We Say - 1
We Say
The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat has been asked to select 14 Pacific Islands journalists to be the Chinese Government’s guests in China in September. The purpose of the trip is obvious. For it own reasons, China is diligent in its efforts to make friends in the Pacific Islands and to establish an influential presence in the region.
One standard tactic is to influence journalists to view China favourably as a friendly source of aid, development expertise, investment and a market for what is a depressingly limited range of Pacific Islands products.
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In this, China is no different from the Australians and New Zealanders, who obviously have a close interest in what happens in the region, or the Japanese, the European Union and, to the chagrin of Beijing,Taiwan.
Most of the region’s journalists are to a degree targets for brain washing by foreign governments that for one reason or another wish to cultivate a positive image in the region.
It would be a naïve or gullible journalist who didn’t realise that and, having done so, failed to make balancing adjustments in writing about the countries they visit as official guests.
Australians and New Zealanders, and other countries where democracy reigns, are prepared to stand up for examination warts and all.
Can that be said of China? Past experience shows that the 14 guests will trail around according to a rigid programme; the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, a silk worm factory or two, and a happy workers’ co-operative.
The trip will be tailored to give them a minimum, if any, of freedom in their quest to discover what China is really like.
The China that China wants to be observed is the unblemished paradise depicted in the hours of propaganda from the government network, CCTV, that in Fiji the local television service, in keeping profits up by keeping local programme costs down, has unblushingly filled a considerable portion of its daily service with.
Fortunately, there is still a long way to September, which leaves plenty of time for background reading by aspirants to Beijing.
True, China is changing fractionally for the better in some places. But research will show that China is still the world’s most secretive, undemocratic, corrupt and oppressive dictatorship. If Mr Bush was really serious about regime change, shouldn’t he begin there?
Hundreds of millions of China’s people live in the most abject, squalid poverty as slaves of a system in which a small band of self-perpetuating elite cloak their true identity as latter day emperors with the ties and suits of prosperous Western capitalists.
Two-thirds of China’s nearly 1200 million people live in rural areas. They are doomed to rot there since despite massive economic reforms, China’s towns can’t absorb the millions of unemployed already present in them.
China’s regime ruthlessly suppresses dissent. It is progressively erasing freedom in Hong Kong. In Tibet and the Muslim-dominated east regions of the colonial parts of its domain, it persecutes, jails and executes rebels against its rule.
There is mounting unrest in China’s rural and urban areas that is becoming harder to keep the lid on.
Visitors to Beijing, Shanghai and other show cities can’t help but be impressed by the show of sophistication, glamour, glitter, growth and wealth flaunted for their inspection.
Behind this facade China’s leaders grope with a despairingly awesome array of alarming economic, political and social issues.
The magnitude of these are so great that in the view of numerous informed commentators, China’s Communist empire could well one day unravel and shatter just as Russia’s did.
When they reach Beijing in September to be taken firmly by the hand, the visitors will be well equipped if they arrive with a few useful facts to bear in mind, such as these.
