No doubt many of us on HH have been paying attention to the Egypt news. But what caught my eyes recently is a slew of news reports accusing China of censoring the Egypt news (Time, WSJ, and Wired).

However, when I (and other bilingual readers) searched for news on Egypt in China – we discover it is not censored. Baidu, Tudou, Sina, CCTV all are carrying this story. Here’re some netter comments:

[Time] Jim: What rubbish. I live and work in China – am from America – and read about this every day ! The continued demonization of China is pathetic but worse filled with hyperbole and lies like this posting by a supplosedly legitimate news source. What crap.



[WSJ] Lei Chen: Ugh, I just saw Egypt protests being reported on Chinese TV (Shanghai DongFang TV, which broadcasts nationally in China) at noon, Beijing time, 1/31/2011. It was in two segments, one reporting about arranged flights for Chinese nationals out of Egypt, and second segment covered the actual protest (Tahrir square, Mohamed ElBaradei, tanks and aircraft, Mubarak meeting, etc…) The reporting is not anything unlike what you would see on BBC or CNN. [Wired] omeiemo: Do you really understand chinese, if donot, please go to learn it first and then google chinese website about “埃及”, chinese word for egypt, we have lots day reports about event in egypt. what we concern is just about the stability in that region, we also have business man or students in egypt, their safety is we really worry about, nothing more. why should chinese people feel nerves like some american people?

Below are search results on Baidu.com on “埃及” on February 2, 2011 with many results to news regarding the ongoing Egypt riot.



The bigger question is why does the Western media like TIME and WSJ pull silly stunts such as this? The answer is simple, actually. There is an on-going narrative in the West that the Chinese government is bad and fearful of “democracy.” There is an on-going truth about the general Western audience; they are too ignorant and incompetent to understand anything in the Chinese language. Propagating this silly narrative makes their readership feel “good” about themselves thinking they don’t live under such a “crazy” society.

Hence I have decided to provide the Baidu.com search results above, because the ignorant requires spoon-feeding.

And, damn, the misfortunes of the Egyptians get turned into a stab against the Chinese. Now, that’s skillful propaganda.