Determined to prevent its readers from learning what actually happened during the two-day conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last week, Western media tell a false story of rebukes to Putin and of fissures between Russia, China, and India.
The personal meetings that Russian President Putin held with his Indian and Chinese counterparts have received the most absurd coverage. “Putin Nods to Xi’s ‘Concerns’ and the Limits of their Cooperation” is the headline of the coverage by the New York Times, which harps on a single word, concerns, and ignores the February 4 joint Russian-Chinese statement. “Rather than put on a show of Eurasian unity against the West as Russia struggled to recover from last week’s humiliating military retreat ... the two leaders struck discordant notes in their public remarks — and Mr. Xi made no mention of Ukraine at all.”
Following the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal chimed in with “Russia’s Vladmir Putin Says China’s Xi Jinping Raised ‘Concerns’ on Ukraine War.” CNBC declared, “Putin admits China has ‘concerns’ over Ukraine invasion.” The Daily Telegraph headlined its report “Isolated Putin left at Beijing’s mercy as his disastrous war backfires.” CNN wrote that “Ukraine war risks exposing regional divisions.”
But the actual readouts from official Russian, Chinese, and Indian channels — had these legacy media institutions deigned to consult them — paint a very different picture. Moscow’s official reporting quotes Xi that “we are ready to work with our Russian colleagues to set an example of what a responsible global power is and assume leadership in order to bring the rapidly changing world onto a path of sustainable and positive development.”
India’s Ministry of External Affairs quotes Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “The relationship between India and Russia has deepened manifold. We also value this relationship because we have been such friends who have been with each other every moment for the last several decades and the whole world also knows how Russia’s relationship with India has been and how India’s relationship with Russia has been, and therefore the world also knows that is is an unbreakable friendship.”
That didn’t stop CNN from reporting that Modi “appears to have directly rebuffed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine... In what was the latest in a series of setbacks for the Russian leader.”
