Propaganda media piece from the UK against China.

expatter

It is not very often you get a real tasty piece of western media biased propaganda that they use on their audience to keep them dumb.  This piece was presented as a ‘fait accompli’ argument against China, but what a beauty. Does the western media distort the news. Follow me on this one and you be the judge. My comments will be placed inside these brackets:  <………....>

I will present an article from the UK’s Daily Telegraph which is supposed to be slightly middle-class.
Written by: By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai.  Published: 10:58AM GMT 09 Feb 2010

<The title tells us:> “Chinese police admit enormous number of spies”

<But on reading the article it is not about spies it is about informers. These are two totally different words in English. The writer uses the word spies to make the reader think something sinister is going on. The writer also uses the word ‘admits’ and this is rather like confesses. So something sinister is being confessed. Maybe even secretly. So the stage is set now for the following secret action.>

<The secret confession.>

“A Chinese police chief has said he uses more than 12,000 spies to inform on a remote county of just 400,000 people, an admission that lays bare the enormous scale of China's surveillance network.”

<The title is now echoed in the opening paragraph and there is a picture below this of a serious faced policeman in front of a large picture of Mao.>

<Picture caption:> “Experts said the number of spies in China's major cities was likely to be far higher Photo: AP”

<Notice the change in the language again, “Experts said”, and this now implies a group of people rather than just the police chief, so the number of condemners has now increased.>

<The article continues:>

Liu Xingchen, the 56-year-old assistant to the head of Kailu County, a farming region in Inner Mongolia, said his vast network of informants meant he could be "very sensitive" to any signs of dissent and protest. In an interview with Xinhua, the government-run news agency, Mr Liu described how he was able to --"quickly and accurately discover all sorts of information that might destabilise society".

"Every policeman and auxiliary policeman, no matter their division or particular police station, has to establish at least 20 informants in their community, village, work unit and so on”. Altogether, these add up to 10,000 spies.
<Notice how Liu uses the word informants and the article writer tacks on, “up to 10,000 spies” at the end of this paragraph to reinforce the nature of this evil.

"Then the actual criminal units, the economic crimes unit, the Domestic Security Department, the Public Information Security Supervision and so on will establish a further five 'eyes and ears'.

"At the latest count, our bureau has established 12,093 informants," he said.

Mr Liu also said that the bureau had "evolved" from being passive guardians of the law to active ones. "We have gone from punishing people after the crime to resolving the problem before it happens," he said.

<So the police chief is talking about passive policing changing to early crime prevention. But isn’t that a good thing?>

Experts said the number of spies in China's major cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, and in more restive regions, such as Tibet and Xinjiang, was likely to be far higher. The number of spies in Kailu County, extrapolated nationwide, suggests China has at least 39 million informants, around three per cent of its population. By comparison, around 2.5 per cent of East Germans spied for the Stasi secret police under Communism.

<This paragraph is a beauty. The reintroduction of the “experts” and the use of the word spies and informants mixed together. Then the blockbuster and comparison to the well known brutal East German Stasi Secret Police spy service. China is now the same as this feared police state and even has more brutal spies than East Germany had.  Question: Why did the writer suddenly bring in this unrelated information?>

It is unclear whether all the informants in Kailu County were kept on the government payroll, but other Chinese cities have adopted a rewards system. More than 200,000 yuan (£18,730) was awarded in a single month in the southern city of Shenzhen to informants who offered 2,000 tips on criminal activity.

<The writer tries to imply that the government may be employing all the informants and although it cannot establish it the implication is there. Then it introduces a rewards system and implies a nefarious system qualified by the amount paid out. But everyone uses a rewards system for catching criminals, especially the west.>
  
Meanwhile, researchers at China Digital Times have translated leaked internal documents that spell out the role of China's Domestic Security Department (DSD), the huge security operation that is dedicated to "preserving public harmony".

<Leaked translated documents. Why would they need to be leaked if the police chief is openly content to explain the process in detail? Perhaps, the idea here is more secrets and conspiracies.>

The DSD keeps watch over anyone with "distinct views in the economic, cultural and political domain" who "possess different views from the authorities and insist on expressing them".

"We should persist in putting punishment first; strike and take care of things early," the documents state.

< So, just the same again as already stated, early crime prevention, but made ominous again with the expression, “the (leaked) document states.”>

<What is the purpose of this news article? Well it is obvious.

It is so that the average worker in the UK will discuss the idea that China has a huge spy network, bigger than the evil brutal Stasi, to watch and control the people of China, and is an evil an repressive country.

It is a very clear example of a negative and completely biased media.  A media which exalts the western ideals of war and death in the name of freedom and democracy and demonizes China for having a police force that looks at early crime prevention.

How can you beat that cynical and twisted mentality which actually uses this despicable rubbish to manipulate its own population?

Totally shameful and so obvious.>

greendragon

They meant the SHAOLIN!

ha ha ha

The Police everywhere has relied on the "reformed" or underclass trades!
Although "underclass trades" are not exactly poor nowadays....
only they do need "people of certain mentality"......

ha ha ha


Green DRagon
Game Master

pssst - The British in Hong Kong, the Riau Police force, does much the same.......ha ha ha

greendragon

propaganda habits are hard to change, whether British, American or Chinese!

ha ha ha


Green DRagon
Game Master

expatter

Ahh, now I know why you posted the other thread in the 'freedom' thread.

Clique and traitors are the words you refer to.



Same answer as the other thread.

We actually do expect more from organizations who state and claim there are honest and lack bias.

Claiming that some old grandmother is the same as a Stasi Spy is a bit more than artistic licence.

expatter

I can claim 'hand on heart', as yet, I have never had a brush with the law in China.

To the contrary, I have always been treated very well in all situations.

I make a point of having my picture taken with some of these guys and military if they are on guard.

One time I got stopped driving in a congested Nanjing Street by a policeman and he took my licence to his motorbike, I took a picture of him and he quickly gave me back my licence and told me to go.

That's it.

expatter

Good story.

The officials stopped you and accused you of being a spy.

You informed them that you were not a spy.

Your status went from one of spy to informer and you were released


You must have been very glad to get away.

At least the Chinese know the difference between those two words.

thepeop

I agree with some of this- the tone of the article definitely biases it- but...

On the East Germany comparison- which countries officially establish large networks of 'informants', recruited from among ordinary citizens, for public security?  I don't think the UK does- in fact, to me it seems like something that would characterise undemocratic states, because too many people in 'open societies' would reject the implication of constant police surveillance.  East Germany might be a valid point for comparison.

On the 'leaked documents': why do you doubt they were secret and then leaked?  You seem to assume that the contents are the same as the xinhua report, but they sound different- the documents are specifically talking about monitoring and 'taking care of' dissidents- they target thoughtcrime.