Illustration: Xia Qing/GT

On Monday, the BBC unleashed two anti-China stories on its website, both originating from the highly sensationalist and provocative investigation program: Panorama. The first, which is the lead story as of the time of writing, is titled, "New images show Chinese spy balloons over Asia." It accuses China groundlessly of spying on neighboring countries using "spy balloons" and even cites a former CIA analyst to support its claims. 

Then, the second article titled, "The tech flaw that lets hackers control surveillance cameras," takes an exclusive aim at Chinese manufactured security cameras made by Hikvision and Dahua, claiming that they can easily be hacked through a security vulnerability. Strangely enough, it does not explore any other brand of security camera amid this investigation, which of course ties into a convenient narrative attacking these cameras with unfounded paranoia as part of an attempt to decouple them from the UK market.

This manner of articles is typical of politically motivated anti-China paranoia which has often been present in the BBC's editorial process and guidelines. Sometimes, the BBC can, of course, do distinctive independent journalism, such as its recent expose of a "monkey torture" ring in the US, Indonesia and other places of the world.  

But the articles regarding China, in these instances, are not public interest stories, they are "agenda-pushing." This deliberate editorializing aims to intentionally provoke fear of China for both international and domestic purposes in order to further the foreign policy agenda agreed upon with the US. The program, Panorama, is notorious for its agenda-pushing and sensationalism under the guise of "exposes." It is more entertainment than actual documentary-based journalism, which usually places all its targets in an exceptionally bad light and uses dishonest methods to do so.

First, regarding "spy balloons." The "spy balloon" hysteria is a means used by the US, stemming from the incident at the beginning of the year, to promote suspicion against China. Despite the fact that the US has the largest spying system of any country on the planet, strangely enough we don't hear about this from the BBC at all. Instead, the narrative that China is continually spying on other countries is pushed aggressively. The idea that the balloon is intended for "spying" is itself misleading, but has been entrenched in the name, which is then presented as apparently neutral public discourse. In doing so, it is designed to undermine China's relationships with other nations, particularly its neighbours.

Secondly, security cameras. The US has been waging a war against Hikvision and Dahua similar to its campaign against Huawei, using the opportunistic pretence of "national security" to exclude them from domestic markets and then forcing allied countries to do the same. An illicit campaign is being waged against the presence of these companies in the British market, which has included the use of lobbying by Hong Kong activist groups to pressure major companies and institutions to drop their usage, such as the supermarket chain, Tesco. 

The idea that a security camera can be hacked is not new, but the misleading material presented in this documentary assumes that only Chinese-manufactured security cameras are prone to being hacked, as if no other brand could possibly have any vulnerabilities, and therefore latching this on to the spurious narrative of "state control" which has never been proven. But one thing that exposes this hysteria is that Hikvision cameras are being used by MI5 and MI6 around their own headquarters, showing they really don't take the security threat narrative too seriously. 

In reality, all of this is about either attempting to suppress China's technology companies, or diplomatically isolate China. In both aspects there is a glaring hypocrisy and double standards at bay because the BBC happily omits that the US does all of these things, yet doesn't offer that as balance or scrutiny. The point is to provoke fear, distrust, paranoia and therefore, distancing with Beijing. The BBC world service never misses an opportunity to put a negative story about China on the front page of its website, and once again we see more of the same from this Foreign Office manipulated institution.

The author is a political and historical relations analyst. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn