At long last, the New York Times performed a little pushback against the China Communist Party's coronavirus propaganda, which the Times itself has all too often swallowed whole.

News columnist Li Yuan took a personal tone in Thursday’s “China Builds Culture of Hate With Selective Coverage of the Pandemic.”

As a bonus, she highlighted how China has made Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, a stooge for the regime.

Trevor Noah, the host of “The Daily Show,” has won praise on the Chinese internet for his searing criticism of the Trump administration’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.... China’s response to the virus has its own sharp-eyed critics at home, and they have found a vastly different reception. One resident of the virus-struck city of Wuhan who writes under the name Fang Fang documented despair, misery and everyday life in an online diary, and has endured withering attacks on social media....

The free West even got a rare acknowledgement (even during the Trump regime!):

Using the West’s transparency and free flow of information, state media outlets chronicled how badly others have managed the crisis. Their message: Those countries should copy China’s model. For good measure, the propaganda machine revved up its attacks on anybody who dared to question the government’s handling of the pandemic. .... These tactics aren’t new. Many Chinese children of my generation read a newspaper column for students called “Socialism Is Good. Capitalism Is Bad.” Each week, it described the wonders of China alongside the hardships of capitalist societies....

(Sounds like a typical edition of the New York Times, actually.)

Even if the stories were true, they didn’t represent the full picture. Chinese children like me pitied Americans even when almost all of China lived in poverty. How much would we have envied them if we had known that most could eat meat whenever they liked? ....The Chinese official media and online commenters loved Mr. Noah even more after Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, said on his show that the ebbing of cases in China was “very good news.”....

Also on Thursday, Edward Wong, Matthew Rosenberg, and Julian Barnes reported how China was seeding conspiracies in the United States through text messaging: “Chinese Operatives Helped Sow Panic in U.S., Officials Say.”

After dutifully criticizing Trump and Republicans for “bashing China,” the paper finally admitted:

But it has been clear for more than a month that the Chinese government is pushing disinformation and anti-American conspiracy theories related to the pandemic. Mr. Zhao, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, wrote on Twitter in March that the U.S. Army might have taken the virus to the Chinese city of Wuhan....

Just a few days ago, China was Trump’s “scapegoat” on the front page of the paper, a blameless cover for his own failings. Damien Cave forwarded regime propaganda under the headline “World Feared China Over Coronavirus. Now the Tables Are Turned.”

And a nytimes.com update from April 15 even quoted conspiracy-mongering Zhao himself, condemning the Trump administration for withdrawing W.H.O. funding.