Canadian-Asian Affairs

The espionage case involving Boeing has been one of the more prominent China stories recently. The Globe has pulled this one of the AP wire. It details both an American charged with selling secrets to China and a Chinese and Taiwanese immigrant charged with buying state secrets. How the Taiwanese figure fits into things is left unexplained. In Cold War style the article argues that the "arrests mark China's latest attempts to gain top secret information about U.S. military systems and sales." Articles like this one build on the China as adversary discourse used in most financial reportage on China.

Next we have another of the Press' favourite China topics: human rights. The debate over Chinese human rights abuses has raged for decades, but has been especially prominent since the Tiananmen massacre of 1989. Some argue that China's human rights record is deplorable and unjustifiable, while others take the stance that China has drastically improved its situations over the past three decades and that outside observers should not expect overnight miracles, but rather appreciate the slow-but-sure progress China is making. James Christie with the help of AP takes a new approach by reporting on athletes and celebrities who are advocating against China's international human rights record in Sudan. Two Canadian swimmers along with other athletes and celebrities such as Steven Spielberg condemn Beijing's support of the Sudanese government. While this is laudable in its own right, it also speaks to the double standard often applied to Chinese rights policy. Where as not many athletes would balk at competing in the USA which has a long record of rights abuses both domestically and abroad, China is fair game for this sort of advocacy.

Following trade and human rights, China's censorship laws rank up there with the most active Western media interests in China. The next article reports on how the Chinese government has refused to approve a new John Cusak and Gong Li vehicle to shoot in Shanghai without script revisions. The most interesting aspect of the story is how it refers to the Chinese authorities as simply 'China.' As in: "China has blocked a Hollywood movie." This sort of approach, which is common in Western media accounts of Chinese stories characterizes the Chinese government and bureaucracy (and even occasionally business interests) as a single monolithic entity. It would not have required many more words to nuance the story by explaining which body had blocked the film.

In keeping with our hit parade of Western media's China interests the last story for this installment reports on China's illegal trade practices. Steven Chase reports on the leaked WTO's ruling on China's unfair trade barriers to auto parts. Trade deficits with China feature large in the Western media discourse. This attempt to crack into the China market by Western part manufacturers represents a broader struggle to achieve something close to trade parity with China. Chase's article isn't terribly interesting but it does fit into the broader pattern of the obsession with economic-slanted China stories.