At the press conference of the two sessions held on March 7, 2021, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi talked about two foreign friends when answering questions about "how foreign media reporters report on China". One was Snow, the first Western journalist to go to the Soviet union, and the other was Maxime Vivas, a French writer and media personality who was recently known to many Chinese readers.
Vivas, who is nearly eighty years old, has many titles such as postman, ergonomician, writer, media person, and Chinese friend. Based on anecdotes and memories from the life of the mail sorting center, he wrote his first novel, which became a hit in the French literary world. He has given up stability many times, crossed the business, literature and media industries three times, and achieved remarkable results in each field. He braved the threat of anti-China forces and wrote books such as "Not So "Zen": The Hidden Side of the Dalai Lama" and "The End of Uyghur Fake News".
Maxim Vivas
Three cross-border multi-faceted lives
In 1947, 5-year-old Maxime Vivas moved with his family from a small mountain village in the south of France to Albias, where he learned to read and write. Vivas's first job was as a postman in the provincial capital city of Montauban, and at the age of 19 he went to work at a mail sorting center in Paris. During his time as a postman, Vivas used what he saw at work as material for his writing, conceiving the framework of the book in his mind, while imagining another possibility of life— becoming a writer. Although he thought that such "ambition" was inconsistent with his living environment and education, he still used his spare time to continuously absorb knowledge to take root and conceive and revise the framework of the novel.
The postal work in Paris became more and more handy, and the conception of the novel gradually took shape, and Vivas was not willing to do so. At the age of 38, Vivas completed his first crossover, from the post office to the French telecommunications company, and the family moved from Paris to Toulouse. By chance, he entered the French telekom to study ergonomics, and slowly he became the management of the French telekom company, becoming a European ergonomics expert, an executive of France Telecom, and a designer of ergonomics and safety training courses. Nearly fifty years old when he "knew the destiny of heaven", Vivas's dream of writing was once again ignited, and he once again resigned from his original post and gave up the current stable and happy life.
With years of anecdotes and memories from his life at the mail sorting center, Vivas opened the first page of his career as a writer with the release of his first novel, ParisBrune, which won the Roger Wieland Prize in France that year. This inspired Vivas to continue writing. In his pen, the life of the postman and the situation of the strike are all presented, and the novel becomes a powerful weapon that reflects the life and the contours of the times of the french underclass. As Jean-Noel Pancrazi put it in Le Monde, "This novel makes all those who complain about the French novel's disconnect with contemporary social reality lie". The rise of this new star has attracted the attention of the French literary circles. During his decade of active literature, Vivas created seven works of literature, including ParisBrune and Eiffel Tower and Coconut Trees. But just as people were looking forward to more of his literary works, Vivas once again quietly changed the scene.
▲ January 24, 2014, Vivas at st. Aulen's Children's Book Festival
This time, Vivas, who was in his sixties, was determined to enter the media industry. From 2005 to 2007, Vivas conducted a number of surveys for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) organization, delving into the situation of the association of journalists without borders (RSF), funded by the organization. In 2007, Vivas released his first investigative work, The Hidden Side of Reporters Without Borders: From the CIA to the Pentagon Hawks, in which he exposed the CIA's association of reporters without borders being "bought off" by the CIA, publishing disinformation to lash out at China, Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia. Once published, the investigative reporting work shook the world political, literary and media industries, and was later reprinted many times in France. Vivas is increasingly connected to the media industry. Subsequently, Vivas worked as a radio host in Toulouse, hosting an hour of cultural programming a week. He also served as the administrator of the LeGrandSoir information website, and once broke the record of more than one million visitors a month. A Vivas who exudes a desire to fight from his eyes to his pores does not stop there, he has just blown his battle horn in the media field.
Using the pen as a sword, the chinese name is justified
Vivas was born in Spain and was interested in Iberian culture on weekdays, and read a lot of books about Iberian culture for this purpose. As Vivas said, he did not have the opportunity and reason to look at Chinese culture in the first place. After learning about Chinese culture, Vivas once again realized the obligation to spread a sense of justice.
Vivas's acquaintance with China began with a family visit. In the early 21st century, Vivas traveled to China with his wife to visit his son, who works in Beijing. Accompanied by their son, Vivas and his wife visited Tiananmen Square and learned about Beijing Hutong and other cultures. These experiences shocked Vivas, who couldn't help but exclaim, "How can we know so little about the most populous country?" Before arriving in Beijing, Vivas's knowledge of China came only from the French media and a small number of books. Under the false spread of politicians with ulterior motives, Chinese in the minds of many French people wearing Zhongshan suits and eating only rice, politicians hype up China's economic backwardness and claim that Chinese constantly destroying their traditional culture.
After traveling to Beijing, he broke the stereotype of China that had been established in some French media reports, and he found that the image and living conditions of Chinese were very different from those reported. Vivas was acutely aware that there were many media outlets in France that were misusing information involving China and disseminating disinformation with impunity. He wrote in the article, "China has a long history of thousands of years, and we should not look at China in terms of general media reports on China." This experience once again sowed the seeds of spreading the true Chinese culture in Vivas's heart.
In 2010, Vivas was invited by the Chinese government to visit and inspect Tibet as a member of a French press delegation with two reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde. They visited Schools, Enterprises, Medical Schools and other places in Tibet to feel the local culture of Tibet. He found that the image of Tibet was once again completely opposite to the reports and descriptions of some French media and groups. Vivas realized that some of the French media's allegations against the rest of China were fake news. After returning to China, Vivas combined what he had seen and heard, and compiled the materials provided by Tibetan locals, the Dalai Lama and his friends, and published articles in the media about the true Tibetan story. In 2011, Vivas published the book "Not So "Zen": The Hidden Side of the Dalai Lama", exposing the true face of the Dalai Lama, gradually breaking the so-called "myth" of the Dalai Lama in the Western media, and setting off a "Tibetan truth fever" in France, Britain and other places.
Vivas's journey through China didn't stop there. In 2016, Vivas was invited by the Chinese Embassy in France to walk into Xinjiang with 40 foreign journalists from 20 countries. In 2018, at the invitation of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, Vivas and his wife went to Xinjiang for an inspection. During the two one-month trips to Xinjiang, Vivas visited Urumqi, Shihezi, Kashgar and other major cities, and visited schools, farms, factories, cultural and artistic centers in Xinjiang. Xinjiang's cultural reality and its development vitality in the past two years have once again greatly moved Vivas.
Vivas (first from right) and his wife (first from left) in China
The trips to Beijing, Tibet and Xinjiang, the rich material that Vivas had prepared for the lies of some politicians with ulterior motives, also familiarized Vivas with the false accusations against China by some media outlets. After returning to France, Vivas found that some media people with ulterior motives "repeated lies about Xinjiang like parrots", and borrowed the sociologist Bourdieu's concept of "information circulation" to criticize the mutual dissemination of such lies. After realizing the differences between Xinjiang's humanities, economy, culture and other aspects and French media reports, Vivas used xinjiang's actual research experience as a base point and successively published articles on Xinjiang in the media. In December 2020, the four-year-old book "The End of Uyghur Fake News" was officially published by the French Silk Road Publishing House.
In the book, Vivas gave evidence to refute some unfounded Rumors related to Xinjiang, such as "genocide" and "imprisonment of millions of Uighurs". He was also concerned about the misuse of information about Xinjiang by some media outlets, asking in the book that France had once brutally fought terrorism and separatism to this day. How can China today confront the "three forces" (i.e., terrorism, separatism, and anti-China forces)? Some French media spread fake news, unwilling to admit that they lied and go unpunished.
Vivas's journey to the right name never stops. At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, posing a serious threat to the production, life and even lives of people around the world. Some politicians with ulterior motives in the international political arena have blurred the boundaries between viruses, politics and science, and have vigorously smeared China. Vivas once again used the pen as a weapon to record the objective facts of China's contribution to the fight against the epidemic, and used data to anger the "new crown China responsibility theory". Vivas used facts to tell the relevant information of China's identification of the new crown virus, sequencing the genome of the new crown virus, and communicating the results to the world, sharing the anti-epidemic measures such as Chinese people wearing masks and grounding and their major achievements, and telling the indisputable facts about China's provision of anti-epidemic medical supplies for Italy, Iraq, Iran and other countries. At the same time, Vivas also used objective data and facts to expose France's misconduct in fighting the new crown epidemic, calling on France to learn from China's anti-epidemic experience and get along with China in a friendly manner.
Respect the oath of the journalist's charter Hippocrates like a doctor
As early as Vivas entered the literary world, he showed the world his attitude towards writing. Vivas pointed out that writing is a process of choice, and what is written is the promise that the writer makes to the world—to stand on the side of the weak against the strong. Despite the variety of literary writing methods, each of Vivas's books responds to specific moments in his life based on his life.
Vivas believed that a journalist should respect the oath of the journalist's charter Hippocrates like a doctor. He has repeatedly stressed the importance of the Munich Charter, the Declaration on the Duties and Rights of Journalists, for journalists in articles and interviews. The declaration pointed out that journalists should abide by professional ethics, not lie, confirm the truth of information, and correct incorrect information. Vivas actively practices the Munich Charter, striving to expose disinformation and disseminate objective facts.
From the moment Vivas began to expose the Association of Reporters Without Borders, he was pushed to the forefront. After publishing an unbounded investigation book by anti-China "non-governmental organization" journalists revealing the organization's funding sources, Vivas received four threats of litigation from the group. Vivas told himself that every word in the manuscript must be made true, that it must stand up to scrutiny, and that it must not make any small mistakes, so as not to be grabbed by the people with hearts and become a pretext for being attacked by the crowd. Vivas reviewed the "Hidden Side of Reporters Without Borders: From the CIA to the Pentagon Hawks" investigation over and over again, reviewing the 272-page manuscript several times. "Rigorous dissemination of objective facts" has become vivas's only law of self-protection.
In 2011, Vivas revealed the true history of the Dalai Lama in "Not So Zen: The Hidden Side of the Dalai Lama." French anti-China forces believe that "Vivas has destroyed an untouchable idol in French, Western media and political public opinion" and constantly insults, slanders and threatens Vivas. Vivas once said in an interview with Chinese Television in France, "If you can find a sentence after reading the book, or a column of numbers or a date that is wrong, please come to me." In order to tell the true story of Tibet to the world, Vivas repeatedly studied the memoirs written by the Dalai Lama, found the materials written by the Dalai Lama's French explorer friend Alexandradneel, and constantly compared the Dalai Lama's remarks in the Western media and speeches, looking for contradictions in the Dalai Lama. He said every word in the book stood up to scrutiny.
Before writing the book "The End of Uighur Fake News," Vivas knew it would be another protracted battle, and he was even ready to play the role of "daredevil." In the French city of Toulouse, where Vivas lives, and one of the four largest bookstores in France, the area where books on the theme of "China" is placed is very small, and none of the books are friendly to China. In France to tell the truth about China's Xinjiang region, Vivas was ready to fight back against the slander of anti-China forces, and he spent a lot of time writing, reviewing, and revising the manuscript. Vivas did not hide what he saw and felt, nor did he try to "tinker" with what he saw and heard, but objectively and truthfully disseminated what he saw and heard.
After completing the manuscript of "The End of Uighur Fake News," Vivas contacted nine "left-wing" publishers (three of whom had previously worked with Vivas) and sent them briefs. Only one person replied and blamed Vivas for the intent of the manuscript. Fortunately, French philosophy professor Sonia Bressler, who created the Silk Road Press to show the world the real China, was equally shocked by the way the French media talked about Xinjiang. Sonia Bressler provided the media space for Vivas to spread the story of Xinjiang and even worked with Vivas to correct the manuscript. Vivas and Sonia Bressler spent more than two months revising and revising the original manuscript. Vivas once confidently said, "The anti-China group will not find a single lie in my book, will personally attack me and divert the subject by criticizing everything in Beijing."
After the global outbreak of new crown pneumonia, the eighty-year-old Vivas paid close attention to the trend of the epidemic, constantly accumulated newspapers, television, the Internet and other information, in the face of the accusations of politicians with ulterior motives "new crown China responsibility theory", Vivas, as always, held the position of truth, he used objective data and facts to tell people about China's anti-epidemic achievements and international contributions, accurately portrayed China's anti-epidemic timetable to the world, and cleared the fog shrouded by politics and racism in the field of international public opinion. Vivas wrote, "Readers do not need to follow the Chinese political, economic, social, cultural, journalistic, and military systems in order to corroborate what I am writing. To do it, you only need to observe objective reality."
Editor: Sun Qijun
About author:Li Ting, Master student of School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan University