China tries the Neo-con PR strategy: blame the media

One of the truly infuriating things about this war is watching that son of a bitch Bill Kristol
or some such neo-con imperialist bleating about the media only telling the bad stories in Iraq. They seem to be saying, “So what is 100 people died yesterday in a suicide bombing, we painted a school!” I single out Kristol because he employed the tactic gratuitously but there are many, many others that pulled the same crap. Anyway, that sort of argument is such idiocy that I find myself wanting to throw things at the TV. Furthermore, it insults the intelligence of the viewer (Who are you going to believe – me or your lying eyes?).

Well, the Chinese government borrowed from that playbook in another effort to kill the messenger. With all of the recent bad publicity regarding the safety of its products, China fears that faith in its brands will be undermined and she is lashing out.

"Some foreign media, especially those based in the U.S., have wantonly reported on so-called unsafe Chinese products. They are turning white to black," he said, according to the China Daily on Monday.

"One company's problem doesn't make it a country's problem."

[Snip]

An editorial in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official paper, said it was inevitable that the country's rising exports would face tighter scrutiny from choosy foreign customers.

But it also blamed foreign forces seeking to undermine Chinese industry.

"In recent years those people churning out the theory of a China threat have grabbed hold of this issue and not let go, treating isolated cases as the whole and maliciously attacking 'Made in China'," the paper said.

The real issue is that China has taken so many shortcuts to become the economic powerhouse that it its today. Food safety is but one of her problems. The nation has a huge hole to dig out of in terms of reaching parity with other food producers and it will cost a fortune to get there. I saw one estimate (I think it was on a CNN food safety special this weekend) putting the figure at $100 billion. Maybe this bad exposure will be the incentive China needs to start spending the money to clean up its act. In the meantime, caveat emptor.