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Originally Posted by LostInTranslation
Hi Mik,
Probably not the editorials, but plenty of blogs and forum posts in China based media source, some of which I already cited. You get the same information and reasons, nonetheless.
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The reason why I ask is that I feel that a China based media outlet that expressed a pro-Taiwan-independence view would get in a lot of trouble. Do correct me if I'm wrong. Blogs and forum posts are a different matter, as they're more anonymous and harder to control (although search engines can be set to limit accessibility, no?)
There's a big difference in effect between what appears in national media and what appears on a given blog. The blog may have a few thousand readers, the national tv hundreds of millions of views. (And your Fargo Herald in between.)
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I understand your feeling though, that these voices are not the majority. I had similar feeling in the first few weeks after the 3-14 riots. True, you may find some media publishing things in China's favor, but the overwhelming majority of them were focusing on the negative aspects. How's an article published on Fargo Herald (fictional) going to change the overall impression Americans get?
Things turned around a bit lately. I think collectively, oversea Chinese did a decent job of communicating with foreigners. I'd like to think I did a small part myself. I also regret that some Chinese students did terrible things as well.
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I'd say that when the riots first started there was a strong presumption in the West that the Chinese authorities would crack down forcefully, and also a presumption that the rioters represented genuine grieveance amongst ordinary Tibetans. That presumption was based in part on knowledge of previous government crackdowns on public protest, and to some extent encouraged by the lack of independent media reporting from Tibet and the surrounding provinces. I think you could justifiably call that a Western bias, although the CCP has not done its appearance any favours in the past with the way it has acted towards dissidents.
That initial presumption in the western media has since been counteracted to some extent by better information from Tibet and negative stories about the Tibetans. It has been counteracted to some extent by Chinese people explaining errors and providing information. And to some extent, western prejudices have been reinforced by some of the shriller reaction from Chinese nationalists, that reinforces the supposition that dissent will not be tolerated in China. C'est la vie - we all have our embarassing compatriots.