I’m still receiving a free copy of China Daily USA on Fridays, bundled with my subscription copy of The New York Times. I wrote about this earlier here.
This week’s issue tells you all you need to know about the journalistic standards of the official newspaper of the People’s Republic of China (Communist China). A photo at the bottom of Page 1 features a smiling (but obviously frail) Kim Jong-il, the dictator of North Korea, shaking hands with the president of China, Hu Jintao. The occasion was an unofficial visit of the Korean leader, who travels in an armored rail car.
The article says that the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (aka North Korea) is committed to the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. It fails to note that Kim, who has starved millions innocent countrymen, is one of the most monstrous criminals of both the 20th and 21st centuries.
China’s president was said in an official report to praise Kim for giving “top priority to improving people’s lives.”
Here’s a more realistic assessment from the New York Times’s Edward Wong:
In his frequent trips to China, Mr. Kim has often toured prosperous coastal areas. But he has not put in place fundamental changes to the North Korean economy, and some analysts believe his interest in China stems primarily from his desire for cheap, reliable supplies of food and energy and diplomatic protection from the United States, Japan and South Korea, which are seeking to roll back North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
I realize that depending on your political views, a few might be as cynical about the New York Times as I am about the China Daily. Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper. But I’ll take the Times over the China Daily every day of the week and twice on Sunday.