Some people say SCMP is Chinese party propaganda, or “neutral”. These are the same people who say MSNBC is “Marxist”, or NYT is credible. The SCMP is responsible for one of the worst slanders in the 21st Century–a 30 Trillion dollar slander–of China : that China covered up the Covid outbreak which it already knew about in November? 有人說《南華早報》是中國共產黨的宣傳，或者說「中立」。這些人說MSNBC廣播公司是“馬克思主義者”，或者《紐約時報》是可信的。 《南華早報》對中國進行了 21 世紀最嚴重的誹謗之一, 價值 30 兆美元的誹謗：中國掩蓋了它在 11 月就已經知道的新冠病毒疫情的虛假信息.

So let’s bring some critical analysis to SCMP. And last but not least, let’s avoid feeding the beast.

When sharing SCMP articles three things:

1. They are usually behind a paywall. Without an archived link, you’re only sending a fraction of the article.
   https://archive.ph/fI4MZ
2. Also, the SCMP was, for over a century, the in-house organ of British colonialism in HK. It had privileged insider access to the British colonial administration’s internal meetings, in exchange for being a mouthpiece. Those habits and cultures die hard. As a result, it often publishes a blind, western-centric world view. You can see in this article that it’s essentially a string of quotes from Hawkish US think tanks. In fact, you can see it in the very title and frame of the questioning*, with the suspect framing of “ambitions”.
   This article, in particular, is a series of insinuations about China’s expansionist and revisionist ambitions–in alignment with Russia.
3. Also ask does this article add to our knowledge and insight about current affairs and politics? If so, state what that is.

(*In general, be very suspicious of any article, esp. a non-opinion article, that starts with a question: it’s either click bait, or it’s an opinion: otherwise they would have written it as a statement).

Some more SCMP examples:
Chinese poverty alleviation “collapsing”
https://archive.ph/y52MF
Gordon Chang-type propaganda

China’s brutal 996 as seen by Brit working in Chinese tech firm: “Westerner had to work [boo-hoo] 3 whole saturdays in a row”
https://archive.ph/cVVQd
Do they understand what the silicon valley work culture is like, where people sleep under their desks and are expected to never leave work?
Do they understand that that long Chinese day probably included a 2 hour siesta and dinner?

Here’s one that looks like it’s free of bias.
Chinese scientists extract lithium from seawater
https://archive.ph/qE7ke
But note, they give equal weight to scholars from UC Berkeley and Nanjing University. But wait if you look up the actual article (which the article doesn’t link, another bad practice), the lead author is from Nanjing, as is the second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh: in fact six of the team are from Nanjing. It’s essentially a Nanjing team. And aforementioned UC Berkeley scholar in the article. is…drum roll…the 8th author–the very last. When you get to the last author, often it’s like the “associate producer” credit in film–a catchall way of saying thanks buddy (for an idea, feedback, data, edits, etc). So why highlight the 8th author from Berkeley as the “co-lead”?

I could go on. You get the point.