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Media Manipulation: A lesson in what is left out of a news story in China

« H E News and Politics :: Sino-American :: News and Perspectives :: email
posted Sunday, 2 March 2008

As a blogger whose locked horns with Mainlander, Overseas Chinese and foreigners on many an occasion, ACB often has to explain something which at first seems simple, but then shows itself to be more complex. This being they nature of the Chinese media (and its education system) and its impact on the population at large.

To put things simply, while the media and education system in China does keep Mainlander informed on many topics, it also often leaves out strategic bits of information. Information which, by its exclusion, lead Mainlanders to develop certain views and opinions that are at odds with the rest of the world, and to be (for what of a better word) ignorant of the true nature of certain things.

Here's a good example. The same news story covered by two different news agencies. See if you can spot the differences.

From the website of the China Daily, a state controlled news group.

US, China to cooperate on finding lost soldiers, by Zhang Haizhou

China said yesterday it would continue offering assistance to the United States in the ongoing search for remains of missing Korean War servicemen.

"China and the US always keep good cooperation on this issue," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular briefing.

"We have kept assisting the US to search the remains of its missing soldiers on domestic soil in the spirit of humanitarianism for years."

In a concerted bid to find lost soldiers, China and the US reached consensus on archival cooperation when China's vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission traveled to the US in 2006 and when US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited China last November.

"Relevant departments of both sides were consulting on concrete issues of launching such cooperation," Liu added.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that China had agreed to a long-standing request for access to sensitive military records which US officials believe might resolve the fate of thousands of American servicemen missing from the Korean War and other Cold War-era conflicts.

The US consulate in Shanghai is scheduled to announce the arrangement today.

Analysis said the deal marks a modest step forward in US-China military relations.

China entered the Korean War in the fall of 1950 and succeeded in helping drive US-led forces out of the North.

The war, which ended in 1953, led to the deaths of thousands of US troops - many of whom are still unaccounted for.

The deal implements the goodwill of both sides' military and political leaders to cooperate on defense issues, according to Chinese analysts.

"Military is a most sensitive issue in Sino-US relations and such a deal marks an improving atmosphere for both armies to cooperate in the future," says Major General Yang Yi of National Defense University.

"It also marks a rise in bilateral relations at large and such cooperation is helpful to enhance mutual understanding, as it means a lot for the US people," he added.


From the Time-CNN partnership, a well known US news group with neo-conservative sympathies.

China to Share Records on MIAs

China on Friday agreed to release sensitive records about missing U.S. soldiers and establish a hot line to the Pentagon, in the latest signs of improving trust between the two militaries.

Details of the agreements, signed at a ceremony in Shanghai, remained hazy, although both have long been sought after by the U.S. military and relatives of thousands of American servicemen missing from the Korean War and other Cold War-era conflicts.

China committed to a military hot line last summer, however, and it was not clear how big a step Friday's agreement represented. Calls to spokesmen for the Chinese Defense Ministry and U.S. Embassy defense attache's rang unanswered.

U.S. officials have said that, at least initially, the arrangement will not give U.S. researchers direct access to Chinese records. Instead, Chinese archivists with security clearances acceptable to the People's Liberation Army will do the document searches and turn over relevant records to U.S. analysts.

"For the families of the missing, this is extremely significant," said Charles A. Ray, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW-MIA affairs, who participated in the signing ceremony Friday in Shanghai.

Chinese troops killed and captured thousands of American troops during the Korean War and managed many of the prisoner of war camps set up in North Korea during the war.

More than 8,100 U.S. servicemen are still unaccounted for from the war.

China has periodically cooperated with the Pentagon on matters related to the search for MIAs, but it has consistently maintained that all POW questions were settled at the end of the war.

Declassified U.S. Army records from the 1950s make clear that the United States knew of hundreds of American prisoners in China during the Korean War, closely tracked their movements and feared for their lives.

After visiting China in March 2003 to press for access to military archives, Ray's predecessor, Jerry D. Jennings, declared, "Chinese records may well hold the key to helping us resolve many of the cases of American POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the Cold War."

 A very long time ago ACB had a history teacher who would pose questions such as this. They would present their students (ACB included) with two or more accounts of events from a different perspective and would ask which one was true. Inevitably the correct answer would either be that they were both true, but from a different perspective, or that neither was completely true, though there was a core of buried in them, and that the students could use the accounts to tell them about more than just the events themselves.

The trick was usually to find out what had influenced the writer to write about events in such a way, and then to deduce what impact this material would have on those who read it, bearing in mind that readers and writers were usually from a different background from the Students, and so the students would need to get inside the heads of the different parties in order to figure out the answers.

ACB learned a lot from this one teacher. In fact it deeply influenced ACBs thinking about history, education and the news media, and still influences it today.

On a closing note, ACB would also like to point out that the US version of events also leaves out a number of strategic points. As always, it pays to remember that "There is no single truth".

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View Comments/Add a Comment (3)


1. Random随机的博客Blog left...
Tuesday, 4 March 2008 3:23 am

Personally I think all roads lead to the same truth. Actually scratch that around these roads all roads lead AWAY from the same truth. The point however is the same, you can find some truth buried in every 'goverment approved' article. (I mean any goverment, not Just China or US.)


2. dave zimmerman left...
Tuesday, 4 March 2008 7:40 am

Dear ACB, I had a teacher in sixth grade who sounds a lot like yours. He would tell us the parts that the history text books left out. In high school, I had a teacher who taught us to read between the lines – “What they aren’t saying” is what he taught us to look for. If you’ve studied French, you know what an exercize for critical thinking an explication de texte can be. Shakespeare, if properly taught, can give insight into semantics as welll as psychology.

What you need to realize about the CNN story you cited was that it was a trimmed down version of an Associated Press release. http://news.aol.com/story/_a/china-agrees-to-share-military-records/n200802 29052409990002?ecid=RSS0001

This is a slightly more balanced version, from which CNN cut that parts that balanced. It can be so confusing to have multiple sources for news.

However, even within the constraints of the CNN version, I have been able to deconstruct and compare the two versions. I have kept only to the POW archives aspect, since that is the story you are publicizing this week. All I have done is to extract the phrases in each story that are pertinent to a topic.

1) time span

  • china daily - continue offering; always keep good cooperation; have kept

    • assisting ...for years

  • cnn - China has periodically cooperated

It seems to me that CNN is closer to the truth, much as I hate to admit it. I cannot imagine PRC consistently rewarding the US’s arrogant power-mongering.

2) location of POWs

  • china daily - on domestic soil

  • cnn - Chinese troops...managed many of the prisoner of war camps set up in

    • North Korea; the United States knew of hundreds of American prisoners

    • in China during the Korean War

Why did China Daily add this geographic limitation? What about the POWs in Chinese camps in North Korea?

3) nature of access

  • china daily - reached consensus on archival cooperation

  • cnn - Chinese archivists with security clearances acceptable to the People's

    • Liberation Army will do the document searches

No word on the nature of the concensus? Is that how a harmonious world order is arrived at?

4) length of negotiations

  • china daily - long-standing request for access

  • cnn - long been sought after by the U.S. military

They both aagree it's been a long time, but here’s where the semantics come into play. If the US seeks, then it can find, or perhaps can be shown. If the US requests, then PRC can grant.

5) end of war and POWs

  • china daily - The war, which ended in 1953

  • cnn - China... has consistently maintained that all POW questions were settled

    • at the end of the war.

Who left out what this time?

6) number of POW’s involved

  • china daily - many of whom are still unaccounted for.

  • cnn - More than 8,100 U.S. servicemen are still unaccounted for from the war

See #5.

7) prognosis

  • china daily - modest step forward ; an improving atmosphere for both armies to

    • cooperate in the future; a rise in bilateral relations at large

  • cnn - improving trust between the two militaries

China Daily wins this one hands down. Such lofty aspiration can only command admiration and emulation. CNN is so lackluster.

8) motivation

  • china daily - in the spirit of humanitarianism ; goodwill of both sides' military and

    • political leaders to cooperate on defense issues; enhance mutual

    • understanding, as it means a lot for the US people

  • cnn - ????

CNN let us down again. They let China Daily run away with this one.

I’m counting on you to straighten me out on all this. While you’re at it, tell me more about how the “US version of events also leaves out a number of strategic points”. I was so dazzled by the rhetoric that I didn’t notice them in the China Daily version.

As always

Dave


3. ACB left...
Wednesday, 5 March 2008 4:45 am

As this is my pet topic I'll come back to it when I have more time. One thing that I will say though is that I used to regularly come into arguments with some foreigners that I loosely knew about the value of propaganda or other self serving material.

One of the key lessons that I have learned as an analyst is that you can find value in just about anything. Even if the contents of a document are totally false or are hopelessly bias. Even if the author is in total denial, you can still learn something.

For example, a couple of years back I had a rather heated argument with a foreigner over the kind of material carried by Islamist websites. The foreigner refused to read or even consider such material. They held that it was basically the ravings of madmen and that it could teach us nothing because it reflected only a single, very narrow, view from a person who only held a singe, very narrow, view, and that because of this nothing that it said could be trusted, and nothing that it said was worth listening to.

I disagreed with this view because I strongly believe that you can learn a great deal from just about anything if look at it from the right angle. I told the foreigner that they should look at the documents as if they were a criminal profiler researching the authors, not as a historian researching the events being spoken off. You could learn about people's thoughts, their perspectives and their intentions, as well as their means, methods and arguments. For example, you could read an essay written by a suicide bomber and use it to get right inside the minds of the bomber in order to find out what made them tick, and you could use this information in order to prevent other suicide bombings. Not by building barriers or dropping bombs, but by finding the conditions that made them a suicide bomber and either mitigating them or countering them with material or actions of your own.

For some reason this made the foreigner very angry. The didn't like the idea that you could understand a fanatic by observing their fanaticisms in action, and they didn't like the idea that I was able to analyze the actions of a fanatic and find rational explanations for their apparently irrational behavior.