NBC and the Chinese Consulate in Houston

I had to chuckle while watching NBC's coverage of the US ordered closing of the Chinese consulate in Houston. They had aerial shots showing Chinese staffers outside (in a courtyard I think) burning documents. The reporting was ominous in its tone, seeking to cast the Chinese in the darkest possible terms. Clearly they were up to something – hiding their dark deeds taking place within US borders.

It was laughable because that scene has been repeated time and again within embassy courtyards across the globe. Whenever there's a crisis and an embassy faces being overrun, shut down or evacuated the first thing that happens is the documents are burned.

The US shredded documents in 1979 when their Tehran embassy was overrun and fifty-two hostages were taken. The Iranian Revolutionaries (to the utter shock of the Americans) actually sat and pieced back together the shredded documents and reportedly learned something of American activities within their country. They were of course convinced that a repeat of the 1953 coup was about to take place. Carter had given refuge to the Shah (who was actually dying of cancer) but the revolutionaries were convinced that another coup was in the works – along the lines of what the US had done twenty-six years earlier when they overthrew Mosaddegh. That plot was hatched in the US embassy, a point the Revolutionaries knew and that knowledge in no small part motivated their assault on the compound.

Shredded documents can be reconstructed, although it's not easy task. But burning them destroys any trace of their content and so it remains the standard procedure.

The Chinese knew that they wouldn't be able to haul out all their documents and so they burned them. It's standard procedure.

Are they hiding something? Have they been up to something? Of course they have. Every embassy functions as not only a centre for diplomacy but for espionage. Every embassy harbours diplomatic staffers who are in fact intelligence agents. Usually the ambassador serves in a double capacity as both his nation's diplomatic representative and as chief intelligence liaison. In most cases the ambassador is privy to his nation's intelligence operations in the country and often he plays a direct part in them. It's pretty standard practice. The US does. Everyone does it.

But the American media wants to portray it in different terms. Whatever the US does is okay, but China, Russia and other nations – when they behave the same way, suddenly its suspicious, nefarious and worthy of attention.

The point is not to exonerate the Chinese or the ruling CCP. They're a wicked bestial power just like their American rivals. I'm sure they're stealing, bribing and blackmailing just like their CIA counterparts. That's how the game is played.

The real story here is the American media and the fact that they are deliberately attempting to spin the story and make something of what is in fact nothing. The minute I hear about an embassy or consulate closing – I know there will be someone in a courtyard or on a roof burning documents. It's standard and as such there's really no story.

The same is true of Chinese agents masquerading as diplomats, academics and the like. It's standard intelligence agency practice. The US does it to. I'm afraid the moral outrage being expressed by the likes of Pompeo and the US media are insincere at best.

But NBC (and I'm sure other outlets as well) wanted to make it a story and thus their spin job is in fact the salient issue that should grab our attention. It demonstrates their bias – not their 'liberal' bias as the Right would have it. But rather their Establishment bias. They are Wall Street entities with deep ties to the US political class and as such their coverage represents the interests of that sphere.

This story, the way it was covered and the sensationalism that accompanied it, only demonstrates and re-emphasizes that reality. It's something that we (as discerning Christians) need to understand. Just because China has turned into a persecutor doesn't mean that we suddenly abandon truth and 'throw in' with China's enemies, nations like the US that seek to make war with it. If in God's Providence the CCP is meant to fall then it will surely take place – but the Scriptures demonstrate that the forces which cast it down are by no means righteous and in fact may be just as wicked in their motivations. Woe unto those who ally themselves with Babylon just to see Assyria removed. That's not our role and those that forge such alliances compromise the witness of Zion and fall prey to deception.