ESSAY: Is Chinese state TV complicit in covering up war crimes?

CCTV’s flagship news program known as Xinwen Lianbo traditionally gives foreign news and far away events short shrift, but that has changed perceptibly since the “outbreak of hostilities” in Ukraine. Television news in China still shies away from disharmonious words such as “invasion”, “war”, “massacre” and “war crimes” for fear of offending Russia, with whom it has a strong media partnership, but it recognizes that something important is going on.

Immediately following domestic news, usually around that 20-minute mark, CCTV offers its viewers a daily update reported from Russia about the “Ukraine situation.”

It’s been a regular feature on CCTV since last spring and it appears like clockwork. Even during the pomp and circumstance of the 20th Party congress that was orchestrated to seal the deal on Xi Jinping’s tenure as undisputed leader, one of those moments in the Chinese political calendar when the rest of the world is whitewashed away to avoid distraction, there were the usual Russi…