Image: Dong Fang TV Youtube Channel
By Tahir Imin @uyghurian
Chinese officials recently shared their anti-Western views with millions of viewers on Dong Fang TV (东方卫视), one of the most popular satellite TV channels in China. The hosts of ‘This is China’, the channel’s flagship show, claimed the western culture is inherently evil.
The national TV aired the officials saying: ‘Actually, the westerners do not seem to understand that there are evil elements deeply embedded in their culture. The Chinese culture, on the contrary, advocates for being kind to others. It is in our cultural genes. Western culture, frankly speaking, is destroying the people and is evil by its nature. It judges things from a malevolent outset and produces corrupted thoughts, the kind of thoughts the Chinese would never think. Westerners harbor slanderous ideas about the origin of Covid-19 and misinformation about Xinjiang.
The remarks came as Zhang Weiwei, a Communist Party academic, and Jin Shan Rong, a famous nationalist academic from Renmin University, discussed how the U.S has been trying to prevent China from rising. The 44-minute video was published on the official Youtube channel of Dong Fang TV.
The person behind the remarks is Zhang Weiwei. He is a high-ranking ideologist in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Zhang holds multiple positions in prestigious governmental agencies, such as the Director of the Institute of World China Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Dean of China Institute of Fudan University, and the Director of China Development Model Research Center. Zhang also served as a translator for reformist Deng Xiao Ping.
Xi Jinping (then the Vice-President of the PRC) even recommended Zhang’s book ‘China Shock: The Rise of a Civilized Nation’ to the World Bank President Zoellick during his visit to China in September 2011.
According to public information on Baidu Baike, the full name of the TV station is Shanghai Radio and Television. It was launched in October 2003 and is under the direct management of the Shanghai government.
The station claims to be the most popular national TV station and says that ‘This is China’ enjoys the widest viewership among adults and youngsters alike. The show was launched to spread patriotic ideology and discuss political affairs from the perspective of the communist party. Since its launch in 2019, Mr. Zhang has been the lead figure of the show and the provider of political insights.
Chinese state media such as CCTV, Global Times, Xinhua News, People’s Daily, and Chinese social media platforms WEIBO and WeChat have a long history of spreading anti-U.S rumors and disinformation. The amount of anti-American propaganda has hugely increased on all these platforms since the U.S began imposing tariffs on Chinese products in 2018.
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