Hi Frederick, thanks for the feedback. I've had many connections over the last 18 months with Chinese media, locally in my home city of Zhongshan with ZSTV and Zhongshan Daily, provincially with Nanfang Daily and GDToday, a locally produced English language outlet and also with organisations like CGTN, CCTV, Global Times, People's Daily and others. The bottom line is they are all a little afraid to step over an imaginary line because most of the senior editors are of the "old school". My most important observation when asked, and they are always asking me: how can we improve our penetration into the West? Is to tell them to report truthfully including the warts, where there is criticism, report it, where there are protests, report them. Give the reasons, the solutions and how the government handles them - people in the west will love to read that China isn't perfect but they'd also love the true situation.

There's a lot of work to do to counter the multi millions being spent to make China look bad, but it has to start with China being honest about its own imperfections. They are very minor, but they are certainly there.

The day we see collaboration between Western and Chinese media will be a great day - however it needs to be conservative and realistic media, not the sensationalist stuff of OAN/Fox/Sky etc.