City Beat | Is the Global Times really China’s official mouthpiece when it comes to criticising Hong Kong?
We need rational debate, not radical or even nonsensical tit-for-tat quarrels, and we need to be more certain about how “official” a message is when it comes from across the border
“It takes two to tango,” the saying goes. And that’s how it is when it comes to Hong Kong-mainland relations.
With tensions between the two sides showing no sign of easing, Hongkongers nowadays no longer find it strange when their mainland compatriots complain about the lack of hospitality here, or when mainland media criticise the city.
It’s under such circumstances that a radical, yet quite popular, media outlet affiliated with the official People’s Daily has become a familiar name to locals – the Global Times, known for its highly nationalistic tone and hardline stance.
The newspaper has never hesitated to take Hong Kong to task with its extreme views on contentious issues, whether political reform, the case of the missing booksellers, or independence talk.
The Global Times has been high profile in its attacks, from its condemnation of the dystopian film Ten Years, which depicts a gloomy future for the city assuming more interference from Beijing, to its latest barrage against Lancome’s shunning of Canto-pop star and Occupy activist Denise Ho Wan-sze, which not only sparked a war of words between netizens on either side of the border, but also proved to be a public relations disaster for the cosmetics giant.
This “Global Times-style” approach to Hong Kong affairs, as it has come to be known, is a sharp departure from the very “friendly” coverage of the city during the early post-handover years, when mainland media were advised by Beijing to focus more on the positives than finger pointing so as to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings between the two sides.
Which begs the question: “do we have to take the Global Times so seriously?”