The one-sided media coverage of Hollywood director Steven Spielberg's departure from the Beijing Olympics is only the latest case of a more general and pervasive problem: Western world people are continually bombarded by a filtered and unduly negative version of Chinese reality by their news media.

Here in China we do get some picture of the various developments in the US and European economies, polities and foreign affairs.

Over there, however, with a few exceptions, only stories about censorship, spoiled food products, human rights issues, dangerous toys and the like in China are published. In general, the only positive stories feature "China is a great place to make money".

It's not that these stories are all untrue; like all countries, China has its problems. There are corruption issues, product quality issues and other issues in China, though some of the stories are exaggerated or untrue.

The problem is that such stories are all that gets reported. It would be like if only the war in Iraq, the US patriot act and the rights abuses under it, the previously secret CIA prisons and torture in Europe and the large number of homeless and impoverished Americans were publicized, while all other US affairs, whether good or bad, were left in the dark of night.

Here's a telling example: The Chinese government's "project to build a new socialist countryside" is a key part of the country's current five year plan and is impacting the lives of millions of Chinese farmers.