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Propaganda Before its Time: Xinhua News Mistakenly Runs Report of Successful Shenzhou-7 Space Mission Before the Launch Even Occurs (Photo)

Oct. 9, 2008 |   By Zhong Yan

(Clearwisdom.net) The impact of the recent toxic milk scandal in China continues to spread, dealing yet another blow to China's international image. As the public increased their focus on the tainted milk issue, the regime ordered their media mouthpieces to divert people's attention away from the scandal, and announced the launch of the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft.

However, in their rush they made a mistake, and a piece of so-called "streaming live news" was posted before the "news" actually took place.

On September 25, before the actual launch of Shenzhou-7 took place, a piece appeared on the Xinhua News website entitled: "An Exciting Night on the Pacific: Shenzhou-7 Orbits 30 Times." The report, which bore the date of September 27, was quickly deleted. People in China have joked for years that the only thing true in a Xinhua News article is the date, but in this case, they didn't even get that right.


Xinhua News mistakenly ran a story on September 25 about the progress of the Shenzhou-7 space mission. The clearly falsified report was dated September 27, and showed alleged footage of the spacecraft already in space. Not only was the date wrong, but the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft hadn't even launched yet.

The "news" report cited details of the launch as well as numerous other mission details, in a spirited report full of good news. The only problem was, the launch hadn't even occurred when the news was first posted. It appears the entire report was a propaganda ploy to engender patriotic sentiment, and divert public attention from the worsening chaos and disaster surrounding the tainted milk scandal.

Such propaganda ploys are nothing new in communist China. By the time the regime's persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999, the CCP's mouthpiece media had already perfected their falsehood skills to the extreme. The "Tiananmen Self-immolation" is a typical example.

In attempts to eliminate Falun Gong, the regime staged a public burning on Tiananmen Square, where several people claiming to be Falun Gong practitioners set themselves on fire. It was a very complex and cleverly orchestrated propaganda ploy that was very effectively used it to turn public opinion against Falun Gong. But a lie is always a lie, and what they did not expect in this meticulously plotted farce was that the scene of a police officer actually killing a victim (by slowing down the TV footage and analyzing the action frame by frame) was broadcast on nationwide TV.

The report on the Shenzhou-7 spaceship has added yet another episode to the series of alarming incidents since the beginning of this year, including the untimely deaths of thousands of children in the earthquake due to corruption and sub-standard school construction, Olympic cheating, and official corruption and cover-up in the tainted milk scandal.

To those who are already familiar with the Communist Party culture, this accident may afford them just another chuckle, but for the parents whose children were crushed to death by the collapse of poorly built schools, or those who have been consuming toxic milk powder, or for parents whose babies have been deprived of their health and happiness as a result of being fed toxic baby formula, we may not be feeling as light-hearted.

People in China live in a world filled with lies and false products? How many more hidden dangers threaten their health and the well-being of the next generation? No one can be sure, but what we can see is that when disasters strike, it is the children that are the first to be affected.

The Communist regime persecutes beliefs, destroys traditional moral values, causing China to suffer from a lack of morality. This is in fact the true cause of these disasters. The damage done to a nation caused by such a lack of morality is beyond estimation, and it may take several generations to rebuild. What the regime is actually destroying is the very foundation of and the future of the Chinese nation.

Each time a disaster strikes, the regime deflects attention from itself by covering up the facts. Instead of investigating and determining responsibility for the disaster, they cover it up. When the regime can no longer cover up, it uses two other tactics: one is to have officials put on a public show and their mouthpiece media go all out to sing praises for the eternally "great, glorious and correct" Communist Party. On September 25, after the toxic milk powder scandal broke out, the deputy mayor of Shijiazhuang City and leaders from the Bureau of Industry and Commerce, the Bureau of Health and other governmental departments put on a public show of drinking milk, which aroused a response of immense resentment from the public, who accused them of knowingly cheating the nation.

Another tactic is to divert public attention, boasting about achievements that never took place or propagandising incidents involving other nations. For example, after the earthquake, in order to shift the focus of public blame and attention, the regime vigorously promoted the Olympic Games; after the toxic milk scandal broke out, the regime gave enormous publicity to the alleged launch of the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft. Soon after the milk powder scandal was first exposed, the Communist media widely reported a toxic rice incident in Japan (although not reporting that the toxic rice had been imported from China), wrongly giving people the impression that such things commonly happen in every country, and there should be nothing alarming in the fact that it frequently happens in China.

Events have demonstrated that only by ridding themselves of the Communist Party can the Chinese people rebuild morality and achieve true social harmony.

October 1, 2008