Thinking outside the mediated box: Why the EU shouldn’t condemn China’s BBC ban

By Keith Lamb 

The EU’s urging of China, last Saturday, to reverse the ban on the BBC is misplaced considering how often Britain has gone against European’s interests. China’s banning of BBC World News comes as a reaction to Ofcom’s recent banning of the Chinese media outlet CGTN from broadcasting in the UK.   

The EU said that Beijing’s move restricted “freedom of expression and access to information inside its borders.” However, the BBC, in conjunction with deep state transatlantic interests, has been engaged in a psyops propaganda war against China.   

Take Xinjiang, where the BBC has parroted claims of genocide and concentration camps. This is a naked attempt to link China’s image, in the consciousness of Westerners, with the policies of Nazi Germany. Despite such serious allegations, the BBC has never once looked into who produces and funds these claims, let alone examine closely the findings.   

It is the right-wing Christian Adrien Zenz and the think-tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) who produce the reports on Xinjiang. Importantly, Zenz is paid for by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VCMF) and ASPI is funded by government and military-industrial-complex sources.   

The VCMF is linked to the former think-tank Project for a New American Century which drew up the plan to overthrow Syria, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and prevent China’s rise. Furthermore, the VCMF, funded by Washington, classifies all deaths including Nazi deaths, to the Soviet Union, as victims of communism. It is a right-wing propaganda organization that seeks to demonize socialist states which it is now doing through Adrien Zenz.   

ASPI, funded by the likes of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, has an obvious agenda to stir up a hostile narrative against China. This is because such a narrative results in false heightened perceptions of an aggressive China which in turn leads to greater arms sales. 

 In addition, Xinjiang is the key gateway for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that will bring to development and poverty alleviation to Central Asia. In the case of Europe being at the other end of Eurasia it will also benefit greatly from increased connectivity and trade. This is why Eastern European EU members have so enthusiastically joined BRI. 

However, for states whose power traditionally rests on controlling the sea lanes, such as the UK and the US, inland development represents a geopolitical challenge to their order. Consequently, they seek to keep the continental inlands in a state of uneven development. Thus, BRI which most of the Global South is signed up to must be countered.  

China bans BBC World News over content violations

China

One could argue that the BBC has been cleverly taken in by such propaganda. Maybe some will incredulously argue that the BBC exists separately from the British state. However, the BBC’s staff are closely vetted by MI5. As such, one can only assume that at the top of the organization there must be some consciousness at what is at hand. 

Perhaps the EU has simply fallen for the propaganda war directed against China that emanates from Anglosphere states. After all, the art of propaganda and psyops was invented in the UK. These psyops operations have been used effectively in Europe and around the world for the cause of empire. 

The EU stands with the UK despite forces within Britain campaigning for Brexit based on disseminating the view that the EU is a corrupt and undemocratic organization. Be that as it may, Westminster can hardly be described as a bastion for justice when it comes to the interests of Europe and those further afield. 

Let us not forget that Britain, along with the US, stormed into Iraq killing thousands just after Saddam had started selling oil in Euros rather than dollars. Yet such tragedies including the never-ending occupation of Afghanistan seem easily forgiven and forgotten.  

These wars could not have happened without a cooperative media. True, in the UK there is often debate in the media leading up to war. However, this merely gives a false impression of where power lies. In fact, the debate is just dressing to manage the illusion of democracy while the imperial policy of war has been predetermined.  

One must always keep in mind that the weapons of mass destruction claims, which justified the invasion of Iraq, proved to be false. Ominously, hanging over the events of 911, which justified the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, are the over 3000 architects and engineers, represented by Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth, who contest the official narrative of the 911 event. 

At any rate, the imperative question is how could any section of a responsible media entertain calls for the illegal invasions of another country? Such a nefarious debate should simply not be able to take place. Any media worth its salt, conscious of the fact that false evidence and atrocity propaganda has been used to justify war, would surely try to make amends for past failings? 

Tragically, imperial policies decorated with the frills of liberal democracy and media which sells itself as free perpetuates a democratic illusion that hides deep state imperialism to this day. For example, in 2020, leaked documents show that UK government contractors developed an advanced infrastructure of propaganda to stimulate support in the West for Syria’s political and armed opposition.  

This has led to mainstream outlets across the world, including the BBC, producing a once sided narrative supporting forces which seek to upend the Syrian state, which like Gadhafi’s Libya, rejects the Western banking system. This chaos in Syria has brought the destitute from Syria into Europe as refugees. It has robbed Syria of its best as their skilled labor flees to Europe. For Europeans, this has brought the imperial policy of divide and rule into the imperial core.  

The right demonizes the innocent entering Europe who they see as diluting European identity and a threat to the achievements of the European welfare systems. Simultaneously, liberals, who see homogenous European societies as an inherent evil, support the influx of the world’s desperate. 

However, their righteousness, in part, is also misplaced for these liberals do not recognize the hard power that lies behind their soft ideology. While the right is still coopted by the ideology of the former liberal empire, modern liberals (often called the left) are unaware that they have bought into the propaganda of the new liberal empire.  

Western invasion based on the white man’s civilizing burden has now transformed into invasion based on a new civilizing mission. This civilizing mission seeks to bring Western universal freedoms and the liberal political-economic form through the atrocity of war. 

Clearly, when it comes to freedom of expression in China, there are evidently certain expressions such as the call to war, such as divide and rule tactics, and outright propaganda, paid for by those who wish to spark conflict, that China could do without.  

For the EU or at least the EU citizens they too should look at the shambles their elites, backed by forces in the U.S. and the UK, have created around Europe from Libya to Syria and Iraq. It is these Europeans who in fact need a greater plurality of views and not a chorus of a multitude of similar hues representing a thin spectrum of debate.  

Unfortunately, the banning of CGTN from the UK will delete one of the few remaining voices that do not entertain debates about neo-colonial invasions which do nothing but bring misery to Europeans and non-Europeans alike. 

Keith Lamb is a political affairs writer who concentrates on the international relations of China, neoliberalism, and socialism with Chinese characteristics. 

Keith Lamb is a political affairs writer who concentrates on the international relations of China, neoliberalism, and socialism with Chinese characteristics.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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