It's all about making a spectacle

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The "gap in understanding" that triggers some stereotypical reports on China can be bridged with greater exposure to the country, he says.

A group of around 15 European writers and scholars visited China last November just after the Third Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee, and had a chance to meet Chinese scholars, economists and high-ranking officials from the National People's Congress, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as officials in charge of the anti-graft campaign within the Party.

"These kinds of trips are essential for European and other foreign journalists to gain a better understanding of not only what's going on in China, but who's doing what."

Back at his desk in Paris, he says that as Europe struggles with rising unemployment, an ongoing debt crisis and doubts over the future of the euro, China's economic success should serve to inspire his continent.

The birth of New China in 1949, after several decades of being closed to the outside world, he says has changed geopolitics.

As China grows stronger and the European Union struggles economically and lies divided on many fronts, more in-depth reporting about China is needed by journalists with a better understanding of how the country really works, he says.

But until such a time, Malovic adds, he is around as "a bridge between two universes that are trying to understand each other or two peoples living on opposite sides of a river".