The Fiji Sun‘s editorial treatment of the Nine media organisation’s disclosures about Zhao Fugang and China’s influence in Fiji confirm the paper’s disturbing bias against the democracies in favour of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Fiji Sun has detailed none of the material in Nine newspapers and 60 Minutes that Grubsheet has published in previous postings since Sunday night. Instead over two days, it has led with the response of the Chinese Embassy to those allegations in what amounts to a conspiracy between the two to pervert the truth.
Again today, the Beijing Sun carries a detailed statement from its Chinese paymasters under the headline – “Chinese Embassy refutes 60 Minutes’ allegations”. The choice of the word “refute” rather than to say that the Embassy denies the allegations demonstrates, in itself, the Sun’s inherent bias in favour of the Chinese position.
“Refute” suggests that the Chinese have proven the allegations to be untrue when they have done nothing of the sort. They are simply denying that they are true, in other words they don’t accept that they are true. Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?
But what allegations? Rather than publish the precise details of what was reported by the Nine media organisation and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Fiji Sun merely reports what the Chinese Embassy chooses to address. It is a blatant corruption of the journalistic process – the cart pulling the horse for a start. Not allegation followed by response but response ahead of allegation.
The Fiji Sun has again confirmed its status as a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Over recent years, it has taken money from Beijing to publish stories in its columns and has sent its journalists to train in China. And we are now seeing the insidious effect of that relationship in its news columns – a bastardisation of proper editorial conduct and a naked assault on ethical journalism.
When one of the two newspapers in Fiji is in an improper relationship with the Chinese government and disseminates its propaganda, it amounts to a conspiracy against the right of the Fijian people to have full access to the facts. The Fiji Sun has deliberately chosen not to publish the detail as outlined by a prestigious media group in Australia – encompassing the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Nine Network – and instead spun the story in favour of Beijing, reporting that the Chinese Embassy has disproved the Nine media group’s stories without even publishing what was reported in the first place.
It is a grave breach of media standards and once again gives the lie to the claim that the abolition of the previous government’s media laws has heralded a new era of media freedom in Fiji. It has done nothing of the sort. A combination of self censorship and selective reporting – plus the kind of partisan propaganda for an authoritarian state we are seeing in the Fiji Sun – means we have merely swapped one dark era of media manipulation for another.
The Sun deserves to be formally censured by the new Fiji Media Council and a thorough investigation conducted into its ties with the Chinese Embassy. Media consumers and advertisers in Fiji should also boycott the paper for its egregious breach of journalistic standards. Sadly, choosing to buy the Fiji Times instead isn’t going to give anyone fair, unbiased coverage of the news either. They are both tainted with the same brush and the Fiji Times has also chosen not to give the Nine stories detailed treatment.
Again in today’s Fiji Times, the emphasis isn’t on the allegations revealed in the Nine reports but the Coalition’s response to them. The Home Affairs Minister, Pio Tikoduadua, says the government intends to follow “due process” in relation to the accusations against Zhao Fugang. What allegations? Fiji Times readers haven’t been told. But does anyone honestly think that the Minister’s appeal for people with information about the alleged crime boss to go to the police is going to produce anything?
We already know that Zhao Fugang has close ties to the police, including a highly inappropriate relationship with the suspended Police Commissioner, Sitiveni Qiliho, in which Qiliho invited Fugang to take part in police intelligence meetings. We also know from reporter Nick McKenzie that Fugang called the police after he was bailed up by 60 Minutes at the Yue Lai restaurant and a police officer was onto McKenzie wanting to know why he was pestering him.
Anyone want to take a punt on going to the police with information knowing all of this? And more pertinently, knowing how Chinese crime bosses – including alleged Chinese crime bosses – traditionally regard informants? Pio Tikoduadua – good Catholic boy that he is – is hopelessly naive. But then so is the entire nation when it comes to appreciating the extent of the Chinese menace.
POSTSCRIPT: No surprises that the Beijing Sun also gives lavish coverage today to the Chinese road-building project in Vanua Levu. Fair enough. But its manipulation of the Nine allegations is unforgivable.
Worrying revelation GS, especially when Fiji through the Minister Pio saying all these is not new and speaking out of sync with the PM. That brings alot of issues and questions to the fore. And, with the ccp Sun reporting, it seems the Ant all along is fine with the Elephant trampling noisy/ing around the house and camping in its backyard.We need solutions in the definition and extent of our sovereignty.
Fiji Sun’s late CEO, Peter Lomas, had a love affair with China, and its former ambassador Qian Bo, now Beijing’s special envoy to the region, is said to have frequently visited the office to hold close-door meetings with the editorial leads. Looks like the same clandestine relationship will continue under Rosi Doviverata and her band of pro-China propagandists who have visited Beijing and are completely entranced by what it has to offer.
Wasn’t the Sydney Morning Herald that you are touting, GD reporting last year. quoting various right wing think tanks that proliferate in Australia these days, that Australia would be going to war with China in the next 2-3 years.
Why would you want to go to war when so much more can be achieved for humankind through peace and collaboration?
Whether Australia and China go to war is entirely up to China. If it invades Taiwan, all bets are off. So you would be better off lecturing the Chinese than lecturing Australians.