Western smear Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The Washington Post's recent article, entitled "China harvests masses of data on Western targets, documents show", accused China of "mining Western social media… to equip its government agencies, military, and police with information on foreign targets." It also claimed that Beijing will use these data to investigate Chinese citizens locally and abroad and harass "Beijing's critics." 

The article was written in a tone that tries to imply that China now wants to not only control public opinion inside the country, but also "infiltrate" into the public opinion outside China. But the Washington Post has no grounds on which to make such a wild guess. 

For one, although China is growing rapidly, it has neither ability nor intention to control overseas public opinion. And two, there is no evidence to prove that the data China has collected has been obtained illegally. Thus, it is completely normal as long as it's all public data. 

The Washington Post has missed the fact that governments in many countries actually gather public social media information for good intentions. On one hand, public opinion plays a supervisory role in a government's decision-making and the process of policy implementation. Therefore, the government can make better decisions by understanding public opinion, and gathering data from social media is one way to achieve this. 

On the other hand, gathering data is a way to find out potential dangers. In the case of the Chinese authorities, they have put a lot of effort into gathering data from foreign social media accounts belonging to secessionist forces that threaten China's sovereignty. By doing so, authorities can stop them from undermining China's national security and the stability of Chinese society.

However, it seems that the foreign media don't want China to know its people and the world better. Does the Washington Post really expect the Chinese government to ignore its people's needs and leave the country facing potential risks? 

Some forces in the West, especially in the US, have been trying to portray China as a gigantic "monster" that torments its own people. Now they claim that this "monster" has grown so much bigger that it can even reach its "claws" to people outside China by monitoring them and trying to control their opinions. This only shows these forces' dark mentality by hyping up the "China threat theory" once again. 

Moreover, it is the US that has been attempting to extend its dirty, hidden hand over people in other countries and control the opinion there. Take the example of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. After he exposed Washington's deepest secrets, the US has taken incredible steps to silence Assange, an Australian citizen, in every possible way. Media like the Washington Post should focus more on issues like the Assange case and call attention to the despicable behaviors of the US government instead of smearing China over so-called harvesting of data from foreign social media. 

The article was compiled based on an interview with Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn