The News in China

Today I was watching a Chinese news channel broadcasting news in English. It’s like news broadcast by Doordarshan 20 years ago. There are no specialists present in the studio to discuss things. There is on boring woman taking pain of going through the entire news. There are no graphs, no analysis, nothing. The Chinese news is also similar to this one only. The media in China are at least 20 years behind of Indian counterpart. Everywhere in the news, the signature of socialism is bright and visible.

Let’s dig deep into the news contents. It was showing the Chinese premiere visiting Afghan and Iranian counterpart to talk to them. The reader summarized their comments without any analysis. Next, the domestic issues were presented. The price of pork (main source of meat in China) has been gone down this week by 1.2%. However, the other meats (Chicken and Lamb) have jumped once again. At the end of the scoop, she reminds us that price of pork has been doubled this year due to the shortage of sources. It’s really pathetic. I think if the price of Chicken doubles in any state of India within a year then that could be a good enough cause to vote that particular govt. out of the power. Poor Chinese people seem to forget protests and they have to live in a harsh capitalist society. It seems even USA is less capitalist than ‘Communist’ China.

Next the news about pollution came on screen. China is banning half of the cars from the roads of big cities to reduce the pollution. This is a reaction to the reports that most of Chinese cities are over-polluted. The reader added that the aim is to offer the Olympian guests a better China. The way to achieve half-ban is very simple – ban odd numbered cars on a day and the even ones on the next (between 8am to 8pm possibly). So, if you are a patient and need to use the car, I don’t know what you’d do. Should you wait for a day? Or take permission from some authority to drive (nothing similar was mentioned though)? Only China knows.

The trade news consists of the statements made in a single press conference. Some minister had warned a few countries not to carry out anti-dumping investigations on various Chinese products. He threatened them that China will deal the issue through WTO, in case any negative steps are taken. It seems like single news but the news composer has managed to disintegrate the news into two parts – one against some ‘friendlier’ nations (like Russia and Mongolia) using friendlier tones and the other against some rich competitor nations (like US and Canada) using harsh words. The selection of words was really praiseworthy, who says Chinese are weak in English?

Only in a few lines the reader completed the ‘irritating’ issue of China blocking the entry of Taiwan in the UN. China does not recognize it as a sovereign state, since it considers Taiwan a part of China (no reference to people of Taiwan at all, it seems that Taiwan is a barren no-man’s-land). So, that’s what Taiwan is.

The last one was on Chinese children in a ‘summer camp’ organized by the Govt. (once again!!!). The children are taught some self-dependency and creativity. They do learn organizing rooms, washing own clothes and dishes. And the afternoon is open for all to play. That’s the nicest piece of news I watched. The focus on quality of children is something totally missing in Indian Govt activities. I can China in multiple ways, but the foresight to create ‘quality’ children is really nice and should be replicated in India as well.