BBC's irresponsible reporting on China

I have been coming to China for over 20 years now. I'm proud and passionate about my country, the United Kingdom, particularly Scotland, the home of my birth and early life, and also proud that the Chinese both respect and admire our culture, traditions, education, sports and indeed, our history. I've been living in China for the last couple of years.

I've been a keen observer and follower of the BBC, for its entertainment and news programs from around the world.

However, watching it, and other channels, from China it seems it is criticizing China with increasing frequency as well as what can only be termed as irresponsible journalism.

What I refer to is essentially sensationalism, not news reporting in the true context of the word, or "gossip bulletins" that can only be considered worthy of what is carried in red-top newspapers, whose efforts to sustain their livelihood is based around creating criticism of their targets accompanied by winding up anti-feeling of what they see as "fair game stories" no matter what the consequences are.

Honestly, I'm astonished at the BBC and what it is reporting, or more to the point, how it is reporting.

Last week I saw the BBC's "investigation" and report on the "relocation scheme" of the Uyghurs in western China. The BBC claimed "compelling evidence" of "how it works", with the reporter John Sudworth's comments laden with biases. This report and others regarding this situation did not look at either the bigger picture or the real story. It took the most "sensational" angle. What will rattle viewers and sell news!

The report carried no "unbiased opinion" or viewpoints from the other side – although maybe an "official spokesperson's remark in response" said to camera with a sneer of sardonic irony, putting forward how they want their viewers to see the "unlikeable truth" as they tried to skew the reality to what they wanted their story to look like. They brought in a former camp and factory detainee for his opinion, and Adrian Zenz, who happens to be from the Victims of Communism Foundation, no less. He talked about "manipulation of population density and demographics" as he spoke on the relocation of the Uyghurs to different areas.

Where was the discussion on the actual assistance to these communities to get education, find jobs and lift themselves out of poverty? China's government policy has been for years to lift the vast population of the whole country out of poverty and frankly, they are doing a pretty good job about it.

There are still large populations in the western areas of the country that need assistance in education, and improvements in all aspects of care and social development compared to the eastern regions who benefited first from economic growth and prosperity.

Hasn't China pulled itself up to be a global economic superpower now, as their political system has managed to build a country of 1.3 billion poor people in 40 years to a much more prosperous place.

The government's first responsibility here has always been for the safety, well-being and social development of all of their people. And their intention is to drag everyone out of poverty, provide them education and a good future.

This is what they are doing and achieving if you look at the facts, and properly consider what they are saying to the West in their responses to these criticisms of "human rights".

It's a pity a corporation with a world standing such as the BBC has stooped to this level of journalistic bias. It is literally prodding the Chinese to answer and explain their actions. The Chinese don't really need to.

Much as they admire the UK – although increasingly I wonder why - they watch how our two main political parties squabble daily in the seat of the country's government, the House of Commons, like argumentative schoolchildren, determined not to allow the other to get their way, and consequently have continuous failures to get anything done properly, or quickly. Look at the current pandemic as one example. A wholesale mess. And this is without mentioning Trump's shenanigans of recent years. Are we, the West, actually earning any respect today?

China acted fast against coronavirus with the whole population listening to advice in an instant and consequently came out of it rapidly, with virtually no hold up or closures for any real length of time at all. This is due to the efficiencies of the government system, where the brains of the country come together to make decisions in one direction, and that is forward, as opposed to different parties pulling in opposite directions, which is the nature of the democratic system in the UK and the US and others.

I value the freedom of speech and rights, but we do need to all focus on going forward in the same direction and to listen to the voices of experience and correct policymaking, which makes up authority.

That is what people do in China…and it all works, and very well. Everyone is safe and feels safe. Here in Shanghai, you never hear of robberies, theft, or assault, or even witness arguments. Words such as gun or knife crime and drugs are just unheard of. This is an incredibly relaxed, safe environment, friendly everywhere. And for a mega-city too!

The West has stood by watching social difficulties in many countries worldwide, griping about how things need to change and pointing the finger at political regimes they consider not doing their job, or worse, interfering and bringing even more problems. The journalists representing those countries are at the heart of the stories and the reporting should be straightforward, unbiased and overall, honest.

What actually sticks in the craw even further is this pontificating by British journalists of how countries shouldn't treat their people, given that until the last few generations, no country was more aggressive for hundreds of years in repressing countries and their people than the British, as they sought to expand and build their empire throughout the entire world.

Yes, that may be in the past, but it's the fairly recent past and one which isn't forgotten easily by the Chinese, who when it was their turn to feel the might of our empire against them, watched as their resistance to Britain's request to trade with them brought shelling by gunboats on their ports, ultimately forcing them to allow trade, which was mostly opium from the poppy fields in their controlled territories of India, turning swathes of southern Chinese into drug addicts. Good for British trade though!

Further bombardment of the capital Beijing far to the north and ransacking of the beautiful palaces of the Chinese who just wished to be allowed to live in peace, eventually pressed China into allocating an island off the south coast to be used by Britain for a trading colony. This was Hong Kong. I really wonder how many readers and viewers of the BBC news actually know that history? In truth, I suspect not a lot.

Almost incredibly, the item following the Uyghurs, was about the acute malnutrition in the Yemen. Orla Guerrin, the respected journalist in the Middle East, spoke with a voice laden with irony reporting on several countries that are now reducing their financial aid to the Yemen, as pictures of starving children filled the screen. "Aid agencies warn that cuts in funding will be measured in lives lost" was the closing statement left hanging as the channel returned to London. The journalists are unquestionably attempting to drive sympathy and anger from those viewing. Is this good, accurate or responsible television?

Suggestive remarks that more aid ought really to be pumped in were sprinkled with facts that give something of an understanding to the human catastrophe – like the family who has lost five children to starvation. Out of their children total of 14!

It's not more money they need pumped in for more food. It is education, contraceptives and immediate social stability of a population and country that is going out of control due to inefficiencies in any form of human responsibility and basic understanding of life.

And yet, the BBC look and film it all with a sarcastic doom-laden attitude that does not suggest what is really needed, or ask the serious questions of those there that are losing children to hunger such as "why are you bringing so many children into all this!"

Policies such as China's one-child per family doesn't seem such a bad idea now, certainly for a country and in a time that will help stabilize social and economic change to improve, instead of the downward spiral that it has set its course on.

The BBC reporters are now no better than scaremongers that aim to appeal to mostly gossipy, mindless masses, and are not getting either to the truth or the reality of what is going on and giving accurate reporting of what the real truth actually is.

Brian McLean works at Meridian Marketing International Ltd. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of China Daily and China Daily website.

If you have a specific expertise and would like to contribute to China Daily, please contact us at opinion@chinadaily.com.cn, and comment@chinadaily.com.cn.