The Wuhan virus is forcing people to come to terms with serious issues.
One issue is the dishonesty and influence of the Chinese government.
And a shocking move just exposed the huge problem of propaganda.
Opening up China to free trade in the 1970s was seen as a way to loosen the cultural control of the Chinese Communist Party.
While China has undergone market reforms, they still remain an authoritarian country and have been exporting their authoritarianism for years.
A recent example of this was exposed by an NPR report of Bloomberg News.
According to the report, Bloomberg News reporter Mike Forsythe was threatened for researching the Chinese government’s ties to the country’s richest man, Wang Jianlin.
Forsythe was part of a team that won an award for reporting on the accumulated wealth of China’s elite class, but as soon as he tried to connect the dots directly to the government, he was shut down.
Not only was the story killed, but Forsythe was fired and strong-armed into signing a nondisclosure agreement.
Bloomberg News also tried to get his wife, Leta Fincher, to sign an NDA, but she refused.
Forsythe and Fincher were also threatened with having to pay back tens of thousands of dollars in fees for relocating their family to Hong Kong.
This is truly nightmarish.
An American media company fired and attempted to silence an American journalist and his wife for doing his job and digging into the financial dealings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Since Bloomberg News wanted to maintain access to the vast Chinese market, they were willing to engage in Chinese propaganda efforts.
This is one of the big dangers of China’s influence.
Globalism has made businesses sacrifice American values in exchange for global access.
It’s a shameful outcome to see American companies bend the knee to China.
Two stark examples came courtesy of Hollywood and the NBA.
The upcoming sequel to “Top Gun” features a scene in the movie where a patch of the Taiwanese flag was digitally removed to placate the CCP because China does not recognize the independence of Taiwan.
In the NBA, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey was nearly fired for tweeting support for pro-Democracy protesters in Hong Kong who were upset over further encroachment by mainland China.
The NBA predictably bent the knee and strong-armed Morey into making a more “politically correct” statement.
NBA superstars like LeBron James and James Harden also parroted the CCP party line.
Globalist entities have traded patriotism for access.
But the willingness of the so-called mainstream media to go along with CCP propaganda is truly disturbing.
For two months, the media called COVID-19 the “Wuhan virus” or the “Wuhan coronavirus,” but as soon as the World Health Organization (who’s in China’s pocket) said that term was stigmatizing, the American press fell into line.
Chinese propaganda is pervasive and even worse than we thought.