Phil Cunningham
@jinpeili
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金培力 China News at Fulbright, Knight, Nieman
Joined February 2012
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Peng Lifa is the man on the bridge. A 48-year old scientist from Heilongjiang province, his hometown, Tailai is near the border of Inner Mongolia. He lived in Xicheng district in Beijing and worked at a computer services company.
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wordless sheet of blank paper is taken from hands of a protester who remains standing with an invisible wordless message
It's still a powerful message...
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JAPAN STRIKES BACK:
After weeks and weeks of no comment to Chinese state TV scare stories about Fukushima, the Yomiuri Shimbun runs a story that claims China's radiation release levels are much worse!
(Let the scientists decide)
(🧵)
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How dare Biden call this mild-mannered, thoughtful, humble, avuncular, all-knowing sage and ubiquitous, mega-galaxy brain paramount leader who models himself after Mao as the strongman secretary general and chairman of everything a.... "dictator?"
It's so unfair!
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Qin Gang is missing. Not only is he missing from the news cycle in China, but he's missing from my article! As run by the SCMP on July 15, five sentences about Qin were removed (without notice) from the article after it was accepted for publication.
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CCTV FOLLIES 11/26 What's not on the news?
Social media is bursting with images of protest and police citizen clashes across China, but not a peep on CCTV which sails through first ten minutes singing praise of Xi Jinping and the victorious 20th party congress.
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FINALLY AN HONEST CHINESE REPORT ON UKRAINE!
CCTV's best reporter on the "Ukraine Situation" is ex-employee.
Independent reporter Wang Zhi'an visits Ukraine. He does more in 18 minutes with a crew of 5 than CCTV has done in 18 weeks with tons of cash and hundreds of staff.
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@tomgara
@semaforben
the starter pack is like those designer birthday cakes inscribed with instructions. It's so meta...
"include candles"
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His singular act of defiance led to his arrest but he has awakened people around the world to the dangers of dictatorship, personality cult and one party rule.
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If China's Global Times applied the exact same editorial guidelines it follows today in 1937, it would have defended the Nanjing Massacre:
-Call it an incident
-Dismiss it with cliches
-Shift blame
-Conclude that nothing can be concluded
-Show no pity for victims, support rapists
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It's easy to laugh at China's Foreign Ministry's spokespeople for their dodges, prevarications and "I have no information to share with you at this time" but put yourself in their shoes.
Boss has gone missing, and they're in a climate of fear; their job is impossible.
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Dressed as a worker, he hung two protest banners from Sitong Bridge in Beijing's university district. He created a smoky fire to bring attention to his protest. He had a tape recorder playing protest slogans as well.
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Today's CCTV coverage of Zhao Leji announcing emergency meeting for July 25 to discuss (among other things) promotions and dismissals.
Faces are tense, severe and gloomy.
#whereisQinGang
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Numerous motorists caught the sight on camera, but were quickly warned not to share anything on the topic at risk of being banned from social media or worse. Even saying "I saw it" was an actionable offense.
Yet someone posted close-up footage from the top of the bridge itself.
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Just to put the Xi-Blinken meet in local context--Xi's appearance at another meeting was the top news story of the day. After 10-minutes of inspiring personality-cult shots at a Communist Youth League jamboree, the Blinken news got squeezed in with 2-minutes of air-time.
(thread)
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Taken from inside a police car, the video below is believed to be among the last messages sent from Peng Lifa's phone, after he was detained but before his phone was confiscated.
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Clearly anticipating such a fate, the lone protester left numerous messages online in various social media accounts, including the virtual research community known as
He called for a general strike to oppose the Xi dictatorship.
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There's no room for Qiqihar school roof collapse, catastrophic floods in Fujian or the explosion in Anping on CCTV's domestic news, but they have space for the heatwave in the US.
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@JohnSimpsonNews
@akuhnNPRnews
I was with John Simpson that day, carrying tapes from the Beijing Hotel to the Palace Hotel where BBC had an office. The reason Simpson was in the Beijing Hotel is because I invited him and the rest of the crew to stay in my room. (BBC was holed up in the Palace)
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Never seen so many white faces on Chinese TV!
CCTV NEWS gets guest-hosted by the Kremlin.
Every key interview subject is a Russian, giving Chinese viewers a balanced, neutral understanding of "conflict" in Ukraine.
@Nrg8000
@polijunkie_aus
@Kasparov63
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Virtual versions of Peng's banners have unfurled around the world.
His message, rendered in various formats in far-flung places, range from a trilingual signboard on a campus in Japan to America's Route 66!
"Say no to dictatorship, say yes to freedom and democracy!"
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The protest was an immediate social media event and news of its swept across limited channels in China and then more widely around the world.
His famous banner, done to the tune of "say no to this, yes to that" is translated on the Twitter post below.
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On this momentous, history-making day, China Daily leads with: "How does it feel to receive a reply letter from President Xi?"
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Wait! Something's wrong.
Shouldn't that be "Xizangoloists?
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CCTV FOLLIES 11/25 Another nothingburger news day
Outside the studios of CCTV, things seem to be heating up. Big news.
You won't see it on the news, but you can sense it.
Chinese social media is awash with troubling images from all four corners of China.
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This rare photo of him with his family on vacation was on one of his Twitter accounts.
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The observer, presumably Peng, was inside the police car early enough to observe motorcycles and police vans arrive while the fire was still burning.
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Within hours posters in sympathy and solidarity with the bridge man went up on walls around the world.
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The footage appears to be taken from the back seat of the police car. It seems in the initial confusion, the person filming it is left undisturbed. The banners have not been torn down yet. They were secured to the bridge with sandbags to hold them in place.
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Fu Xiaotian leaves a longer trail of breadcrumbs than Hansel and Gretel.
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It's nice that the Han-dominated CCP lets minorities engage in performative ethnicity, it would be nicer still if they had the option to opt out of the dog and pony show and not to pose for the cameras decked out in extravagantly impractical, albeit charming, costumes.
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Peng's Tiktok and social media accounts in China were instantly closed down and even his US based Twitter account was mysteriously edited, stripped of all political content, perhaps by the police who had him in detention
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There has been no news of Peng since the day he was arrested, though one timed tweet was released after his arrest. It was an excerpt of Sun Yatsen's farewell speech, which is well known in China and Taiwan.
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Near the end of the video, the person filming the scene made an attempt to get out of the car.
The video abruptly ends.
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Seen from another angle, a man in a reflective jacket and wearing a hard hat is seen being led away by police.
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Xi has been in hiding since the floods.
This "Xi leads the way" piece by Xinhua is North Korean-level propaganda, so ludicrous it's funny
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Scenes from Hotan in Xinjiang where citizens waving red flag break through police barrier manned by white suits.
Similar street battles reported in Tianjin, Guangdong, Chongqing and elsewhere.
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Peng's words were repeated around the world, from bathroom stalls and back alley walls in China to open displays on cars and bridges and college campuses outside China.
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He posted cat pictures and spring blossoms among other things; these too were taken down.
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In a manner as silly as it was predictable, all bridges were viewed with suspicion and many police posted.
Campus copy machines came with warnings not to reproduce "seditious" materials
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Other angles on the event include cars traveling parallel to Sitong Bridge on the ground crossing of Third Ring Road near Friendship Hotel and from a tall office building overlooking the intersection.
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In the lower right hand corner, a man can be seen being "escorted" into the white police vehicle.
At least ten policemen are now on the scene.
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And now the news....
"We have some big stories today..."
-Success of Xi Jinping's 20th Congress
-Success of scientific and correct Covid Policy
-Russia strikes foreign fighters in Ukraine
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CCTV FOLLIES 1.11 Backwards Day
-CCTV News always opens with Xi and I'm getting a little tired of that, so here's the news in reverse:
-Bad things happen to bad countries (TM)
-Russia defends itself
-New CCTV doc
-CCTV deflects on Covid
-The glorious CCP
-Xi, Xi, Xi, Xi, Xi
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Almost immediately, sympathizers responded with poetry, words of praise and song.
Eason Chan's rousing anthem "You are the Hero" (guyongzhe) was cited as a song appropriate to the moment.
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This piece was too hot for the South China Morning Post to handle, so here it is, free and online:
@Nrg8000
@W7VOA
@TGTM_Official
@elonmusk
@fryan
@YaxueCao
@CHRDnet
@JosephTorigian
@fangshimin
@AMFChina
@xchen156
@barackObama
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His tweets and Tiktok posts show his deep displeasure with the severe lockdown measures and draconian "Zero-Covid" policy of the CCP under Xi.
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Abe is Japan's Trump,
Trump is America's Abe.
Both are repugnant politicians who lie as a matter of course, fatally blinded by ambition and greed.
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Today's CCTV news report about the liberation of Kherson is a masterclass in misdirection.
@polijunkie
@crehage
@Nrg8000
@W7VOA
@TGTM_Official
@YaxueCao
@CHRDnet
@fangshimin
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Patrick Chovanec, a consultant at Silvercrest Asset Mgmt has done some China virtue-signaling by compiling photos about the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations, an event he evidently knows little about.
(a thread)
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Mysterious viral contagion sweeps Beijing. Symptoms include involuntary clapping for no reason. Advanced stages of the disease include the sorry sight of grown men clapping for themselves. Central Beijing cordoned off to protect the uninfected.
Great Hall suspected ground zero.
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CCTV FOLLIES 01.01 Nothing new in the new year
-First five stories all about Xi, not that's there anything else worth reporting on in a land of 1.4 billion facing crisis if not catastrophe.
-Russia bombs away at Ukraine
-Program ends with China beauty palette cleanser
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Both Twitter accounts were new and had only a handful of posts. One was named in reference to his passion for physics.
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China state TV coverage slamming Japan slyly relies on CCTV's Japan-based crew to capture scenes of domestic demonstrations in Japan (when it would never countenance, or be allowed to film, let alone broadcast footage of anti-government demonstrations at home.)
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NOT CCTV NEWS 11/26 A day of spontaneous protest
A round-up of the day's non-news around the nation.
First, Urumqi where white-suited police go door-to-door looking for instigators and block public streets.
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You can imprison the man but not his words...
Peng Lifa's famous slogan "No to lockdown, Yes to freedom" resounded across China last night.
Scenes below from Chongqing and Shanghai.
Even a skateboarder joined in.
@changchengwai
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The arrogance. Bestowing privileged diplomatic status upon old hacks, like Kissinger, or old strongmen, like Duterte, while snubbing and ignoring the legal government is Xi-plomacy?
I suppose the US could try courting Hu Jintao and the Philippines could reach out to Zhu Rongji.
US-China relations would be so much easier if only Henry Kissinger, 100, was the US President — forever:
“The Chinese people value friendship, and they never forget their old friend, nor your historic contributions to promoting the growth of China-US relations,” said Xi.
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"Chinese nuclear power plants have been releasing into the ocean water containing tritium at levels up to 6.5 times higher" than the annual amount scheduled to be released from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant according to Yomiuri's report.
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Fu Xiaotian's interview with Qin Gang is windswept, breathtaking, encompasses war and peace and the future of humanity, and even romantic in moments, but sorry, Fu, and editors, that's not the US Capitol!
Compare frame 3 and 4 of this March 2022 interview.
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CCTV just loves demonstrations!!! *
*provided they do not take place in China or implicate China or China's "friends"
Domestic turmoil is best appreciated in rivals:
Korea? good
Japan? very good!
UK? CCTV is there. They care
A thread from: 7.8 Xinwen Lianbo
@Joel_P_Atkinson
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China Min. of Foreign Affairs:
"An explosion happened near China's Consulate-General in Odessa. The blast wave shook off parts of the wall surface and windowpanes. The consulate staff had long left the premises and no one was hurt"
Explosion? It was a Russian missile attack!
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The idea that minorities not only sing and dance well but should sing and dance (and wear big hats where possible) for the CCP is almost as old as the new China.
But what's up with Xi's strident emphasis on performative ethnicity?
(Ersatz diversity on show at Chengdu Games)
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Cross-cultural optical illusion:
Europeans see a round table, Chinese see Xi positioned at the Center of the World.
He alone is on the "zhong zhou xian" aligned with the imperial geomancy of the Forbidden City.
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A terse news report about Li Keqiang's passing was aired at the opening of the 8AM news, and then the program ran a full hour with no further mention of it.
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CCTV Follies: April 18
First the good news from China:
-CCP is making great efforts to guarantee production and keep the economy supply chain flowing smoothly.
segue to Ukraine:
-Russia resumes assault on Mariupol Azov Steel Factory where Ukrainian holdouts refuse to surrender.
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@KyivIndependent
China's CCTV repeats Russian official line (official lie) that the "abandoned shopping center" accidentally caught fire after a precision strike on Ukrainian ammo dump in Kremenchuk.
But the pictures CCTV obtained from Ukraine TV indicate the shopping center was open and in use.
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This little propaganda gem from CCTV's junior partner CGTN about Taiwan echoes Putin's talking points on Ukraine.
-US stokes tension, fans flames
-US doesn't care about XXX
-US really wants to weaken ZZZ
-US wants to maintain hegemony
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CCTV FOLLIES 1.21 Chunwan Song and Dance Fest
Where bad politics meets bad art and tone-deaf propaganda
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He starts out his report by stating plain truths never heard on CCTV.
Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine is the victim, Russia is victimizer.
He says China’s state media has zero people in Ukraine.
They follow Russian reports, the standpoint is distorted.
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My post about how wrong it was for China's Global Times to dismiss the
#Bucha
massacre as fake news
has provoked much meaningful response.
Appreciated.
There is ample evidence to call it by its name, a massacre, and not whitewash it as an "incident" or "fake news."
(a thread)
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It also includes protest footage from Korea to make its case. Water release has been nagging problem at Fukushima for a long time but it is telling that you get a big upswing in CCTV coverage after the G-7 in Hiroshima (Zelensky visit) which upstaged Xi's silly pageantry in Xian!
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According to a Japanese government document seen by Yomiuri, "water containing about 143 trillion becquerels of tritium was released from Qinshan III Nuclear Power Plant in Zhejiang Province in 2020...
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"An American journalist published an article..."
is one of the top stories on CCTV today, highlighted at the opening of the news.
Here's looking at you, Sy Hersh!
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"In 2021, water containing about 112 trillion becquerels was released from the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Station in Guangdong, 102 trillion becquerels from the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in Fujian and 90 trillion becquerels from the Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Plant in Liaoning..."
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If you watch CCTV News when Xi talks you will notice that everyone from high to low is wont to put pen in hand and pretend to take notes, even though they have ears, eyes, prepared notes and audio-visual recordings. It's a performance, a show of obedience.
Ever see Xi take notes?
i just don't get it - why are some people so obsessed with them taking notes in a meeting? i was in a dinner last night with one of them and he took notes during the dinner. people take notes. they just do. my research associate take notes in meetings.
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But I'll let China's fiery demoiselle of dialogue, the inimitable Hua Chunying, get in the last word...
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CCTV FOLLIES 6.24 Terror Alert in Moscow
The evening news opens its foreign coverage with the usual Russian MoD shots of bombs over Ukraine, then postcard views of Moscow, then Putin's speech and finally a view of the Wagner group building under guard.
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A thread: CCTV4's "balanced" international Chinese-language coverage of the Bucha massacre.
Hint: No mention of a massacre.
The "Bucha incident" is contested by both sides, it says, while giving considerable credence to Russian denials.
@Nrg8000
@polijunkie_aus
@DemesDavid
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Tibet has never been happier!
"From serfdom to freedom -- Tibet's progress on democracy, human rights"
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Who needs the Dalai Lama when Tibet already has a spiritual leader?
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Hero of Sitong Bridge is a scientist named Peng Lifa.
He opposes superstitious imperial personality cult and coercive Covid prevention theater.
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I'm proud of the pictures but I don't like being ripped off, especially by a wealthy capitalist consultant who doesn't respond to a polite request for credit.
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CCTV FOLLIES 8.13 With the successful conclusion of the CCP's successful battle against the flood (and public opinion), CCTV turns its languid gaze elsewhere.
In China, a land of no news, the big story today is disaster in Hawaii.
(a thread)
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CCTV FOLLIES 12.31 Xi Jinping congratulates himself.
His most august eminence gives his 2023 New Year's Speech from deep inside the sumptuous gilded palace of Zhongnanhai which is flanked by a gilded gate proclaiming: "Serve the People"
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@TGTM_Official
It's typical of CCP TV productions you see on CCTV in the sense that the narration is calming, the explanation is authoritative and the music soothing, but the pictures just don't go with the words, and actually are at odds with the message.
Let's hear it for bad editors!
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CCTV FOLLIES 11/27 What protests?
When the going gets hot, CCTV plays it cool.
As protests proliferate in China's cities, CCTV talks about the weather. Let it snow!
-China economy good
-Snow in north China
-Fewer fairy lights on high streets of England this year.
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CCTV FOLLLIES 2.27 He who turns the desert green
It's not North Korea level insanity yet, but it's getting close.
This dry, desiccated, remote part of China used to be an unforgiving desert, ravaged by sand storms, drought and totally unsuitable for propaganda purposes...
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People in China say it's impossible to determine truth from fact between Russia and Ukraine. Chinese media have plenty of money but they are basically just repeating Russian coverage. It’s all second hand reports and shows no balance. It's from perspective of the perpetrator."
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Thanks to Wang Zhi'an for demonstrating that Chinese journalists can do a great job when their hands aren't tied and they're not forced to toe the line of the state!
@wangzhian8848
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Hong Kong, where things got iffy for a while, has done a complete about-face, and is now a unwavering bulwark of support for the Xi personality cult.
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Also anyone who's spent any time in a big Japanese office (NHK, Dentsu in my case) can affirm that looking busy is more important than being productive.
I'm always amazed at how quickly people accept that Japanese workers work more hours than other countries. In Mexico people work 2148 hours annually, in Korea 1993, in Israel 1910 and in Japan? Only 1680. Can we give this stereotype a rest?
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What's in a name? PRC officials refusing to call Tibet by its name, hoping the notion of it being a real place with a history of its own will go away.
Xi-zang is used in Chinese, but this is in English. To add insult to injury, areas south of recognized border called "Zangnan"
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@TGTM_Official
Hard to say what's scarier, the illogical pro-Putin reasoning or the fact that they let the state script-writers do all the thinking for them
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CCTV FOLLIES 3.1 New kowtow for New Era
-Alexander Lukashenko bows to the master's master
-Pompous ceremony and ceremonial pomp
-Spirit of 20th sweeps over land
-Party school meet stresses key role of Party
-Putin speaks
-CCTV still gushing about Nord Stream
-Ray McGovern
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China's flagship news daily glorifies Russia's assault on Ukraine, and Wang Yi has the nerve to say his regime stands on the side of peace?
China：Always stood on side of peace
Also China：Russia and China to hold joint naval drills in December
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Xi's just-released "I did nothing wrong" New Year's speech lauding his failed Covid Policy, among other "accomplishments" in his 2022 round-up, is defensive and reeks of excessive self-regard.
It's up there with Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech.
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Fu Xiaotian was candid about taking a private jet back to China with her baby. If her parents were in the LA area helping her during the first 100 days, one wonders if they too went with her, flown back to China in style, only to face great uncertainty.
@polijunkie_aus
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CCTV FOLLIES 3.5 National People's Congress
-CPPCC meet followed by NPC meet.
-Even on sidelines, Xi has to be number one
-Li Keqiang's last report: abject ventriloquist act for Xi
-Lei Feng craze takes unsuspecting nation by storm
-Nord Stream steams
-Ohio is a train wreck
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