China's Decade

过去10年当中最大的世界新闻就是“中国崛起”

Rachman Blog (Geoff Dyer):
One of the occupational hazards of being a reporter in Beijing is being on the receiving end of a lecture about how the western media treat China unfairly. It can come from foreign ministry officials, company executives or taxi drivers. I once got a warning from a corn farmer whose fields had just been ravaged by a chemicals spill not to write an article making China look bad. The charge is usually the same: that foreign journalists are so obsessed about human rights abuses and internet censorship that we miss the positive things happening in Chinese economy and society.

If I am feeling a bit defensive, I will question whether there really is a coherent group called "the western media" or argue that the job of a journalist involves calling attention to problems, not handing out gold stars. Or sometimes I will say that it does not ring true, that for every human rights story there are two more about how China and its economy have changed. Well, now there is some evidence, in the form of a survey from an organisation called The Global Language Monitor, which researches trends in printed and electronic media. The conclusion is that the biggest story of the decade has been the rise of China. Indeed, it is the biggest story by far, outstretching the Iraq war in second place by 400 per cent. September 11, the financial crisis, or the death of Michael Jackson received much less coverage than China.

Full text: www.ft.com/rachmanblog