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October 22, 2009

Economist Article: Some Corrections and Further Notes

 

 

In a recent post here at Blogbat, we wrote that James Miles, Beijing Bureau Chief for the Economist, had stated in an interview with Jim Falk of the World Affairs Council that the need to fix “climate change can’t be interrupted by human rights”. In fact, Blogbat had erred in transcribing the live audio interview and had misquoted Mr. Miles. As such, Blogbat sincerely regrets the mistake. However, Blogbat is also gravely concerned about what we believe is an utter lack of professionalism on the part of Mr. Miles, a public figure, in resolving the issue and in his choice to immediately, according to his own e-mail, spread apparent falsehoods to others about a private individual with whom he disagrees.

 

Blogbat constantly strives to get it right, and in that effort, we always employ due-diligence when quoting others. In the case of the quote in question, since it was a live audio event, we were unable to replay it at the time, so we asked others in attendance if they believed they had also heard him say this. They believed that he had. Of course, we know now not a one of us had heard him correctly, as the audio recording and transcript sent to us by Mr. Miles bears out. While it is natural that in the course of writing any sort of report of such events, errors can be and are made, we certainly seek to correct them as soon as possible. We harbor no ill will toward Mr. Miles and wish him the very best in his work. As such, we sincerely apologize where we have factually erred.

 

This matter, of course, was brought to my attention today by Mr. Miles in an e-mail. We have since been in communication, and despite the fact his communications were not altogether friendly, we have worked to ensure all factual errors are corrected. Below, you may click on the screen shots of the e-mails sent to me by Mr. Miles as well as my responses to him.

 

e-mail 1  response 1   e-mail 2   response 2

 

Now that this is out of the way, let’s move on to some of the issues-related items we discussed with Mr. Miles. While we did get a sense that, in our opinion, climate change seemed to be of greater importance to Mr. Miles than human rights (as is very much the fashion in international politics today), Mr. Miles vehemently denies this. We thank him for clarifying and are very glad that he has taken the time to do so. We are also very happy to see someone such as he at this point articulate a strong position in favor of human rights, as the world does indeed need more strong voices in its cause. We also commend Mr. Miles for the “personal risk” which he claims in his e-mail to me he has taken in order to report on abuses by the regime. For this, we believe Mr. Miles should be honored, if that be the case.

 

His interview does suffer some seeming contradictions, such as his belief that, "in a way it is China's authoritarianism that helps America and helps the world generally” (38:20) and then later states “The authoritarianism which I think is likely to persist over the next decade or next couple of decades is not a stable one.” This then begs the question, how is an unstable China a benefit to the world, and isn’t it a primary argument of those who want to see the status quo remain in China that any disturbance to the current regime will lead to instability and as a result trouble for the rest of the world? Unfortunately, he did not address this in our communication, though it was touched on in the original article.

 

Mr. Miles also states that China’s response to global epidemics over the last decade has had “authoritarian components” (35:50), and follows by offering several examples. This, too, does not seem to be something which would support the idea that Chinese authoritarianism is helpful in the global sense.  

 

It is important also to note that Mr. Miles did not dispute any of the other points made in my article about China, the international community in general or human rights. Since his interview with WAC essentially only served to set up the article which covered far broader issues – ones which he expressed to me were of great concern to him also – I was surprised they were not also addressed, if not commended. That again, however, is his choice.

 

Mr. Miles also stressed that he does not allow the Chinese communist regime to influence his reportage, and I made it clear to him my concern, since the regime is well-known for quite some time for trying to influence all who do business within its borders, as Washington Times writer and author Bill Gertz has noted. So, while we believe it is fair to always question whether such is the case, Mr. Miles has made it clear that with him it is not, so as we retain the right to some skepticism, we take him at his word.

 

So again, despite the fact Mr. Miles did seem to us to downplay the importance of human rights in his interview, he is entitled to his opinion as are we entitled to ours, and in this instance he does not himself characterize it as such and in some regards we may be mildly persuaded by his vigorous defense. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. When asked if he might proffer one or two pieces that sharply defined his pro-human rights positions, he declined. In all fairness we will always give the other side a chance to respond whenever it is willing and available.  

 

Beyond our quote which we attributed incorrectly to Mr. Miles and corrected, we understand that Mr. Miles is a public figure and therefore available for public criticism. A public figure should consider avoiding spreading rumors about a private citizen, as such behavior tends to be frowned upon; it certainly is not acceptable when the issues at hand are one errant quotation that was readily acknowledged and corrected, and other matters common to the often passionate political discourse in the foreign policy arena where debate over ideas and the intent of spoken and written work is carried out heatedly every day. Blogbat's interest here is the truth, so it is important to set the record straight where it has been in error above all else. We certainly hope that we have done so today.

 

 

Posted by Martin at October 22, 2009 08:59 PM

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