The New China Story Amsterdam, Feb. 18th 2021 “Making the Foreign Serve China” was one of Chairman Mao’s favoured strategies, as epitomised by his decision to grant access in the 1930s to the American journalist Edgar Snow. The resulting book, Red Star Over China, was instrumental in winning western sympathy for the Communists, whom it…
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The New China Story Amsterdam, Feb. 18th 2021– But foreign journalists working at Xinhua, the state-run news agency, see their stories reaching much larger audiences. Government subsidies cover around 40% of Xinhua’s costs, and it generates income – like other news agencies, such as the Associated Press – by selling stories to newspapers around the…
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The New China Story Amsterdam, Feb. 18th 2021 — At the same time, Beijing is also seeking to shift the global center of gravity eastwards, propagating the idea of a new world order with a resurgent China at its center. Of course, influence campaigns are nothing new; the US and the UK, among others, have…
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The China Story Amsterdam– Feb. 18th 2021 The very beginning is, when Sidney Rittenberg, The Man who stayed Behind, receives me in his home near Seattle, in the State of Washington in the U.S. He was living in China as a US Army renegade and deserter ending up to be Chairmans Mao’s trusted American. But…
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The Boys from Beijing Kindergartens, handicrafts markets, high-tech companies, hydroelectric dams … political indoctrination camps? These are some of the sights international journalists are whisked around when they take part in all-expenses paid tours to China. The motive of these invitations is, in the mantra of Chinese president Xi Jinping, to “tell a good China…
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Perhaps you’d like to take some time to read and refuel on geo-political issues, [in other words] the relationships in the world. If so, allow me to introduce Peter Frankopan’s “The New Silk Roads”. I’d strongly recommend however to put on your seat belts and check your air bags. Reading that book I felt as if I was being blown off my seat…
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