by Xinhua writers Yang Jun and Zhou Haojin
BEIJING, April 1 (Xinhua) -- There is a growing expectation among the Western population to hear something positive about China, "at least more factual," a business insider has observed.
China is in the crosshairs of certain Western countries, which are openly waging "a multidimensional war" to contain its economic and political development, Laurent Michelon, a French entrepreneur who has been living in China for 25 years, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"I perceive in a growing part of the Western public a doubt about the information reported about China in the Western media, because everything is so negative about such a diverse country, populated by 1.4 billion people, with 5,000 years of history and which has become the second largest economy in the world," he said.
Author of the book "Understand the China-West relations (2022)" (Comprendre la relation Chine-Occident), Michelon's analysis of China is vastly different from mainstream perceptions in the West, but closer to the reality of the Chinese society.
In his book, he delved into a question often asked by his European and American friends: "why I live so long in a country about which they can only read negative news."
Western media usually present an "apocalyptic portrait" of China. The Western political and media elites, which are closely linked to the economic elites, are playing a perverse role in smearing China, while investing increasingly in the country, he said, citing the latest figures which indicated growing European Union investments in China, as well as trade between China and the United States.
In contrast with the mainstream Western media that systematically demonize China, Michelon has been pushing for a less caricatured, less ideological and more fact-based vision of China.
During his recent multiple interviews with French media, Michelon pointed out the many errors of analysis by Western media about China, which is pummeled repeatedly by negative propaganda.
These biased reports, he said, involved a handful of industry moguls in such fields as arms, finance, pharmaceuticals and energy.
Michelon believed that such a journalistic bias is due to the blindness of Western media, whose reports about China are based on assumptions, but not facts, research, or investigations.
This is because the reporting of whatever positive about China's development is systematically refused by editors in attempts to block the Western public from the reality of China's progress, he added.
In his book, the author explains that behind the defamation of China by Western elites lies the promotion of a so-called "rules-based order" imposed on the whole world, which is "a set of vague rules outside of international law," seeking to hold back multipolarity.
Despite all the disinformation, "in Europe, many people know that they have been lied to" on many issues, including COVID-19, Ukraine, and "logically on China as well," he noted.
Michelon praised such China-proposed initiatives as the Belt and Road Initiative, for their role in promoting inclusive development, saying that China has "a true joint development approach, and not the predatory approach that is presented in the international media."
China is not the enemy of the West. With mutual respect and understanding, the interests of China and the West can "converge on key issues, to the benefit of the whole world," the business insider added. ■
