Friday, January 21, 2011

No news from Hu Jintao's state visit - Jeremy Goldkorn

People's Republic of China President, Hu Jinta...Image via Wikipedia
The Voice of America (VOA) asked media expert Jeremy Goldkorn about the coverage of Hu Jintao's state visit to the US, and he did not find that much news.
But very much boiler plate; the kinds of things that Hu Jintao said in his speeches were repeated unquestioningly in the media."
I was interested to see that Xinhua did mention human rights and the fact that Hu Jintao talked about human rights.
"They did. I don’t know how much of that was actually in the Chinese coverage, but there was certainly a mention of it. But that’s not really a new thing. He didn’t say anything substantially different from what other Chinese officials have said in the past."
But the VOA is not deterred. What about the bloggers? Jeremy Goldkorn:
"It hasn’t been a topic of really heated discussion. When it comes to America, there’s always a certain percentage of the Chinese Internet population that is inclined to be nationalist and to be very suspicious of America. And you certainly saw people commenting on, particularly after the stealth jet photos were spread around the Internet, you had a lot of people saying, ‘Oh good, now he’s [Hu Jintao is] going to America. Yes, we’re strong. It’s good. China should be strong. We shouldn’t take any nonsense from America.’ This kind of sentiment is fairly common.
But you also see another group of people who look at the coverage in the U.S. of the discussion of the decline of the United States and China’s rise, China becoming a super power. There’s a significant group of people on the Internet who are very doubtful of that and who don’t see China becoming an equal to the United States any time soon."
More in the VOA.
Goldkorn_for_screenJeremy Goldkorn by Fantake via Flickr

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Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.
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