Commentary
The Sept. 25 Los Angeles Times included a special, four-page section headlined in black called “CHINA WATCH.” Above that in smaller, orange print is, “ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.” And below the headline, in much smaller print, is “CHINA DAILY. 中国日报.”
Wikipedia identifies the “China Daily” newspaper as “an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party ... Scholars have described China Daily as effectively controlled by the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Speaking of corruption, below the above quoted headline section are these words, in much darker print against a dark blue background: “This supplement is printed and distributed in select areas by the Los Angeles Times Media Group. It does not involve the editorial staff of the Los Angeles Times.” Yet in the far upper-left corner are the words “Los Angeles Times,” as with any other page in the paper.
Newspapers sometimes run these inserts, for a local university or amusement park, to make some extra advertising dollars. They feature stories seemingly the same as the those in the reset of the paper. But you’ll never see something in them that reports on scandals involving the “environmental justice” movement, for example.
Likewise, China Watch won’t be including stories on suppressing freedom in Hong Kong, Uyghur slave labor camps, or what exactly happened in that virus lab in Wuhan just as COVID-19 broke out.
None of this China World-L.A. Times insert is anywhere online. Except for this article, all of the content is down Orwell’s Memory Hole once the paper decomposes. However, the bottom right of the front page of China World includes the China Daily’s addresses, phone numbers and emails in Beijing and New York. Plus its website and Facebook page.
‘Soviet Life’ Example
This actually is high-level propaganda. It’s modeled on the old “Soviet Life” I used to read back during the Cold War, and modeled against American magazines. The site Marxists.org describes it (yes, Marxists still love the Soviet Union), and provides links to some of the full issues:In 1956, the Soviet and US Governments agreed to allow each other to publish a magazine in their own nation, but limited circulation to 30,000 copies per issue. The Soviet Government published a magazine entitled The USSR, while the US Government published Amerika. A few years later The USSR changed its title to Soviet Life.
Soviet Life was generally not a political magazine, in the sense that it rarely delved into the political issues of the day, nor did it talk about political theory, etc. Instead it focused on Soviet culture (including national minorities), science, education and health care. The last issue of Soviet Life was published on December, 1991.
Here’s the issue from October 1984. The front-page articles are on the people of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, featuring a picture of modern, progressive youngsters there riding a motorcycle; the great writer Mihkail Lermontov; and a description of “Free Health Care”—which, wouldn’t you like to have in the nasty, unhealthy, capitalist United States? No mention, of course, of declining Soviet longevity.
“Soviet Life” ended on that happy Christmas Day Dec. 25, 1991, when the Soviet Union ended and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union dissolved itself—giving hope for a similar event in China.
China Watch Stories
Back to the China Watch insert, the first story features a picture of an astronaut outside a space station. Caption: “Heavenly Activities.” Story: “Chen Dong (right), an astronaut of China’s Shenzhou XIV space station, works outside the Wentian space laboratory module on Sept 1 as his fellow astronaut Liu Yang exits the module. They used the robotic arm to install new instruments outside the module, parts of the Tiangong space station.” Credit: “Xu Bu for China Daily.”There’s a subliminal message here few people will get: Space walks require large, powerful rockets to loft space stations and astronauts into space—the same technology used to make ICBMs to carry hydrogen bombs to American cities.
The next story on the China Watch’s front page: “New overseas listing rules being prepared.” The story:
China will step up efforts to unveil new rules to establish a unified registration for overseas listings, a key step to help domestic firms enter global capital markets in a well-regulated manner, officials and experts say.
Experts said the new rules, likely to take effect this year, will help China build a cleaner and streamlined regulatory framework for overseas listings and pave the way for smoother audit supervision collaboration between China and the United States.
Another story at the bottom of the page is, “Doors for foreign companies continue to open.” The story: “China’s unwavering efforts to expand high-level opening-up in the digital economy and green development will create more growth opportunities for foreign companies, government officials and business leaders say.”
Windmills, Not Dirty Coal
“Opening-up” means making it easier for China to spy on the world. “Green development” I’ve covered several times in my Epoch Times articles, on how China continues to build numerous coal plants, even as Europe and the United States, especially California, are seeking to shut down such plants—a program delayed in Europe by the energy crisis from the Ukraine War.On page 3, China Watch also features a story, “Carbon trading has wind in its sails,” over a picture of wind turbines.
Well, well. Recharge News reported in April, “Chinese wind turbine makers in a better place than ever to start displacing Western OEMs.” The story: “Rising costs in Europe and the US are not being seen in China, meaning that locally made machines are now almost half the price of Western ones.”
These pro-business, pro-environmental cooperation stories come in the midst of increased tensions between the United States and the People’s Republic of China over Taiwan, the Ukraine War, Chinese-made fentanyl killing more than 100,000 Americans a year, and the buildup of the Chinese nuclear arsenal.
Just a few days before this China Watch insert came out in the L.A. Times, on Sept. 23 the Republican Leaders in the House of Representatives released their “Commitment to America” pledge. They’re hoping to repeat the success of the 1994 “Contract with America” that brought their party to majority status, making Newt Gingrich House speaker.
Under “Defend America’s National Security,” the “Commitment” charges: “President Biden has managed America’s security from a position of weakness and incompetence. He failed to stand up to the brutal Chinese Communist Party,” etc.
Do They Need the Ad Money?
I’ve also seen these China World/China Daily inserts in Time magazine, currently owned by Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce, with a personal wealth of $6.3 billion.The L.A. Times now is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong, net worth $8.7 billion.
Do these multi-billionaires really need the ad revenues from selling out to the Communist Party of China?
If so, then they should change their respective names to Time CCP and the CCP Times.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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