Perceptions of Western Media Coverage on China: Chinese Scholars vs. Foreign Correspondents Based in China (Report‪)‬

The year 2008 witnessed a number of major news events taking place in succession in China. After a rare blizzard in the country's south in February, China was riveted by the 3-14 Tibetan riots in March--known in China, like many historic events, by its month-date numbers--and then in May by the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province in central China, the largest since the birth of the new China in 1949. This series of negative events preceded two very positive ones to the nation: the country's fulfillment of its century-long dream with the Olympic extravaganza in August, and its first human spacewalk a month later. Then the scandal of deliberately tainted baby milk powder broke at the end of the year, raising doubts about the nation's food safety just as the economic recession emerged worldwide. For China, hosting the Olympics was not only the achievement of a long-held ambition but also a channel to demonstrate the Chinese spirit to the rest of the world and show that China was no longer the "sick man of Asia." In fact, sport in China (particularly at the Olympic level) is not just for personal fun or physical competition, rather it is about national honor, pride or shame, about political legitimacy and about the Chinese position in the family of nations, as noted in a Reuters article at the time. (1) To some degree, the Olympic spirit is even embedded into Chinese nationalist sentiment. Therefore, it was China's hope that everything that led up to the Games--held under the spotlight of world opinion--would contribute to this goal. However, the two unexpected earlier events made the period before the Games very difficult. The Wenchuan Earthquake was a natural disaster, something unavoidable, but the 3 x 14 riots in March were clearly designed to divert attention from the Olympic grandeur from China. This disappointed the Chinese government as well as the sentiment of the whole Chinese nation. These events threatened to inflame Chinese nationalism when they became the subject of critical headlines in the western media. (2)