Shaun Rein on the real China vs. Western media lies

When I first arrived in China in 1997 to study Mandarin when I was 19 years old, I didn't know what to expect. The Chinese side of my family always taught me to pay respect to Chinese culture and history but they were apolitical - they didn't say anything good or bad about the Chinese government. They had originally moved to the US in the 19th century to work in the California gold mines 

I had watched videos of Tiananmen. I had taken a few intro to China courses in freshman year in college, taught by some old white men. I had read books by Mike Chinoy (who has since blocked me on Twitter)

And I had read a lot of WSJ & NYT articles that showed a lot of negative things about the "CCP". Corruption. Oppressive. The articles made it seem the Chinese people hated the government and wanted American style liberal democracy

So when I arrived in Tianjin, I was shocked to find that most Chinese supported the CPC. Deng Xiaoping had just died and shopkeepers put little glass bottles in the front of their shops to pay homage 

Taxi drivers had little paintings of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai dangling from their backview mirrors 

People felt their lives were getting better and, more importantly, they felt the lives of their kids would be better. And literally, every interaction with a policeman or a government official was positive 

They were happy to see me as an American coming to China. They welcomed me as if I were important or a celebrity. They brought me into their homes for tea, took my out to restaurants, walked with me in parks

In other words, the China I read in the NYT, WSJ and in books written by so-called journalists like Mike Chinoy didn't exist in real life

Perhaps I was naive. I applied for jobs at NYT and in the State Department. I thought they would want someone like me, who had spent time on the ground and spoke reasonable Chinese, to bring a balanced and objective view to China coverage

Over the last 30 years, I realized I was naive. I've met a good portion of the NYT, WSJ, Economist journalists covering China Many don't speak Chinese. Many were more like activists, trying to denigrate and demean China because it didn't adopt an American style political system

Others were bigots and racists. Many frankly were just horrible horrible people 

I started writing books on China to be balanced and basically to counteract the lies by people like ex WSJ reporter Bob Davis 

I'm a businessman. It would've been better for me to shut up and be like McKinsey - be reticent and stay out of controversy

But I had to speak. We Americans are being lied to, to this day, by mainstream media about China. That's why Trump wins - we all know these journalists just lie

~ Shaun Rein, LinkedIn post, June 9, 2025