’t confront China openly, they say, but will instead stir up smaller countries in Asia against it. Such ways of assessing the situation is not completely without merit, Xu argues, yet they are not contributing anything to the debate.
In the days leading up to Hillary Clinton’s visit to China this week, Xu states, some newspaper editorials in China accused her of stoking mutual distrust between China and the US. Its true, Xu concedes, that China and Hillary Clinton have not always seen eye to eye, yet does this mean that she is stoking mutual distrust? There are many commentators in China whose biased opinions just do not hold up, Xu says, and who don’t understand how politics work. They bombard their audience in China all day with phrases like hegemony (霸权), domination (主宰), trickery (圈套) and opportunism (野心). Isn’t this stirring mutual mistrust? What does the word ‘mutual’ really mean? You can’t clap hands with only one palm, and extremism in one side does not make a good ‘mutual’ environment.
Of course the relationship will never be perfect, and one needs to be skillful in navigating tricky political waters. But everyone in this world is not always out to get you with swords drawn and bows bent (剑拔弩张). One should not look with such a narrow minded focus and old thinking at international relations.
Xu delivers the warning that we should be very careful of newspaper and television stations using patriotism to sell more newspapers or increase their ratings. He identifies a worrying recent media trend in China: media companies will first put out hate speech to incite the public mood, thereby leading the market, and will then pander to this public mood by selling more newspapers with the corresponding message into the market.
The recent case of the Diaoyu Islands dispute with Japan is a case in point. Xu states the example of a television commentator that a few days ago went so far as to call for a new war with Japan to wash away centuries of disgrace. Such extremist views are irresponsible and are exactly the kind of extremism China opposes in other countries. Xu is explicit in his view on this: media institutions engaging in this kind of extreme talk should cool it and spare the public from this grandstanding. These attempts to influence public opinion are either brazen acts of masochism or attempts to evoke patriotism to make more money – the former would be sad and lamentable, and the latter utterly repulsive.
Links and sources
China Youth Daily (媒体别拿“爱国”当生意做)
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