The Western media has a new #1 enemy, who they’ve decided needs to be crushed and discredited at every chance. No, it’s not terrorists... it’s not the Russians. It’s not even coronavirus. It’s China.

The vast majority of Western reportage on China, whether it be from the USA, Germany, the UK, Canada, Switzerland, Australia or New Zealand, is negative and unbalanced, presenting China to the world as a dangerous, dirty dystopia, where 1.4 million live terrible lives under the control of the violent Communist Party of China. 

Of course, this is far from the reality. But any attempt to get the truth out about China, especially by foreigners living here, is often met with derision, accusations of CPC funding, and claims of brain washing. Western media have also begun going out of their way to discredit foreigners who dare to say anything positive about China, with special reports where they twist facts and stain reputations.

But, believe it or not, this is nothing new...

On this day exactly 50 years ago, American journalist Edgar Snow passed away at the age of 66. Unfortunately he died just a week before then-President Richard Nixon made his famous 1972 visit to China and would never get to see the normalization of relations between the two nations. That historic visit was made possible, in part, thanks to Snow’s famous 1937 book, Red Star Over China, a book that showed the world, for the first time, the reality of China’s revolution, the Communist Party, and its leader, Mao Zedong. 

Snow, too, was attacked and tarnished by Western media. Accused of being pressured by the Communists to paint a romanticized image of the revolution. Some even blamed him for the eventual success of the Communists in 1949.

So why was his work so important, and why is it still so important today?