I am determined to battle through writer's bloc and put up a post today. Yesterday I tried to write about the Guangxi crocodile attack, but it's difficult to draw many conclusions from such a horrible story. Instead I'll write about the Chinese media's propensity to talk up all kinds of China threat theories, most of which are completely unknown to the average person. This lack of street cred still doesn't stop Chinese 'journos' from accusing their foreign counterparts of concocting a chaozuo, which is a Chinese word that can be roughly described as sensationalism. During today's post, I have one important question to ask - who are the creators of the China threat theory chaozuo?
To find an answer to the above question, I will use the recent article 'Navy Commodore refutes carrier threat theory' as a case study. The article is based on an interview that a Chinese Navy official recently gave to CCTV. The host Li Xiaoming asked Commodore Li Jie which foreign estimate of China's plan to build an aircraft carrier was most laughable. Commodore Li quickly replied that the most laughable were reports that China has built a concrete model of the Nimitz class aircraft carrier in a lake near Shanghai . If reports of this concrete model are part of the carrier threat theory, then foreigners must be worried about its existence. However, people don't really seem to care about it because a quick search on Google shows that English-language reports on the model are limited.
So where did this laughable report come from? The first line of an article by Mil.Longhu.Net attributes the concrete model story to Kanwa Defence Review, a Canadian-based magazine. On its website, Kanwa describes itself as a non-government run news agency that publishes in English, Chinese and Japanese. This magazine is often used as a source by military-related Chinese media. Kanwa is unknown outside military circles and is certainly far less respected than Jane's Defence Weekly, which is also widely quoted by the Chinese media. Kanwa's lack of standing makes it difficult to understand how the Chinese media can use a Kanwa article to accuse the foreign media of concocting the China carrier threat theory.
Commodore Li also described claims by the Vice President of the National Assessment and Strategic Centre as laughable. The Vice President, Rick Fisher, claimed that China will have built four large aircraft carriers by 2016. However, just because the Western media has been reporting on Fisher's claims, doesn't mean that the media has swallowed them hook, line and sinker. In fact, the International Herald Tribune made reference to the unsubstantiated speculation over China's two previous carrier purchases.
The interview with Commodore Li contained a sting in the tail, which is the key to figuring out who this chaozuo belongs to. Li begins to talk about how aircraft carriers represent national power, using Iran's recent kidnapping of British sailors as an example: 'After Iran apprehended 15 British sailors, the US sent two carriers, which was later strengthened to three. The US deployed aircraft carriers to carry out coercion'.
Chinese media reports often talk about the symbolism of aircraft carriers and their ability to aid diplomacy. I think accusations of sensationalism in the Chinese media are actually a smokescreen used to conceal the fact that the Chinese media knows less about the PLA than its foreign counterparts. The interview with Commodore Li was not about refuting foreign sensationalism, but it was actually about China seeing aircraft carriers as an important symbol of national strength. A similar thing happened when The Washington Post reported on claims that a Chinese submarine had been 'stalking' a US aircraft carrier. The Chinese media accused their Western counterparts of sensationalism, but the article was probably seen as a morale booster. There is no other explanation why the Chinese media would translate word for word an article that it officially disagrees with. Exaggarating foreign reports is a politically correct way for the Chinese media to fill its pages with some interesting material, while also conveying the image that the PLA is on the move. | 