Analysis

American Media Outlets Woo At China’s 100th Anniversary Celebration

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Font Size:

American media outlets faced criticism for covering the 100th-anniversary celebration of China’s Communist Party with glowing profiles.

CNN was also bashed for a tweet where they wrote that “the Chinese Communist Party is about to turn 100 but Xi will be the real star.” The outlet did, however, mention “the brutal repression of student protestors in Tiananmen Square, the decade of mayhem under former Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, and the millions who starved to death as a result of disastrous CCP economic policy decisions.” (RELATED: ‘We Are Very Free’: Multiple Clips From China’s Xinjiang Region Appear To Be Eerily Similar)

The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an article that praised the Chinese Communist Party and said they “crushed the pandemic,” adding that the “Chinese economy has surged back” and said that “China is pouring money into new technologies in order to surpass U.S. efforts.” The article did point out the suppression of information about the pandemic and said that tight party control could slow economic growth – but claimed that “bipartisan legislation on infrastructure, and on technology,” is needed to prove China wrong.

The Economist published an article titled “Little red look: 100 years of Chinese Communist Party style” that traced the party’s fashion. Reuters – based in Canada but still popular in the U.S. – wrote that Xi and “the party are riding high as the country recovers briskly from the COVID-19 outbreak and takes a more assertive stand on the global stage.”

The Associated Press wrote an article about the celebration, but in their original piece, failed to mention the concentration camps imprisoning Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, the Tiananmen Square massacre, or other documented human rights abuses that the Chinese Communist Party has committed. In a longer follow-up article, however, The Associated Press did mention “a ban on large-scale protests, the arrest of political critics and the closure of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily after journalists and executives were detained and funds frozen.”

“The party will showcase the country’s rise from civil war and disastrous political campaigns in the early years of Communist rule to market reforms that have created the world’s second-largest economy, with a superpower status rivaled only by the United States,” the article said. (RELATED: Major Media Outlets Continue To Receive Huge Payments From Chinese Propaganda Front)

It also quoted the Xinhua News Agency, a media outlet affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, which praised Chinese President Xi Jinping. The outlet said that the Communist party will “embark on a new, splendid journey in the next century” under Xi’s leadership, according to the article.

ABC News published the article through the AP wire and received lots of criticism from people on Twitter. Several people replied with a photo of Uighur Muslims imprisoned in Xinjiang.