The Chinese Communist Party is attempting to spread its propaganda around the world.
China Watch, a paid-for supplement that has appeared in several newspapers internationally, is just one more delivery system for China’s false narrative. It is a digest of reports from China Daily, an English-language propaganda mouthpiece of the CCP.
According to China Watch:
- There have been no flaws and no repression during the Chinese Communist Party’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the CCP’s response has been brilliant.
- Tibetans do not live under a system of state control and surveillance. Rather, they have enjoyed decades of development and democratic reform.
- Some two million Uyghurs are not being held in concentration camps. Instead, these prisons are just training centres that offer “hope.”
Why are reputable international newspapers hosting this propaganda?
The content in these supplements is nothing less than a deliberate attempt by the CCP to promote itself to an international audience, and deflect attention from its human rights abuses.
The LA Times
While many newspapers have now stopped publishing these China Watch supplements, the LA Times continues to do so.
Between May-October 2020, the LA Times received $340,000 from China Daily to host these China Watch supplements. Throughout this 4-month period, the LA Times was the single largest recipient of China Daily advertisement funds across the entire USA.
A “Tibet Special” China Watch supplement was published in January 2023 issues of the LA Times. The piece boasts about the “new possibilities” that relocation will bring to Tibetan nomads, complete with photographs of Tibetan children dancing and smiling. However, behind this happy facade, millions of nomads have been forced off their pastures and into urban settlements where they live under close surveillance, while their land has been seized for resource extraction.
Since we first launched this campaign in April 2020, The Telegraph, Economist, Wall Street Journal, Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, and the Australian Financial Review have all stopped publishing paid-for Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
It’s time for the LA Times to follow suit.
