Chinese Donations

The Trump-supporting co-host of my weekly broadcast forAmerican radio is livid. The Chinese, he said, are selling medical equipment toEuropean countries that was donated to them back in January/February. “I won’tforgive them for this if I live another 70 years!” He exclaimed while banginghis desk so hard that I feared he would punch a hole in the woodwork.

I was confused, as well as concerned about LockwoodPhillips’ furniture and blood pressure. I had read reports about China donatingsupplies to Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Also that China’s medicalmanufacturing industry is now at full blast; 110 million facemasks daily. Ihave also heard that some merchants (Chinese and others) are guilty of pricegouging and that a high proportion of the medical equipment coming out of Chinais defective. And finally, China’s Covid-19 statistics are proving to beextremely dicey and this is creating difficulties for the rest of the world.But I had not heard that the Chinese were cashing in on the charity of othercountries.

Lockwood, despite his politics, is usually a verywell-informed and reliable news source. So, after the broadcast I set out tolearn more. It was an interest bit of detective work.

The main source of the story was the new American darling ofconservative American websites—The Western Journal. Forget about BreitbartNews. Their user figures are falling through the floor—down from 17.5 millionunique monthly visitors to around the 4 million mark.  The Western Journal is clocking a staggering40 million unique users a month. 

Actually, the first hint (and it was no more than that) camefrom a throw away line from the Trump-supporting far-right and often unreliablebroadcaster Fox News on 26 February. It was then picked by Amber Abney at theAmerican Spectator on 4 April, another conservative platform. The AmericanSpectator, by the way, has no connection with its British namesake.  Ms. Abney, quoted as her source, “A high-rankingTrump Administration source.” The cloak of anonymity means the TrumpAdministration can easily deny the report if need be. 

On 6 April the story took flight when it was reproduced bythe Western Journal for the perusal of its 40 million readers. From there itwas picked up by Breitbart News and then again by another far-right outletNational File.

The Western Journal, the key link in this chain, has aninteresting story. It started life in 2008 as Western Journalism. Its founderwas political consultant Floyd Brown who was so conservative that George Bushsenior refused to allow him anywhere near his presidential campaign. WesternJournalism quickly established itself as a purveyor of alt-right fake news andwas regularly blacklisted by Facebook and other social media platforms. Then in2015 it was sold to Floyd’s son Patrick, owner of Liftable Media. He cleaned upthe site and amalgamated it with another conservative website (ConservativeTribune). In 2018, the two platforms were launched as The Western Journal andcirculation soared.

All of the shares in the parent company (Liftable) are ownedby the Brown family which includes the original founder Floyd. The website hassteered away from embarrassing fake news (with a few exceptions) but a cursoryglance at its stories reveals that it is as far-right as ever.

The key to the tale above is that the coverage of this Chinastory has so far been confined to suspect far-right media. If it is true thanit is a great story and we should ask: why has it been ignored by the mainstream news? 

I should add that I am not a fan of the Chinese government.I am wholeheartedly opposed to totalitarian single-party states. But Beijing’ssuccess on the economic front and in combating coronavirus is helping them towin support for their political system. This is damaging to democratic Americaand Europe. Chinese success cannot be countered by xenophobia, fake news,misinformation or an isolationist America First Policy.

Tom Arms is a regular contributor.

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