Bengaluru: In what could possibly be worse than the pandemic itself, there are news reports that China Daily, a propaganda news venture of the Chinese government has paid a whopping sum of 19 million dollars to many American newspapers in the form of advertisements and printing charges for well over 4 years now. 

As reported by a popular website, the documents filed by China Daily with the Justice Department, the Communist party mouthpiece had paid over $6 million to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), $4.6 million to the Washington Post, $2,40,000 to Foreign Policy, $50,000 to the New York Times, $34,600 to The Des Moines Register and $76,000 to CQ-Roll Call. 

The website also noted that apart from spending $11 million in advertising on prominent US papers, China Daily shelled out an additional $7.6 million to The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, and The Boston Globe for printing copies of its own paper.

 

These newspapers have run a sustained vilification campaign against Donald Trump and most importantly, India as well. 

Many of these newspapers have also not shied away from portraying India in a bad light. That include comments on India’s military after the Balakot airstrike, India’s elections and economy, politics and even demographics. 

And lastly, the debate on intolerance and hate crimes. These newspapers have written hundreds of articles on how India is not treating its Muslims well and how majoritarianism has taken over, ever since Narendra Modi won the elections in 2014. The sum and substance of these articles is to spoil and scuttle India’s image with the ulterior motive of portraying that Muslims are not being taken care of.