Chinese state media and nationalist netizens accused Western media of deliberately darkening China’s image by dimming footage of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's recent visit to Beijing. However, VOA Mandarin found the same gloomy tones in coverage published by China’s official media outlets.
A collage started circulating on China's social media shortly after Blinken's arrival early Sunday. It compares three photos from the scene. The first was taken at a distance from Blinken's plane, showing a blue sky over Beijing with green trees in the distance. The second and third images were screenshots from video by BBC and The Washington Post showing Blinken descending from the jet with sky in the background that looks darker than that in the first photo.
Some nationalist netizens reposted the collage, saying it offered evidence of Western media bias.
"When Blinken visited China yesterday, the weather in Beijing was fine. As a result, the BBC's footage shows a gray sky, and Blinken looks like a black man in The Washington Post's shot," posted the blogger "Former HR at HW" on Weibo.
The post, which referred to "the underworld filter of the Western media," went on to say that western media "do whatever they can to use small tricks to spread rumors to vilify and slander China."
The post received thousands of likes.
China’s state-owned Global Times tweeted,
"The Western media's usual grayish ‘underworld filter’ on China has been applied to Blinken's China visit. With colored glasses, they tend to perceive everything as gray."
However, Chinese state media CGTN used the same footage in its news broadcast. In CGTN’s YouTube video, the tone of the image of Blinken getting off the plane is almost the same as that in The Washington Post.
Phil Cunningham, China state media watcher, told VOA Mandarin that "China's state-affiliated media, while still rather clumsy, is increasingly conversant in the kind of news analysis that goes on in U.S. journalism seminars, with talk of narrative frames, memes, AI, photo manipulation, meta-narratives, etc."
"They don't necessary get it right," he said, "but in imitating Western critiques of China they inadvertently reveal A) hidden admiration B) Western critiques really bug them."
The BBC Chinese service refuted the netizens’ accusation on Twitter, pointing out that CGTN used the same footage.
"They don't necessary get it right," he said, "but in imitating Western critiques of China they inadvertently reveal A) hidden admiration B) Western critiques really bug them."
The BBC Chinese service refuted the netizens’ accusation on Twitter, pointing out that CGTN used the same footage.
VOA Mandarin found that the Chinese news outlet, The Paper, which criticized the tone of the clips released by the BBC and The Washington Post, also used the same dark footage in its own coverage.
