Chinese media slams the West’s hypocrisy in CharlieHebdo reaction
January 9, 2015, 6:25 am

US President Barack Obama said he strongly condemned the “horrific shooting” while speaking in French, US Secretary of State John Kerry pledged US solidarity with France,”Tous les Américains se tiennent à leurs côtés (All Americans stand beside France)” [Xinhua]

China’s Communist party-run Global Times on Friday said condemnations of terror attacks in Russia and China are not as forthcoming from Western countries as opposed to the quick and unified reactions to the attack on Charlie Hebdo in France.

“The world is always unified in its response to terrorist attacks that happened in the West, but when it’s the West’s turn to react to such attacks in countries like China and Russia, they often beat about the bush,” said the editorial on Friday.

“Even after China officially determines their terrorist nature, Western mainstream media puts quotation marks when describing these bloody assaults as “terrorist,” saying that it is a claim of the Chinese government,” it added.

On Wednesday, three masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of the satirical magazine that has become notorious for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and killed 12 people.

On social media sites like Twitter, people showed their support online using the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag.

US President Barack Obama said he strongly condemned the “horrific shooting” while speaking in French, US Secretary of State John Kerry pledged US solidarity with France,”Tous les Américains se tiennent à leurs côtés (All Americans stand beside France)”.

In stark contrast, a Chinese envoy to the UN in Geneva last year had to express Beijing’s dissatisfaction over the international community’s sluggish response in treating Xinjiang violence as “terrorism”.

Meanwhile, the editorial in the Chinese state-run Global Times on Friday questioned the western narrative on the attack as revolving around “press freedom”.

“We notice that many Western leaders and mainstream media outlets highlighted their support for press freedom when commenting on the incident. This remains open to question. Press freedom lies as part of the West’s political and social systems and is a core value. But in these globalized times, when their acts contradict with the core values of other societies, the West should have the awareness to ease conflicts, instead of heightening them in accordance with its own values in a zero-sum manner,” said the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party.

“As the West holds absolute dominance in global opinion, non-Western societies can scarcely get their disagreements heard by the world. The West has to consciously control its use of “soft power” that can verbally abuse those it doesn’t favor,” it added.

Global Times, a newspaper owned by China’s Communist Party, is known for its strident editorials.

The editorial on Friday said while “what Charlie Hebdo has published is not completely defendable”, there can not be any justification for a violent attack.

“Terrorist attacks are absolutely inexcusable, but meanwhile, it would be wise not to intensify the sensitive elements against the complicated backgrounds. Condemning terrorism doesn’t necessarily mean supporting controversial cartoons,” it said.

Editorials of state-owned media in China, like Global Times, generally reflects the Communist Party viewpoint.

Charlie Hebdo, a left-leaning French satirical weekly, had, since 2006, been sued, threatened and firebombed for its sporadic publication of cartoons mocking the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Charlie Hebdo publisher Stephane Charbonnier was among those killed in Wednesday’s attack.

In an interview to Los Angeles Times in 2013, Charbonnier said, “The message is: There’s no taboo subject in France”.

The publisher said he hoped the public will get so used to the drawings that little or no violence will result, or that Islam will be “trivialized” like any other religion.

“So let’s talk about Islam the way we talk about everything else,” he said.

TBP