Just another German Review of the Chinese Press

This time, they've muzzled you for real

If this is what the Voice of Germany (DW, Deutsche Welle) calls a review of the Chinese press, a review of the booklets “about Germany”, distributed by German consulates among the interested Chinese victims should count as a review of the German press, just as well.

The author of the article “Chinese Press Elated” read all those papers and sources she thinks would matter – the Global Times, for example, which is quoted as saying that all the fears of a cold war were now gone. In the words of the GT itself:

The joint statement signed by the presidents of China and the US, setting out a new cooperative partnership, put to rest any fears that new Cold War might break out between China and the US.

Then, the Welle quotes from Xinhua. Then from  China Daily. All English-speaking papers, as if there wasn’t a Chinese department somewhere in the same building, a few doors away from the Voice’s German department, probably.

The Global Times, ladies and gentlemen there in Bonn, is not the Chinese press. The Chinese press, as a rule, writes in Chinese. English-language papers are an exception in China, not the rule. And they don’t necessarily write the same stuff as those in English do. You should know. After all, you are a house of many different languages yourself.

Oh my. Why am I getting so excited? It’s been a tough day so far, and I should be tired and relaxed instead. After all, it’s breaktime.

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Related
If these reporters actually had to cover the news to get a paycheck…, The Guardian, January 23, 2011

Lee Kuan Yew: Free Trade to counterbalance China

Unfortunately the U.S. Congress is against any new free-trade agreements. If the next Congress continues to oppose FTAs, valuable time will be lost, and it may be too late to try again. Congress must be made to realize how high the stakes are and that the outlook for a balanced and equitable relationship between the American and Chinese markets is becoming increasingly difficult. Every year China attracts more imports and exports from its neighbors than the U.S. does from the region. Without an FTA Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Asean countries will be integrated into China’s economy — an outcome to be avoided.

Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀), Singapore Senior Minister, Forbes, December 20, 2010 – complete article here »

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Related
The Primacy of Politics, June 13, 2010
A Division of Labor that can’t work, February 23, 2010
Credos and Platitudes, September 21, 2009