Mike Pompeo’s Crusade Targets US-based Chinese Journalists

Chinese journalists have once again become the target of Mike Pompeo’s crusade against China. Part One was the decision of the State Department to treat 5 major Chinese media groups working here in the United States as agents of the Chinese Government. These included Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily and Haitian, which is the People’s Daily distributer here in the U.S. This had a political motive as well as a propagandistic motive. Politically, this requires that these media outlets to adhere to the same restrictive protocols as member of the Chinese Foreign Mission in the U.S.  Secondly, it creates the impression among the general public that their reporting has little to do with the truth, and represents merely Chinese government propaganda. And every reputable journalist should be up in arms over this attempt to discredit their Chinese colleagues.

The first goal is simply political harassment, making it harder for the media to do its job. The second is more devious and the intent is to win support of the “narrative” that Pompeo wishes to promote: namely that China is a country that can’t be trusted, that Xi Jinping wants China to rule the world, and that ultimately there will be a reckoning between China’s form of governance and that of the United States. As Secretary of State Pompeo is something of a religious zealot. He himself says, in his address to the “choir” at the Conservative Political Action Committee, that he feels his teaching of religion at Sunday School back in Kansas prepared him for his job Secretary of State and the job involves converting the world to the “values” he espouses. Not since John Foster Dulles has State had a Secretary who was so zealous in his religious views.

The success of China in winning an important place in the world community by creating a successful economy and offering to share its success with the world represents a threat to Pompeo. Therefore, the false “narrative” he espouses has got to become hegemonic. And any alternative “narrative” suppressed. In my experience, Chinese journalists are just that, journalists who are prepared to seek the truth and to publish that for their viewers both here and in China. They haven’t taken a course in propaganda at some secret institute somewhere in China. In fact, many have probably been educated at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, which has educated so many Chinese journalists since the 1930s.

But, like most journalists, they are patriotic. And when you attend the State Department briefings, you have journalists from all over the world who will primarily ask questions related to their own countries. They also are patriotic. And like the Chinese journalists, they would like to see a balanced view of their own nations expressed in the media. For the Chinese journalists, this is even more important, since there are few U.S. media outlets that are prepared to give a “balanced view” of China, particularly in this hot-house environment of Sinophobia now reigning among the U.S. political elites. And as their narrative wins adherents among the U.S. public, generally disgusted with the blathering of the “mainstream media,” they start to look at CGTN or Russia Today in order to get the other side of the picture than that offered the mainstream media. And if they do that, they will see that China has succeeded greatly in dealing with the corona virus and is in the process of helping other countries deal with it. They will also see that China has achieved tremendous gains in overcoming poverty. And they will see that China has done what no other country has done – land on the Far Side of the Moon. And they will also see that President Xi Jinping is not the evil person described by Pompeo and other neocons, but a leader with a very profound philosophical grounding and with a total commitment to improving the conditions of his people and bringing peace to the world. President Trump has seen that. But Pompeo does not want this to become a widespread opinion among a large number of Americans. If that becomes the case, who will join his crusade?

Copy Editor：Dong Lingyi