Has anybody else noticed the free distributions of the China Daily (blatant Xinhua mouthpiece in English) now being handed out at MRT stations, and given away at other places?
It has a Taiwan registered publication number, and a cover price printed as well (NT$15, though no one asks for it). It is the Hong Kong edition, not that that makes it any easier to swallow. It would make sense that it’s actually printed here, though I reckon that the PRC could afford the airfreight.
I saw a pile at Academia Sinica the other day, which the Taiwanese-speaking door guard urged me to remove (for some reason he hadn’t yet). Disturbingly, they were address-labeled, to the Vice Pres of the Academy, as if they had been posted there, though I seriously doubt he had ordered them himself (wrong colour, if you know what I mean).
So, rude intrusion? Adds diversity? Symbol of the Ma cultural double think? Welcome addition to the media landscape?
The China Daily has improved, but I miss the failed qi gong master stories they used to run. usually something along the line of:
"Master Wu from Pigu township failed in his attempt to stop a freight train with his qi gong prowess last night in front of astonished residents . . . "
But a problem for Taiwan? You mean it could upset the morale of the volunteer ESL rifles? Should harden their deathly resolve, surely.
The China Daily is no more biased than the Taipei Times, and it at least the China Daily has the staff to actually copy-edit or produce enough content so that their pages aren’t 85% wire articles.
The Chinese newspaper I’d really like to see published here is the Global Times (环球时报 huanqiu.com/) While the China Daily and the People’s Daily is the gray, monotone bureaucratic voice of the CCP, the Global Times is the rabidly nationalist and xenophobic side.
I have no problem with freedom of speech either, so the China Daily being available is a non issue…
exactly, in most places the Commie Daily would be irrelevant, but here it can really give the other hopelessly biased and vacuous local fishwraps a run for their money… I look forward to seeing it available in Taichung if it isn’t already…
So there’s more than one person out there who actually wants to read that contemptuous dribble? It may be no more biased than the TT, but it’s biased the wrong way. All you chickens lambasting Ma for sucking China tit are doing essentially the same if you read that fishwrapper.
I guess I’d be outnumbered then.
Go for it, boys. Wake me up when the BeiJing Express pulls in to town.
the China Daily Rag has many articles written without bylines, datelines, or location (a single name that cannot be trusted does not fill me with confidence, especially as there is no guarantee that this person actually wrote the piece, unlike a recognised columnist of long-standing reputation at a proper newspaper). The pieces that do appear are remarkably simple, devoid of analysis, and short of anything apart from the official line, the government-vetted or -created ‘facts’ that allow them to maintain the illusion of a free press while actually being little more than an organ of the state propaganda machine. They are sound-bites for the evil empire, dammit, and you’re welcoming them into your houses! What is WRONG with you craven fops?
The TT actually has editorials, comment, etc, that attack the government of the day, or the actions of particular individuals on both sides of the political spectrum, though they may be generally written from one direction: far more a bastion of press freedom than the Xinhua outlet that the China Daily unfortunately is. I am actually more than happy for papers to base most of their international stuff on the wires, because then they can then generate copy that covers a much wider area than if they only had their own one-eyes on the ground, like the CD probably has. Also, the material they comment on in that case is a lot less biased than if they did use only their own reporters. Of course, if you look at the local stuff, then they DO have their own reporters writing, and yes, the quality is not stunning, but then it’s only Taiwan news and not so important. At least it’s usually not pages of pointless fluff about hairstyles, chicken outlets, pig farms and shopping centres.
And any of you who think I idolise the TT would just be plain wrong. I barely read it, getting most of my information online and from more direct sources anyway. I just raised this thread to see who welcomes the communist propaganda viewpoint onto this island, a place that is supposedly still at war with the PRC.
In MY day, we would have hunted these traitors down and skinned and salted them.
Oh, I’ll agree with anything negative that you have to say about the China Daily. I haven’t looked at it in years. The only way you could possibly glean any information out of it is if you were to meta-analyze it like some sort of Kremlinologist, i.e. if the China Daily has an article about income disparity, then that’s a reflection that there’s some seriously bitter closed-door fighting between two factions about what to do about income disparity.
Well, half the time the op-ed page of the TT is just some random article from the NY Times or the Guardian. Other times, it’s just a dry translation of some academic’s column. And then there’s the profane (which would be forgiveable if any of the profanity were humorous or had a nugget of truth) ramblings of Johnny Neihu (“Ma ying-jeou is a cum-gargling poo-poo head who’s going to sell out Taiwan!”). Then there are the letters to the editor from militant pro-green Taiwanese who live in Dayton, Ohio.
I don’t dispute that the TT should use wire articles for international news or translations of other Chinese-language news sources for local stuff. But the TT omits so much of what’s going on in the broader Chinese-language media out there, that foreigners who rely on the TT for a pulse of what’s going on around the island are usually way off.
I read somewhere that at the height of the Stalin years, Tractorina became a popular names for girls.
Incidentally, Captain Tractor does a Russian sounding version of London Calling by The Clash that I rather like. It’s not as epic at Charta 77 & Köttgrottorna’s cover of No Limits. Köttgrottorna means “meat caves” in Swedish. But I shouldn’t talk about that because it will drag the thread off on a wild tangent.
I don’t understand. You DON’T want to read what they’re saying about Taiwan etc.? I sure do. I don’t have to agree with it but I want to know what they’re saying.
All you chickens lambasting Ma for sucking China tit are doing essentially the same if you read that fishwrapper.
