Those headline screenshots gave me a good laugh. It does appear that as you mentioned the US media has basically repeatedly shown its inability to properly report news factually, and that each reporter in China is basically a net negative even for actually getting facts out.
The COVID headlines made me remember, in Taiwan everyone was being told to constantly scan QR codes for the exact same COVID contact tracing (OK It was called 實聯制 instead of 實名制 and it used SMS instead), at first people could quarantine at home but later people had to stay in quarantine hotels for 14 days and be monitored, yet it turned into Taiwan's democratic virus miracle vs China's authoritarian unscientific surveillance.
Like you mentioned, many of the most important stories like the rise of EVs, clean energy industry and solar plus nuclear, domestic AI industry and social media platforms, management of COVID, all get put into "at what cost" reporting. since this reporting visa is ultimately diplomatic relations, it basically comes down to if you see Xinhua reporters in Washington writing endless articles about America g*nociding the Native Americans or minorities, or spend their days covering the Texit and Calexit movements, etc.
I mean even during George Floyd era you didn't have China news reporters stationed in America doing this "wolf warrior" news articles, it was just local domestic China media doing editorials and cartoons. Getting outside of the America-centric discussion, I wonder if reporters from African countries, even European countries, South American countries are getting this type of cold shoulder, because its main restrictions seem to be directly US China related.
There was this amusing Washington Post reporter who basically wrote a "if foreign reporters reported on America how US media reports other countries" (*) . This is basically what US mainstream press (NYT, WSJ, NPR, etc.) coverage of China looks like.
> In recent years, the international community has sounded the alarm on the deteriorating political and human rights situation in the United States under the regime of Donald Trump. Now, as the country marks 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, the former British colony finds itself in a downward spiral of ethnic violence. The fatigue and paralysis of the international community are evident in its silence, America experts say.
> The country has been rocked by several viral videos depicting extrajudicial executions of black ethnic minorities by state security forces. Uprisings erupted in the northern city of Minneapolis after a video circulated online of the killing of a black man, George Floyd, after being attacked by a security force agent. Trump took to Twitter, calling black protesters “THUGS”’ and threatening to send in military force. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts!” he declared.
Of all the outlets, NYT has the largest axe to grind because their reporters are the most ideological and were kicked out relatively early in the early 2010s (remember that the Great Firewall didn't even block New York Times until the early 2010s). Reuters and LA Times generally have had less visa issues I think, Reuters is also less ideological but ultimately still got firewall blocked later on. WSJ's bigger visa issues didn't come until 2020 the "Sick Man of Asia" editorial headline. But yeah at this point there are probably more China beat reporters for the US in Taiwan or Seoul than in actual mainland China, which I'm sure leads to an even larger info gap. And if do some type of tone analysis maybe 90% of China articles have a negative connotation compared to half or fewer of Japan or Taiwan articles in US media. It's more about manufacturing consent than about reporting facts
There was even an NPR reporter who outright said "China is libel proof" in that if you invent a quote, a smear, or an outright brazen lie on a person/company/source, an American is basically immune to it because a US court wouldn't care much that it happened, and a random Chinese citizen is not going to get a visa to go to America to appear in court to sue an outlet, and US libel laws are generally much more strict than say even Europe, or Taiwan, or Singapore, where it is easier to make a case.
Great point about China being "libel proof". The standard for proof is through the floor. It's too bad that journalists effectively got co-opted into this kind of crude statescraft. And yes, it is very condescending!
"We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." - the playbook that launched endless coups and regime change ops, has finally hit it limitations.
China has succesfully countered the manufactured reality presented by western journalism.... but at what cost
I won’t get in the way of anyone disagreeing, but…. I thought Allison’s Thucydides Trap thesis was moronic when the book came out, and I think it’s even more idiotic now that it’s had time to fester. The number of ways it totally misses the situation is greater than my inspiration for listing them. It’s been widely and coherently dismantled by scholars both in the West and here in China. It’s time for folks to start paying attention.
As it is, I’ve been reading a few new Stack essays dismantling the idea quite nicely, so folks are finally catching on that it was a dumb thesis from the get go.
And, at the rate that the current POTUS is demolishing whatever good will and/or intelligent governance America once had, the idea that the US…or anyone… is going to stop the peaceful rise of China is deeply mistaken. Anyone imagining such clearly hasn’t spent any time in China, or had appreciable contact with Chinese people.
I can't comment on whether the book is rubbish or not. If there's a better thesis to communicate the concept of a hegemon seeking to prevent the rise of a strategic rival, let me know!
It would appear that attempts to hinder Chinese development have backfired. IMO, it's only a matter time before the backwardness of the neoliberal economic model becomes apparent to all (even with neoliberal medias propaganda advantage).
Per a better thesis, a few good ones can be distilled from Chinese history. The ascendant and descendant cycles of dynasties and power centers is woven into the literature and culture in ways that don't exist in Western models. Gibbons and now Allison see things in linear win-lose dynamics, where China has seen it all before...to whit...there's more, but this will do for now...
"The currently widespread "Thucydides Trap" mindset is a profoundly destructive notion that could mislead the country. We must free ourselves from this intellectual constraint. The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), a conflict between the Athenian and Spartan alliances, was not the inevitable result of the rise of a new power, as Thucydides claimed. The war was not inevitable or natural. Instead, it resulted from political leaders' arrogance, resentment, and vengeance-driven attitudes and their ignorance, misjudgments, and third-party provocations. Athens’ excessive greed and unrealistic goals ultimately led to its catastrophic failure in the war."
This eloquent essay by Shan Weijian @weijianshan refutes the Allison Thucydides Thesis by drawing on China's long history and demonstrable low propensity for war: more often invaded by than invading of other states, the Great Wall being famously a defensive structure to repel enemies.
AllI can do is keep reading what others have to say and at present, I seriously prefer to read what people close to China have to say more than any journalists from the west simply doing "a piece" on China, or only researching without traveling to China. Tourism is helping get the word out that China is NOT what many say. While traveling around the country it is impossible for the government to keep all citizens from being in contact with tourists. I know from my own travels to countries under repression or an authoritarian government that the people you come in contact with do represent a reference on their country's government. Promoting tourism is one of the smartest things Xi has done.
Thanks Cecile Marie. I still think there's good work being done here and there but another problem is journalists are trained to focus on the negative because thats where they think the story must be.
If a journalist consistently gives malicious demonizing report on a host country, then he/she is not serving the purpose of being an honest journalist, thereby breaking the contract (even an unwritten one) with the host country, a contract that is the basis for his/her admission into the country. Therefore the host country has all the reasons to rescind that admission. It seems that this was the case with Ms Wang. By the way, there is no need for an honest journalist to only report favorable news, or only give favorable interpretations of events.
Western corporate media is despicable and untrustworthy. They've proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt in the last 3 years especially. In my opinion, China is far too lenient and trusting (maybe naive?) when it comes to the west in general.
“But the problem is, in the aggregate the international perception of China only improved as they kicked the western journalists out.”
What’s the evidence for this claim? It’s inconsistent with, for instance, Pew’s polling data, which suggests views of China turned much more negative after Xi Jinping came to power, which is also when the crackdown on western journalists accelerated:
According to the democracy perception index, China is now more popular than the United States with ppl worldwide. the growth period coincides with the kicking out of the journalists, which of course might just be happenstance.
He does! he mocks them for writing formulaic stories. But he thinks they're coming from a genuine place and there are just structural issues in place meaning it's hard for them to do better.
Is this what is known as the soft bigotry of low expectations? There are so many excellent journalists around, including Andy Boreham. And I always think that Jerry (from Jerry’s Take on China) should be a columnist for the NYT or some other newspaper. What exactly is the “structural” barrier preventing Western media from recruiting competent journalists?
My suggestion is to treat journalism as a profession and require every journalist to be properly credentialed and submit to a standard of professional ethics for giving true and fair reports. China should set up a media tribunal to hear complaints about journalists. It’s unreasonable to expect China to entrust such a consequential profession to Western editors who have no idea what it means to publish true and fair reports in China.
Unfortunately, journalists know who pay for their salaries and would bow down to their need to bring the dough home. I say, good riddance. To the reporter whose pass got canceled: Come back when you stopped being a racist.
One of the main things missing from this discussion is the fundamental disconnect over what the role of media is supposed to be.
A quote widely attributed to George Orwell says: “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” That broadly captures how journalism is understood in much of the world: the press is supposed to scrutinize power and ask uncomfortable questions.
By contrast, the stated role of media in China is to “guide public opinion.” In other words, media is expected to support political and social objectives, not primarily challenge them.
People can debate whether foreign coverage of China has been biased, clichéd, unfairly negative, or lacking context. Some of that criticism is valid. But the debate itself shows we are talking about two fundamentally different concepts of media. A system that welcomes praise but rejects scrutiny is not journalism in the traditional sense - it is narrative management.
China would probably love a world where coverage came primarily from influencers rather than reporters, because influencers are generally not there to investigate or hold power accountable. But replacing journalism with curated content would ultimately reduce the world’s understanding of China, not deepen it.
First of all, she wasn't kicked out, her visa wasn't renewed.
Secondly, the NYT is not a journalistic outlet, at least when it comes to China, and Gaza as well. It is a propaganda rag. This is becoming an unavoidable fact.
Wang is a propagandist and should be treated as such. There is nothing to be lost in acting in accordance with reality.
This is not a new phenomena. Carl Zha in some of videos spoke about reading the NYT when he migrated to the U.S and was shocked about how wrong they were on China, initially attributing it to ignorance before coming to the realization that it was deliberate propaganda.
The NYT lies when it comes to China. At about the six minute mark on this clip of Kishore Mahbubani speaking on the South China Sea issue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muYOilemy4Y) he says "The Anglo-Saxon media will tell outright lies". Now Mahbubani is a former diplomat and has a master's degree in Philosophy, so he uses language very precisely. If he makes such a stark statement about the western media, you can imagine how deep the rot lies.
The NYT has been missing the story of China for decades, in favor of the manufactured narrative they insist is the story. Losing Vivian is no loss at all.
Those headline screenshots gave me a good laugh. It does appear that as you mentioned the US media has basically repeatedly shown its inability to properly report news factually, and that each reporter in China is basically a net negative even for actually getting facts out.
The COVID headlines made me remember, in Taiwan everyone was being told to constantly scan QR codes for the exact same COVID contact tracing (OK It was called 實聯制 instead of 實名制 and it used SMS instead), at first people could quarantine at home but later people had to stay in quarantine hotels for 14 days and be monitored, yet it turned into Taiwan's democratic virus miracle vs China's authoritarian unscientific surveillance.
Like you mentioned, many of the most important stories like the rise of EVs, clean energy industry and solar plus nuclear, domestic AI industry and social media platforms, management of COVID, all get put into "at what cost" reporting. since this reporting visa is ultimately diplomatic relations, it basically comes down to if you see Xinhua reporters in Washington writing endless articles about America g*nociding the Native Americans or minorities, or spend their days covering the Texit and Calexit movements, etc.
I mean even during George Floyd era you didn't have China news reporters stationed in America doing this "wolf warrior" news articles, it was just local domestic China media doing editorials and cartoons. Getting outside of the America-centric discussion, I wonder if reporters from African countries, even European countries, South American countries are getting this type of cold shoulder, because its main restrictions seem to be directly US China related.
There was this amusing Washington Post reporter who basically wrote a "if foreign reporters reported on America how US media reports other countries" (*) . This is basically what US mainstream press (NYT, WSJ, NPR, etc.) coverage of China looks like.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/29/how-western-media-would-cover-minneapolis-if-it-happened-another-country/
> In recent years, the international community has sounded the alarm on the deteriorating political and human rights situation in the United States under the regime of Donald Trump. Now, as the country marks 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, the former British colony finds itself in a downward spiral of ethnic violence. The fatigue and paralysis of the international community are evident in its silence, America experts say.
> The country has been rocked by several viral videos depicting extrajudicial executions of black ethnic minorities by state security forces. Uprisings erupted in the northern city of Minneapolis after a video circulated online of the killing of a black man, George Floyd, after being attacked by a security force agent. Trump took to Twitter, calling black protesters “THUGS”’ and threatening to send in military force. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts!” he declared.
Of all the outlets, NYT has the largest axe to grind because their reporters are the most ideological and were kicked out relatively early in the early 2010s (remember that the Great Firewall didn't even block New York Times until the early 2010s). Reuters and LA Times generally have had less visa issues I think, Reuters is also less ideological but ultimately still got firewall blocked later on. WSJ's bigger visa issues didn't come until 2020 the "Sick Man of Asia" editorial headline. But yeah at this point there are probably more China beat reporters for the US in Taiwan or Seoul than in actual mainland China, which I'm sure leads to an even larger info gap. And if do some type of tone analysis maybe 90% of China articles have a negative connotation compared to half or fewer of Japan or Taiwan articles in US media. It's more about manufacturing consent than about reporting facts
There was even an NPR reporter who outright said "China is libel proof" in that if you invent a quote, a smear, or an outright brazen lie on a person/company/source, an American is basically immune to it because a US court wouldn't care much that it happened, and a random Chinese citizen is not going to get a visa to go to America to appear in court to sue an outlet, and US libel laws are generally much more strict than say even Europe, or Taiwan, or Singapore, where it is easier to make a case.
Great point about China being "libel proof". The standard for proof is through the floor. It's too bad that journalists effectively got co-opted into this kind of crude statescraft. And yes, it is very condescending!
"We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." - the playbook that launched endless coups and regime change ops, has finally hit it limitations.
China has succesfully countered the manufactured reality presented by western journalism.... but at what cost
Big picture, marginal to no cost. It doesn’t matter. It only matters to folks that think the NYT has something to say about it.
I tend to agree, but I dont think we're out of the woods just yet - Sparta is still committed to stopping the rise of Athens
I won’t get in the way of anyone disagreeing, but…. I thought Allison’s Thucydides Trap thesis was moronic when the book came out, and I think it’s even more idiotic now that it’s had time to fester. The number of ways it totally misses the situation is greater than my inspiration for listing them. It’s been widely and coherently dismantled by scholars both in the West and here in China. It’s time for folks to start paying attention.
As it is, I’ve been reading a few new Stack essays dismantling the idea quite nicely, so folks are finally catching on that it was a dumb thesis from the get go.
And, at the rate that the current POTUS is demolishing whatever good will and/or intelligent governance America once had, the idea that the US…or anyone… is going to stop the peaceful rise of China is deeply mistaken. Anyone imagining such clearly hasn’t spent any time in China, or had appreciable contact with Chinese people.
I can't comment on whether the book is rubbish or not. If there's a better thesis to communicate the concept of a hegemon seeking to prevent the rise of a strategic rival, let me know!
It would appear that attempts to hinder Chinese development have backfired. IMO, it's only a matter time before the backwardness of the neoliberal economic model becomes apparent to all (even with neoliberal medias propaganda advantage).
We agree on the last part.
Per a better thesis, a few good ones can be distilled from Chinese history. The ascendant and descendant cycles of dynasties and power centers is woven into the literature and culture in ways that don't exist in Western models. Gibbons and now Allison see things in linear win-lose dynamics, where China has seen it all before...to whit...there's more, but this will do for now...
"The currently widespread "Thucydides Trap" mindset is a profoundly destructive notion that could mislead the country. We must free ourselves from this intellectual constraint. The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), a conflict between the Athenian and Spartan alliances, was not the inevitable result of the rise of a new power, as Thucydides claimed. The war was not inevitable or natural. Instead, it resulted from political leaders' arrogance, resentment, and vengeance-driven attitudes and their ignorance, misjudgments, and third-party provocations. Athens’ excessive greed and unrealistic goals ultimately led to its catastrophic failure in the war."
.....Zhang Weiying
This eloquent essay by Shan Weijian @weijianshan refutes the Allison Thucydides Thesis by drawing on China's long history and demonstrable low propensity for war: more often invaded by than invading of other states, the Great Wall being famously a defensive structure to repel enemies.
https://robertwoo.substack.com/p/one-of-chinas-most-important-pe-investors
AllI can do is keep reading what others have to say and at present, I seriously prefer to read what people close to China have to say more than any journalists from the west simply doing "a piece" on China, or only researching without traveling to China. Tourism is helping get the word out that China is NOT what many say. While traveling around the country it is impossible for the government to keep all citizens from being in contact with tourists. I know from my own travels to countries under repression or an authoritarian government that the people you come in contact with do represent a reference on their country's government. Promoting tourism is one of the smartest things Xi has done.
Thanks Cecile Marie. I still think there's good work being done here and there but another problem is journalists are trained to focus on the negative because thats where they think the story must be.
If a journalist consistently gives malicious demonizing report on a host country, then he/she is not serving the purpose of being an honest journalist, thereby breaking the contract (even an unwritten one) with the host country, a contract that is the basis for his/her admission into the country. Therefore the host country has all the reasons to rescind that admission. It seems that this was the case with Ms Wang. By the way, there is no need for an honest journalist to only report favorable news, or only give favorable interpretations of events.
Domestic journalism is good and important. International journalism, however, is just a tool for supporting Western imperialism. It needs to stop.
Western corporate media is despicable and untrustworthy. They've proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt in the last 3 years especially. In my opinion, China is far too lenient and trusting (maybe naive?) when it comes to the west in general.
“But the problem is, in the aggregate the international perception of China only improved as they kicked the western journalists out.”
What’s the evidence for this claim? It’s inconsistent with, for instance, Pew’s polling data, which suggests views of China turned much more negative after Xi Jinping came to power, which is also when the crackdown on western journalists accelerated:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/07/15/views-of-china-and-xi-jinping-2025/
According to the democracy perception index, China is now more popular than the United States with ppl worldwide. the growth period coincides with the kicking out of the journalists, which of course might just be happenstance.
https://www.politico.eu/article/usa-popularity-collapse-worldwide-trump-return/
Thanks for the link. The DPI survey began in 2022; the expulsion of foreign journalists began much earlier, during the Obama administration, and accelerated in 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/media/china-expels-american-journalists.html?unlocked_article_code=1.m1A.xj-s.usbzECDGxN-V&smid=nytcore-ios-share
Thanks, good points. Why can’t Western media send genuine journalists who provide an objective view of China? That’s what Kaiser Kuo should be asking.
He does! he mocks them for writing formulaic stories. But he thinks they're coming from a genuine place and there are just structural issues in place meaning it's hard for them to do better.
Is this what is known as the soft bigotry of low expectations? There are so many excellent journalists around, including Andy Boreham. And I always think that Jerry (from Jerry’s Take on China) should be a columnist for the NYT or some other newspaper. What exactly is the “structural” barrier preventing Western media from recruiting competent journalists?
My suggestion is to treat journalism as a profession and require every journalist to be properly credentialed and submit to a standard of professional ethics for giving true and fair reports. China should set up a media tribunal to hear complaints about journalists. It’s unreasonable to expect China to entrust such a consequential profession to Western editors who have no idea what it means to publish true and fair reports in China.
Unfortunately, journalists know who pay for their salaries and would bow down to their need to bring the dough home. I say, good riddance. To the reporter whose pass got canceled: Come back when you stopped being a racist.
One of the main things missing from this discussion is the fundamental disconnect over what the role of media is supposed to be.
A quote widely attributed to George Orwell says: “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” That broadly captures how journalism is understood in much of the world: the press is supposed to scrutinize power and ask uncomfortable questions.
By contrast, the stated role of media in China is to “guide public opinion.” In other words, media is expected to support political and social objectives, not primarily challenge them.
People can debate whether foreign coverage of China has been biased, clichéd, unfairly negative, or lacking context. Some of that criticism is valid. But the debate itself shows we are talking about two fundamentally different concepts of media. A system that welcomes praise but rejects scrutiny is not journalism in the traditional sense - it is narrative management.
China would probably love a world where coverage came primarily from influencers rather than reporters, because influencers are generally not there to investigate or hold power accountable. But replacing journalism with curated content would ultimately reduce the world’s understanding of China, not deepen it.
First of all, she wasn't kicked out, her visa wasn't renewed.
Secondly, the NYT is not a journalistic outlet, at least when it comes to China, and Gaza as well. It is a propaganda rag. This is becoming an unavoidable fact.
Wang is a propagandist and should be treated as such. There is nothing to be lost in acting in accordance with reality.
This is not a new phenomena. Carl Zha in some of videos spoke about reading the NYT when he migrated to the U.S and was shocked about how wrong they were on China, initially attributing it to ignorance before coming to the realization that it was deliberate propaganda.
The NYT lies when it comes to China. At about the six minute mark on this clip of Kishore Mahbubani speaking on the South China Sea issue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muYOilemy4Y) he says "The Anglo-Saxon media will tell outright lies". Now Mahbubani is a former diplomat and has a master's degree in Philosophy, so he uses language very precisely. If he makes such a stark statement about the western media, you can imagine how deep the rot lies.
The NYT has been missing the story of China for decades, in favor of the manufactured narrative they insist is the story. Losing Vivian is no loss at all.