The best way to secure the newspaper circulation in America is to showcase news about China on the front page, according to a powerful American media owner. As a Chinese person, I am supposed to feel overjoyed hearing this and appreciate him for his recognition of China’s importance. But instead I frowned and shook my head, wondering at the connotations of his statement.
The statement sounds plausible to a certain extent when you open the newspapers and examine the news websites. “China” is the first or second top search term according to the “most popular search” in The New York Times in the last 24 hours, the last seven days and the last 30 days. With such a high demand, what else can a media group do but run after the profit that follows the demand?
The Wall Street Journal, in its October 18th and 19th edition, reported Chinese news on its front page consecutively. China, as described by The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, The New York Times and by many other American media sources, is a country where currency is controlled, the export of rare earth is regulated and demonstrations explode everywhere against Japan due to territorial conflict, where Xi Jinping is in prospect to be the next President who has no personal political ideas, and where people are taking American jobs.
The “China” described up above is slow and irrational. China has become a “rogue economic power,” as Paul Krugman criticized. The only positive side, if there is one, is the indirect hinting that China is economically rising and the rise is causing fear and attacks from outside China. It resonates with the traditional Chinese saying “Shu Da Zhao Feng” which means “The higher you go up, the more rivalry you will face.”
Since globalization 2.0, the second phase of globalization as defined by Thomas Friedman in his book “The World is Flat,” corporations have become an extraordinarily important role in international affairs. The cheap labor force, the huge consumption market and the low environmental standards have made China alluring for enormous American corporations. However, China’s unique political and social system determines that corporations must administer under Chinese laws and rules. With the deepening of globalization, conflicts between American corporations and Chinese rules are increasing inevitably.
Concerning the media atmosphere in America, where almost 90 percent of the media is controlled by six massive corporations including the Walt Disney and New Corporation, American consensus is apt to be regulated by these corporations. Once Chinese policy goes against the interest groups’ desires, the news coverage of China will never be objective.
Besides reflecting their requests through media coverage, the corporations are at the same time seeking the government’s support for a change in China to meet their benefits through donations to the political campaigns. News Corporation just donated 1 million dollars to the Republican Governors Association this month. Democrats and Republicans denounced each other in advertisements for exporting U.S. jobs to China and have made China a scapegoat for the still high domestic unemployment rate.
Therefore, the powerful media owner mentioned above is right; he is not being derisive and there is no connotation in his statement. The Sinophobia created via news coverage by him and his colleagues together with the politicians not only saves the circulations of newspapers, but also, because of the considerable audience, blinds people’s awareness of domestic problems.
And furthermore, people receiving these news pieces start to believe that they live in a better place: America. That the U.S. has a better system that China should adopt, and that Americans should support his/her favorite candidate because he/she is right about asking for a change in China.
Ultimately we forget to step back and discover how our beliefs are molded by the corporations and the government.
