Labelled by critics as a CCP propagandist, a Kiwi journalist for a state-affiliated Chinese media outlet says he has no regrets about his work and hopes history will prove him right
A mark of shame or pride?
It was the latter Andy Boreham opted for when the Shanghai Daily journalist and New Zealander was officially designated by Twitter as “China state-affiliated media”.
It is a relatively rare label to be placed on a westerner working in Chinese media – a piece from the CCP-run Global Times suggested he was the first foreigner to be tagged as such – and means his reach on the social media platform will now be restricted, although not banned altogether.
Boreham has a moderate but not insignificant following on social media: 14,000 followers on Twitter, and nearly 21,000 on his Reports on China YouTube channel.
But his videos have been approvingly shared by the senior Chinese diplomat and "wolf warrior" Lijian Zhao, whose tweet about alleged Australian war crimes further inflamed a diplomatic stoush between the two countries, and Boreham himself came under fire for a tweet claiming several Asian-American reporters had “blood on [their hands]” over criticism of the Beijing Winter Olympics which he linked to hate attacks in the US.
In an interview with Newsroom (conducted via email at Boreham’s request to avoid “any semantic traps”), the former Wellingtonian says he views the label as “a badge of honour”.
“I’m extremely proud to be a voice for China, because I wholeheartedly believe China is being given an extremely unfair rap by the west. Literally every single article I read about China is riddled with lies and conjecture and boosts the view the average westerner already has about this huge, complicated country.”
Boreham says he has long held an interest in Asia, in large part because of how it differs from New Zealand.
“It is big, noisy, there are so many people, something always seems to be happening – it’s just the polar opposite.”
“Yes, China’s media is in theory controlled by the government, yes there are certain areas of censorship – certain taboo subjects that should just be left alone – but apart from that it is really quite free."
– Andy Boreham
After being “instantly hooked” on China following a visit one winter, a semester in Shanghai on exchange from Victoria University of Wellington to learn Mandarin led him to add a Chinese major to his undergraduate degree.
A Prime Minister’s Scholarship for Asia awarded by John Key funded a master’s degree in Chinese language and culture at Fudan University in Shanghai, before plans for further Mandarin study went on hold when the Shanghai Daily offered him a full-time job as a journalist over five years ago.
Boreham says his love of media extends back to his childhood making movies, while he also ran a magazine for four years and worked at Parliament for Hone Harawira’s Mana Party and the Greens while studying in Wellington.
But working as a journalist in China is a different beast altogether. The country is rated 177th out of 180 nations in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index, with Reporters without Borders citing authorities’ steadily tightening grip on information and status as “the world’s biggest jailer of press freedom defenders”.
“By relying on the massive use of new technology, President Xi Jinping’s regime has imposed a social model based on control of news and information and online surveillance of its citizens,” the group says in its assessment of China.
Boreham argues that view is based on the “western idea” of press freedom, with the media acting as a check on government and bringing abuses of power to light, rather than the Chinese model, which he categorises as “promoting important news, stability and unity”.
“Yes, China’s media is in theory controlled by the government, yes there are certain areas of censorship – certain taboo subjects that should just be left alone – but apart from that it is really quite free. The only difference is the rules are made by the government, and not by editors and commercial interests.”
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But Jason Young, the director of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre, tells Newsroom there has been a history of some Chinese media filling that ‘critic and conscience’ role in the past, breaking stories about corruption and societal problems.
While mainstream stories have always had “carefully selected narratives” to support the Chinese government’s view of topics such as international relations, the state’s control has become more pronounced in recent years.
“The environment is a lot harder now for Chinese journalists to do the job of being more critical – there used to be a little bit more room for them.”
Young has never met Boreham but says he is not a fan of the journalist’s work, which adheres closely to a large proportion of Chinese-language media in defending China’s political system and accusing western media of bias.
Former NZ China Council executive director Stephen Jacobi, who regularly caught up with Boreham during visits to Shanghai until the Covid-19 pandemic intervened, hasn’t seen his more recent reporting (or Twitter’s designation) but describes him as “a very capable and astute observer of China, and a bit of a bridge between New Zealand perceptions of China and other perceptions of China”.
Jacobi is unaware of any other Kiwi journalists working within Chinese state-affiliated media, and says that perspective “from the inside out” is a valuable one to have – although he hesitates when asked to place Boreham on the spectrum of views when it comes to China.
“The trouble with the spectrum is it’s shifted a lot, it’s a sliding scale these days – anyone who says anything positive about China is a panda hugger.”
Boreham’s critics have accused him of acting as a propagandist for the CCP, but he argues he has “never, ever professed a view that is not my own”.
Western censorship 'underhanded'
Nor has he ever felt unable to fully report on a story – although that comes with caveats.
“Not at all, because I have quite a deep understanding of contemporary Chinese culture and what lines shouldn’t be crossed. I wouldn’t suggest a story about Taiwan independence to my editor, for example, or write anything suggesting that a certain Chinese ethnic minority has done this or done that.”
He alleges western media practise their own “underhanded” censorship in the form of commercial interests and self-editing – you may note neither of those come with the risk of imprisonment – while promoting contradictory viewpoints of China as a backward nation but also an “advanced, evil empire”.
“Western media is too quick to take dubious claims about China at face value, because western audiences already have this idea in their head [of] what 'Communist China' is, that it’s a dark, scary, draconian dystopia. Media content that boosts those views is popular and gains clicks and sells newspapers.”
As evidence, he cites coverage of the Hong Kong protests – or riots, as he calls them – which led the average westerner to baselessly believe the rioters were victims of police and state brutality (an Amnesty International investigation in 2019 based on witness testimony reported arbitrary arrests of protesters, as well as evidence of torture and other mistreatment while they were in detention).
But if Boreham’s intention is to provide a more balanced view of China, Young says, he is failing.
“Of course there are friendly people in China, of course there are things that have happened in China which are good news … [but] to only focus on them and criticise western media for pointing out many of the problematic and troubling things that are happening in China, and China's role in the world, it just doesn't make sense.”
Boreham holds similar objections to western reporting on human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province, with Amnesty International reporting on systematic mass imprisonment, torture and persecution of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.
'Bad people everywhere in the world'
Last year, New Zealand MPs unanimously expressed grave concern about the “severe human rights abuses” taking place in Xinjiang through a parliamentary motion – but Boreham claims there is “absolutely zero evidence to back anything like this up, apart from ‘witness testimony’ which, last time I checked, isn’t enough to convict a person let alone an entire state”. (Amnesty spoke to more than 50 former camp detainees for its report, while internal Chinese state documents leaked to the New York Times outlined plans for the mass detention camps in a bid to guard against terrorist extremism).
“There are bad people everywhere in the world,” Boreham says, adding: “When I was little we had a police officer who would often come to our street and sort out fights and stuff between the neighbours.
“Later he was convicted of exposing his genitals and masturbating in front of a little girl at the Warehouse in Levin. Do I think that all police officers are the same? Of course not. Isolated incidents of abuse – which, I must continue to stress, are not proven – are not signs of systemic abuse.”
Efforts to gather further evidence have been complicated by Chinese authorities repeatedly stymying a September 2018 request from UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet to visit Xinjiang (Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last month Bachelet would be allowed to visit, while warning against “all kinds of biases, prejudices and uncalled-for accusations”) but Boreham says “a lack of evidence, for whatever reason, isn’t grounds to decide someone is guilty”.
The journalist’s tourism videos from the region, sold as “not the Xinjiang you see on the news”, led to him being among those mentioned in an Australian Strategic Policy Institute report on the CCP’s use of foreign influencers to “shape and push messages domestically and internationally about Xinjiang that are aligned with its own preferred narratives”.
"I’m quite certain that people will start to see, sooner or later, that they were wrong. That’s my hope, anyway.”
– Andy Boreham
Speaking more broadly, Young says there has been a long history of westerners acting as a voice for China’s position in the world, dating back to Rewi Alley and Edgar Snow – but Boreham’s role as a reporter brings a different dimension to that advocacy.
“From the perspective of how I understand the role of journalists and journalism, I think it's very problematic.”
Boreham’s videos were shared on social media by a number of Chinese embassies and state media outlets – but he says the trip was self-funded and had nothing to do with his work for Shanghai Daily (the newspaper’s website did publish his videos).
“I’ve never suggested I saw the full picture or anything of the sort. I went to Xinjiang on holiday and made two videos while I was there; that’s really all there is to it.”
He is dismissive of the ASPI report, noting the institute’s financial ties to the US Department of Defence and American arms manufacturers, and says: “I remain confident I am on the right side of history.”
Not all New Zealanders agree, however: in a recent piece, Boreham wrote about receiving a “nasty private message” from a Kiwi saying they were ashamed to be a fellow Victoria University graduate, and he says levels of hate mail have increased in recent weeks.
He also lost a friend of 20 years over his work, and tries not to talk politics with other friends.
But despite that, he has no regrets about how his views may be affecting his reputation in New Zealand.
“Why should telling the truth affect my reputation negatively? I’m quite certain that people will start to see, sooner or later, that they were wrong.
“That’s my hope, anyway.”
