From JR’s Mailbox (Sent): the Ungrateful Foreign Press

As for the press reactions to Melissa Chan’s “departure” from Beijing, I think that asking questions at press conferences (as quoted on rectified.name) and broadly covering it isn’t a bad thing, but to express surprise about it isn’t clever. You can only be so angry if you forget which country you are reporting from. What is left out is that China is a totalitarian country with a leninist political system. The Chinese media, including obvious mouthpieces like Huanqiu/Global Times are aware of this – hence their surprise that this system isn’t considered “lenient” by its foreign guests. The foreign guests do not want to be reminded of what kind of system it is, because this would pose too many questions about the way we are interacting with China, and [the way we keep] strengthening its economic and technological foundations on a day-to-day basis.

Tags: accountability, Arabia, business, censorship, China, communication, Communist Party of China, image, international, journalism, media, totalitarianism