This chapter argues that although China had for decades been one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases and had suffered extraordinary levels of air pollution, criticism of China was largely absent from international reporting on global warming.
It also discusses Greta Thunberg’s campaign against air travel, the response of global media and celebrities, and NHK’s coverage, while criticizing what the author regards as the influence of Chinese Communist Party propaganda on international media.

2020-07-27
This chapter was originally published on July 27, 2020.
At the time, senior U.S. government officials were increasingly criticizing the Chinese Communist Party and signaling a more confrontational American policy toward China.
Against that background, the author questioned why China’s greenhouse-gas emissions and severe air pollution had not, in his view, received comparable criticism in global coverage of climate change.
The chapter then criticizes the international prominence given to Greta Thunberg and the way NHK programs and presenters covered her activities.
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2020-07-27
Without saying anything at all about China’s unprecedented air pollution, which had continued for decades, this girl spoke instead about aircraft emissions and used expressions such as “flight shame.”
“For the past several decades, China has been the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.”
It is common knowledge that senior U.S. government officials had recently been reported as saying, in effect, that China’s growing assertiveness would no longer be tolerated and that China was a totalitarian state ruled by a one-party Communist dictatorship, as the United States began to make increasingly clear its determination, as the leader of the liberal world, to confront China.
Various government officials were openly criticizing China one after another.
The sentence above was one example.
It had also become widely apparent during the Wuhan virus crisis that the Chinese Communist Party uses propaganda to prevent criticism whenever something is inconvenient for it.
Why, then, in the campaign against global warming that mass media throughout the world had covered so extensively, had virtually no criticism of China been heard?
The world, to that extent, is foolish and at the same time malicious.
The world’s mass media are not merely built on false moralism.
They are, in my view, completely under Chinese influence.
The world’s media operate with such poor judgment that they cannot even entertain the suspicion that global-warming activist Greta Thunberg might be a puppet of China.
Greta Thunberg, who apparently had never even seen maps of PM air pollution, was given the title of a Swedish environmental activist.
Without saying anything at all about China’s unprecedented air pollution, which had continued for decades, she instead spoke about emissions from aircraft and used expressions such as “flight shame.”
The foolishness and maliciousness of the global media and so-called celebrities who gave her such prominence had reached an extreme.
NHK has CCTV’s Japan operation inside its headquarters.
Those who dominate its news division—including Arima and Kuwako on News Watch 9 and Takeda on Close-up Gendai—eagerly praised her, which, in my view, was exactly what China would have wanted.
The shamelessness of the man Takeda from Close-up Gendai was also extraordinary.
It was widely known that he had frequently brought Daisuke Tsuda and Koichi Nakano onto the program as guest commentators.
Far from offering even a single word of reflection, he continued to behave as though nothing had happened and as though he were someone entitled to deliver warnings to society.
To be continued.