Western discourse vis-a-vis China has always been problematic, not least due to the language barrier and cultural differences, though recent geopolitics has led to far more distorted views. One thing to note is that unlike a lot of other subjects people can be regarded as 'experts' on China in spite of them being neither fluent in the language nor having visited/resided there. This is also paired with an unfamiliarity with Chinese history and culture that leads to some rather awful takes being taken as gospel. All of this coupled with perverse interests being at play when it comes to media coverage of China, from cherrypicking news, using dubious sources (Adrian Zenz comes to mind), poor/mistranslating Chinese sources and outright fabrication. All of this means that its very difficult to take most Western news sources seriously whenever they cover China and further contributes to Chinese distrust of the West at home and abroad.