Has Western media bias sparked Chinese nationalism?

The campaign against the Western media became a focus point for Chinese discontent, coalescing peoples' frustrations, including concerns over the West's apparent failure to recognize Chinese as victims of Tibetan aggression. This coincided with Beijing's propaganda attack on the integrity of the spiritual leader of Tibet's ethnic minority, the Dalai Lama. Chinese bloggers take offense to suggestions that they are influenced by propaganda, and -- as Rebecca MacKinnon blogged -- suggestions that netizens are brainwashed are not warmly received.

Actually, the question as to what extent propaganda shaped netizens' opinions is beside the point. For all we know, the Wesern media may well exhibit bias concerning China. But how does one go about making this case? That's the question. And therein lies the fundamental problem with the netizens' campaign against the Western media: their disinclination to approach alleged evidence of bias with a critical mindset. If you view the anti-cnn group's evidence with a critical eye, this becomes apparent. For example, I have examined the controversial photo captions, photo cropping, and the Lhasa blogger's statement. I have considered the operational context and timeframe when all this evidence appeared. I have tried to imagine myself in the shoes of Western news media staff. Having looked at the evidence, I found the Chinese netizens' case for Western news media bias to be largely unsubstantiated.

Alarm bells ought to go off in our heads whenever strong claims are made against any person or organization where the claims are not competently attested by the evidence at hand. I wish I could say that this point was central to Chang Ping's (trans) courageous critique of the attack on the Western media, but it was not. Chang Ping, like ESWN blogger, both express disillusionment about where the nationalism now seems to be headed. Yet both blame Western media bias for stirring it up in the first place.

ESWN blogger is right to be concerned that this movement will turn "inwards" (a threat was made against a Chinese blogger). He evokes the specter of a second Cultural Revolution. But in essence, the "outwards" attacks that have targeted the Dalai Lama or Western journalists are not dissimilar. They share a common origin. It is a mindset, not an orientation, from which danger stems; it is your criteria for pulling the trigger, not the direction in which you aim the pistol. The netizens behaved like a herd of blind sheep, few bothering to question the strength of the evidence they were being fed. As I blogged previously:

What cannot be denied is that what appears to have begun as an earnest blogger campaign has morphed into something truly ugly. Chinese websites have spawned "harassment, including violent threats, against foreign reporters who took part in a recent trip to Lhasa" reported the WSJ Monday. Curiously -- and perhaps tellingly -- over the weekend the government of China made no move to censor those posting death threats against Western journalists, despite the requests of foreign press organizations.

Sheep are easily driven by wolves. The Party stands the most to gain should competing sources of information be discredited. The Party is reeping the harvest of the netizens' campaign. At least, that is, in so far as the anti-cnn campaign is "leading people," in Chang Ping's words, "to abandon their trust in objectivity and fairness and hence seek refuse in narrow nationalism" and "draw the conclusion that talk of universal values is deceptive trickery" and perhaps conclude that it is "standard international practice to tell lies."

Moreover, the question begs to be asked: Are there wolves in sheep's clothing?*

A new boundary for Chinese discourse?
The most astute Chinese commentary I have read concerning the present controversy was penned by Shen Yuzhe (translated at ESNW). Yet, even this writer declines to point out the weakness of the evidence underling the anti-CNN group. It almost would appear as if to retain a credible voice in China, you have to accept the claims of the anti-cnn campaign at face value, and subscribe to the now widely-held belief in nefarious Western media bias.

Journalists are human, international news organizations have various biases. Fair-minded criticism -- now as always -- rests on the examination of evidence, not innuendo. People anywhere should expect no less of news media, and the world has the right to expect no less of any group of netizens.*
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* To what extent the netizens' campaign may have been assisted by China's extensive state propaganda and Internet censorship apparatus we can only speculate at this time. For example, a recent article in FEER by David Bandurski (h/t Rconv.) suggests that Beijing's censorship apparatus has become decentralized and more proactive. He describes one program that includes hundreds of paid "volunteers."

Drawing: Clipart.com