The “western” news spent a good part of 2015 covering Edward Snowden’s in great detail and sealing great damage to US reputation, despite the Chinese, Russian etc. governments having or aspiring for similar programs.

Generally the “western” (or at least American) press has a strong tradition of criticizing its own government, much stronger than some other nations. Criticizing foreign governments or running negative stories about them does not take away from that. There are lots of positive China stories in the MSM as well.

It’s the collusion between state and business that make this chilling. It’s not just information gathering driving policy decisions it’s IP theft from a state actor that is transferred to local players to compete with US companies.

there was plenty of intel gathered in Russia during the cold war that got fed directly to private contractors in the US. I would be stunned if it were not still happening.