Spy Games and Media Bias

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-us-espionage-cia-spying/

In August, Beijing arrested another one of its citizens accusing them of spying for the CIA. The US media seems to get perturbed by these reports and intuitively seems to take a defensive posture – as if the accusation is prima facie absurd.

And though these episodes are covered, little is actually said. Contrast this with American accusations regarding Chinese espionage within the United States. These quickly become major stories and invariably include grandstanding statements from Congress members and others that wish to denounce and threaten China. And this doesn't even begin to touch on the coverage granted to the absurd 'spy balloon' episode.

Of course China has spies in the United States and America has its agents in China. That's hardly surprising or new. What's ridiculous is the moral tone taken by the media – showing that in the end it's an arm of the US state and anything but adversarial. As such, the quality and depth of such news and its ability to penetrate the story and report it with any kind of fairness or accuracy is negated.

Given the tense state of relations, of course there's going to be espionage taking place. US military strategy documents talk openly of conflict with China and high-ranking offices have made public statements to that end. These are not treated as scandalous by US media nor are the assumptions even questioned. Such media must be described as functioning to reinforce the values of the system and its rulers. In fact questioning them is out of bounds. The only value such media has is in covering intra-mural controversies and domestic issues. Once you move to questions that fundamentally challenge the assumptions of the system, or move beyond the immediate political borders – such news outlets lose their value and function only as propaganda arms for the Establishment.

As a Christian I am hardly a fan of the Beijing government. It is wicked and persecutes Christians. That said, I am not going to root for or align with Washington either. Its interests and pursuits are not Christian either. It's a case of clashing Beasts – the fact that one may be more wicked than the other is immaterial. And in the grand scheme of things the US has been (by far) responsible for more death and destruction than China since it entered the post-Mao era of capitalist restoration (1976-present). Prior to that period, China has the higher death toll but it was mostly contained within its borders. There is no way to quantify such evils or to claim one faction has a more moral claim over the other. Both governments are drenched in blood and lies. No American trusts Chinese media and rightly so. I wish I could say the same about American and specifically Christian attitudes regarding American media but I cannot.

For my part I hope both economies implode before they're ever able to go to war. Of course such a scenario would only result in different wars. So it is in this present evil age.