The editors of the Wall Street Journal are musing today about whether the Chinese authorities are starting to regret China’s close relationship with Russia:
Little about Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is going right for Beijing. One of the bigger disasters so far concerns the fate of Chinese citizens in Ukraine. Speculation is rampant over whether Mr. Putin warned his Chinese counterpart an invasion was imminent. Either way, Beijing didn’t evacuate its embassy or the Chinese citizens now struggling to escape Mr. Putin’s tanks and bombs.
This exacerbates Mr. Xi’s deeper diplomatic dilemma. Having positioned himself as Mr. Putin’s closest friend, the Chinese leader now is under immense pressure from the rest of the world to talk Mr. Putin out of the war. If he can’t do so, and signs so far aren’t encouraging, it will highlight the limits of last month’s strategic alignment.
The Ukraine war is exposing other limits to Chinese power. Beijing has refused to impose financial or other sanctions of the sort Western governments have placed on Russia. But Chinese companies may have no choice but to comply with the Western sanctions anyway. This is especially true of Chinese banks, which this week found they may need to cut off some business with Russian counterparties to maintain their access to the far more important dollar and euro financial systems.
I think there’s an aspect of the situation the editors are ignoring. The Chinese don’t see the situation the same way we do as this article by Li Yuan in the New York Times points out:
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Kremlin’s media machines worked well in China. Combined with Beijing’s censorship of pro-Ukraine content, they wove a web of disinformation that proved difficult for most Chinese online users to escape.
The message they are trying to drive home: Russia’s military actions are anti-West, anti-NATO expansion and anti-Nazi — thus justified and popular.
In China’s state media, there’s very little about the international condemnation of Russia; Ukraine’s success in the battle for public opinion, led by President Zelensky; or antiwar protests in Russia.
The one-two punch is working, keeping the Chinese public from facts while sowing confusion.
On the Chinese social media platforms, many people adopted Mr. Putin’s and Russian media’s language, calling the Ukrainian side extremists and neo-Nazis.
They kept bringing up the Azov Battalion as if it represented all of Ukraine. The battalion, a unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, is known for having neo-Nazi sympathizers but remains a fringe presence in the country and its military.
President Zelensky himself is Jewish and won the presidential election in 2019 with 73 percent of the votes. His approval rate soared to over 90 percent recently for his wartime leadership.
The fog of disinformation thickens when Chinese state media portrays Russia’s war as an anti-fascism effort. After Russia’s defense minister announced this week that his country would host the first international anti-fascism conference in August, the CCTV posted a one-paragraph story, then created a Weibo hashtag. Within 24 hours, it had 650 million views and was used by 90 media outlets. Many commenters called Ukraine and the United States fascist countries.
Chinese media is also propagating Russian disinformation that Ukraine has been using civilians as human shields. In its prime-time news program on Feb. 26, CCTV quoted President Putin as making that allegation. A few days later the nationalistic news site, guancha.com, ran a banner headline that said the Russian military was going only after military targets, while the Ukrainian military was using civilians as human shields.
Taken collectively, Chinese online users are seeing a quite different war from much of the world.
which in turn is consistent with the point I have made about the ongoing information war. What is the true state of affairs? I honestly have no way of determining.
Russia invaded Ukraine. The Ukrainians are resisting. Many have fled the country. The Russians are advancing on Ukraine’s major cities. That’s just about as much as I have any confidence in.
The implication of China’s spreading of the information they are receiving from Russia, whether it is true or not, is that the Chinese authorities are committed to supporting Russia. It would be very difficult for them to back away now although I suspect they are hedging their bets in ways that aren’t visible to me.
â€Combined with Beijing’s censorship of pro-Ukraine content, they wove a web of disinformation that proved difficult for most Chinese online users to escape.â€
Beijing’s media has a lot in common with our U.S. media- especially in their tactics of censorship and usage of misinformation mirroring China’s government-approved narrative.
I think that what China is doing will work pretty well among the rural parts of the country that dont have much access to other information. For the educated and those living in major cities they will have family in the US or travel or even get access to unproved information. China will have to gradually modify its message.
Steve
Given China’s aggressive internal security forces, ability to listen in any call they chose, read any mail they care to, the probability of the urban upper classes acting on that information is slim.
China has only two allies, Russia and North Korea. North Korea is a liability, but sometimes useful, as it neutralizes American forces in South Korea and Japan. Russia is an existential necessity for China. China’s own existence depends on Russian goods, resources and services. When push comes to shove, China will hang with Russia.
The editors and commentators of the WSJ are among the stupidest, most ignorant, most bigoted people in the world, and they are getting worse. I have a subscription that is running out and will not be renewed. I cancelled my NYT subscription some time ago.