By
The
Beijing Winter Olympics has been overshadowed from the start by complaints over
China’s human rights record, harsh COVID-19 rules, and disputes over referees’
decisions. However, that wouldn’t be so apparent if one were to stumble upon a
recent ad on CNN’s
website.
“A
Winter Sporting Event Like No Other” reads the headline of the article, which begins with a
glowing account of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to make the
occasion more environmentally friendly than ever.
The
sponsored article, supplied by Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency, features
imagery of children skiing on snow-covered fields—including a toddler with a
heart-warming smile sporting full ski gear, including eye-catching vermillion
goggles.
The
“most anticipated winter sports event” has “become even greener,” the article
claims before giving a glowing account of virtually every aspect of the Beijing Olympics, from
its harsh pandemic protocols to technologies it said would make the Games a
carbon-neutral event.
A
general view during the 2022 Olympic Men’s Biathlon Relay in Zhangjiakou,
China, on Feb. 15, 2022. (Christophe Pallot/Agence Zoom/Getty Images)
It
cites a Wuhan Ice and Snow Sports Association official who voiced confidence
that “the winter games will leave a legacy of talent, infrastructure, and
technology, as the 2008 summer games in Beijing did.”
“The
games is no passing fad,” Wang Jun, vice president of the state-run association,
was cited as saying.
A click
on either the top or bottom of the page directs readers to Xinhua’s “special
coverage” of the Beijing Games with buoyant slogan-like headlines such as
“President Xi steers China to unprecedented Olympic achievement” and “Beijing
2022 to usher in new era for winter sports globally.”
A
screenshot of a paid ad by Xinhua on CNN, on Feb. 16, 2022. (Screenshot)
Absent
from both pages are the controversies surrounding the Beijing Olympics that
have dominated headlines in the lead-up to and during the Games.
Outcry
over the regime’s genocidal campaign against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, as
well its rights abuses elsewhere, has led the United States and several other
countries to stage a diplomatic
boycott.
Before
they set out for Beijing, athletes from multiple countries were warned to bring
a burner phone to evade state-enabled eavesdropping. Inside Beijing’s
“closed-loop” bubble, complaints have piled up over food quality, hygiene, confusing
and harsh quarantine rules, and allegedly biased
rulings by judges that handed medals to China.
Just miles away from the
Olympic venues where the athletes are competing, prisoners of conscience
such as Falun Gong practitioners face torture and other abuses inside Chinese
detention facilities, a human rights group has documented.
A
general view of the Olympic rings as Montenegro’s Eldar Salihovic competes in
the second run of the men’s slalom during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games
at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre in Yanqing on Feb. 16, 2022. (Jeff
Pachoud/AFP via Getty Images)
Criticism
CNN has
been criticized for past coverage that cast Beijing in a positive light. On the
eve of the CCP’s 100th anniversary on July 1, 2021, the cable network ran an
article titled “The Chinese Communist Party is about to turn 100 but Xi will be
the real star,” referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Weeks prior to that, a
CNN article praised Beijing for its “staggering” scale and speed in
distributing COVID-19 vaccinations.
“China’s
about to administer its billionth coronavirus shot. Yes, you read that right,”
the headline read.
Rep.
Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who was critical of the celebratory tone of the 2021
article about Xi, saw CNN’s decision to run the Xinhua ad as a “sad but
unsurprising move.”
“Once
again, CNN has caved to glorifying and being a mouthpiece for the Chinese
Communist Party,” he told The Epoch Times.
“There
is nothing ‘safe’ nor ‘sustainable‘ about the way the authoritarian CCP
government runs its nation, and there is also nothing safe about American
‘journalists’ doing the bidding of a regime actively committing genocide and
silencing those who dare to speak out against it.”
China’s
state-controlled media have spent generously to expand the CCP’s messaging in
the West, especially in the United States. Xinhua is a registered foreign agent
for China under U.S. law.
Each
year, the English-language newspaper China Daily—which, like Xinhua, has been
designated by the United States as a foreign mission—pays millions of dollars to
Western outlets to distribute its content.
Just before Christmas,
Xinhua also ran an ad on the giant screen it has leased in Times Square, one of
the most prized spots for advertising. The video praised the green development
of a city in Xinjiang, describing it as a place filled with “sweet fruits,
intoxicating wines” and “a happy life of people”—an effort to whitewash Beijing’s
repression in the region, activists said.
Chinese
media outlets, of course, haven’t been the sole avenue for the regime in
Beijing to make its narratives heard overseas.
Months
before the Olympics began, the Chinese consulate in New York hired a New Jersey
public relations firm to help boost the image of the
regime through the Beijing Olympics. Under a $300,000 contract,
the agency was to hire prominent social media influencers to generate content
about “touching moments” during the Games, athletes’ preparation work, and new
technologies used, the last topic being the same theme that the Xinhua ad
sought to convey.
CNN
didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment by press time.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/cnn-runs-chinese-state-media-ad-glorifying-beijing-olympics_4283131.html
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