Yes, I should have written more in the introduction. Thx for the advice.

Many western ppl believe there is no true news in China because of the heavy censorship. I actually have different experiences.

Yes, we have government censor, but the situation is really multi-facet.

You can see this invisible hand banned, blocked and filtered the news in many emergent issues, like this one,
http://www.jackypeng.com/blog/2007/01/07/teachers-protest-in-guangzhou/

However, perhaps China is too vast, or there are too many “naughty” journalists/bloggers, the invisible hand is not able to reach every conner, muff every voice.

Moreover, when things are not so acute/crucial, it tends to close one eye. As long as a person doesn’t generate a noise attracts massive attention, s/he can largely enjoy the freedom of speech, even s/he talks about some sensitive political issues like democracy.

Sometimes, I feel that ppl in China are able to enjoy more freedom in speech than ppl in Singapore. See this post,

http://www.jackypeng.com/blog/2007/01/12/some-singapore/

The story of CCTV you mentioned is not uncommon even in the central government’s media. They just don’t care as long as there is no massive attention.

Hope my translations can help you see a different side of China.

The main site is
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/

Here is a Chinese translation site,
http://blog.cnblog.org/gvo/

I recall a news clip on the Indonesian presidential elections on CCTV 9. Indonesia’s economy and security are just a mess, yet every single Indonesian interviewed said that they supported the election. Many commented, “Even if the president isn’t any good, at least we get to pick him.” I was astonished to see such a pro-democracy piece on CCTV (albeit the English international channel) in a country whose leaders are not elected by the people. I think somebody at CCTV slipped one past the censors, and I think that happens frequently.

Hope the style and structure of the report does not keep you away.

Though the report is talking about how African view China, to some extent, it actually reveals what China’s perspective to Africa or the world.

“Yes, BBC is a highly respected news medium, but that does not mean BBC is inherently free of bias. No matter how hard it strives to be impartial, it is constrained by its stance and background.”

Indeed. I never said the BBC was free of bias. I said this:

“The BBC is the most respected international medium, even more so than CNN, because it sincerely strives to be impartial “

“Most respected” and “strives to be impartial” do not mean “free of bias.”

“On the other hand, yes, IHL enjoys less freedom than BBC in choosing topics, editing and reporting, but that does not mean IHL can not make a good report on certain issues. The writing style and structure of this report may fall exactly on what propaganda is in your mind, but please don’t undervalue the effort and sincerity of the journalists who made this report. “

Please read my comments again. I wrote:

“I have tremendous respect for the risks that Chinese journalists take in order to inform Chinese society, “

“Tremendous respect” does not communicate any sense of undervaluing.

Explain how I am prejudiced against the Chinese media. Are you denying that heavy press censorship exists? I am not critical of the Chinese media per se. Rather I am critical of the dejure and defacto legal conditions unfavorable to the Chinese media.

David Peng’s analysis is insightful. To understand news in the Chinese media, one must read between the lines.

To the contrary, Dr. Lankov has written and commented extensively on nationalism in South and North Korea and has published articles on historical disputes between Korea and China in the international media.

On my bookshelves are numerous Korean and Chinese books on history and social sciences, including textbooks and other books written for adults and children. Among my collection, you might have read a couple of very popular titles: The Spirit of the Chinese People and My Country and My People. I am fascinated by how people collectively construct national identities and how children construct national identities through experiences at school and in society.

Before I translate any copyright protected content, I will contact the company to get the permission. Usually, my request is like a stone thrown into sea–I got no response from those big western companies. So I was expecting the same when I was contacting the International Herald Leader, as I reckoned it’s ran in a way more bureaucratically than those western companies. To my surprised, they replied me immediately and granted me the right to translate and publish the article here.

I hope this little experience might help change some readers’ view on Chinese media also.

Those are bad words.

Korean historical view crashed hard with China’s this time.

Won Joon Choe is right,

“And we don’t need Hegel nor Kojeve to tell us that, at least in East Asia, history often commingles with reality to produce an ugly brew between nations.”

So we should,

“…talk about addressing this problem rather than intoning that it doesn’t exist.”

I can see the prejudice of Chinese media from your remarks.

Yes, BBC is a highly respected news medium, but that does not mean BBC is inherently free of bias. No matter how hard it strives to be impartial, it is constrained by its stance and background.

On the other hand, yes, IHL enjoys less freedom than BBC in choosing topics, editing and reporting, but that does not mean IHL can not make a good report on certain issues. The writing style and structure of this report may fall exactly on what propaganda is in your mind, but please don’t undervalue the effort and sincerity of the journalists who made this report.

The report gives many specific figures, for example,
>>the total number of news on China reported by 32 mainstream media of 16 countries in Africa from this June to this July (2006), is 1192. The majority of those reports are either neutral or positive.

Furthermore, some of its advices not only are good for Chinese government, but also may be appropriate to some western governments. Read the last part of the report: China should put off pragmatism. If we change the subject of this sentence, what do you see?

David has made some valuable inputs above. In fact, I found his remarks might help you understand the report better.

Please be patient and complete reading the report, you may find many interesting points.

6P means 6 persons sex.

SB means fool.

Taking this report as example: first of all, that’s a report in Chinese. Nobody knows if the article is to brain wash Chinese readers. If you can see the same article in China Daily in English, it will appear a bit more objective usually. As a thumb of rule of such article, the author should say some praise in the first part of the report. Such praise is unusual in western media, if one report is too positive, the editor will think this report is lack of attraction to readers. This article is well balanced with 4 positive to 4 negative. :-).

In the first positive item, Africans even applaud on Chinese’s political system. What’s a unusual question on one questionare! In African’s point of view, they welcome each new-joiner as investor and buyer, especially the new-joiner has potentially very big appetite, which undoubtly strengthen their own positions.
I personally think the real intention of the author of this report is its second part and fourth part: the negative images and the discrepencies (including their reasons). This is what I mentioned “free speech” in Chinese media. While the sentences of positive images are full of propaganda slogans, the descriptions of negative image are quite concrete and in more detail.

This article is a good example to show the importance of Hibiscus Project. If you think western media has biased opinion on China’s affair in Africa, and you surely don’t want to be brain washed by article above, you may need other channels like Hibiscus.

I found this BBS thread mocking the nationalist exhibition by the Korean athletes:

http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/funinfo/1/928735.shtml

What does P mean as in “only 200 kuai for 6 P?

And what does SB mean as in “SB bangzi”?