Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).
Millions of residents forcibly confined to their homes – sometimes even welded inside – even as they are dangerously low on food and other essential goods. Helpline operators helpless to answer pleas for urgent assistance from the injured and the starving. Most recently, an elderly patient dispatched to the local morgue before response teams realize he is still alive.
The horrors facing Shanghai’s population under the inflexibility of China’s “dynamic” zero-covid (动态清零) strategy during a month-long lockdown have been painfully obvious, documented through an outpouring of anger that has spilled onto social media platforms. But despite these failings and their real costs, China’s Communist Party leadership has defended the zero-covid approach.
For more than two years, the CCP has touted the wisdom of its covid response as the most salient proof of the superiority of the Chinese political system. And with the 20th National Congress just around the corner, there is apparently too much on the line for the Party and its charismatic leader, Xi Jinping, to reconsider. Under the invisible rules of power politics, policies may be “dynamic,” but they cannot be flexible.
As the Party has doubled-down on zero-covid, one familiar phrase from the CCP’s revolutionary past has dominated the headlines: “Persistence is victory” (坚持就是胜利).
Persisting in the Revolution
This phrase first emerged in the decade from 1927 to 1937, as the forces of the Chinese Communist Party battled against Kuomintang forces during the Chinese Civil War. “Persistence is victory” was a battle cry used to mobilize fighters in revolutionary base areas. An article in the People’s Daily in 1951 traced the phrase back to 1933, delivered as policy direction to a local communist commander whose forces were surrounded by the enemy.
The phrase continued in use in the early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), conveying a sense of resolute progress in the midst of adversity. In an address to the first National People’s Congress in September 1954, one delegate characterized difficulties as a test of the Party as it sought to govern: “Persistence is victory, and with determination we can succeed,” he said (People’s Daily, September 17, 1954).
Use of the phrase rose dramatically during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, when it rallied the masses around Mao Zedong’s notion of continuous revolution. In his memoir, published in 2005, Chen Pixian (陈丕显), the revolutionary and former CCP chief in Shanghai who was purged during the Cultural Revolution and later rehabilitated, recalled how he had sought the assistance of top Party leaders in Beijing as the revolutionary fervor spiraled out of control in Shanghai toward the close of 1966. In January 1967, Chen spoke by phone with Tao Zhu (陶铸), then number-four in the central leadership. Tao words were: “Summed up in one line, persistence is victory!”
Chen waited in vain for a reversal of Mao’s decision on the Cultural Revolution, which he had thought would last for only a few months. Within weeks he had been ousted and placed in solitary confinement. “Persistence is victory” became one of the core slogans driving forward the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and the purge of those who opposed Mao’s policies. The mechanics of raw power and violence were couched in the rhetoric of persisting struggle against the foes of communism.
On May 24, 1968, the People’s Daily reported on “mass demonstrations” held in more than 20 Chinese cities to protest crackdowns on civil unrest in France in May 1968. The paper characterized the revolution of the proletariat as an unstoppable force. “True power lies not with the reactionaries, but with the people,” it wrote. “The commanders and combatants of the broad revolutionary masses and the People’s Liberation Army have said that unity is strength, and persistence is victory.”
Persisting in Xi’s Approach
The phrase “persistence is victory,” seldom used in the reform era, reemerged back in mid-March as a means of signaling strict and resolute adherence to Xi Jinping’s zero-covid strategy.
In an official release on March 18, relaying the content of the meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee the day before, Xinhua reported that Xi Jinping had made an “important speech” urging strict adherence to the zero-covid strategy nationwide. The article, which in the People’s Daily bore the headline, “No Pause in the Fight Against the Epidemic, Persistence is Victory,” repeatedly used the word “persistence,” and ended with the soaring line: “In clearing away the fog of the covid epidemic, and promoting economic and social recovery and development, let us join hands in implementing the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech — persistence is victory!”
An official release on resolutely following Xi’s direction on the zero-covid policy appears at the top of page 2 of the People’s Daily on March 18.
By the end of the first week of April residents in Shanghai were running out of food, and anger was boiling over in the city over the pain caused not by the virus but by lockdown policies themselves. But while on an inspection tour of Hainan from April 10-13, Xi Jinping again signaled confidence and resolve in the zero-covid policy.
A wave of use of the slogan “persistence is victory” came on April 14, as a wide range of Party-state media reported on remarks Xi made while on his inspection tour. “Xi Jinping pointed out that right now, as the covid pandemic situation remains serious worldwide, we cannot relax prevention and control work. Persistence is victory,” read the final paragraph of a story published as front-page news in many Party-run regional and national newspapers on April 14.
The phrase featured in seven articles in the People’s Daily in April, as the situation in Shanghai grew increasingly desperate. The most prominent was a page-one appearance on April 15, even as news of elderly deaths and violent quarantine clashes dominated media outside China. “Persistence is Victory,” read the headline of a piece by “this paper’s commentary writer” (本报评论员), indicating that it represented the view of the paper, and likely by extension the consensus view of the CCP’s central leadership.
The commentary argued for the insuperable wisdom of the “dynamic zero” approach in light of China’s vast population and unique circumstances, and said that the decisive control of the virus was “a major matter not to be relaxed” (不可放松的大事). In its opening line the commentary doffed its hat again to Xi Jinping’s remarks during the Hainan tour.
Page one of the April 15, 2022, edition of the People’s Daily, with “Persistence is Victory” commentary at bottom right.
The cry was taken up through April by scores of Party-state media and commercial outlets. On April 21, scores of Party-run media, including such regional Party papers as Hubei Daily, Gansu Daily, Shantou Daily and Shanghai’s Wenhui Daily, all ran a Xinhua news release called “Consolidate the Enterprise Stabilization Trend, Persistence is Victory” (巩固企稳态势, 坚持就是胜利), which reported that the covid situation in Jilin province was stabilizing and that “Shanghai’s epidemic prevention and control has reached a critical stage.” The release said that great efforts were being made to ensure that economic activity continued, noting that “the whole country is scrambling to resume work and production.”
The “Creative Poster Commandos” (创意海报突击队) division of Xinhua News Agency, which emerged in 2020 amidst the rise of the global pandemic to create modern-day propaganda posters amidst the outbreak in Wuhan, produced special posters for the fight against covid in Shanghai making use of the “persistence is victory” slogan.
Propaganda posters by Xinhua’s “Creative Poster Commandos” division. At left, an April 2022 poster for the epidemic in Shanghai reading, “Persistence is victory.” At right, a poster from March 2020 about the Wuhan outbreak, the image of a nurse that reads: “I am not the god of thunder, I too will cry.” The reference to the “god of thunder” is a play on the name of the Leishenshan Hospital, a specialty field hospital created to respond to the outbreak.
Even as the situation grew desperate in Shanghai in late April, the official language of persistence with zero-covid continued. A Xinhua release published in the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily on April 24 bore the headline: “Shanghai, Add Oil!” (上海，加油!). The article gave no indication whatsoever of the misery facing Shanghai residents, but ended with absurdly hyperbolic resolve: “Persistence is victory! Only by persisting can there be victory! Persistence will definitely bring victory! Shanghai, add oil!”
The same triad of persistence has persisted into May. In a page-two article yesterday in the People’s Daily, the situation since mid-March was portrayed as evidence of unmitigated success, despite growing and irrepressible discontent in Shanghai.
“Unshakably Persisting in ‘Dynamic Zero’,” read on section header in the article. The conclusion rejected any possibility for a more flexible approach to the spread of covid, even as curbs were stepped up in Beijing, leaving residents on edge over a possible repeat of the dysfunctions that crippled Shanghai. “At present, Shanghai is still in a critical period of continuous attack on the prevention and control of the epidemic,” the article said. “The Shanghai Municipal Party Committee has said it will resolutely implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions, adhering to the general policy of ‘dynamic zero’ without wavering, making every effort to win the battle of epidemic prevention and control.”
“Persistence is victory! Only by persisting can there be victory! Persistence will definitely bring victory!”
This week “News Report Frontline” (新闻一线), an audio program produced by The Beijing News, brought together a state media program host and a communications scholar to discuss respect and professionalism in the context of the television news interview. The program’s news hook was an interview back in March with China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang (秦刚), who spoke for nine somewhat testy minutes with Margaret Brennan, the host of CBS’ “Face the Nation,” about China’s position on the war in Ukraine.
Far from clarifying standards of journalistic professionalism, the discussion at “News Report Frontline” was the culmination of the month-long amplification of a misleading news frame, and a textbook lesson in how China’s state-run media have sought to deflect core questions about China and its position on the Ukraine war.
“Let Me Continue”
The Qin-Brennan interview, which aired on March 20, 2022, dealt with several basic questions. Does China intend to provide material or policy support to Russia? Why hasn’t China been clear in condemning the invasion? Does China actually intend to exert its influence on Russia for the sake of peace – given its insistence that its “trust relations” (as Qin calls them) place its government in a “unique position” (also Qin’s words)?
Brennan was hard-nosed and insistent throughout the interview, and at times there was the gleam of impatience in her eyes. But she was never, by any reasonable journalistic standard, unprofessional. She fought to keep the interview flowing with an Ambassador Qin who often spoke with a molasses ooze as he stuck to official Chinese talking points. He was an interviewee who needed prodding, and who certainly needed challenging.
For his part, Qin managed to push through tension that cut both ways. At one point, after he pointed to peace talks as evidence of progress, and as Brennan was on point of interjecting, he managed to head her off, saying, “Let me continue.” He plodded on with another point about China’s “trusted relations with Russia” being an asset, making the assertion that China is “part of the solution.” This was a reasonable point for Brennan to cut in, and she did so with a follow-up: “So are you saying, though, just so we’re clear, are you saying Beijing will not provide financial support to Moscow to prolong this war?”
Counting on Western Media Bias
But viewed through the lens of China’s state media, the exchange on “Face the Nation” was never about the issues. Within hours of the interview’s release, the dominant frame centered on Margaret Brennan’s appalling manners – her deficient suzhi (素质), or the sum of her attitude and ideas as evinced in her conduct. And the evidence of her deficiency was the appalling number of times that she had dared to interrupt the ambassador: 23 times in just 9 minutes.
A March 21 Weibo post from the Global Times newspaper includes the hashtag “#ChineseAmbassadorInterrupted23TimesByHostIn9Minutes#.
As word of the “Face the Nation” interview proliferated across Chinese social media platforms, 9/23 was far and away the dominant meme. In the way that all numbers are magical in the world of CCP propaganda – so that the sheer number of websites can be laid down as proof that expression is free – the number 23 spoke its own truth. 9 minutes divided by 23 interruptions equals 1 indignity every 39 seconds. How, then, could Brennan’s interview not be a national insult, and proof positive that the Western media are a crucible of lies?
A search for the phrase “Interrupted 23 times” (打断23次) on Weibo turns up numerous March posts from Chinese state media accounts that allege unprofessionalism on the part of the Brennan. There is also a dedicated hashtag to the topic, generated by the Global Times, that calls up related posts by a wide array of state media outlets and official accounts from Party-state organs: Global Times, China Daily, the Liaoning Chapter of the Chinese Communist Youth League, Shanghai Media Group, CGTN Radio, Huashang Daily (Shaanxi province), and so on.
Use of the #ChineseAmbassadorInterrupted23TimesByHostIn9Minutes# hashtag by various accounts linked to Chinese state media.
Of the scores of official social media accounts posting about the Brennan interview, which included several edited versions with interruption counts, the number was always 23. No one counted 21, 22 or 24 interruptions.
Dominant across most social media channels was the video version produced by the Global Times, shortened to interrupt the flow and enhance the sense of interruption by Brennan. As the official Weibo account of the Global Times shared the interview on March 21, Brennan’s 23 interruptions were right up front:
Qin Gang was interrupted 23 times in 9 minutes. Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Qin Gang was interviewed live on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program on March 20, introducing to American audiences the situation of the Sino-US summit call on March 18, and elaborating on the most important issue for American people: China’s position on the Ukraine issue.
The video included with the Global Times post accentuated the points of supposed interruption, with bright yellow characters popping up on the screen to indicate “first interruption,” “second interruption” and so on.
In the Global Times post and other posts from state media, the overall frame was crystal clear: Brennan’s inexcusable conduct was yet another illustration of the arrogance, bias and prejudice of US and Western media, and evidence of a conspiracy to criticize China and shift the blame on Ukraine.
A post to the official Weibo account of Shanghai’s Xinmin Weekly began: “Qin Gang is ‘treated differently’ as a guest on top American program, interrupted 23 times in 9 minutes!” When, more than two weeks later, the official account of the international news desk at Xinhua News Agency shared the story again, it was as part of a series of commentaries on the theme, “Total shamelessness in cheering for US hegemony” (为美国霸权摇旗呐喊毫无操守).
But what if we poke at the foundations of this imposing tower of coverage on a simple point of hyper-sensitivity? Were these interruptions actually interruptions?
Keeping Score for the State Agenda
View the Brennan interview without these guiding labels and framing and most of the supposed interruptions cited by the Global Times and other state media are contestable. The first two interruptions are clearly interjections, neither of which interrupt the flow of Qin’s speech – unless one simply assumes he has a right to speak without interdiction or direction from the program host.
The first “interruption” comes as Qin says: “We are promoting peace talks and we are sending humanitarian assistance.” Speaking with laborious slowness, Qin is perhaps on the cusp of making a further remark. Instead, Brennan interjects: “Will you send money and weapons to Russia, though?”
Does this constitute an interruption? Is it unprofessional?
On the first question, Qin has already made a complete point, that China has provided humanitarian assistance. It is a highly subjective reading to view Brennan’s relevant follow-up question, in the midst of what seems a natural pause during a short interview on a heated issue, as an interruption. On the second point, is it not wholly appropriate for Brennan to seek clarification on what is after all the key point of the interview, whether or not China has directly or indirectly supported Russia’s aggression against Ukraine?
The alleged “first interruption” of Qin Gang by Brennan occurs 16 seconds into the interview. “Will you send money and weapons to Russia, though?” Brennan asks.
The second “interruption” occurs as Qin alleges disinformation about whether China has provided military assistance to Russia. “We reject that,” he says. Brennan begins again to interject. But once again, Qin has made a complete point here, on which the host understandably seeks clarification. “You won’t do so, Beijing will not?” she asks. But we are dealing with magical numbers, and with hyper-sensitive nerves, and so the damning count pops up on the video once again: “Two interruptions.”
And what about the rest of the dialogue?
Viewing the entire interview as posted to the “Face the Nation” YouTube channel, I counted 27 points in the interview on which the question of interruption might possibly arise – according, mind you, to the absolute lowest bar. I invited myself to such heights of hypersensitivity that even points at which Brennan can be heard saying, “Mm hmm,” as though urging Qin along, were included in my list. Reviewing the list, I then sought to determine which points might be identified clearly as interruptions, meaning that Qin was unable to complete a thought or to plow ahead through the host’s attempt at interjection (a natural occurrence, as any conversationalist knows). This unscientific assessment of an entirely subjective question identified just four genuine interruptions. These were not, mind you, examples of unforgivable rudeness or unprofessionalism. They were simply points where Brennan, leaving justification aside, did seem to effectively cut Qin off – such as the point at the end where Brennan cuts Qin off because they are frankly out of time.
One of the most telling instances comes just before the eight-minute mark, as Qin belabors the point that China’s engagement with Russia has put it in a unique position as a potential peacemaker. “So China’s unique role, you know,” he starts and stops, “[can] help the peaceful settlement of the crisis.” He pauses and seems about to go on, when Brennan pipes up: “Tell me then – because I keep hearing you say that. I want to understand how China is helping.”
This question from Brennan, responding directly to Qin’s assertion that China has a “unique role,” makes perfect sense. She is asking for something concrete beyond the government talking point. But this single moment is logged by Chinese state media as interruption 19 and 20 of the interview.
Global Interruptions
Looking more closely at how the 9/23 Brennan frame was shared across Chinese social media, and by which accounts, its role as a state-driven effort to pull focus from criticism of China becomes clear.
According to one early post on the official Weibo account of the CCP’s Reference News (参考消息), the 23 interruptions in the Brennan interview were first spotted by a “Chinese internet user.” It could possibly be that an unacknowledged user somewhere in cyberspace originated the 23 interruptions meme, but it’s clear that the first post to elevate the frame originated with Wang Bingru (王冰汝), the correspondent based in Washington, D.C., for the partly state-held Phoenix TV, which in recent years has been more closely aligned with state agendas. Earlier this month, Phoenix was forced to close its network office in Taiwan, authorities having designated it “a de facto Chinese state-controlled entity.”
Wang is a massive influencer with close to four million followers. Posting the “Face the Nation” video, Wang added the title: “Qin Gang is ‘treated differently’ as a guest on top American program, interrupted 23 times in 9 minutes!” Shared 3.5 million times on Weibo alone, Wang’s video was showered with bullet comments from users, many wasting no time in making explicit the main theme that would soon be amplified by the above-mentioned range of state media accounts. Bottom line: This was yet another case of Western media bias and unprofessionalism, with implications for the state and all of its subjects.
Bullet comments fly across the screen on a video of the “Face the Nation” interview shared on Weibo by Phoenix TV correspondent Wang Bingzhuang.
“Discourse power is grasped in the hands of the system controlled by the American imperialists,” said one comment. Another grew vicious with an epithet, “whore-espondent” (妓者), that has often been directed at journalists online in China: “[She] doesn’t want to listen and constantly interrupts, exactly like a ‘whore-espondent’ for American media!”
Other comments on Wang’s video were more skeptical. “So, Journalist Wang, are you more skilled than this journalist?” one asked. “The ambassador isn’t smooth enough,” said another. Referring to Fu Xiaotian (傅晓田), a Phoenix TV host who has interviewed diplomats and world leaders (and would interview Qin four days later), another comment ventured: “Isn’t that Xiaotian host at your network also known to interrupt her interviewees all the time?”
But the interruption theme nevertheless went viral, pushed by apps and social media posts from Party-state media, even as official news releases on state-run websites and traditional media remained more even-handed in presenting the interview. (The Chinese Embassy in the US posted a Chinese-language version of the transcript without any indication of interruptions.)
One of the earliest posts recorded on Weibo was made at 8:29AM Beijing time on March 21, shortly after the “Face the Nation” episode aired in the US and the Wang Bingru video post was made. That post came from “Kunming Luquan Release” (昆明禄劝发布), an official account operated by the local CCP propaganda department in the county of Luquan in Yunnan province. “Qin Gang’s full interview with CBS. In 9 minutes he was interrupted no less than 23 times, but was still able to maintain a polite and friendly smile,” it read.
The official Weibo account of the local propaganda office in Yunnan’s Luquan County shares a video of the “Face the Nation” exchange, emphasizing 23 interruptions in 9 minutes.
The vast majority of posts from the social media accounts of Chinese state media followed over the next 4-6 hours, including the Global Times, the official China News Service, China Daily, Xiamen Daily, International Finance News (under the People’s Daily), and Hong Kong’s CCP-linked Ta Kung Pao. Commercial or hybrid media outlets like Shanghai’s Guancha Syndicateand Netease Finance also followed up on the story, all repeating the 23 interruptions meme. Many more outlets, like Taihainet.com, a news portal under the official Fujian Daily, shared posts from outlets such as the Global Times.
One of the most popular video versions, set to dramatic music and gaining nearly one million views, was produced by a media outlet called “Haike News” (海客新闻). It was this version that was used by China Daily on the morning of March 21. A search for “Haike News,” which has its own YouTube channel that claims to be operated from Taiwan, is in fact a product of the overseas edition of the CCP’s official People’s Daily. This is clearly stated on the “Haike News” Weibo account, linked to the YouTube channel, as well as links to app downloads.
The “Haike News” app is listed in open-source materials as a product of Haiwainet Media Company Ltd. (海外网传媒有限公司), which operates haiwainet.cn, “the official website of the overseas edition of the People’s Daily.” A search of company records confirms that Haiwainet Media Company Ltd. is jointly owned by the People’s Daily newspaper (人民日报社), which holds 40 percent, and the Shanghai-listed People’s Daily Online (人民网股份有限公司), which holds 60 percent.
Company records for Haiwainet Media Company Ltd., creator of the “Haike News” app, show it is jointly owned by the People’s Daily newspaper and the Shanghai-listed People’s Daily Online.
One of the most active outlets pushing the interruption meme was the Global Times, another spin-off of the CCP’s official People’s Daily, which addressed the story in both English and Chinese on its website, as well as through numerous social media channels. The Global Times also covered Brennan’s supposed interruptions in a second English-language report called: “Netizens call out ‘rude’ CBS news host for heckling Chinese envoy.”
Is it any surprise that netizens called out Brennan? After all, they were exposed to this very directed meme – never questioned from the moment Wang Bingru suggested it – through a vast network of social media posts and channels. But when this cacophony is traced back to its source, we are left with a handful of Party-state media that, like “Haike News,” trace quickly back to the center.
The People’s Daily, the Global Times, People’s Daily Online, Haiwainet.cn, “Haike News” – all of these media outlets and their social media accounts are ultimately linked to the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department, which is the People’s Daily’s sponsoring body. And when we look at other players in the bad-suzhi Brennan story, they are almost uniformly either linked Party-state media themselves, or the social media accounts run by local offices and departments within the vast Party-state system – accounts like the above-mentioned “Kunming Luquan Release.”
China Daily, the official English-language publication of the Information Office of the State Council, may seem to be on the government as opposed to the Party side of this equation (an academic distinction). But the equation still balances the same way. The newspaper’s supervising institution is listed in company documents as the “Central Group for External Propaganda” (中央对外宣传小组), the same entity as the “Central Office for External Propaganda” (中央对外宣传办公室), which is directly under the Central Committee of the CCP.
Company records show that China Daily is administered by the CCP’s “Central Group for External Propaganda.”
The upshot here is that a meme we are supposed to believe was genuinely popular, a reflection of genuine Chinese public chagrin at a real act of contempt by a Western journalist, was manufactured through a broad network of social media accounts and websites all emanating from the power center of the CCP.
This is just one of many hundreds of memes that the Party’s developing viral propaganda network has disseminated in recent weeks, and there are surely many thousands yet to come. But it offers a sense of what Xi Jinping meant in December 2015 when he likened the transformation of the CCP’s media and propaganda system to a vast creature reaching out to every node of attention. “Wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are, that is where propaganda reports must extend their tentacles, and that is where we find the focal point and end point of propaganda and ideology work,” he said.
This Party-state network of meme generators and disseminators is a part of the larger process of the Party’s “media convergence” (see CMP’s related piece this week), which seeks to leverage “emerging media” to create more effective propaganda and “guidance,” recognizing that this can only happen if new platforms effectively “follow the laws of news dissemination and the development principles of emerging media.”
A post to Twitter by a user on March 21, the day the “23 interruptions” meme trended, elevates Brennan’s tactics as evidence of broader American “hysteria” that must necessarily lead to US-China conflict.
This system also responds to the progressive collapse of the distinction between internal and external propaganda. Memes like that focusing on the Qin-Brennan interview, while amplified domestically to divert, distract and undermine criticism of the state, also serve as disinformation that can be amplified through external channels, including Western social media platforms.
The Story Behind the (Manufactured) Story
This week, as “News Report Frontline” turned with seriousness to the question of Margaret Brennan’s journalistic transgressions, the time was long past for asking basic questions about the soundness of this frame. By this point the 9/23 formula had circulated for a full month. The story, which “News Report Frontline” promised to unpack – the program’s tagline is “exploring the story behind the story” – was pre-loaded with conclusions inflating Brennan’s singular professional approach as a Western hegemonic conspiracy.
The show’s guest experts, including Cao Peixin (曹培鑫), a professor and deputy director at the School of Journalism at Communication University of China (CUC), and Li Jingjing (李菁菁), a news host at the state-run CGTN, obligingly ran in their tracks. Aired exactly one month after the meme went bonkers, the program was called: “Interrupting Qin Gang 23 Times in 9 Minutes: Where Exactly Was the Female Host in the Wrong?”
A promotional poster for the “News Report Frontline” episode on Qin Gang’s interview on “Face the Nation.”
“News Report Frontline” began with this oddly imbalanced pair of questions:
What techniques did the host use during the interview program? In a situation in which Europe, the US and developed countries monopolize discourse power, how should workers in international communication raise their communication capacity?
The plunge between these questions is dizzying, but a nearly perfect mimicking of the great leap required of the audience. The question about technique might invite a more critical look at Brennan’s exchange with Qin, and a substantive discussion of ethics in the interview process based on shared standards of professional journalism. But that never happens.
The second question is the super-frame that drowns out all other considerations. Clearly, Brennan’s tough questioning of Qin must be seen as an example of the Western bias stemming from China’s relative weakness in terms of “discourse power.” The absurdity is entirely lost on the participants, who are deep in the game — namely, that a meme entirely manufactured by an array of media outlets and accounts devoted to external propaganda has become the focus of a discussion about the urgency of external propaganda (state communication, if you like) in mobilizing against the West.
Cao Peixin speaks of the challenge of “an unequal communication order,” in which “the mainstream media of developed countries, because they have greater discourse power, can determine history and the facts.” For Li Jingjing too this is an us-versus-them battle in which Chinese must defend themselves, which is to say – remembering that we are talking about a Chinese diplomat – that Chinese must defend the state.
Western countries’ suppression of China overall will permeate down to the individual level. Working in this field [of journalism], we should understand that Western media often label China while ignoring our behavior. Young people must have their own critical thinking, their own attitudes and the ability to distinguish right from wrong when others judge us. We also need to be bold enough to stand up and speak out, improving our ability to express ourselves, and not letting others define us.
The conflation in Li’s words of the self and the state is precisely what the Brennan meme was meant to achieve in the first place. If the meme works its magic, those 23 interruptions in just 9 minutes will be felt intimately, by each Chinese person, as an insult against their personal dignity. And this personal animus toward the interviewer, who in this mini-drama represents the antagonist that is the West, can then congeal into shared national pique.
From the perspective of the propagandist, the wonderful thing about shared pique is that it deadens the mind and simplifies the story. In a fragmented information world, it gives a piece of content, however ludicrous, virality.
For “News Report Frontline” the story behind the Brennan interview is ultimately, then, about China’s fury at suffering a perceived interruption. It is about China’s loss of voice. That story is of course familiar to those who study China’s external communication policies. It is the story, Xi Jinping’s story, that undergirds the global telling of the “China story” and its roots in the glories of the CCP. On the path to a “great rejuvenation,” the Chinese people must not be interrupted. And no one needs to ask who will speak for them.
Last week at CMP, we looked at the emergence in Guangxi of the phrase “pilot of the great revival” (伟大复兴领航人) to address Chinese leader Xi Jinping – the latest example of expressions of loyalty, or biaotai (表态), that we can expect to intensify in the run-up to the 20th National Congress of the CCP next fall.
Eager not to be left behind in the race to bend the knee before Xi, top leaders in Guangdong province sent strong signals of obedience during a meeting to announce adjustments from the Central Committee on “main responsible comrades” (主要负责同志) in the city of Shenzhen. In a readout of the meeting, Guangdong governor Wang Weizhong (王伟中) was quoted as using the phrase “Ever grateful to the general secretary” (始终感恩感怀总书记) no less than 10 times in his address.
Coverage from Shenzhen Evening News of the meeting of Guangdong leaders shows liberal use of the phrase “Ever grateful to the general secretary” (始终感恩感怀总书记).
In fact, the phrase started nearly every remark that Wang made regarding the expectations of the CCP leadership and the actions of Guangdong and the city of Shenzhen:
[We are] ever grateful to the General Secretary and the CCP Central Committee for assigning major strategic tasks to Shenzhen, [and we have] conscientiously implemented the decisions and deployments of the CCP Central Committee and the provincial party committee’s ‘1+1+9’ work deployment, forming and implementing the municipal party committee’s ‘1+10+10’ work arrangement; [we are] ever grateful to the General Secretary and the CCP Central Committee for its high-level guidance on Shenzhen’s high-quality development, promoting the building of high-quality development to a new level; [we are] ever grateful to the General Secretary and the CCP Central Committee for its expectation for Shenzhen in achieving the ‘seven people’s livelihoods’ and striving to build a happiness benchmark for the achievement of common prosperity; [we are] ever grateful to the General Secretary and the CCP Central Committee for leading us through the wind and waves as the storm comes, resolutely pushing forward, integrating epidemic prevention and control with economic development, and development with security.
In an era when power is increasingly consolidated at the very top of the CCP, these expressions of obedience resemble the “loyalty dance,” or zhongziwu (忠字舞), of the Maoist period. This was a collective dance prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao claimed control over all aspects of life. When performing the zhongziwu, dancers would grasp copies of Mao’s “little red book” as they leapt and shouted to music.
Women perform the “loyalty dance” during the Cultural Revolution, expressing their allegiance to Mao Zedong. Image from Wikimedia Commons available under CC license.
As May approaches, we are likely reaching the halfway point in the 2022 march toward the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the political event that will shape China’s political future for the coming decade – and likely under the clinched fist of Xi Jinping as the country’s most powerful political leader since Mao Zedong.
At this point, we should expect to the volume to rise on preparations for the 20th National Congress. And we can also anticipate the creation of new catchphrases to talk about the Party’s glorious leader and his visionary leadership. The past week has not disappointed. We give you Xi Jinping, “pilot of the great revival” (伟大复兴领航人).
For Mr. Special, a “Special Report”
As we have written repeatedly at CMP, there are a number of important signs to watch in the official discourse as the 20th Congress approaches. Crucially, there is the possible shortening of Xi Jinping’s ponderous 16-character banner term, or qizhiyu (旗帜语), as the potent “Xi Jinping Thought.” Other signs? Ever more prominent acts of loyalty signaling, or biaotai (表态), as a host of provincial and city leaders rush to declare their alignment with Xi’s leadership in a process of discursive toadyism resembling the “loyalty dances” of the Maoist past.
This week, China’s Guangxi Autonomous Region (广西壮族自治区) upped the ante on loyalty signaling with the release of a six-part television “special report” (专题片) in preparation for the Congress, and commemorating the “important speech” delivered by Xi Jinping during his tour of Guangxi on April 27 last year. Produced by Guangxi’s CCP leadership and released by the region’s official television network, the series, “Conscientiously Striving With the Pilot of the Great Revival” (紧跟伟大复兴领航人踔厉笃行), is a masterwork of obsequiousness.
Episode 5 of the film, which first aired on March 16, begins with the voice of Xi Jinping – with panoramic shots of science and technology, military prowess and the karst mountains of Guilin – as he intones: “Realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people is the greatest Chinese dream of the Chinese people in our times.” Scenes of Xi visiting Guangxi and talking about the importance of the CCP’s revolutionary history are interspersed with related expressions of zeal from the regional leadership, such as a visit “following in the footsteps of General Secretary Xi Jinping” to a site commemorating the Long March.
The “special report” refers to Xi Jinping as the “people’s leader” (人民领袖), a rare title of praise in China’s political discourse, reminiscent of the personality cult that prevailed during the Mao Zedong era. It speaks of the “great thought” (伟大思想) with which Xi has inspired the people in Guangxi. Finally, it recounts with sickening sycophancy the ways that leaders in the autonomous region have risen to Xi’s glorious vision as outlined in his “4-27” speech in Guangxi:
The CCP Committee of the autonomous region has seriously studied and profoundly implemented the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech [in Guangxi], making a series of plans and deployments, one after the other, of a series of happy events done a series of major events, and implementing and handling a series of joyful events and glorious event, and a series of major matters.
But the real innovation of this television propaganda series comes in its coining of a new term of praise for the General Secretary.
According to a report on the series from the region’s official Guangxi Daily, one communications professor praised the innovative use by the series of the term “pilot of the great revival” to refer to Xi. The professor was quoted as saying: “The new formulation ‘pilot of the great rejuvenation’ organically unites the Party’s historical mission with the people’s pursuit of a better life, and closely combines the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with the people’s political identification with the Party’s top leaders.”
The term “pilot” (领航人), which was used in the 1960s to refer to Mao Zedong — and was used again for Mao on at least one occasion during the Xi era — has been used only seldomly to refer to Xi Jinping. In October 2019, a report in the People’s Daily praising “China’s governance” (中国之治) quoted Xi Jinping without even mentioning his name, referring to him as only “the pilot of the New Era”: “In 2019, the pilot of the new era solemnly declared, ‘We have come out of the successful path of building a socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and as long as we continue along this path, we will certainly be able to modernize the national governance system and governance capacity.”
More recently, in a front-page piece in the during the National People’s Congress on March 10, 2022, the People’s Daily said quoted 74-year-old Zhang Boli (张伯礼), a Chinese physician and recent torch bearer for the Beijing Winter Olympics, as saying, while “overwhelmed with emotion,” that: “General Secretary Xi Jinping’s crucial decision-making and calm command were the source of motivation for the whole country in fighting the epidemic. It is because of the General Secretary saving us in the storm that the children of China are able to face the epidemic of the century and move forward with courage. The General Secretary is our backbone, but also our pilot!”
Closely related to this term is the phrase “pilot at the helm,” or linghang zhangduo (领航掌舵), a reference with strong echoes of China’s Maoist past that was used for Xi Jinping during the 5th Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in 2020. Used in a total of 47 articles in 2021, usually in references to Xi as the “core pilot at the helm” (核心领航掌舵), it has appeared in seven articles in the People’s Daily so far in 2022.
In the sixth installment of its series of strongly-worded broadsides against the United States in the midst of the Russian war in Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper today threw down a new phrase, “financial terrorism” (金融恐怖主义), to refer to sanctions against Russia.
Alongside other rhetorical barbs in the commentary – including “economic hegemonism” (经济霸权主义) and “economic weaponization” (经济武器化) – the provocative phrase underscores China’s determination to divert attention from Russia’s documented atrocities in Ukraine and spin the conflict as resulting primarily from the actions of the United States and its allies.
Page 3 of today’s People’s Daily, with a commentary at bottom by “Zhong Sheng” criticizing the US and accusing it of using “economic weapons” and resorting to “economic terrorism” following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In recent days, people across the world have been shocked to learn of the Russian atrocities in Ukraine, and United Nations chief António Guterres has joined growing calls for a war crimes investigation. But the People’s Daily commentary, “Weaponizing the Economy Will Cause Self-Harm” (将经济武器化必将反噬其身), opens by framing economic considerations resulting from Russia’s war (here minimized as the “Russia-Ukraine conflict”) as the primary concern of the global community:
At present, it has become very difficult for countries around the world to deal with the Covid-19 while preserving their economies and livelihoods. The United States has imposed a series of unilateral sanctions on Russia and threatened to force other countries to comply with America’s unilateral sanctions in disregard of global stability and the livelihood of all countries. The US act of weaponizing the economy and engaging in economic hegemony and financial terrorism has caused widespread concern in the international community and opposition and resistance from many countries.
The commentary, attributed to “Zhong Sheng” (钟声), an official pen name used routinely for important pieces on international affairs on which the leadership wishes to register its view, concludes that the US, in the name of “so-called rules,” has “damaged the international order, creating confrontation and division and seizing the opportunity for profit.” The last reference alludes to the US “military-industrial complex,” which was the subject of an April 2 “Zhong Sheng” commentary called “Who is Intentionally Perpetuating the Conflict?” (谁在有意将冲突长期化?).
The April 2 commentary was similarly scathing about the US, calling it a “hegemonic chariot of war” (霸权战车) that was “held ransom by the military-industrial complex and other interest groups,” and brought “only turmoil and harm to the world and its ordinary people.”
The only usage in the history of the People’s Daily similar to the “financial terrorism” label applied today came on September 29 last year, when the paper directly reported a statement by Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in which he “urged the US and its Western allies to stop their application of ‘economic terrorism.’” According to China’s official Xinhua News Agency:
Mekdad said, the United States and its Western allies have applied ‘economic terrorism’ to Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Nicaragua, North Korea and Syria. Syria demands a stop to the application by the US and its Western allies of ‘economic terrorism’ according to international law and UN resolutions.
Today’s “Zhong Sheng” commentary also uses the term “economic weapons,” or jingji wuqi (经济武器), to refer to US sanctions on Russia resulting from the war, and suggests that the US has “weaponized its economic” (经济武器化). This term has a longer history in the People’s Daily, and interestingly was applied by China with a sense of moral justification to the Soviet Union in 1979, in the midst of deep bilateral tensions. China’s attack on Vietnam in February 1979 prompted a stern warning from the Soviets, which accelerated the transfer of arms to Vietnam, and border tensions between China and the USSR had rankled for a decade.
An article in the People’s Daily on March 20, 1979, is strongly critical of the “hegemonic” actions of the USSR, and echoes calls for the use of “economic weapons” to respond.
A lengthy article on March 20 that year laid out a series of aggressive moves by the USSR across the world, including in Africa and Southeast Asia, and quoted (approvingly) a news source from Thailand that said “the West should use economic weapons to stop the Soviet threat.” The People’s Daily closed with a call for concerted action quite at odds with the spirit of its actions on Russia in recent weeks:
Today, the situation requires all peace-loving countries and peoples to unite and establish a broad united front against Soviet hegemony and take effective and practical steps to jointly deal with the Soviet Union’s aggressive expansion and disrupt its global strategic deployment. Wherever the Soviet Union is aggressively expanding, stop it there. Only in this way will it be possible to stop its rampage, ease tensions, delay the outbreak of world war, and maintain world peace and security.
In the month since Russia invaded his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has appeared in hundreds of news articles across China. In just the past week, his name has appeared in at least 71 articles in papers like Shanghai’s Liberation Daily (解放日报), Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News (羊城晚报), Zhejiang Daily (浙江日报), Beijing Youth Daily (北京青年报), and the Chongqing Morning Post (重庆晚报).
In many cases, these articles have been official releases from the state-run Xinhua News Agency, like a recent story published in Hubei’s commercial Chutian Metropolis Daily (楚天都市报), pictured further below, which reported on peace talks in Turkey. “Ukrainian President Zelensky said on [March] 29 that the signals emerging from the new round of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia were positive,” the report read. Not reported was what Zelensky said immediately after, that these signals “do not drown out the ruptures of Russian shells.” Nevertheless, Zelensky was there in the text, alongside his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
But Zelensky’s presence elsewhere in the Chinese media makes it that much more unusual that the Ukrainian president has been missing entirely from the People’s Daily, the newspaper that matters most when it comes to conveying the official line of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership. Through the buzz of coverage in China about the “Russia-Ukraine conflict,” the conspicuous absence of Zelensky from the Party’s flagship newspaper is a salient illustration of China’s alignment with Russia.
A March 31 story (sourced from Xinhua) in Hubei’s commercial Chutian Metropolis Daily (楚天都市报), mentioning Zelensky in the context of peace negotiations in Turkey.
Zelensky has not been mentioned in the People’s Daily through the entire five-week course of the ongoing war in Ukraine. In fact, Zelensky has been mentioned just once in the People’s Daily since a July 14 report last year noting a call with Xi Jinping in which cooperation in fighting COVID-19 was mentioned but nothing whatsoever about Russia. That one mention was on January 5, 2022, when Xi Jinping sent Zelensky a congratulatory message on the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Xi spoke of the “healthy and stable development” of relations between China and Ukraine, of “mutual political trust” and “fruitful cooperation in various fields.” But there was no talk, apparently, of Russia.
Through November and December 2021, as Russia troops massed along the Ukrainian border – no Zelensky in the People’s Daily. Through January, as Russian troops arrived in Belarus for ostensible “military exercises” – no Zelensky in the People’s Daily. For the whole of February, as military maneuvers intensified in Russia and Belarus, and even as Putin’s “special military operation” began in eastern Ukraine – no Zelensky in the People’s Daily.
Putin, meanwhile, has been frequent and prominent news in the paper, with related mention of the “drastic situation in eastern Ukraine.” On February 26, as tanks were pushing toward Kyiv, Putin was front-page news. A piece next to the newspaper’s masthead reported Putin’s call with Xi Jinping, in which the Russian leader had showered praise on the Beijing Olympic Games (the story’s lede). Xi was quoted further down as reiterating “China’s respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.”
As recently as March 30, Putin was mentioned in a People’s Daily report on the hosting in Beijing of a forum called “China and Russia: Common Development and Modernization” (中国与俄罗斯：共同发展与现代化). Xia Baolong, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, gave the opening address at the event, attended by members of Russia’s Duma. Xia said, according to the paper, that “hand-in-hand development and common prosperity is the strategic choice and cooperation between China and Russia,” adding: “President Xi Jinping and President Putin have repeatedly stressed the need to promote a high level of mutual trust between China and Russia that can be constantly translated into cooperation results in various fields, benefiting the people of both countries.”
Two weeks ago CMP took a close look at two commentaries in the CCP’s official People’s Daily newspaper that hammered hard with allegations of US biological weapons programs in Ukraine, a claim based entirely on information provided by the Russian Defense Ministry and Russian government media in early March. Both People’s Daily commentaries were attributed to “Zhong Sheng” (钟声), an official pen name used routinely for important pieces on international affairs on which the leadership wishes to register its view.
While the biological weapons narrative has been widely discredited, it remains the focus of external propaganda and disinformation by the Chinese Party-state and official media. But beyond the direct and full airing of claims by Russian sources through “mainstream” Chinese outlets like China Central Television, China has organized features, interviews and reports on what it has called the “bio-military empire” (生物军事帝国) of the United States.
One week ago, CCTV.com and other outlets re-ran an interview by the overseas edition of the People’s Daily in which three Chinese international relations experts – including from the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) directly under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – seriously addressed the question: “What exactly do US biolabs overseas do?” The experts repeatedly characterized the US labs as proof of US “hegemonism” (霸权主义), and they called for an international investigation into the Russian claims in the interests of a “new view of security” (新安全观).
The broader agenda behind this state media framing of the “bio-military empire” is a simple one. China’s government has seized on the bioweapons story as the most effective means of distraction and misdirection from the serious questions raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s deepening alliance with Putin. The wave of official coverage and commentary is an effort to reframe the war in Ukraine, so that the world sees beyond the aggressive actions of Russia and its dictator to the alleged threat posed to global security by the irresponsible and hegemonic behavior of the United States.
Once we are re-focused on the bogeyman of American hegemony, we become receptive to the alternative world view that Putin and Xi Jinping reaffirmed in their February joint statement, that a “transformation of the global governance architecture and world order” is entirely necessary. This is the conviction that underlies China’s information campaign on Ukraine, and the reason for its information alignment with Russia.
Once we are re-focused on the bogeyman of American hegemony, we become receptive to the alternative world view that Putin and Xi Jinping reaffirmed in their February joint statement, that a “transformation of the global governance architecture and world order” is entirely necessary.
This also explains why Chinese state media have so determinedly gazed away from the material suffering of the Ukrainian people. Because that suffering, if not first focused through the lens of American threat and evil, is far too compelling a demonstration of Russia’s offenses and of the pretense of China’s neutrality. So long as we are focused on phantom labs, we can overlook real bombs and real sufferings, and Xi Jinping’s handshake with Putin back in February does not look like an act of extreme foolishness, but an important step toward a new world order. With a crucial Party congress just months away, this is an extremely fragile balance.
America, Rule-Breaker
Perhaps nowhere to date has this official framing of the Ukraine war been so evident as in today’s “Zhong Sheng” column in the People’s Daily, appearing on page three, which bears the telling headline: “The ‘Bio-military Empire’ Will Not Come Clean on Its Own: Seeing American Hegemony Through the Ukraine Crisis” (生物军事帝国”不可能自证清白: 从乌克兰危机看美式霸权).
Quite transparently here, the Ukraine “crisis” is not about the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, or about the suffering of its people, of whom at least four million are now refugees outside the country. No, it is about the United States. The violator that has trampled on international rules and norms and sown destruction in our world is not Russia, which the column dignifies as a whistleblower informing the international community of the dangerous misdeeds of another power. No, it is the United States.
The latest “Zhong Sheng” commentary appears on page three of today’s People’s Daily newspaper.
“In the face of Russia’s allegations and the concerns of the international community, the United States should, in a responsible manner, make a full clarification of its bio-military activities and cease its exclusive opposition to the establishment of an inspection mechanism,” the commentary says. “It is impossible to prove one’s innocence by clinging to one’s hegemony and running amok, and it is only by effectively complying with international rules and accepting international inspections that one can give the world an explanation and play the role a great power should play.”
On Friday last week, the Chinese government officially confirmed that all passengers and crew on board China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 perished in the March 21 crash near the city of Wuzhou while en route from Kunming to Guangzhou. The victims included 123 passengers and 9 crew members. The government’s announcement was included on page four of the CCP’s official People’s Daily newspaper the next day, March 27.
Government confirmation that all 132 passengers and crew on flight MU5735 perished in the crash is printed on page four of the People’s Daily on March 27.
Sunday, March 28, marked day 7 since the crash, generally an important day in Chinese culture for marking tragedies and remembering the victims. In anticipation, a ceremony was held at the crash site on Saturday, all of the rescue and response team members present observing three minutes of silence for those who perished.
The ceremony was covered by media across China, appearing in nearly all national and regional newspapers on Sunday.
Coverage of Saturday’s ceremony of the victims of flight MU5735 in the Sunday edition of Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily.
As CMP explained in coverage of the media treatment of the tragedy last week, Party-state media have dominated the MU5735 story. It was no surprise that news of the Saturday ceremony came only from the official Xinhua News Agency, as the case for the above story published in Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily, and other official sources.
Journalists for non-official media did attempt to reach the scene of the crash on March 22, hoping to report the story over the past week. But access to the area was reportedly tightly controlled. According to one account posted to social media by journalist Du Qiang, the feeling among journalists was that “this time controls were far stricter than in the past.”
Can’t it be arranged for more media to take part in press conferences? And things not just be limited to central media? Can’t China Eastern and relevant government departments prepare a bit more fully, and allow more questions to be asked?
An account of the obstruction of reporting on the flight MU5735 tragedy by non-central media. Image from Zeyi Yang.
Now that fully eight days have passed, the authorities are pushing for everyone to move on from the tragedy – and from related stories and speculation. At this point, according to general practice, media will be discouraged from any further reporting on the crash, possibly through propaganda department directives.
During the first 7 days of a tragedy, the official line is typically that it is too early to “reflect back.” Personal and human stories are too painful and disrespectful while all energy should be on recovery and rescue. Once 7 days have passed, the perspective shifts. It is suddenly time for everyone to move on – because revisiting tragedy, or obsessing about its details, is too painful.
Xi Jinping’s tribute on Monday to the victims will likely be the last word before the results of the official investigation are released weeks or months from now.
Rounding Up the Rumormongers
But for the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s chief internet monitoring and control body, the important work now begins of going after those who spread “rumors” online in the midst of the search and rescue effort.
The CAC announced yesterday that it was in the process of tracing online rumors spread in the past 7 days in order to determine their source and hold those responsible to account. The office said it was working with websites and major internet and social media platforms to ferret out those who had shared “illegal information,” spread rumors and shared “conspiracy theories” about the MU5735 crash.
So far, the CAC reported, more than 279,000 pieces of “illegal and irregular information” had been cleared from the internet, including “more than 167,000 pieces of rumor-based information.” In addition, 2,713 user accounts had been removed and 1,295 discussion topics “dissolved” (解散).
The CAC separately released a list of 7 online rumors about the MU5735 tragedy, saying that the majority of these had come from personal online accounts, but that there was also involvement by “regular forces,” or zhengguijun (正规军), a reference in this case to official media such as Taiyuan Broadcast TV (太原广播电视台), which is named by the CAC as the source of one rumor about a passenger who did not board the plane.
A March 26, 2022, notice from the CAC lists out 7 online rumors about the MU5735 tragedy.
In a brief study of Chinese media coverage of the Ukraine war earlier this month, the China Media Project found that while the majority of media reports inside China refer to the war as either the “Russia-Ukraine conflict” or a “special military operation,” there were notable exceptions.
Certainly, coverage of Ukraine in the official state media has emphasized a number of Party-state frames – about the US and NATO as the instigators of the “conflict,” about US hypocrisy and alleged disinformation (as China actively spreads Russia and homegrown disinformation about alleged US bioweapons activities), and about China as a peace-loving and responsible power.
But other media have worked to tell more human and nuanced stories about the war, and to emphasize the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Those stories, which reflect the persistence of professional journalism values within a difficult environment, deserve to be acknowledged as part of the story of China’s media story on Ukraine.
As we noted in our study, Shanghai’s Xinmin Weekly, published by Shanghai United Media Group (SUMG), the very same conglomerate that publishes the official Party newspaper Jiefang Daily, ran a feature story on March 3 called “Witnessing Her Decline,” which followed Sun Guang (孙光), a 19 year-old Chinese student in Ukraine whose life was upended by the war. The story was unflinching from its first line: “In the early hours of February 24, 2022, Russia launched a war against Ukraine . . . “
“Witnessing Her Decline,” a story in Xinmin Weekly about Ukraine that tells the story of Sun Guang (孙光), a 19 year-old Chinese student studying in the country.
We also noted another story in our study sample from Caixin Weekly (财新周刊), the business and current affairs magazine published by Caixin Global under the professional leadership of Hu Shuli (胡舒立). That story, “Russia and Ukraine Reorganize the World” (俄烏重組世界), was the March 7 cover story in Caixin Weekly. Like the Xinmin Weekly story, it began with a reference to the “war” in Ukraine that did not pull punches: “In the midst of this war in the spring of 2022, the Crimean Peninsula, the site the last major conflict over sovereignty between Russia and Ukraine in 2014, has become a key departure point for the Russian military’s offensive push deep into Ukraine.”
Today we focus on another Caixin Weekly piece that again speaks to the outlets professional ambition to contribute meaningful reporting on a crucial global story. Published in the latest edition of the magazine, the story is called “Born in the Midst of War” (战火中的新生儿), by reporter Xu Heqian (徐和谦). “Since the start of the war, more than 4,300 children have been born in Ukraine, and maternity hospitals have not been spared from the shelling, with many maternity wards forced to relocate to basements and bomb shelters,” the story begins.
Screenshot of the Caixin Weekly story “Born in the Midst of War” (战火中的新生儿), by reporter Xu Heqian (徐和谦).
Against the political frames and abstractions that drive the majority of stories at Party-state media outlets, such as Xinhua and the Global Times, the Caixin Weekly story is human and relatable.
A section of the story follows in translation:
Regardless of the current state of the war and the rhetoric of both sides, a humanitarian catastrophe is imminent in Ukraine, and this is typified by attacks on hospitals. The sight of a pregnant woman on a stretcher through the rubble and debris sparked widespread concern in world opinion. The woman was brought in with a crushed pelvis and a dislocated hip, and her baby was delivered by C-section with “no signs of life,” according to Marin, the doctor at the second hospital where she was treated, and the woman did not survive after more than half an hour of emergency resuscitation.
Fortunately, two other women who escaped from the same attack gave birth to their newborns after being transferred to a neighboring hospital. Video footage from the area confirms that even as the hospital was delivering babies and performing life-saving surgeries, there were still frightening sounds of shelling from the surrounding area.
The Russian military later admitted, under public pressure, that it did fire on the maternity hospital in Mariupol, but said it did so because the hospital had been converted into a “fire position” by Ukrainian forces after the outbreak of the war, and there was no medical activity in the hospital at the time of the attack. The Russian ambassador to the UN and the embassy in London also accused the media of “faking” the photoscirculated of the injury and evacuation of one of the pregnant women, based on the fact that one of the evacuated women was identified as Mariana, a well-known Ukrainian fashion blogger on the Internet. While this identity was true, the accusation that she “played” the victim in the incident was quickly disproven by multiple sources, and Mariana did give birth to a baby girl the day after the attack.
The social media platform Twitter deleted a tweet in which the Russian Embassy in the UK retweeted the above justification; the British government also criticized the Russian Embassy’s claim as “fake news”.
The “shelling of a maternity hospital” behind this public outcry is just a typical example of the current humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Since the start of the fighting on February 24, the World Health Organization’s Health Care Attack Monitoring System has recorded 31 attacks on Ukrainian health care facilities or carriers, including 24 that have resulted in the damage or destruction of health care facilities and five that have damaged or destroyed ambulances, resulting in a total of at least 12 deaths and 34 injuries.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden will speak this evening in what the White House has called “ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication between the United States and the PRC.” Biden is expected to send a clear message to Xi that China would face serious consequences should it choose to provide material support for Russia in its war on Ukraine.
The planned call is front-page news in today’s People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper. But the missive gives little away of China’s position or intentions, saying only that “the two sides will exchange opinions on questions of mutual concern.”
China’s announcement of the Xi-Biden call is placed just right of the masthead in today’s People’s Daily.
But while the US has continued its focus this week on exerting pressure on Putin and isolating him internationally, China has insistently sought to shift the focus to the question of US biological weapons labs in Ukraine – an allegation that has basis only in claims made by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 6. The result is a disconcerting rift in priorities that mirrors tensions in the US-China relationship. The US wants to talk about Putin’s actions in Ukraine, and China’s role in either improving or worsening the conflict. China wants to talk about US actions in Ukraine, and to parlay these into a broader international discussion about the corrosive role of the United States.
On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian (赵立坚) again treated the Russia claims as credible, stressing that the United States has an obligation to comply with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The US, said Zhao, must “offer clarifications on issues that the international community cares about.”
Two official commentaries in the People’s Daily this week have hammered hard on claims about US biological weapons programs in Ukraine. Both commentaries are labelled as “Zhong Sheng” (钟声), an official pen name used routinely for important pieces on international affairs on which the leadership wishes to register its view. (On Tuesday, CMP profiled a third “Zhong Sheng” piece that attacked the US as a source of disinformation.)
On Wednesday, the “Zhong Sheng” commentary, anticipating Zhao’s remarks, said that the US should “act responsibly and make a full clarification of its global bioweapons activities” in order to “raise the level of global biosecurity” (生物安全). The article’s first line read: “Recently, Russia has exposed the US bioweapons cooperation program in Ukraine, further unveiling the U.S. ‘bioweapons empire.’”
A “Zhong Sheng” commentary on page 15 of the People’s Daily again addresses alleged US bioweapons programs in Ukraine.
Today, ahead of the Xi-Biden talk, “Zhong Sheng” follows with a commentary accusing the US of double standards. The piece suggests in its lede that discussions of US “bioweapons activities” (生物军事活动) in Ukraine have “heated up.” Obviously, there is no mention of the fact that China has played a decisive role in ensuring that these rumors run red hot.
A partial translation of today’s “Zhong Sheng” commentary follows.
Sticking to “Double Standards” Will Only Bankrupt US Credibility (Zhong Sheng) People’s Daily March 18, 2022, p. 15
Recently, discussions about United States bioweapons activities in Ukraine have heated up. Russia has released a series of original documents accusing the US of violating the Biological Weapons Convention. The US first denied [these accusations] and then tried to bite back, a but this response has only further heightened international suspicions about US bioweapons activities.
The US first dismissed the Russian allegations as “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories” and then alleged that “the Russians intend to use biological and chemical weapons against Ukraine.” Finding the situation impossible to muddle through, a group of officials from the White House, the State Department and the Department of Defense took turns in “saving the day” by claiming that the US “has a history of openness and transparency” and “fully complies with the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.” The US also released so-called “factual documents” in an attempt to “clarify” its bioweapons activities in Ukraine and around the world. However, the US clarification is full of holes, and even the most basic information about the number of its cooperative laboratories in Ukraine is inconsistent and unconvincing.
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As a member of the international community, the United States has an obligation to abide by international rules and give the world an account of its bioweapons activities. Holding on to double standards will only bankrupt its own credibility.
