Guilty of innocence: Western smear campaign against China exposed

BEIJING, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- "The mainstream media and quite a number of politicians and governments intimidate us daily that China's rise poses a threat to the rest of the world and especially to the West," said veteran Spanish journalist Javier Garcia in his new book "China, Threat or Hope. The Reality of a Pragmatic Revolution."

"China is not a threat at all," Garcia said in an interview with Xinhua, noting that the country has become the second world economic power "without practically firing a single shot, without violence, without wars, without colonialism."

SMEAR CAMPAIGN

For the former delegate of EFE, the leading news agency in Spanish, in the Middle East, Venezuela, Germany and China, the supposed "China Threat" theory is nothing more than a systematized U.S. trick to contain the peaceful rise of the Asian country, which for Washington means a great challenge to its hegemony.

"The U.S. refuses to accept that its days to maintain the world hegemonic dominance are numbered," Garcia said in the book, which was published by Ediciones Akal.

Washington, he said, has launched a "hybrid war" like "an octopus with multiple tentacles" in the economic, commercial, technological, scientific, political, health and media sectors, combined with intelligence and espionage operations, destabilization campaigns in regions such as Xinjiang, support for separatism in Hong Kong or Taiwan, and military intimidation along China's coast.

Among the multiple battlefronts, Garcia said he is very familiar with the smear campaign against China orchestrated by the Western media that "set the agenda and the tone about China" so that the rest of the Western press follows them "mostly without reservations."

In his work, Garcia listed the "arsenal of words" aimed at instilling fear in anything related to China and reinforcing the negative image installed in the heads of readers, manipulating the terms like "regime," "purge," "propaganda" and "repression" or expressions like "power struggles," "under threat" and "debt trap."

Photo taken on Aug. 4, 2022 shows the White House and a stop sign in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

In this sense, the rich in the United States are millionaires or great entrepreneurs, while those in China are oligarchs; China does not fire corrupt or inefficient officials, but rather "purges" them; China does not grant advantageous loans to develop infrastructure in poor countries, but "traps" them in debt; China adopts "vaccine diplomacy," and other countries donate them selflessly; China "monitors and controls" close contacts of COVID cases, and other countries trace them.

According to Garcia, the Western media have even created a universal rhetoric of "at what cost," in order to seek in any case the negative consequence of positive news about China, such as "the Chinese economy grows, but at what cost"; "Chinese cities are getting smart, but at what cost"; "China provides abundant snow for the Olympic Games, but at what cost"; "clean air, at what cost?"; "Wuhan is safe from Covid, but at what cost"; "China invests in Ethiopia, but at what cost"; "China boosts Cambodia's economy, but at what cost"; etc.

One of the most "curious" examples is that Bloomberg reported in December 2019 that "China cures cancer faster and cheaper than anyone else, but some worry it's too fast."

Garcia explained that the U.S. media is those who set the tone, and it is really very difficult for other Western media to get out of that way, since they are very much influenced by the former.

A DIVERSE, FASCINATING COUNTRY

The journalist took advantage of his stay of more than four years in China to observe the country closely. With an independent approach, he has found an authentic China which is totally different from the one described by the Western media.

"The truth is that China surprised me. It is a very different country, very diverse, very developed in certain things. It is a fascinating country and has many things that one does not expect what life is like in the country," said the writer. "I tried to arrive in the country freeing myself from all prejudices and with the most open mind possible."

While working as a reporter, Garcia met Ding Yan, 34 years old, who told him how her life had changed, from her childhood years in the countryside without running water or electricity, to studying at the university, receiving a degree in philology and settling into a city with access to top-quality public services.

This photo taken on Dec. 8, 2022 shows the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

"When you start talking to people, you realize the changes in China. The change that this generation has experienced in the last 20 or 30 years is impressive," he said.

Ordinary citizens brimming with joy and placidity deeply moved the then EFE delegate in Beijing, who felt, at the same time, tired of the incessant disinformation of the Western media against China.

As a result, Garcia decided in September 2021 to quit journalism after more than 30 years in the profession, because "the embarrassing information war against China has taken away a good dose of my enthusiasm for this profession."

For Garcia, the much-touted Western totem of "free press" boils down to "saying exactly the same thing," "sticking to the script," and "emphasizing over and over again how bad communism is," since anyone who steps off the path set by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. media "will be sidelined."

After submitting his resignation, Garcia began to write a book about an authentic China, because, in his opinion, "many things about China are not known, and some key issues, which are very important to the world, are also not known because the readers are not informed."

HOPE FOR MULTIPOLAR WORLD

The author traveled to various regions, provinces and cities in China, such as Xinjiang and Shenzhen, to see firsthand the topics he was curious about. Regarding the alleged genocides in Xinjiang, Garcia said such accusations are solely based on data collected from the Internet and "not based on any real situation or field work."

"In Xinjiang, the Uygur culture is respected. The Uygur language is taught in schools and used in local media. The Uygur population has grown by 16 percent in the last ten years, which is three times more than the national population growth," he said.

When asked about Chinese measures against COVID-19, Garcia said that "there have not been human rights violations at all" and that the recent optimization of its COVID response has come at a time when the virus is less aggressive and the danger of death is significantly reduced.

"If we consider that the priority of any government should be to save the lives of its population, of its inhabitants, Chinese policy has clearly been effective. There have been far fewer deaths in China than in Western countries and, above all, than in the United States," he said.

With regard to the fight against poverty, the author believed that it is the main concern of all citizens of the world. Official data showed China has lifted some 770 million rural residents out of poverty during the past 40 years, accounting for over 70 percent of global poverty reduction.

People tour the grand bazaar in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Jan. 23, 2023. (Xinhua/Wang Fei)

On the ecological issue, Garcia was aware that the world has "the image of China as a very polluting country," however, in his investigation he concluded that "it is just the opposite."

"China has totally changed its economic development model, it has gone from a development model focused on growth above all else, regardless of the consequences, to a much greener one, to one that has a lot of consideration for the environment," he said.

He said that China "is undergoing an energy transformation and has become a leader in renewable energy, electric mobility, electric cars, reforestation, with sponge city projects as an example."

Garcia attributed the admirable achievements to the "pragmatic revolution" led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and described the way of doing politics as very "characteristic of the Chinese style."

"The CPC experiments with different solutions for any problem that arises, launches pilot projects in different cities on measures that it wants to apply, and experiments with them. Those that work best will be adopted and those that do not go well are rejected," Garcia explained.

In Garcia's opinion, China is not a threat, but rather the hope for a multipolar world in which everyone can live much more peacefully, trading with the rest of the globe, dedicating their energies and resources to improving the lives of their population instead of to the enrichment of a few, and exchanging goods, knowledge and culture, instead of weapons and bombs.

"China has no intention of imposing its vision on others" and stands ready to live with all nations in a multipolar world, a more peaceful,more just and better world, Garcia said.