The west was still getting a good deal out of China 15 years ago, so they were walking the same tightrope as with the dictatorships they backed: circulating enough bad facts about them, true or false, without riling the people up too much, lest they demand action be taken against them.

What's amazing about the current coverage is how they've mastered the big lie. Bourgeois information control is so great that people don't think twice about the most ludicrous claims about China, Russia etc unless they've already got gripes about the capitalist system they live under.