News

Never underestimate the ability of the Chinese media to steer attention toward -- or away from -- stories both domestic and foreign....2) It is worth remembering that the elements of the Iranian story that give it such drama and importance in much of the world are less automatically resonant in China..... I assert that they seem more distant to ordinary people in China -- even if the themes were featured on the news. People's own problems, and their business problems, and the country's problems, are enough to worry about...The Chinese publications that are explicitly aimed at foreign readers, the redoubtable China Daily and its new complement Global Times, have taken a predictable but still interesting line. Right now the China Daily is, like the People's Daily, underplaying the story altogether. ..The themes of "outside interference" and "victimization by Western powers" are comfortable, reflexive positions for the Chinese government's foreign policy establishment to take, so are the natural positions here. I don't think anyone in the foreign media has any clear idea of what the Chinese leadership really is thinking about Iran and its implications.