Chinese state media’s rosy coverage of the most severe heat wave ever recorded
It’s been a summer of plagues — droughts, floods, wildfires, monkeypox, coronavirus. In Pakistan, enormous, record-breaking floods have devastated the homes of millions, with one-third of the country under water. It’s been called a “monsoon on steroids.”
In China, the inverse is true. The country is experiencing a drought unlike any in living memory. Images of parched and shriveled river basins have been circulating on social media, alongside pictures of ancient Buddhist statues that have been revealed in the Yangtze River as water levels dwindled.
But state media coverage of the climate-related disasters in China has been noticeably light-hearted. In southwest China, where the countryside has been engulfed by wildfires, media coverage has centered on the bravery and heroism of Chinese firefighters and volunteers rather than the damage done and the suffering of people.
“Critical reporting on the human rights issues associated with the drought can be hardly found on domestic media,” Yaqiu Wang, a Senior China Researcher at Human Rights Watch told me. She said that media coverage has mostly just focused on the government’s “competent” response. People, she added, are also afraid to post about the realities of their experiences on social media, fearing censorship and repercussions from the state.