Creating such a picture is exactly what's intended. It'll be deeply etched onto as many people's minds as possible, & serve as a subconscious, shortcut prism through which people can interpret and gather effortlessly more China-related news. So the picture will sustain itself.
https://twitter.com/hardenuppete/status/1183690214864125952
It will feed another generation of 'China watchers' (fulltime or casual), who then will produce & supply more materials and expert opinions to further validate that picture. When any random person on the street can describe vividly what that picture is, it's mission accomplished.
There is a lot said & done by CCP and certain Chinese students we don't like or endorse (the reverse is true I suspect). If someone breaks the law here, by all means apply the law. But it's unhelpful to tap into already-overflowing sense of concern & fear to spread more fear...
about a whole group of people - in this case Chinese students and academics in Australia. It's unfair and dangerous as it unnecessarily and indiscriminately alienates a large section of the community. I may be wrong, but I simply didn't see any nuances in this #4Corners episode.
Perceptions matter and they're what people live by in dealing with the world. Hence powerful media has great ethical responsibility to get things right, rather than appeal to popular stereotypes and participate in recreating them. We all know words can have deadly consequences.
China is itself guilty of this. It often unnecessarily creates enemies while I think minimising the number of enemies is an art of politics (or life in general). Now we need not make the same mistake by pushing hundreds of thousands of people (even 1.4 billion) to the opposite.
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