Until this week, I had never heard of the China Global Television
Network (CGTN) before. Essentially, this is the Chinese version of
RT.com that has a presence globally with each unit broadcasting in the
local language. An old friend emailed me about a controversy that had
developed in the French outlet of CGTN over its publication of a March
28article <https://archive.is/USZ45/>by one Laurène Beaumond titled
“’My’ Xinjiang: stop the tyranny of fake news” that defended the Chinese
government against charges of the forced assimilation of the Uighur
people in Xinjiang. The article was par for the course propaganda making
the case that China had been the Uighur’s best friend, delivering all
sorts of benefits in keeping with the government’s respect for national
minorities. This snippet will give you a sense of the article’s
shamelessness:
In Xinjiang, all signage and shop signs are in Mandarin and the
Turkic language spoken by Uyghurs. Administrative documents are also
in both languages. Having been the victim of a health problem that
forced me to stay hospitalized for a week in Urumqi in 2016, I was
treated by a team of Uyghur doctors at a facility right next to one
of the city’s largest mosques. Every morning, I was awakened by the
song of the muezzin who called the faithful to prayer and the
hospital canteen was 100% halal [conforming to Muslim dietary laws].
An editor’s note preceding the article stated:
Freelance journalist based in France, with a double degree in art
history and archeology at the University of Sorbonne-IV and holder
of a master’s degree in journalism, Laurène Beaumond has worked in
various editorial offices in Paris before settling down in Beijing,
where she lived for almost 7 years.
Apparently, someone at Le Monde was suspicious enough about her
journalism bona fides to do some digging into her past. The result was
an article that charged China with creating a sock puppet to spread
government propaganda. Wikipedia’s definition is as good as any: “A sock
puppet or sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of
deception. The term, a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand
puppet made from a sock, originally referred to a false identity assumed
by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves
while pretending to be another person.”
full:
https://louisproyect.org/2021/04/05/did-china-use-a-sock-puppet-to-bolster-support-for-its-forced-assimilation-of-the-uighurs/
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