Maxime Vivas, a well-known French writer, political commentator and journalist, has published a new book, this time prolificly, "The Proverbs of the Anti-China Forces in France".
Who is Vivas? Foreign Minister Wang Yi once talked about two foreign friends when answering the question of "how do foreign media reporters report on China" at the press conference of the two sessions. One is the famous journalist Snow, and the other is him, Maxim Vivas.
Who is Vivas, who is already on par with Snow?
The Nearly Eighty-Year-Old Hispanic Frenchman, who visited Xinjiang twice in 2016 and 2018, spent four years writing a book called "The End of Uighur Fake News." After his unremitting efforts, he finally found a publisher in France in 2020, and the book was officially published. The purpose of his publication of this book is to let Europeans understand the real Xinjiang and to dispel rumors related to Xinjiang such as the so-called "genocide" and "imprisonment of millions of Uighurs".
After Vivas's book was published, it was like a bomb thrown into the water, stirring up a big wave. He also expected that the publication of the book would bring him a lot of pressure, but he persevered. On social platforms such as Facebook, he was attacked by readers who didn't know the truth; some people doubted whether he had financial dealings with the Chinese government; and at one point his relationship with his family was tense, saying himself: "In order to publish this book, I acted as a 'suicide bomber.'"
Imagine that in the overall situation of the French mainstream media basically holding negative reports on China, Vivas will certainly have a lot of pressure to do so.
Before coming to China, Vivas had written a book investigating and exposing the anti-China organization Reporters Without Borders, called "The Hidden Side of Reporters Without Borders: The C.I.A. to the Pentagon Hawks." That led him to receive four threats of lawsuit from the group.
It is true that he can feel a "lone hero" in telling the facts on his own, but he believes that a journalist should actively practice the Munich Charter like a doctor respecting the Hippocratic Oath.
Before working as a journalist, Vivas was a man of great experience, a postman, an ergonomician, and a writer. He has been active in the French literary scene for more than ten years, creating seven literary works.
Vivas first came to Beijing, China, in 2008 and became interested in its culture.
In 2010, he returned to China and went to Tibet with major mainstream media reporters such as Renault Geralr of Le Figaro and Remi Urdan of Le Monde, and this time he saw a very different Tibet than described by the Western media. Vivas truthfully recounted what he saw.
His articles on Tibet surprised French readers with the realization of a real Tibet, and in 2011 he published a book about Tibet, The Dalai Lama: Not So Zen. The book, which was used to reveal the true face of the Dalai Lama, was a great success and was translated into six languages. Later, Vivas went to Xinjiang to do in-depth reporting.
Vivas is in Tibet
Although he became a thorn in the side of the Anti-China forces in France, Vivas believed that as long as he did his investigation work in detail, in detail, and in a down-to-earth manner, he would not be caught by those anti-China forces.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin also praised Vivas for daring to reveal the truth, saying that "prejudice is difficult to last, and rumors will eventually go bankrupt."
Vivas's shimmer had an effect, he belonged to the left of the left in France, and his views and positions on China obviously influenced a famous French politician who was also a left-wing politician, that is, Mérant.
Mélang-hsiung criticized the Dalai Lama as a master of serfdom, and he has publicly stated that France should import China's COVID-19 vaccine because It is the most effective.
Mellon
It is precisely because there are vivas and Méroncom in France that China and France have always maintained a relatively special relationship compared to other European countries. Because of Vivas and Mérant, the ordinary French people have a more objective understanding of China than the rest of Europe.
At the beginning of this year, the English edition of Vivas's second book on Xinjiang, "The Return of Yan", was also published. Our Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying retweeted Twitter, manually publicizing: "I hope Westerners have the opportunity to come to Xinjiang." As long as we do not intend to blindfold them, we have every reason to believe that the policies of the Beijing authorities are effective. ”
As Vivas wrote in The Return of the Swallows: "They spared no effort to promote multi-ethnic coexistence and respect for cultural diversity, which is the source of the progress of human civilization." "As Chinese, we should also cherish and thank foreigners like Vivas who pursue justice, respect facts, and dare to speak out."