A response to readers' comments

My column in last week's issue of this newspaper triggered an intense response from readers, who posted their comments online. My sincere thanks go to them all, whether proponents or opponents, whose remarks enlightened me in different ways and on different levels.

Though I generally do not give my feedback to readers' comments, online or in print, I would like to go deeper into the topic of my last column with regard to some of my critics' points of view.

The critics' repudiation of my accusation of Western media's bias against China focused on three points: first, the media's role is not to applaud a government but to keep a watchful eye on it; second, Western media do not have the obligation to manage China's image abroad; third, the Chinese media is biased itself for it "only reports bad news from abroad".

Right, media need to monitor the government rather than praise it. But this seems irrelevant to my argument, which concerns the Western media's portrayal of China rather the Chinese government.

Again, it is right that the Western media are not responsible "to manage China's image abroad". However, I did not say that. All I said was that the Western media had been tarnishing China's image before the world by focusing only on the negative aspects of the country.

Actually this controversy touches on a question that seems to have been ignored so far. The question is: What do the Western media come to China for?

My understanding is that a media organization send their journalists to another country to report whatever they see there so that their compatriots at home will get the right information about that country. For instance, social, political, economic and geographical conditions; the culture and customs; the people's livelihood; the potential for external investment and cooperation, and so on. In all, facts, both positive and negative.

Faithful reports about a foreign country's real, all-inclusive status quo is beneficial for exchanges between peoples of that country and the media's home country. Focusing only on the negative aspects of the country a foreign reporter stays in while saying nothing about the positive things is not only unfair to that country but is also cheating his/her compatriots at home.

Now, the third question in the controversy: Do the Chinese media "only reports bad news from abroad"? The person who wrote that comment challenged me to "do a quick calculation" about the Chinese media's stories on foreign countries about how many are positive and how many are negative.

This really embarrasses me for I never am good at "quick calculations". I can only speak from my general impression of Chinese media's reports on Western countries and can definitely state that the accusation is absolutely wrong.

Since China began opening itself to the outside world, a huge number of people have been to Western countries. After returning home, many wrote articles about their impressions of the countries and most of them were full of praise of the people's civilized manners, the clean environment and high efficiency in economic operations.

My wife once worked in Sydney as a correspondent for a Chinese media organization. She wrote a lot of stories about Australia. Most were "positive" reports. I have visited a number of Western countries but have seldom written stories about them. Of the few stories I have written - about four or five - none was negative. Two of them were actually "praising" Australia and the United States, for I criticized the uncivilized manners of some Chinese tourists in comparison with the people of those two countries.

Of course, my wife and I did not write "positive" stories to "manage the image" of the two Western countries. We wrote them to help our compatriots learn from the finer points of the Western world.

Finally, as for whether the Western media distort the truth. Need I say any more? The recent coverage of the riots in Tibet is the most forceful evidence to support my allegation. Now the whole world has seen that.