Support NeoGAF

[Blablurn]

The Sunday Times recently reported that Japan has been paying 10,000 pounds per month to a British think tank, the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), to hype up "China threat" among British high-level politicians.

The scandal exposed Japan's twisted shrewdness and is a shame on British intellectual and political groups.

According to media reports, the HJS was paid by the Japanese Embassy in London to spread anti-China propaganda, via the conduit of public figures such as Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary. Rifkind confirmed that he was approached by the HJS in August 2016 and asked to put his name to an article titled "How China could switch off Britain's lights in a crisis," which criticized Hinkley C, a UK-Chinese nuclear power station.

The practice is a clear violation of social standards and morals. Western media did not follow up on the story and Japanese media remained silent about the news. Such silence is unimaginable if China and Russia were found to have been involved in similar scandals.

The event shows that sabotaging China has been an important mission of Japanese overseas outposts, something China would never do. The behavior reveals the insidiousness and pettiness of Japanese diplomacy, which is humiliating for the entire East Asia.

With 10,000 pounds, the British think tank has sold both its spirit of independence and pride. Or maybe it's because we have overestimated the integrity of the intellectual groups of the UK. We do not know whether the scandal is merely the tip of an iceberg of anti-China drive or an isolated event. We also don't know to what extent the HJS is representative of other think tanks in the UK.

Some criticisms from the West are so obviously absurd and illogical that we can sense the bias or hostility toward China. We don't know why the Western intellectuals who are so keen on advocating a spirit of objectiveness and science have made so many shallow mistakes. Is it because of ideological differences or geopolitical "conspiracies" like the one plotted by the Japanese embassies?

Before and after the US presidential elections, the mainstream Western media were in a war with Donald Trump, showing the hidden "political hand" that was previously unknown to the Chinese audience.

Now, we are shocked to see what a mere sum of 10,000 pounds could do to the British public opinion. We hope that most British people are as angry as we are when they hear the story, and feel uncomfortable about such an inappropriate deal taking place in their own country.

Source: http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0204/c90000-9173927.html

China wants the world to know what happened in Great Britain.

 

[Herr Schwarz]

Good for them but this just seems like an attempt of counter embarrassment.

 

[EmiPrime]

It was covered in Private Eye at least!

 

[andrerobot]

Got a source that's not the Chinese Communist Party's paper?

 

[chillybright]

Lmao this came from people.cn, literal media throat of Chinese communist party. Finally they managed to grab some evidence for what they have been claiming ever since Mao. I can see they put this in the pedestal and use this as propaganda for years if not decades.

 

[aspiegamer]

China is a totally trustworthy source on calling out attempted media manipulation, guys.

Got a source that's not the Chinese Communist Party's paper?

This, too.

 

[Timbuktu]

It feels like they are upset that Henry Jackson isn't charging enough, whereas they have probably been paying a lot more to 'think tanks' that have done fuck all.

 

[StayDead]

Even if this is just propaganda, it wouldn't surprise me if this was true for most countries.

For the past 90 years at least in the UK the Daily Fail has literally existed purely to turn the idiots into drones for the tories who hate foreigners.

 

[SmartBase]

I wonder how much the going rate is to disseminate the PRC's nonsense online, sounds like an easy gig.

 

[mercenar1e]

This is Chinas social and moral standards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1HdCIW2Xtk

and of course its state run media.

 

[Chichikov]

I think the article that reference is this -
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rifkind-a-stooge-in-secret-pr-war-on-china-xfq2qp2br

Not sure how good of a source that is and honestly, not sure how reliable The Sunday Times these days, I haven't been following British media in the recent years.

I googled the writers and the first article that came up was titled 'Sociopath' Hillary scared off better rivals, so I don't know...
With that being said the Henry Jackson Society is fucking awful and I would be completely unsurprised if they were engaging in such shit.

p.s.
I have no inside info but if I were to guess, based on how past incidents like that played in the past is that it technically true, but only kina. Like, I'm guessing something like Japan put some money into a "promote democracy" international fund and they paid some neocon think tanks and they paid some writers to put op-eds in big newspapers. That shit happen all the time (on both side of the political spectrum btw). It's kinda shitty if you do that, but it's not exactly an escalation of a propaganda war.

 

[random25]

China calling others petty because of propaganda? lol

 

[Chichikov]

Oh and another thing, I think there is a bit of confusion here, the article is pretty much the voice of the CCP on this issue, it's not pretending to be an opinion of some random man on the street. I know they do it a bit differently in China, but really, that's really not that different than the President of the United States taking an op-ed in the NYT (which any president can do whenever they want to).

edit: I mean the same thing in the political sense, Chinese press is of course not nearly as free as American press.

 

[sohois]

I think the article that reference is this -
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rifkind-a-stooge-in-secret-pr-war-on-china-xfq2qp2br

Not sure how good of a source that is and honestly, not sure how reliable The Sunday Times these days, I haven't been following British media in the recent years.

I googled the writers and the first article that came up was titled 'Sociopath' Hillary scared off better rivals, so I don't know...
With that being said the Henry Jackson Society is fucking awful and I would be completely unsurprised if they were engaging in such shit.

p.s.
I have no inside info but if I were to guess, based on how past incidents like that played in the past is that it technically true, but only kina. Like, I'm guessing something like Japan put some money into a "promote democracy" international fund and they paid some neocon think tanks and they paid some writers to put op-eds in big newspapers. That shit happen all the time (on both side of the political spectrum btw). It's kinda shitty if you do that, but it's not exactly an escalation of a propaganda war.

Despite being a Murdoch paper, the times is generally very reliable, and the Sunday Times in particular have exposed a ton of big stories in recent times, though mostly sporting scandals like Russia doping.

 

[Chichikov]

Despite being a Murdoch paper, the times is generally very reliable, and the Sunday Times in particular have exposed a ton of big stories in recent times, though mostly sporting scandals like Russia doping.

That was my impression, but then I thought, damn, I don't think I've read The Sunday Times in 15 years. Who the fuck knows what happened?

 

[Mivey]

China calling others petty because of propaganda? lol

I think they are just insulted that it is rather toothless propaganda, for the most part. If Japan was framing them as, let's say, a villainous, powerful rogue state that will conquer the world, now that would be acceptable.

 

[andythinkpad]

Oh and another thing, I think there is a bit of confusion here, the article is pretty much the voice of the CCP on this issue, it's not pretending to be an opinion of some random man on the street. I know they do it a bit differently in China, but really, that's really not that different than the President of the United States taking an op-ed in the NYT (which any president can do whenever they want to).

edit: I mean the same thing in the political sense, Chinese press is of course not nearly as free as American press.

Yeah. If they want to let it out from less official channel, they can use Global Times.

 

[random25]

I think they are just insulted that it is rather toothless propaganda, for the most part. If Japan was framing them as, let's say, a villainous, powerful rogue state that will conquer the world, now that would be acceptable.

I don't think China wants to be painted in a bad light in any form.

 

[Amalthea]

So everything is fake news now, huh?
Fake news covered in additional layers of fake news so that we stupid plebes won't know the truth anymore.

Seriously, all those propaganda organs all over the world can go to hell!

 

[legend166]

Why is almost every thread by the OP some sort of pro-Chinese news and/or propaganda?

 

[Mawile]

Why is almost every thread by the OP some sort of pro-Chinese news and/or propaganda?

They are a Panda.

 

[kyser73]

Calling the HJS 'intellectuals' is pushing it. They're a bunch of Blairite liberal hawks whose influence doesn't extend beyond a few backbenchers & career-twilight commentators like Nick Cohen.

 

[ScientificNinja]

I think the people laughing at how this comes from China's communist mouthpiece ought to consider how Trump comes across on Twitter

 

[Spectone]

This all probably has to do with the islands in the South China Sea, the propaganda war is just another level of these countries attacking one another.

 

[freeofgreed]

So is the evidence that Japan was paying a think tank in general and that anti-china news was something they would do regardless. Or is it that Japan specifically paid for ati-China news to be made?

 

[Chichikov]

So is the evidence that Japan was paying a think tank in general and that anti-china news was something they would do regardless. Or is it that Japan specifically paid for ati-China news to be made?

You need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
China has a China threat theory, the idea is that Japan and the US are trying to hype China as a threat to the region and world stability and they do it as a way to undermine China and cover over their domestic failures.
Now it's quite easy to find examples both in Japan of and in America of people being on the record that support that theory explicitly, everybody knows Trump says that all the time but even Romney said that.

Is it justified?
I don't know, maybe a little bit. There are certainly serious and powerful forces within both American and Japanese political and military systems that push toward a confrontation with China, but I think China assumes a bit too much centralized controls over such things. Also China as usual is not acknowledging its part in heating up some of the regional conflicts (though to be fair, pretty much all countries refuse to acknowledge such things).

This is just another diplomatic salvo, I don't think it's a huge deal in and by itself. Although of course a serious confrontation between the west and China will have serious ramifications, and in my opinion, it would be really bad for all sides involved. I truly hope we can avoid that.

 

[Back-In-Black]

I too enjoy the smart, hot takes of my local Chinese state media outlet.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

At least the UK is not doing anything like supporting political independence in Taiwan and Hong Kong or saying that harvesting the organs of prisoners is wrong. Wouldn't want to engage in that sort of rude behaviour.

 

[freeofgreed]

You need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
China has a China threat theory, the idea is that Japan and the US are trying to hype China as a threat to the region and world stability and they do it as a way to undermine China and cover over their domestic failures.
Now it's quite easy to find examples both in Japan of and in America of people being on the record that support that theory explicitly, everybody knows Trump says that all the time but even Romney said that.

Is it justified?
I don't know, maybe a little bit. There are certainly serious and powerful forces within both American and Japanese political and military systems that push toward a confrontation with China, but I think China assumes a bit too much centralized controls over such things. Also China as usual is not acknowledging its part in heating up some of the regional conflicts (though to be fair, pretty much all countries refuse to acknowledge such things).

This is just another diplomatic salvo, I don't think it's a huge deal in and by itself. Although of course a serious confrontation between the west and China will have serious ramifications, and in my opinion, it would be really bad for all sides involved. I truly hope we can avoid that.

I don't think you actually answered my question. I understand the larger context of the situation. I'm simply curious about what kind of evidence they found. Was the evidence they found, "Japan funded think tank that happened to produce negative articles on China" or "Japan funded think tank so that they intentionally produced negative articles on the Chinese". Because one is a lot more damning than the other.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Well a country that we have friendly relations with that has a stable democracy is funding a think tank. It's pretty bad. Imagine how bad it would be if it was a extremely non democratic country that had a very poor human rights record and is a known state sponsor of terror. Wow, good job there are not more serious concerns like that.