The Western media has been busy for some time now in their malicious endeavors to portray China's labors in the South China Sea as "illegal" or a "threat" to the world. This is how the propaganda machine of the west functions. It takes its time in setting the foundations of its propaganda, the basic principle is based on an age old saying "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." Once the false facts become etched in to the minds of the audience the foundations have been laid to up the ante. Same was the case when the Western media justified the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the same has been true in many cases.

Currently the world is witnessing the western media laboring towards building the foundations for equating the mere mention of the name "South China Sea" as synonymous to "China's use of illegal force" within the region. This is the reason why at the close of the recent G7 summit the statement issued by the group of 7 has angered China. As with the help of Japanese tactics and western media they have tried to wrongly portray China as the aggressor within the region. Which is preposterous as Japan itself forgets its own endeavors and declaration of the Douglas Reef as its Exclusive Economic Zone, which is contested by China. The major problem with the closing statement is that Japan contrived to prop up the topic of South China Sea on to the discussion table as a self-serving maneuver where as the G7 comprises of countries who do not belong to the region of the South China Sea and had no real qualms regarding the Issue. Instead of highlighting the South China Sea issue, stress should have been laid upon important issues concerning boosting economic ties, especially when Japan's own economy has been stagnating, with the Abenomics revival plan not taking off, with growth and inflation both around zero, and Abenomics prescribing to raise taxes on a deflation-plagued nation speaks volumes of the economic vulnerability of Japan and with this stark economic back drop fussing about South China Sea on a forum where China the biggest stake holder is not a part of is an extremely callous and disconcerting measure.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has been right in objecting to the closing statement and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying was justified when she said, "As the G7 host, Japan is hyping up the South China Sea issue and fanning the flame of tensions. ... China is strongly dissatisfied with what Japan and the G7 have done."

Time and again it has to be highlighted that China has no aggressive designs and wants a peaceful and amicable resolution to the issue and Hua stressed once again that, "China resolutely safeguards freedom of navigation and over flight, but the navigational freedom of commercial vessels is not the same as the willful trespassing by warships."

As pointed out above some countries along with the western media have vested interests in portraying a negative image of China and that is why they indulge in a malicious smear campaign to paint China as the aggressor and they hide their own aggression, and provocations behind euphemisms, when the US conducts unannounced "Drone Strikes" on foreign soil it not only violates the international laws of sovereignty but refers to these strikes as "target killings", rather than "assassinations", and toned down terms like "enhanced interrogation" are used instead of "torture" when mentioning tactics at Guantanamo Bay, innocent civilian lives lost within the strikes are termed as "collateral damage" and they call their ventures of trespassing through territorial waters on heavily armed warships as "Freedom of Navigation". The Western media outlets have mastered the art of "Onomastic strategies" to convert victims to culprits and the vice-versa and they have been trying the same in the case of South China Sea. Their aim is to lay enough ground work that, at the mere mention of the word "South China Sea" within the media should paint the picture of "Chinese aggression", "Chinese Artificial Islands" and "Chinese force projection" just as they have been successful in the case of the mere mention of a "bomb blast" in the news, makes the audience anticipate the association of "Muslim terrorists", these malicious attacks targeted at China by some media outlets have to stop as it is highly counterproductive, especially when the world economy is facing sluggish growth rates and large economies like the US, EU and especially Japan are showing dismal growth figures and China is offering the world economy a platform to grow through the Belt and Road initiative. Instead of focusing on vested and unilateral interests the G7 especially Japan needs to embrace China's peaceful initiatives as the world economic revival depends upon this.

Shafei Moiz Hali has a master's degree from George Mason University, Virginia, USA in the field of International Commerce and Public Policy. Mr. Hali has been working as an Assistant Professor at the National Defence University (NDU), Islamabad, Pakistan with the department of Government and Public Policy Since 2009. Currently he is pursuing his PhD from the College of Public Administration at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China.

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