CHINA'S INFLUENCE

China's Influence on International Stage and Role of Western Media

[Faculty]

China's Influence on International Stage and Role of Western Media

Throughout the history of world politics, different powers have tried to maintain their influence over the world. From the multi-polar power status, to the bi-polar power status shared between US and Soviet Union, to the unipolar, hegemonic status that US enjoys to date, powers have continuously tried to create an influence over the world. Since the Western world has always been dominant over the rest of the world, the Western media has always played a crucial role as a propaganda machine and the flow of news has always been “one-way”. This means that Western media projects only one perspective of news which comes from the west, and disregards all other perspectives coming from different parts of the world. For this reason, many events, happenings, opinions, pragmatic strategies, military actions, cultural and religious agendas are blatantly misinterpreted by the Western media toward molding the public opinion of not only the west, but of the entire globe. (Pally 2007)

For instance, major news agencies of the world like Reuters, AP, AFP, etc all belong to the developed world. Even those events that are taking place in the developing world are covered by Western news agencies instead of the local ones because of the technological advancement and speed of news coverage of the western media. Once news is covered, it is handled by the Western media under its own influence and is projected in the light of western interpretation. One such incident of misinterpretation of news is the “China Threat theory.” (Peerenboom 2007, pp. 123-129) The China threat argument, as sprouted by the western media has at least three situations: First, China's economic development is too fast, and it threaten the economic influence of developed countries; the second is that China's military is too powerful and threaten others; third is that China's oil consumption and other energy consumptions are too much, which can pose a threat to other countries. The western newspapers are filled with news which project China as a threat to US hegemony and as a rising Eastern power which has jostled the influence and integrity of US as well as EU.

According to the Global Times (2005), 'China threat' exists in Europe since a long time. At the time of China's reform and opening up of its economy to the world, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping created a personal charisma in Europe. China's phenomenal economic growth rate because of its dumping economy created a worldwide influence. However, not many are optimistic about China, and some even predicted that China could 'collapse.' In this regard, 'Der Spiegel' has expressed this 'fear'. If the Chinese cannot be fed and clothed, the world's people will starve.” (Denselow 2010) 'China threat' theory is mainly in a cultural sense. As the EU is quite different from China in terms of religion, democracy, human rights, and many there aspects of the value system, it us difficult for China to create ...