Colonial prestige has not gotten over from the consciousness of the West. Since ancient times, the West has been portraying East following their interests. It is one of the foremost reason why the West always wants to impose and present a picture of the East as per their discourse. Such is the case when it comes to Hong Kong, West led by the US started bombarding China with mass propaganda, knowing the fact that Hong Kong is an autonomous territory despite being part of mainland China.
Piling up all the mud it can the US and its international political entourage are hell bent to characterize recent Hong Kong protests as something grave for the communist party, and it has primarily affected the role of China as a global power.
West is attempting at portraying the Hong-Kong protests as pro-democracy while completely ignoring the sheer display of violent activities by these protesters. The purpose of doing so is to craft an image of global political support to the protestors resulting in an escalated conflict to undermine the global reputation of China consequently. Police responses are exaggerated while portraying the violent role of protesters as clement. However, for conflicts in Chile, Haiti and Ecuador, the West has turned a blind eye, even ignoring the significant numbers of deaths by the respective law enforcing forces. This pick and choose behaviour of reporting the conflicts of choice speaks volume of bias in western media. This bias is particularly visible for China, as Kashmir too is situated in the East but is often ignored rather negligibly mentioned in western media. Had it been against the so-called “oppressive regimes”, an equal amount of coverage should have been provided to all such conflicts and protests throughout the globe.
The coverage is also biased in terms of the issues highlighted. According to the Chinese media consider the Hong-Kong protests as a consequence of economic policies of deprivations faced by the locals when compared with mainland China. However, western media is narrating it as a political issue, particularly against the communist party. The West is not only propagating false propaganda but also causing distortion in the society.
Britain who cannot get over with colonial prestige and consider Whiteman’s rule as divine. One the other hand one can only feel pity while considering civil liberties in the country
This distorting narratives are part of bigger global gaffing against Beijing. In order to nullify the efforts which China has done globally amid corona virus the western media is diligently sowing the seed of distortion and portray all efforts of China as some bigger diabolic plan. On the other side of the aisle, the United States withdrew from WHO, that too in dire time of need. Not only this, Britain is directly infringing into this matter, Australia is also following the footprint and offered same Visa offering to Hong Kongers. India, despite its meagre status as compared to China also trying hard to side with the West on backing of its Big Brother is diplomatically endeavoring against China on Hong Kong Issue.
One can easily breakdown how much these countries care about civil liberties, racism has constantly been a problem of West and still is which caused mass protests in West including USA. The history is filled with the war crimes done by not only USA but Britain as well. Moreover, Britain who cannot get over with colonial prestige and consider Whiteman’s rule as divine. One the other hand one can only feel pity while considering civil liberties in the country.
Yet still west is fixated on its constant barraging of China, which is bringing his house in order. It is indeed high time that Eastern discourse shall also be brought to light rather constructing consciousness on the programmed biased western narrative. In order to that there shall be proper questioning in order to scrutinize what is being proliferated through media channels whether print or electronic rather considering it as divine script with nothing but the truths.
Why Hong Kong? The answer is simple, cultivate the minds of those through mass media where Chinese investment is being done in a manner that those countries start correlating their future with the Hong Kong.
It is indeed true that there is a turbulence in Hong Kong, Nevertheless establishing a front and launching an offensive against China on the basis of these mostly forged narratives is also unfair and totally against journalism ethics. it is also true that whenever media becomes political stooge it advances the foreign policies of particular country or group of countries.
The writer is the Founder & Executive Director of Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution (IICR), and member visiting faculty Dept. of Peace & Conflict Studies, NUML