Absolutely not. We hold China up to the same scrutiny with which we view ourselves. This motivation is sufficiently legitimate and, what’s more, can easily be proven to be symmetrical in the way that China’s coverage of “the West” (for which you should read “those who get in China’s way”) is not. Should anyone doubt this fact, he’d only have to peruse China’s risible and deluded reports on “Human Rights Abuses” in the United States, wherein press-freedom infractions are cited *from American media sources*. The genocide of Native Americans, the failure of America’s heath care system which the author points to---these subjects receive exhaustive analysis in American discourse. The West ought to report on China as intrepidly as the West reports on itself. And the ultimate passive-aggressive implementation of the term “bashing”, which deflects legitimate criticism as merely a “hate crime” is preposterous. If our criticisms appear to “Chinese eyes” (note the normative ethnic insistence in Mainland Chinese people’s use of this term) excessive, much of this is due to the excessive praise they grant themselves in their domestic media. Try to excuse us if we momentarily disrupt your self-worship.

With respect to the government the issue of negative reporting is relatively straight-forward. When a centralized government perpetually justifies and further consolidates its power, promises comprehensive oversight, and even guarantees control over the heavens, it must be regarded, at minimum, tacitly complicit in all disreputable acts occurring within the sphere of its control and must be held responsible for any failures within the system it has established. That is the verifiable logic of a purposely comprehensive system. When Chinese generals speak in China’s domestic press about their willingness to nuke every major city in the United States in response to conventional military engagement, are we to believe such a statement was NOT tacitly underwritten by the entire state through (heavily regulated) domestic media? And should we countenance the arrogance of those who impute to us such artless simplicity? Surely if the government wishes to take credit for “lifting” hundreds of millions of people out of poverty (a thoroughly questionable claim that, nevertheless, has become ubiquitous in Western reports) it may also acknowledge its complicity in heinous acts.

I suspect that this argument will be unfortunately reduced to the right “proportions”. Are our criticisms disproportionate? Perhaps we should scientifically measure the proper allotment of praise they deserve. Perhaps we should offer equal measures praise and blame. Perhaps we should renounce evaluation and reduce our accounts to tit-for-tat reporting: you say nice things about us, we’ll say them about you. Wouldn’t that be sincere? Wouldn’t that be more comfortable for the Mainland Chinese? As Beckett states, “What an addition to company that would be!”

Didn’t we work so hard to make everyone happy? Why can’t you say you are happy and make us happy? Why do you need to speak about Dafur? Why? What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking. Think. Don’t you know speaking about the Sudanese suffering diminishes how much you should respect our suffering to please? Don’t you know we suffer more than the Sudanese?

It’s time we started recognizing that this “desire to be loved” has become a demand. Some might rightfully feel a stalking.