Sinomania!

The news is filled today with alarmist reports describing the war games of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s long planned “Peace Mission 2007” as a sign of a new cold war. But where were the AP and British tabloids during the much larger and ecologically damaging “Talisman Sabre” mock invasion put on by the US and Australian militaries? See my March blog post on both these military manoeuvres here.

The New York Times prints third hand accounts of a highway bridge collapse in remote China rather than investigate the highway bridge disaster in America’s sixteenth largest metropolis, Minneapolis- St. Paul. The same paper is quick to jump on any mine disaster in China’s mining industry but doesn’t examine the lax standards behind the coal mine catastrophe in Price, Utah, until shamed into investigating the unfolding story by TV personality Arianna Huffington.

Every news outlet this week has assaulted our ears and eyes with fear-mongering coverage about poisoned Chinese imports ranging from toothpaste to frozen fish to the very toys under our children’s beds. Yet where is the hysteria and dire warnings about the lead in candy from Mexico that has sickened America’s kids as far back as 2001?