Image: Dimitar Belchev
As we sat down to pen our first blog, we spent considerable time thinking of what to write. There are many issues to talk about, yet there is also little. In a sense. Disinformation has never been more rife, used by those with motivated ills to impose authoritarianism. And circumstances have appeared to be on their side. The global pandemic has stifled economic growth, exposed economic vulnerabilities and geopolitical risks as well as thrown Western democracy into a deeper crisis. They present these regimes with the power and the means to mislead.
In fact, here’s how the editors from Two Sides of A Lie will posture themselves to craft the Han Herald’s stance on Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.
“The situation is tricky,” editor-in-chief Pax Yong said, cupping his chin with his palm, face slightly frowned. “As a major media organization, the world will expect to hear from us on where we stand.
“Our position is that Russia’s attack is wrong in principle but we don’t condemn it. As China said – and it is justified – Russia has legitimate security concerns of Nato’s expansion,” he looked at the two other editors and the pair of editorial writers in the meeting room. “I want to hear your ideas on how can we build out this position.”
“Easy,” Theresa Chu, the deputy editor jumped up, “Ukraine and Russia are both key components of China’s Belt and Road strategy. If there’s a long-standing unrest in that part of the world, BRI will be paralyzed.
“China takes a world view with BRI, a policy that benefits the global economy. Condemning and pointing fingers doesn’t serve the interests of the world.”
“You mean it doesn’t serve the Party’s interests,” muttered one of the editorial writers, Sam, under his breath.
Aloud, the writer said pointedly, “If we don’t condemn, we are condoning. War is wrong, however you argue. It’s a regression in humanity. As a media, we have a social responsibility to inform the public about…”
“Not when we are protecting national security,” snapped Pax.
“Where’s the threat to national security here? Or are we again propagating the Party’s agenda?”
“We have to be fair and take a global view on this,” Pax ignored Sam’s retort. “China is a superpower with the integrity that we don’t interfere in other nations’ internal affairs and we don’t take sides, in this case with the Americans and their allies.”
The editorial published the next day began with:
Russia’s military action against Ukraine violates international norms. The Western allies of Ukraine have condemned the air and land strikes and contended it as war, but Moscow’s claim of a long-standing security threat that propelled it to act must not be ignored. National security is arguably the biggest concern of any sovereignty and nothing should stand in the way of a government protecting its interests, hence its citizens.
In reality, Beijing has refused to recognize Russia’s assaults as an invasion and abstained from a United Nations vote condemning the country. Vladimir Putin is hailed by China’s nationalistic internet trolls – “little pinks” – to be fighting against the West’s political, ideological and military aggression, which dovetails with the Chinese narrative of the US and its allies’ fear of the mainland’s rise and the alternative world order it wants to create. The little pinks also snapped up products from an official Russian online store, the Russian State Pavilion, on China’s e-commerce platform JD.com in an apparent show of solidarity that is in fact Chinese jingoism.
Many, especially those outside China, have interpreted Beijing’s noncommittal position of acknowledging Russia’s “legitimate concerns” and caveating the sovereignty argument as a pretext for the future when it reclaims Taiwan, which the leadership reiterates that it will do, even if it has to use force.
The parallels between what is happening in Russia and Ukraine and the possibility of what China might do to Taiwan are glaring to those who have witnessed and experienced Beijing’s hard-handedness.
In China, five renowned Chinese historians wrote an open letter denouncing the Russia invasion and called for peace, in the hope to persuade Beijing to make its stance clearer: that what Russia is doing is wrong. “Historically, the biggest catastrophes began with local conflicts,” the intellectuals wrote. The open letter survived online just for a couple of hours before it was taken down by internet censors, followed by pro-war Chinese trolls calling out on the authors “traitorous”.
What worries the Chinese Communist Party most is how its own people will read the invasion and their worldview. Just as it does with high-stake issues, it has doubled down on manipulating and controlling discussion about Ukraine in the press and social media.
China’s aggressive mouthpiece Global Times accused the US, which it called the world’s biggest war machine, of creating greater chaos with its propaganda tools operating at “full throttle”, referring to a New York Times article that described Chinese netizens as pro-war and pro-Russia. “The tone of the article’s argument sounds as if China and its netizens are standing on the opposite of the rest of the world,” said the state-owned media.
China has taken a more confrontational stance on foreign policy in recent years. Hawkish diplomats, the state media and some of the government’s influential advisers have also helped to nurture a generation of online warriors who see the world as a zero-sum game between China and the West, especially the US.
And then there is the global network of agents, painstakingly built under China’s United Front strategy, ever ready to move at Beijing’s bidding. The only way to counter disinformation, misinformation or mal-information is to keep fighting and exposing the truth.
