VOA a biased lens, never ‘an important window’ into China

 

Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

As Voice of America (VOA) ceases operations due to the US administration cutting its public funding, some Western media outlets have immersed themselves in "lamentations," mourning the loss of an "important window into China" and a "significant source of reporting on China." VOA, a propaganda tool that manufactures lies, is somehow hailed by them as the "voice of freedom," prompting the question: Are those lamenting that the "beacon is flickering and faltering" genuinely mourning the loss of "press freedom," or are they lamenting the loss of a tool to smear China?

VOA's "China reporting manual" has long been notorious. Its narratives are never based on facts but are carefully woven stories designed to align with Western political agendas. In their reports, the economic development in Xinjiang is framed as "suppression of human rights," social stability in Xizang is portrayed as "cultural genocide," and China's defense of sovereignty in the South China Sea is depicted as "expansionism"… What VOA produces has never been a source of "reliable information." It selectively edits and distorts the truth to create a narrative that misleads the public. How can such a media outlet be called an "important window into China"? It is, instead, clearly a "funhouse mirror," severely distorted by political manipulation.

Not only is VOA's lie-manufacturing directed at China, but it also serves as a tool for ideological attacks globally. VOA has a history of creating biases, peddling the image of US' "moral high ground," infiltrating ideologies, and exporting political views. However, the changing landscape of information dissemination is making such operations increasingly difficult to sustain. 

For years, the US relied on creating concepts, packaging academic research, and disseminating fake news, using media, research institutions, and think tanks as accomplices to stir up international discourse. But today, with the rise of social media and the diversification of media outlets across various countries, this "media hegemony" built on financial power is gradually losing its effectiveness. VOA and other "mouthpieces" have been marginalized, which is an inevitable consequence of this trend. VOA's fate has provided a lesson: Concocting biases does not bring real influence and lies can never replace facts.

By no means can Western media outlets like VOA be called "important windows into China." VOA has long viewed China through a lens of prejudice and distortion, fabricating news. How could it have ever opened a "window"? It only forces the world to wear "cognitive sunglasses" clouded by ideological fog. 
Truly understanding China requires dismantling these artificial cognitive barriers. 

As the "China Travel" trend grows, more and more foreign bloggers are sharing images of China's high-speed trains, the safety of streets at night, and the overwhelming array of Chinese cuisine… These unfiltered, authentic scenes are the "ultra-high-definition window" through which the world can see the real China.
For Western media outlets like VOA, which thought they could forever dominate public opinion, their logic is that if reality does not fit their interests, they will distort reality. Unfortunately, prejudice can never replace facts, and fictional stories cannot rewrite history. When people can freely access information, lies will eventually fade away.

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The big browser battle, Can artificial intelligence startups dethrone Google Chrome in the web browser wars?

IN the beginning – well in 1993, to be specific – there was Mosaic .And it was good, or at least good enough. By 1995, however, Mosaic’s time was on the wane, and Netscape was people’s browser of choice. Three years later, Internet Explorer had taken the lead – and seemed poised to hold it forever.

There were challengers, of course. By 2008, Firefox was making a run at winning over the Internet but managed to find only half the audience of Internet Explorer. That was the case until 2012, when they both were left in the dust by

Google’s Chrome.

Other competitors, like Safari, Opera ,and Edge (a rename of Internet Explorer), had a brief moment in the sun, but never came close to market dominance. Today,

Chrome is still firmly in charge, holding a 67% market share as of January 2025.

If history has taught us anything when it comes to web browsers, though, it’s that people’s allegiances to how they navigate the World Wide Web are far from absolute.

The oft-changing nature of web browser leadership was modelled visually by James Eagle, a content creator with a background in the financial services sector.

Emerging contenders

Change could be in the air once again. Artificial intelligence (AI) companies are starting to focus on the Web, which could herald yet another paradigm shift.

Recently, Ai-powered search engine Perplexity teased plans to launch its own web browser called Comet. In a post on X, the company said the browser was “coming soon” and invited people to sign up for a waitlist. It did not offer details on what would make the browser unique or offer any mockups or footage of Comet.

Perplexity has been growing fast, though. Last October, CEO Aravind Srinivas announced on X that the search engine was serving 100 million queries per week.

And in December, the company closed a Us$500mil (Rm2.2bil) funding round (with backers including Nvidia and Jeff Bezos), taking its valuation to Us$9bil (Rm40bil).

Perplexity isn’t the only AI company looking at the browser market. Last November, Openai was reported to be working on its own Ai-infused web browser.

That came roughly a month after the CHATGPT maker integrated web search into its popular chatbot, keeping users inside the app.

The CHATGPT web-search integration wasn’t perfect and, at the moment, falls short of the definition of a browser, but it was good enough to hook Inc. tech columnist Jason Aten, who wrote, “for most of the things I’ve searched for this past week, CHATGPT has been a superior experience”.

Google’s legal troubles

Google is hardly surrendering without a fight. Chrome is an important part of its business these days; however, it’s hard to determine exactly how much revenue the browser contributes, as Alphabet includes it in the same category as Android, Youtube, and search in its earnings reports. Google also uses

Chrome’s browsing history to help target ads.

Last September, Google very quietly added its Gemini AI into

Chrome, letting users access it by typing @gemini in the browser’s query bar before their chatbot question. It has since expanded the offerings, letting people create custom themes with AI, changing their search backgrounds, and doing a deeper dive into their search history. Soon, it says, users will be able to compare information across multiple tabs with an Ai-generated overview.

This could be an ideal time for startups to make a run at Google’s browser market dominance, as the company is busy dealing with other hurdles. Google is awaiting sentencing, expected by August, after it received a guilty verdict in a search monopoly suit. And the US Department of Justice has announced its hopes to break up the company, forcing Alphabet to sell Chrome. Even if that happens, though, it will likely be years before the appeals process runs its course.

A second case, meanwhile, regarding Alphabet’s advertising technology, is awaiting a verdict. And China has launched its own antitrust probe into Google, in response to tariffs. Both US cases, however, were brought by the Biden administration – and the Trump administration may be less enthusiastic about pursuing them. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai recently attended Trump’s inauguration.

Regardless of what happens in those legal battles, though, well-funded competitors have

Chrome in their sights. And the status quo in web surfing could be about to change once again.

By CHRIS MORRIS, Tribune news serv

Concerned by increasing corruption

 

Press Release: Corruption Perceptions Index 2024

Corruption Perceptions Index 2024

THE Association of Administrative and Diplomatic Officers Alumni is very disappointed with Malaysia’s ranking in the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index. Our score is 50 over 100, the same as last year, and only marginally above the global average score of 43 over 100. Of the 180 countries involved in the survey, we are ranked 57, the same as last year.

This is not surprising given the seemingly increasing incidence of corruption among public servants. Hardly a day goes by without reports on corruption appearing in newspapers, confirming the perception some have that corruption is systemic in Malaysia.

In January, The Star reported that “Corrupt enforcement officers have been raking in close to RM200,000 each month from vape smugglers at the KL International Airport Free Commercial Zone (“Big money for dirty Customs men”, Jan 24; online at bit.ly/star_badvape). It is disappointing that while the government is trying to balance its budget and reduce its public debt, which currently stands at over RM1.5 trillion, we have such large leakages in revenue collection. And this is just one case of many.

Government programmes to inculcate good values in the public service over the last few decades seem not to have had the desired results.

While enforcement by the Malaysian Anti-corruption Commission needs to be enhanced, efforts by all ministries and agencies to stop corrupt practices have to be stepped up without any compromise. In fact, incidents of corruption and the quantum involved seem to have been increasing geometrically.

The association feels that the government must adopt a no-nonsense approach to corruption in the public sector. The fear factor is not there to prevent officers and staff from being involved in corruption. Research suggests that enforcement will be more successful if the penalty is heavy and the probability of being caught is high – and this includes the successful prosecution of such cases.

While some have suggested structural reforms, the association would like to suggest that we go back to basics and focus on programmes and policies that are already in place to combat corruption. What seems to be lacking is proper implementation. These include:

> Annual asset declaration: Officers and staff, especially those in services prone to corruption, must make their annual declaration, and their senior officers must go through these declarations to check for veracity and accuracy.

The Bureau of Asset Inspection in the Public Sector in Thailand and the Central Bureau of Investigation in India are entrusted with this responsibility. Use of artificial intelligence and big data analysis will be helpful in this.

> Ensure integrity: Heads of enforcement departments and supervisors at different levels must ensure integrity among officers in the workplace.

One cannot help but wonder how some officers and staff can work with syndicates under the very eyes of their supervisors and senior officers. Either seniors close one eye to the goings-on in the office or they are part of the game themselves. They must be held responsible and accountable and be made to face the music.

Supervising officers must be up and about and moving to see what is going on around them. They must also pay attention to news coming through the grapevine and undertake follow-up actions.

> Act against those who

corrupt, offer bribes: Action must be taken against those doing the corrupting too.

We support the action taken in the case of the Customs Department where, apart from the collection of the unpaid taxes, the warehouses of the importer were raided for further checks. It must be done to ensure that every cent of the unpaid taxes is collected, apart from imposing other legal penalties associated with the giving of bribes.

> Stronger action: More drastic actions should be taken against officers and staff involved in corruption.

While we support the programme to transfer officers at regular intervals, action must also be taken against those suspected of being involved in corruption before they are transferred out. Demotion and no possibility of promotion for a very long time must be imposed.

The penalties imposed on those convicted must be revised upward. Additional penalties, such as the confiscation of all assets of those convicted of corruption, as well as the assets of their relatives if they were obtained through corruption, would surely discourage corruption.

The action taken against corruption must create fear and shame among officers and staff involved in corruption. The fact that some charged with corruption have been able to get off scot-free, for whatever reasons, has not helped in creating the fear and shame factors.

-TAN SRI ABDUL HALIM ALI President Association of Administrative and Diplomatic Officers Alumni (Persatuan Alumni Pegawai Tadbir dan Diplomatik) Read the full letter at Thestar.com.my. 17 Mar 2025

The Dismal Reality of Malaysian Political Corruption

[1] Yet again we are seeing another former prime minister under investigation for corruption. That makes three former prime ministers either in jail, under investigation or charged with corruption; surely another world record. Add to that one deputy prime minister, at least two former chief ministers and several cabinet ministers who at one time or another were investigated or charged and you get a picture of just how rotten the whole system really is. 

[2] But we’ve seen a similar show-and-tell performance by the MACC before; it usually ends in an anticlimax. All the jewellery and gold watches that were seized from Najib and Rosmah with so much fanfare a few years ago, for example, were eventually returned to them. So this latest show may not mean much in the end.

[3] Indeed, when it involves senior politicians or well-connected individuals, the show is always quite dramatic at the beginning but it invariably ends with a whimper (Mahathir’s sons),  a DNAA (Zahid Hamidi, Riza Aziz and many more) or is allowed to die for want of further action (Sabah scandal, LCS). The current MACC chief must surely have the best record in the world for opening investigations into high-level corruption but thus far he has had zero success in obtaining actual convictions. But the politicians are apparently very happy with his performance as his contract has been extended.

[4] The only time when a corrupt senior politician actually went to jail was of course during the brief period after the 2018 elections when political elites were temporarily in disarray and made the fatal mistake of appointing an outsider (Tommy Thomas) as AG. It was a once-in-a-century convergence of the planets, an aberration. It won’t happen again. Now it back to business as usual.

[5] The other thing to note is that all that loot from the Ismail Sabri investigation – RM170 million in cash, RM7 million in gold bars and an assortment of jewellery –  was reportedly siphoned off from just from one single government program.   Imagine, then, how much is being looted from the hundreds of other government programs. It is estimated that between 30-40% of the more than RM150 billion that the government spends on procuring goods, works and services is siphoned off each year. 

[6] And it goes on and on, year after year. Corrupt politicians and their cronies are the hardest working people in Malaysia – they never sleep, never tire of inventing ways to siphon off public funds and never lack programs to pillage. 

[7] The present administration is proving to be a huge disappointment when it comes to fighting corruption. The Madani anti-corruption agenda is just an elaborate PR exercise, fakery on a grand scale. Their SOP is DNAA, NFA or pardons for friends and allies; MACC for everyone else. Nothing quite brings home the absolute absurdity of the government’s position than the sight of  the prime minister vociferously railing against corruption while standing beside his deputy who, if not for the DNAA he was generously given, might well be in in prison right now for corruption. 

[8] Recently, a RM16.6 billion MINDEF helicopter deal was given to a friend of the prime minister. They say it’s a good deal (and maybe it is) but the  lack of transparency,  the apparent conflict of interest and the fact that all 28 helicopters could have been purchased outright for about a third of the price  (according to some reports) is reminiscent of the scandalous way UMNO did defence procurement. And this from a prime minister who insist he wants to change the system.

[9] Despite all the big talk, there’s really zero interest in fighting corruption where it matters most – among senior politicians. It’s not hard to eradicate corruption; the problem is that there’s simply no political will to do so. If people are making tons of money why would they want to change anything? 

[10] We have to face the ugly truth: corruption is too deeply woven into the fabric of Malaysian politics to be rooted out. The entire machinery of government is thoroughly corrupt and beyond cleansing. There are very few good men left. Syndicates,  cartels and corrupt politicians have a finger in everything from rice distribution to foreign workers. Anyone who dares to expose corruption – like that whistleblower in Sabah or that intrepid reporter from Malaysiakini – will quickly find themselves harassed, investigated and even charged. There’s no hope left; the war on corruption is over and we have lost!

by Dennis Ignatius in corruption, Malaysia, Politics| 18 March 2025]