"I regret that reports on China by some mainstream Western media remain old-fashioned, unbalanced with prejudice and Cold War thinking," Ng Sauw Tjhoi, a Belgian journalist told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"I hope that my books on China and our website will be able to change such prejudice and ignorance against the country," he said.
Ng, 51, recalled the "unfriendly" coverage by some Western media, such as BBC and CNN, on the once troubled torch relay of the Beijing Olympics in Europe in this spring. The unbalanced reports led to outrage among the public in China.
Although 30 years have already passed since China started its opening-up and reforms in 1978, some Western politicians and mainstream media still could not take an objective stance toward the country's huge achievements in development, said Ng, a journalist, producer and editor for Radio 1 of Belgium's VRT station.
Ng, who is an ethnic Chinese in Belgium but does not speak Chinese, has published two books about China over the past two years, and is running a non-profit website (www.infochina.be) with four friends.
The website carries many news stories and articles about China, which Ng said are chosen in accordance with balanced and objective journalistic principles.
"Our goal is to balance the reports about China in the West, and provide the readers with a positive source of information on China," he said.
The website, both in Dutch and French, has more than 10 categories of contents, including economy, environment, international relations and China's Tibet.
It is of a small scale, but it is quite unique for someone outside China to run such a website, media researchers said.
Though Ng has the Chinese origin, his first visit to China took place in 1979 when he was already 22 years old. During that trip, he accompanied his father in a bid to find the birthplace of his grandfather in Guangdong, southern China. But their efforts failed.
Ng's grandfather went to Indonesia in the 1880s to engage in tin business. Ng was born in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, in 1957. He moved to Brussels in 1958 with his family, which started a Chinese restaurant as his first business there.
Ng said after China's 10-year Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 and especially after the country adopted the opening-up policy, his family started to dream of visiting the small village where Ng's grandfather hailed from.
Ng paid a second visit to China together with his younger brother. During the visit, they found the birthplace of their grandfather – Sanhe village, Meixian county (now called Meizhou city) of Guangdong province, with the help of officials from Shenzhen, one of the first economic special zones in China.
Since then, Ng has visited China frequently. Particularly, since 2004, he has visited the country three or four times a year.
"From 1979 to 2008, China has undergone such rapid developments. I love the country and its people," said Ng.
