Thread by @jinpeili

CCTV FOLLIES 2.4 Art of the cover-up
No news of Xi, no news of balloon
-Xi's victory Olympics recap
-Flowers blossom across China
-US fans flames
-US unpopular
-US has bad weather
(with no help from that weather balloon)
-US has fires and calamity

Russian bombardment of Ukraine proceeds apace...

CCTV getting fancy:
Russian weapons superimposed over Ukraine map

Chyron:
"Russia and Ukraine continue to clash,
US and West continue to supply more and more weapons to Ukraine."

But the real problem can be traced back to here, here at the Pentagon Building River Entrance

No news about the Pentagon's discovery and active monitoring of China's spy balloon, of course...
(not CCTV)

...but breathless file footage of Pentagon's latest provocation, sending "small diameter, long-ranged bombs" (up to 150km) to Ukraine.

Germany has been prodded by US to supply...

those controversial Leopard-1 tanks to Ukraine

And Poland, where tank training has begun, is part of the problem

(In contrast to US and its allies, China supports peace)

Training session for new tanks in Poland.

CCTV quotes the Russian embassy in the US, saying the tanks are trouble.
And yet those US weapons keep on rolling in...

But Russia is not defenseless. The Russian army will protect the motherland.
It has tanks, too.
(video courtesy of Russia Defense Ministry)

Very awesome powerful tanks...

(Russia Defense Ministry footage)

More of same...

President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev is worried that the conflict is escalating...

As CCTV says, the US supply of weapons is making things worse.

China's principled position: No interference!

Note: In practice, this means no aid to invasion victim Ukraine.
(let the invader win, and the sooner the better, to restore a robust market for China exports)

CCTV never comments on casualties on the battlefield but it daily reports on damage inflicted at the gas pump and home heating supply.

Bulgaria, like China, believes that peace is best achieved through dialogue and negotiation

China has friends around the world
Hungary prez Katalin Novák agrees with China's principled position:
Peace is better than war.
No escalation!

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also shares China's deep concerns about disruptions to its export market.

"US sanctions are totally ruining Europe's economy."

Russia and China share a strong principled opposition to US sanctions.

And Hungary is in perfect agreement.

Meanwhile, no news about the Chinese spy balloon drifting over the US...

(not CCTV)

@threadreaderapp “unroll”

Hungary warns the US: Do not interfere in our domestic politics!

(CCTV is quite skilled at finding proxy voices for Beijing's own position and today they really turn up the heat)

"In Hungary we don't like it when a diplomatic guest in our country tells us how to live our lives..."
(as US ambassador to Hungary apparently did)

Turkey has the same complaint, here succinctly expressed by its interior minister:
"To the US ambassador, this is what I have to say:
Get your dirty hands out of here!"

Germany's Scholz and Italy's Meloni also have strong opinions about the US, though one suspects CCTV of presenting this out of context.

("bu man mei" means dissatisfied with US)

Meanwhile, CCTV's coverage of the US on the anniversary of Xi-Putin declaration of limitless friendship is all fire and ice.
First, some dramatic footage from a freight train derailment in Ohio.
It looks like Apocalypse Now.

One wonders if the fire is visible from space, or at least from the spying platform of a football-field sized balloon floating over the region.
(not CCTV)

CCTV eases up its criticism at those karmic moments when mother nature wreaks her wrath on America, a bad interventionist country.

US hit by frigid cold snap.

No detail is too small if you are trying to deflect attention from a football-field sized spy balloon floating over said country.

-Unseen US resident hammers away at ice on porch railing.

This red pickup truck has been scratched by icy branches.

Emergency repairs on neighborhood power lines.

And CCTV's roving reporter landed this hot scoop:
"The temperature got down to 29 degrees" (minus 1.7c)
The reporter interjects: "You mean inside the house, right?"
Nice reporting, CCTV!

But even with such an acute news sense, attention to detail, humanitarian concern and old-school journalistic chops, CCTV USA has no information about this big US story:

And to think of how much that big "weather balloon" could have contributed to the day's massive report on bad weather in the US and Canada, both of which were well within the balloon's creeping path.

Xi Jinping is absent from the day's news, but CCTV found some old video to fill the aching gap:
Let's revisit the glorious 2022 Winter Olympics!
(this re-run ran for the first ten minutes of the nightly news)

The 2202.02.04 opening ceremony was a big day in the blossoming bromance of Xi and Putin. No limits...

"The light of Winter Olympics shines on the New Era!"

Twenty days after Putin's confidence-building visit, pyrotechnics of a different sort could be observed in the sky over Kiev.

But it was worth it...

Beijing Mayor, Commissar and Olympic Organizing Committee President Cai Qi got a promotion,
Xi Jinping got to be Chairman for life.

In other news, China is an extremely happy place.

And nature concurs.
Youcai flowers golden in the fields, trees blossom pink in giddy anticipation of spring sweeping across the motherland!

"China flowers into spring"