'Do foreign media hate China?' British netizens have the answer

"Do foreign media hate China?"

UK Ambassador Caroline Wilson asked this question on the embassy's social media platform on March 2.

Chinese netizens have given various answers, but the most powerful answer may always be the truth.

On the evening of March 2, John Sudworth, a BBC producer, selectively shared the first half of a report young women working abroad in poverty-stricken areas in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, CCTV published a few years ago. Sudworth carefully edited the footage and commentary to make it serve as "evidence" of the Chinese government's "forced labor" and "forced migration" of people in Xinjiang.

　　A snapshot of the Guardian's report.

When a CCTV reporter exposed the truth and the real story behind the lie, the Guardian posted a long article, claiming a think tank had found a "Communist Party ran campaign" to discredit the BBC.

It is worth noting when The Guardian put an anti-China report on Twitter, the vast majority of the nearly 200 tweets and comments received actually supported the position of the Chinese government.

British commenters answered the ambassador's questions with their own personal experience growing up in the UK.

"That's funny, because the BBC has been running a campaign to discredit the CCP for decades. Having Radio 4 on in the background as a kid (before internet) I grew up believing that Chinese people are born in to debt which they can never pay off and pass on to the next generation."

"Unfortunately, BBC coverage of China is appalling and probably steered by 'the men' at the Foreign Office. Poorly sourced evidence. Reliance on untrustworthy sources, spurious and bizarre claims etc," commenter Jonathan said.

"How much BBC paid this so called Australian 'think tank' to put out this fake story. BBC doesn't need outside help to discredit itself – it is doing a great job on its own to discredit itself that is. Never watch it," Muhammad Naqvi said.

"They (BBC) have been exposed for lying so many times. I believe it is part of English tradition," joked Patricia Morrison.

Anti-China "scholar" Adrian Zenz has himself confessed the BBC commissioned his research. With his reports accusing China of "detaining" Uygurs and other minority groups or imposing "sterilization" on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Zenz has been welcomed by US and Western media as "a leading expert" on Xinjiang.