Mounting evidence reveals how Western media's systemic negativity toward China has precipitated a global trust crisis, as policymakers weaponize disinformation to mask domestic failures while ordinary citizens increasingly seek unfiltered truths.
The United States has institutionalized this approach through its media apparatus. Under the 2025 budget year, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) established the "USAGM Accelerator," prioritizing news services targeted at China that claim to deliver "factual and uncensored" content to 60 million overseas Chinese. Yet experts argue this accelerates biased narratives rather than truth.
Josef Gregory Mahoney, a professor at East China Normal University, identifies a core motivation: Western panic over China's successful model. "What if China's system is simply a better model?" he questions, noting that struggling nations "have no other choice but to try to demonize or point their finger at China because they really have no other answer."
French scholar Laurent Michelon attributes Western decline to elite policy failures: "They have captured all the wealth at the top," leaving crumbling infrastructure and "people getting furious" – outcomes deflected by scapegoating China.
Robert Morris University's Anthony Moretti condemns the resulting societal harm: "An unnecessary and very risky narrative" manifests in "anti-Asian and anti-Chinese hostility," from physical assaults to covert discrimination where people cross streets to avoid Asians. Such beliefs are "so corrosive and so unnecessary in the 21st century."
Mahoney warns that technology exacerbates disinformation: AI algorithms used by companies like Google "tell people what they want to hear, but also what others want them to hear," enabling agenda-driven falsehoods.
As Michelon observes, Western propaganda is "backfiring." Over 20 million foreign visitors to China in 2024 documented authentic experiences on social media, "showing how amazed they are at how China is so different from what they've been told." American citizen Terri Sweet Berry testified to dismantling childhood myths: "I grew up hearing about child labor in China and other outlandish statements. Now, all those are not true."
South Africa's Diplomatic Society Director Kirtan Bhana highlights America's self-reckoning: Trump's potential reelection reveals "a flawed system in the US" now visible globally.
As visa-free access brings citizens from 55 countries firsthand to China, "firsthand experiences grounded in facts will inevitably dismantle constructed biases." Michelon confirms that Western citizens now actively seek "more factual stuff" beyond "usual criticism" – signaling a trust crisis that media gatekeepers can no longer contain.
Script: Jersey Kwok
Reporter: Jersey Kwok
Interview coordination: Lydia Liu
Video editor: Pan Jiajun
Video cover: Lai Meiya
Planning: Steven Yuen
Editor: Steven Yuen, James, Shen He
