IN the BBC’s continuing China series, the latest story is titled Domestic tourism soars in China but foreigners stay away.
So are foreigners really staying away? And if so, why are they staying away?
Early in the story, we are told that most individuals in Western nations hold unfavourable views towards China.
Furthermore, the report postulates that the Chinese government’s tightening grip on societal regulations could potentially cause discomfort for foreign travellers in China.
However, nowhere in the article is there any evidence provided of foreign travellers being worried about or discomforted by this allegation of “tightening grip”.
In fact, the latest statistical data shows that since the recent easing of travel restrictions in China, foreign travellers are returning in large numbers - a development which Western media, with its grip on information and opinions about China, would prefer not to see happen.
That the article may have an ulterior motive is clear from its spin and the great lengths it goes to inform that foreign travellers are turned off by the country’s state-of-the-art phone app payment and booking system.
Quoting an expatriate on the economics of tourism in China, the article relates:
“Technologies such as social network websites, online maps and payment apps, among others, which foreigners have long been accustomed to using, are either unavailable or inaccessible when they travel to China.
“On the other hand, there are Chinese alternatives to these technologies that remain inaccessible to foreigners due to language barriers and differences in user habits.”
The reporter has added the observation that an Italian couple found the process of using China’s payment apps a challenge and informed that it is “much, much, much easier” if you have a Chinese friend to help you.
Any discerning reader will be wondering whether the unnamed informant exists and whether the triple “much” has been inserted to sex up the storyline to make it appear insurmountable for foreigners to travel in China.
Perhaps the reporter has not been embellishing the story but has been talking to the wrong people.
However, a quick visit to the numerous YouTube and TikTok videos put out by foreign vloggers travelling in China reveals a reality that contradicts the allegations of foreign travellers being put off by China’s social regulations and government, and by China’s homegrown apps.
It is not only the videos running into many viewing hours that depict a safe nation with largely happy and contented people throughout all the provinces of the country.
This includes Xinjiang where the BBC has been a main channel for the falsehoods and duplicity concerning the alleged genocide inflicted upon the Uyghur community and the slanders about the “pervasive” prison camps, detention centres, and absence of civil liberties and human rights.
Meanwhile, the US, in its latest State Department human rights report, continues to condemn the so-called “genocide” in Xinjiang while ignoring the ongoing genocide in Gaza by Israel.
It is also the comments from the multitude of commentators in the unfiltered and uncensored China exchange in social media – some are visitors from past and more recent trips – which provide strongly opposite views to the propaganda cranked out by Western media on China.
The commentators contrast what is taking place in their own countries with what they have discovered in China.
Many write to lament how they have lost faith in their own leaders and societal development and how impressed they are with developments in China.
These comments typify much of the feedback from recent travellers to China.
I visited China last year to see if they are collapsing in the last 20 years, they are still moving along nicely.
Beautiful infrastructure, amazing landscapes, transport efficiency, people are rich, high tech, all the cars on the road are brand new, high-end vehicles. Seeing is believing.
Fear is the only reason the US wanted to contain China. When tariffs failed, technology sanctions followed.
When both tariffs and sanctions failed, de-coupling became the buzzword.
And when de-coupling was found to hurt the US economy more than China’s, it was changed to de-risking, which in effect means a “slow de-coupling” until a more appropriate time.
And now, fear has invaded European minds and the Europeans want to adopt the American low-life tactics.
This doesn’t even make any sense, according to Western or at least Canadian media, the Chinese people live in labour camps or sweatshops and eat worms for food.
A fuller understanding of how foreign visitors are responding to their travel in China is better obtained from viewing this selection randomly selected from the YouTube video posts on travellers in China
To its credit, the BBC article has identified one important reason for the slow return of foreign travellers to China though it failed to discuss this more.
Thus it noted, Washington warns potential travellers to “reconsider travel to Mainland China due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans, and the risk of wrongful detentions”.
Australia advises “a high degree of caution” warning that “Australians may be at risk of arbitrary detention or harsh enforcement of local laws, including broadly defined National Security Laws”.
Why even the better BBC reporters engage in slanted writing and why we cannot expect fair reporting from western media organisations has been identified succinctly by a recent commentator in an article subtitled, “Why are China hawks exaggerating the threat from Beijing”.
Over the past few years, the Pundit Industrial Complex has gone into high gear on China.
A new generation of scholarly, governmental and journalistic reputations is being built on the idea that the US has entered a new cold war, with China in the role of the Soviet Union and a reduced Russia as its eager helpmate.
Scores of books and articles are being sold, weapons systems developed, including the US’ first new nuclear warheads in decades, promotions and tenure awarded, and so forth.
The next anti-China target for the BBC is likely to be the Paris Olympics, especially when China’s competitors perform well.
Unfortunately, many non-Western media organisations are still dependent on Western media agencies for their foreign news coverage.
How to fight this neo-colonialism tendency in global news coverage should be the concern of the public as well as of every media organisation in the world.
Lim Teck Ghee’s Another Take is aimed at demystifying social orthodoxy. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
