In recent months, page three of the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper has regularly featured strongly-worded commentary pieces addressing various aspects of the US-China relationship, and railed against what it now almost routinely calls a “Cold War mentality” (冷战思维) on the part of American officials.

Last weekend, for example, yet another commentary attributed to “Zhong Sheng” (钟声), a pen name used in the paper since November 2008 for important pieces on international affairs on which the leadership wishes to register its view, said unspecified “certain politicians” in the United States had formed a “gang of rumor-mongers” (造谣团伙) that sought continually to “blacken China.” The commentary was also promoted by the People’s Daily on Twitter, along with a photo of the White House and a stop sign.

Today, page three of the newspaper does not include a “Zhong Sheng” column, but instead features a massive article responding to 18 “rumors” it says were pushed by senior White House trade official Peter Navarro in an op-ed published by Fox News on June 7 — addressing each of these allegations point-by-point with lists of supporting bullet points.

The Navarro counterattack, which seems unusual in its level of scope and detail, is further illustration of just how rancorous the war of words between the US and China has become.

It’s important also to note that the People’s Daily article relies heavily on the authority of mostly Western sources, including the United States Director of National Intelligence, the New York Times, Business Insider, the UK’s Daily Telegraph, the COG-UK Consortium, the University of Washington Medical Center, the organization Responsible Technology Australia and so on. While China’s party-state media regularly excoriate “Western media” as being biased and unreliable, and attack what they call “so-called press freedom,” they draw heavily on international media and expert voices wherever possible to support official Chinese positions.

The article, which takes the full bottom half of page three, begins:

On June 7, Navarro, director of the of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy (OTMP) at the White House, fabricated a series of China-related lies about the COVID-19 epidemic. Just as mankind faces assault by the COVID-19 epidemic, certain unscrupulous politicians in the US think nothing of combatting the virus in their own country, and even less of cooperating with the world in fighting the epidemic, but instead do everything in their power to attack and discredit China’s universally recognized success in the fight against the epidemic.

Lies are the credentials of those who are shameless and despicable, while the truth is the calling card of those who defend the truth. Here, we list 18 lies manufactured by Navarro, refuting each in order with facts and truths.

Among the “rumors” dealt with in the People’s Daily article (the first of which is the notion that the virus might have originated in a government lab) is the suggestion that Li Wenliang (李文亮), the Wuhan doctor who died of COVID-19 in February after having been reprimanded sharply by police in December 2019 for sharing information about the virus on WeChat, was a “whistleblower” and was “detained.” The People’s Daily attempts to reclaim Li’s legacy, something CMP wrote about back in March, stressing that he was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and that “his outstanding contributions have received the respect of the government and the people.”

The reclaiming of Li’s legacy was a clear propaganda tactic employed by the leadership in February and March to deal with widespread anger over the doctor’s well-documented mistreatment by Wuhan police for attempting to share information in the earliest stages of the epidemic. CMP dealt with the Chinese reporting about Li Wenliang in our February 18 article “The Li Wenliang Storm.” Today’s People’s Daily article notes only that police issued a warning to Li Wenliang on January 3, seriously playing down the intensity of the suppression of information on the epidemic by local authorities in Wuhan.

As CMP researcher Tao Lesi noted in a March article on the notion of “speaking politics” (讲政治) in the context of the epidemic, reports from a number of domestic Chinese media, including Southern Weekly and People magazine, confirmed that the Wuhan City Health Commission had warned doctors’ WeChat groups in late December: “We ask everyone please . . . . do not circulate at will to the outside notices and relevant information about a pneumonia of unclear origins . . . . otherwise the city health commission will subject them to severe investigation.”

On the question of Li, as with the other 17 so-called “rumors,” the tone of the People’s Daily article is stern: “All political manipulation of Doctor Li is immoral, and does extreme disrespect to him and to his family.”

[Featured Image: Peter Navarro, image from White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy available at Wikimedia Commons under CC license.]

On the afternoon of July 1, as Hong Kong residents grappled with a new national security law and wondered how much space would be left to “act out our freedom,” a new media platform operated by Shanghai’s Liberation Daily, the official organ of the municipality’s CCP Committee, was busy keeping score. The headline in the Shanghai Observer was euphoric: “27:53! A test of strength plays out at the Human Rights Council over Hong Kong’s national security law.”

The Shanghai Observer report responded to events at the 44^th session of the UN Human Rights Council the previous day, at which two statements had been delivered back to back. The first statement (available here), was delivered by Julian Braithwaite, the UK’s ambassador to the WTO and UN in Geneva, on behalf of 27 countries. Braithwaite emphasized that the Joint Declaration between China and the UK is “a legally binding treaty, registered with the United Nations,” and that China’s passing of a national security law “without the direct participation of Hong Kong’s people, legislature or judiciary of Hong Kong undermines ‘One Country, Two Systems.’”

The second statement, delivered by Cuba on behalf of more than 50 countries, countered Braithwaite by emphasizing the principles of non-interference and the sovereign right of states to safeguard national security. “We believe that every country has the right to safeguard its national security through legislation, and commend relevant steps taken for this purpose,” the Cuban statement said. “In this context, we welcome the adoption of the decision by China’s legislature to establish and improve a legal framework and enforcement mechanisms for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) for the purpose of safeguarding national security, as well as China’s reaffirmation of adherence to ‘One Country, Two Systems’ guideline.”

The apparent weight of support for Cuba’s statement in favour of China’s favoured frames of non-interference and national sovereignty over the Hong Kong national security law has justifiably been read by some as a clear illustration of just how far the UN Human Rights Council has tipped in China’s favour, particularly since the 2018 decision by the United States to withdraw from the council. Axios, which provided a helpful map of countries defending and criticizing Hong Kong’s new law at the HRC, noted that most supporters of China’s position have signed on to its Belt and Road initiative, and that many African countries joining Cuba’s statement are also negotiating debt repayments with China.

“This is one of the clearest indications to date of which countries are challenging a rising superpower, at least on human rights, and which are lining up behind it,” David Lawler wrote in his big picture summary of the HRC story.

Taking a closer look at coverage of the Human Rights Council story, however, one of the most interesting aspects is the way the apparent divide is reported and amplified internationally only through Chinese state media.

In other words, if there is a clear global media divide over the understanding and application of human rights and international relations principles in this case, it is not between the West (the 27 countries criticizing China, for example) and “the rest” (the Global South, etcetera). The divide is in fact between Chinese state media, which have a clear and unmistakable message, and everything else. While Chinese media have pushed the frames of non-interference and national sovereignty in regards to Hong Kong, these frames cannot be readily detected in other coverage around the world – unless Chinese state media content is being amplified through non-Chinese channels.

A Silent Axis of Shame

Some have referred to the countries supporting the pro-China statement at the Human Rights Council as an “Axis of Shame.” But outside the HRC statement, the countries comprising this “axis” seem to have said nothing themselves, and their media seem to have reported nothing, about Hong Kong and the national security law. The only country that seems to have actively spoken out on its own in support of Hong Kong’s national security law, and against tying it to the issue of human rights, is Russia, which did not sign the June 30 statement from Cuba. As Russia’s TASS news agency reported, Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, called the HRC discussion “biased and politicized.” But this statement was made through Gatilov’s Twitter account.

A Google advanced search in English for “Human Rights Council” + “Hong Kong” + “Cuba” turns up just a handful of sources that are not Chinese state media. These include Axios and Fox News, which reported on both HRC statements.  

Aside from Axios and Fox News, sources reporting news of Cuba’s countering statement all have either content sharing arrangements with China’s official Xinhua News Agency, or share content from Russian sources, notably Sputnik, that are ultimately sourced from Xinhua.

Malaysia’s The Star website, for example, ran a Xinhua News Agency report on July 1 attributed to “Aseanplus News” with the headline: “52 countries welcome China’s adoption of HK security law.” The story was labelled in front as being sourced from Xinhua.

The Macau Daily Times reported on July 2, using Xinhua copy, that “the number of countries, which signed the joint statement Cuba read at the session, is expected to rise.” A headline the same day on the website of the Philippine’s Daily Tribune read: “52 countries welcome new bill.” The copy was again from Xinhua, and an identical report appeared also in Bangladesh’s The Daily Observer. 

Pakistan’s The Nation, published by the Nawaiwaqt Group, which signed a cooperation agreement with Xinhua in December 2019, ran a report on July 1 emphasizing the Cuban statement, and citing as sources both Xinhua News Agency and the Global Times. But the report was in fact taken directly from Russia’s Sputnik, which links in its lede to the original Xinhua News Agency news blurb on the June 30 Human Rights Council session. The headline for the Xinhua brief: “Urgent: Cuba on behalf of 52 countries welcomes China’s adoption of law on safeguarding national security in HK.”

But one of the most revealing aspects of this media divide is the origin of the text of the Cuban statement. While the UK statement at the Human Rights Council was posted in full to the government’s website, Cuba has apparently not made its statement public. It cannot be found anywhere on the website of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs or other government portals.

Where do we get the text of the Cuban statement? From the website of China’s permanent mission to the United Nations. That begins to look like an odd bit of puppetry. Is this Cuba’s own statement? Or is it China’s statement delivered by Cuba?

All other sources referencing language contained in Cuba’s statement are from Chinese state media, or from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which said on June 30 that China “highly appreciates the voice of justice that Cuba and the other countries so loudly aired. This proves again that justice is in the heart of the people and that the majority of the international community understand full well and respect China’s just and legitimate efforts to safeguard national security.”

And yet, how strange it is that this “majority of the international community” has otherwise been so completely silent. And how unlike the UK statement, which essentially says what the countries that signed it, as well as the European Union, have also said independently (for example Sweden, Germany, Japan). 

Given that it was Cuba that introduced the pro-China statement at the Human Rights Council, we might suppose Cuban media covered this story. But it appears they did not. Searching the English-language online edition of Granma, the official paper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, there are no results for “Hong Kong.”

Granma’s Spanish-language coverage does turn up reporting on “Hong Kong” over the past week, but the articles, just three, simply report the passage of the Hong Kong national security law, and US-China wrangling over the issue. There seems to be no mention whatsoever of Cuba’s own statement. And the framing of the Hong Kong story in Granma does not echo the statement’s emphasis on national sovereignty and non-interference, save in remarks that are clearly sourced to China’s foreign ministry (and the US response, from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is mentioned as well).   

What of other countries reportedly supporting the Cuban statement?

One country to join Cuba’s statement was Nicaragua, where there was no evident support in the local media, or in government sources (based on targeted URL searches). La Prensa, a daily newspaper based in Managua, reported a “crisis” in Hong Kong on July 4 as a result of the “controversial” new national security law, re-running stories from the BBC and Deutsche Welle. Another leading Nicaraguan publication, La Jornada, reported on July 1, using copy from the Spanish news agency Europa Press (which also cited RTHK), that police in Hong Kong had prohibited demonstrations by “pro-democracy opposition” citing the risk of Covid-19 infection. There was no mention of the statements at the Human Rights Council. Confidencial, another of the country’s main print publications, has had no coverage of China and Hong Kong in recent weeks.

It bears noting that media in Nicaragua have also reported regularly on human rights issues in China. Before suspending publication in September 2019,  El Nuevo Diario, long one of the country’s top newspapers, featured on its front page a full video report from the New York Times in which members of China’s Uighur ethnic community outside China told harrowing stories of their relatives currently being held in detention centers in Xinjiang. 

Saudi Arabia was another supporter of the Cuban statement at the Human Rights Council. But the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) has apparently had no coverage in English of Hong Kong’s national security law over the past week, and in Chinese mentions only a brief telephone exchange between the foreign ministries of the two countries over the “strategic partnership.” The website of Al-Arabiya, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest broadcasters, reaching a pan-Arab audience, has reported nothing concerning Hong Kong in Arabic, only mentioning in a report on currency fluctuations that “the yuan stabilized as investors avoided forming big positions due to concerns about diplomatic tension between Washington and Beijing over civil liberties in Hong Kong.” In English, however, the broadcaster has run stories from Western news wires, including this one from Reuters on June 30, noting strong tones of objection over the national security law from the UK, Japan, Taiwan and Europe.

In Africa, the Cuban statement was joined by the Republic of Djibouti, whose sparse media is closely controlled by the state. Searching the French-language content of the national broadcaster, Radiodiffusion-Television de Djibouti (RTD), no coverage at all of China or Hong Kong can be found since June 26 (when the issue was “the development of Sino-Djiboutian relations”). In Mozambique, there was again no coverage at all of the Hong Kong issue in the state-owned daily newspaper Noticias. The same was true for the privately-owned daily O Pais.

Egypt’s Masrawy news portal, which serves the larger Arabic-speaking community in the Middle East, reported, using copy from AFP, that the national security law in Hong Kong is “controversial,” and it did not mention the Cuban statement at the Human Rights Council. The Egypt Independent, one of the country’s leading English-language sources, uses only news copy from Reuters and the Associated Press when reporting on recent events in Hong Kong, and there is again no mention of the Human Rights Council. Daily News Egypt, a top English-language daily news site in the country, shamelessly re-posted Xinhua News Agency propaganda about the great achievements of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1, but made no mention still of Hong Kong’s national security law or the HRC. (To be fair, Daily News Egypt has liberally run content from many news agencies, and a report on “concentration camps” in Xinjiang also appeared to the right of the Xinhua propaganda.)

This is by no means an exhaustive search, and it relies on imperfect machine translation of languages (Urdu, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Spanish) this writer cannot read. I welcome the input of others who might have seen the Cuban statement on Hong Kong proudly reported as a matter of shared values.

But it certainly appears that the sovereignty and non-interference frame on the Hong Kong national security law is China’s frame alone (and Russia’s), and is not shared beyond the political manoeuvre of the Cuban HRC statement, which no other government has mentioned or otherwise echoed independently.

Framing may be the primary point here. The Cuban (Chinese) statement, though of course a serious reflection of China’s impact on human rights mechanisms, was primarily an effort by China to assert its own frame on human rights issues — as they pertain especially to its domestic affairs. An important part of this ploy is to frame its preferred positions on national sovereignty and non-interference as reflecting the overwhelming global majority on human rights.

What does it tell us when the “majority of the international community” is so silent?

[Featured image: Screenshot from UN TV of Cuba making its statement on Hong Kong’s national security law at the Human Rights Council on June 30, 2020.]

“What people wish for, and what everyone hopes.” It is with this cryptic line that today’s official commentary in the People’s Daily on Hong Kong’s new national security law begins.

人心所向，众望所归
rén xīn suǒ xiàng, zhòng wàng suǒ guī

What does this mean? It means that whatever the people of Hong Kong may feel today about this dispiriting turn of events, a vague and expansive law that will likely have a chilling effect on the basic rights hitherto enjoyed in the territory, the Chinese Communist Party claims this as a victory for all Chinese, including “our brethren in Hong Kong.”

The page-three commentary, attributed to “a commentator from this paper,” or benbao pinglunyuan (本报评论员), which marks it as executed by top staff at the paper but representing views at the most senior levels of the Party, suggests that the implementation of the national security law is actually a reflection of the “original intention” of the Basic Law (香港基本法的初心), which was to “protect national unity and territorial integrity, and preserve the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong.”

As such, the new law is the most appropriate celebration of this year’s 30^th anniversary of the Basic Law – a return to “original intentions.”

“Not forgetting [our] original intentions,” or buwang chuxin (不忘初心), is of course a typical Xi Jinping catchphrase referring to the need for the Chinese Communist Party to remember both its original goals (such as the establishment of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”) and its correct political orientations (meaning the unshakeable rule of the CCP). Just today, the People’s Daily promoted on its front page the publication yesterday in the journal Seeking Truth of a January speech by Xi Jinping on precisely this issue, of “original intentions.”

Seen in this distorted light, the new Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Special Administrative Region is simply a return to normalcy from the “chaos” that has threatened the “one country, two systems” formula. It puts “one country” back into “one country, two systems,” or so the argument goes:

For Hong Kong, only when ‘one country’ is consolidated can the benefits of ‘two systems’ be put into play.

On the question of “two systems,” the commentary again seeks to offer reassurances, that the law does not mark a fundamental change to Hong Kong’s system and values but simply accounts for a few bad apples:

It should be seen that the implementation of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Special Administrative Region targets an extremely small minority of actions and activities that seriously damage national security, [that it] targets the forces of ‘Hong Kong independence,’ ‘Black Violence’ and ‘Burning Together’. The capitalist system in effect in Hong Kong will not change, the high level of autonomy will not change, the legal system will not change.

Those reassurances are difficult to square with the language of the new law. When everything comes out in the wash, how many of the freedoms now enjoyed in Hong Kong – beyond the celebration of its capitalism – will fade or disappear on the grounds that they “seriously damage national security.” The law, for example, specifies as a crime “inciting hatred of the central government.” What does that mean?

Commenting on the law, Czech scholar Martin Hala has rightly observed that the term “national security” is a mistranslation of guojia anquan (国家安全) in the Chinese case. The operative term here might more accurately be translated “state security.” Meaning that the broad purpose of this law is not to ensure the security of the Chinese population or of the “nation,” but rather to safeguard the party-state.

To what extent, then, will this law be used to move against any and all forms of criticism of the party-state in China – in the media, academia, and so on? In the same vein, what does today’s commentary mean when it talks about “anti-China forces sowing chaos in Hong Kong” (反中乱港势力)?

Since Hong Kong’s return, the practice of “one country, two systems” has achieved world-renowned success in Hong Kong. At the same time, it has encountered new situations and problems in the course of its exercise. Particularly in 2019 with the “amendment storm” (修例风波) occurring in Hong Kong, anti-China forces sowing chaos in Hong Kong (反中乱港势力) have blatantly advocated “Hong Kong independence,” “self-determination” and “referendums” and so on, engaging in activities that damage national unity and divide the country; certain foreign and outside forces (外国和境外势力) have blatantly interfered with Hong Kong affairs, bracing and encouraging anti-China forces sowing chaos in Hong Kong, providing protection, and using Hong Kong to engage in activities that harm national security. The people of China, including our brethren in Hong Kong, profoundly recognize that a longstanding “lack of defences” (不设防) on national security have caused Hong Kong to face its most serious situation since its return; the internal and external collusion and convergence of anti-China forces sowing chaos in Hong Kong has already become the greatest enemy to the continuation of “one country, two systems.”

Is it now a crime to be “anti-China” in Hong Kong, however broadly Chinese authorities wish to define this concept? What does that mean?

At the moment, all we have are questions.

[Image of Hong Kong skyline by Fabio Achilli available at Flickr.com under CC license.]

On June 10, the website China Military (chinamil.com.cn), a news portal operated by the People’s Liberation Army, ran an attack piece on the author Fang Fang, whose diary documenting 74 days under quarantine in Wuhan during the coronavirus epidemic was recently published in both English and German editions. Fang Fang’s Diary, in English titled Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City, is an insider’s account of events in the city of Wuhan, the epicenter in January this year of what would eventually become a global pandemic, and it offers details about the crisis and the official response that are highly embarrassing for China’s leaders.

The piece at China Military, “The Lightspeed Publication of “Fang Fang’s Diary” Will Only Expose the Truth About More Western “Pot Throwing, alleges that certain “bad domestic media,” principally Hu Shuli’s Caixin Media, are responsible for pushing Fang Fang’s account and making it a tool for critics of China in the West.

The term “pot throwing,” or shuǎiguō (甩锅), which originated online in China, is roughly equivalent to the English phrase “shifting the blame.” The suggestion in the article is that unspecified “forces” in Europe and North America wish to use accounts like that of Fang Fang to blacken China’s name over the Covid-19 epidemic in order to direct attention away from the worsening situation in their own countries in terms of coronavirus infections and the epidemic response.

The article begins:

On April 8, the English edition of Fang Fang’s Diary that was promoted chiefly by Caixin Online began online sales on Amazon, and the German-language edition followed closely behind. Overnight, the public opinion maelstrom caused by this “diary” based on hearsay grew more and more fierce. The entire process of translation, proofreading and sales of the foreign language edition of this book was completed within just over 10 days. Behind this “rapid publication” are the obvious efforts of anti-China forces attempting to stigmatize the anti-epidemic efforts of the Chinese people.

The key allegations in the article are five-fold. First, that Fang Fang’s Diary is hateful toward China and therefore an “anti-Chinese” work. Second, that Fang Fang’s Diary was “promoted chiefly” by Caixin Online, suggesting that this widely respected news outlet bears responsibility for the attention given to the work to begin with. Third, that the “lightspeed” effort to translate the book reveals that it is an attempt by “anti-China forces” to call into question the efforts of the Chinese people to fight the epidemic. This third point is really about what is now a key message in much propaganda in party-state media – that the CCP’s response to the epidemic was an unalloyed victory. Fourth, the article disparages and seeks to discredit Fang Fang’s work as third-rate and little more than gossip.

Finally, beyond its attack on Caixin, the article suggests other domestic media were complicit. Here is a translation of the relevant passage in the piece:

Who could have guessed that this third-rate stage script could prompt such fierce attention domestically and overseas, something that is inseparable from the hyping and promotion done by certain bad domestic media. These bad domestic media promoted Fang Fang’s Diary through Weibo and apps, and even intentionally ran partial translations of Fang Fang’s Diary and interviews with the author on foreign websites, and the editor-in-chief even for a while promoted it once every day, fearing that traffic wasn’t yet sufficient, that things weren’t yet sufficiently chaotic.

It is never clear in the article what other domestic media or websites are being referenced by this charge levied at “certain bad domestic media” (国内某些不良媒体). But the reference to the “editor-in-chief” is clearly a shot taken at Caixin Media founder and editor-in-chief Hu Shuli (胡舒立).

Such open attacks on domestic Chinese media are rare. One of the last such attacks occurred in 2008 ahead of the Beijing Olympics and in the midst of unrest in Tibet, as more liberal media in China were attacked in commentaries and online as being unpatriotic for expressing more nuanced views on Tibet. At that time, Chang Ping (长平), a well-known editor at Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily, was roundly criticized for reacting to anger in China over the alleged bias of news outlets like CNN by pointing out the hypocrisy of Chinese state censorship.

Fang Fang’s Diary was first published as a series of blog posts at Caixin Online from January to April, with a total of 61 posts, most coming in February and March when the crisis was at its peak. In one entry translated into English at Caixin Global, Fang Fang cricticizes the suggestion by leaders in official propaganda that the Chinese people should be thankful to the government:

A word that crops up frequently in conversation these days is “gratitude.” High-level officials in Wuhan demand that the people show they’re grateful to the Communist Party and the country. I find this way of thinking very strange. Our government is supposed to be a people’s government; it exists solely to serve the people. Government officials work for us, not the other way around. I don’t understand why our leaders seem to draw exactly the opposite conclusion.

One of the more dubious privileges of the social media era in China is that all users, regardless of position, profession, nationality or geographic location, can experience the maddening process of censorship. Engaging means accepting that chats or posts may disappear in a matter of hours, minutes or days. The CCP’s massive project of engineering public opinion, and thereby securing the regime, is now more personal and more international than ever before.

Just ask the British Embassy Beijing.

Earlier today, the embassy made a Chinese-language post to its verified account on WeChat in which it tackled four assertions about Hong Kong that have been made in Chinese state media, offering factual rebuttals of each. The post was public long enough for users to actively share it on the platform, but by evening it had been removed, yielding a message that the post violated regulations.

Below is our screenshot of the post, made shortly before it disappeared.

The British Embassy post is organized as a series of four responses to specific state media reports and assertions for which links are provided. The first report, dated June 6, is a piece from Beijing Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Beijing city leadership, shared through the Shanghai news site The Paper (澎湃). The article itself responded to a June 3 commentary by Boris Johnson appearing in The Times, in which the prime minister said the UK would not “not walk away” on the Hong Kong issue.

The assertion in the Beijing Daily piece highlighted for rebuttal by the embassy post is that the UK supports Hong Kong Independence. The response: “This is not true. The UK has clearly said that under one country two systems Hong Kong is a part of  China. The UK hopes that this framework can continue, and this is also the crux of peace and prosperity in Hong Kong.”

The next assertion with which the embassy takes issue is that the Sino British Joint Declaration does not have “real significance.” This comes from a June 10 piece published online by the official China News Service, seen below.

The response:

The Sino British Joint Declaration is a legally-binding international treaty registered  with the United Nations, and it has been in effect since June 12,  1985. This international treaty between China and the UK makes clear the high level of  autonomy in Hong Kong, and aside from matters of foreign relations and defense, these rights and freedoms so enjoyed do not change for 50 years. The Declaration states: “The current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged, and so will the life-style.” This includes “rights and freedoms.” The pledges made by the Chinese side, including those concerning rights and freedoms, independent judicial power and rule of law, are critical to the guarantee of Hong Kong’s prosperity and its way of life.

The exchange comes at a tense time for Hong Kong, and a tense time for bilateral relations between China and the UK. News came yesterday that Beijing has put a draft of the proposed national security law before the standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post has reported that language in the draft specifies “collusion with foreign forces” as a crime, adding to fears the legislation could be used to target dissent. The British government has exchanged barbs over the proposed legislation with both the Hong Kong government and Beijing, with Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Dominic Raab saying it “raises the prospect of prosecution in Hong Kong for political crimes, which would undermine existing commitments to protect the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong.”

US President Donald Trump signed legislation earlier this week calling for sanctions against Chinese officials for the country’s repressive treatment of ethnic Uighurs in its northwestern region of Xinjiang, where more than one million (and perhaps as many as three million) are thought to be held in detention camps. The legislation was passed overwhelmingly in the US Congress last month, with a bipartisan vote of 413 to 1 in favour.

While the US has steadily been the subject of official ire in China’s party-run press over the past two years, as tensions have rankled over such issues as trade and Hong Kong, a series of tough-worded commentaries and responses today are the best illustration in recent memory of what apoplectic rage looks like in the pages of the CCP’s usually dry and jargon-filled People’s Daily.

Here is an image of page three of today’s paper, which includes six pieces dealing with Xinjiang covering fully three-quarters of the space.

The central piece is written by “a commentator from this paper,” or benbao pinglunyuan (本报评论员), which clearly identifies it as having been written by top staff at the paper to represent the views at the most senior levels of the Party. The same byline was given, to provide just one example among many, to a July 2019 commentary expressing hard-line views on protests in Hong Kong.

”This so-called bill deliberately vilifies the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang,” the commentary begins, “maliciously attacking the Chinese government’s policies in governing Xinjiang and flagrantly trampling on international law and the basic norms of international relations, amounting to gross interference in China’s internal affairs. The Chinese government and people express strong indignation and firm opposition to this.”

Next, the commentary rejects the use of the frame of human rights to discuss matters in Xinjiang at all, insisting instead that the core issues are terrorism and separatism.

It must be pointed out that the Xinjiang-related issue is not a question of human rights, ethnicity, or religion as the US has clamored about, but rather is about anti-terrorism and anti-secession. Since the 1990s, the “three forces,” including ethnic separatist forces, religious extremist forces, and violent terrorist forces, have carried out thousands of violent terrorist incidents in Xinjiang, causing significant loss of life and property, and seriously trampling on the rights of the local people.

In quite typical fashion, the commentary sidesteps the very real and well-documented facts and questions about China’s policies in Xinjiang and their human costs, and resorts instead to a list of superficial numbers and percentages, as though reciting these can quantitatively deny accounts of torture and invasive surveillance.

The introduction of the so-called Xinjiang-related bill by the US side completely ignores the facts and overturns right and wrong. But facts speak louder than words. In Xinjiang today, ethnic equality and unity, religious harmony, and stable and peaceful lives are all for the real well-being of people of all ethnic groups. In 2019, Xinjiang received more than 200 million tourism journeys, and the economy grew at a rate of 6.2 percent. In 2020, absolute poverty will be eliminated completely [in the region]. The Uighur population in Xinjiang has grown to 11.65 million, accounting for about 46.8 percent of the total population of the autonomous region. In Xinjiang, there are more than 24,000 Islamic mosques, and there is on average one mosque for every 530 Muslims.

The next rhetorical strategy is to turn the accusations around on the US, alleging deep hypocrisy. “The so-called Xinjiang bill in the US attempts to blacken the reputation of anti-terrorism, anti-secession, and de-extremification measures in Xinjiang, and this is a naked double standard on anti-terrorism and human rights issues,” the commentary says. “As everyone knows, the United States has provoked wars in Islamic countries such as Iraq and Syria in recent years on the grounds of counter-terrorism, resulting in millions of innocent casualties.”

Finally, the piece concludes – with an obligatory note on non-interference, that concept long so central to Chinese foreign policy, and national sovereignty – by turning the focus to a buzzword China habitually uses to neutralize and insulate all concrete questions of human rights: development.

Affairs in Xinjiang are purely China’s internal affairs, and we tolerate no foreign interference. We sternly demand that the US side immediately correct its mistakes and stop using the so-called Xinjiang bill to harm China’s interests and interfere in China’s internal affairs. The Chinese government and people are determined to defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests. The attempts by the US side to use Xinjiang issues to incite disharmony in China’s ethnic relations undermine the prosperity and stability of Xinjiang, and efforts to contain China’s development and growth cannot possibly prevail.

Following this commentary at the center of the page are statements from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the People’s Government of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The latter also uses a permutation of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people, a phrase that has through the decades been routinely used by the CCP to express condemnation in instances of serious international conflict and disagreement, making broad claim over popular sentiment:

This so-called bill wantonly slanders and unjustifiably accuses counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures and the human rights situation in Xinjiang, severely trampling on international law and basic norms of international relations, seriously interfering in China’s internal affairs, and seriously hurting the feelings of people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. In response, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and the cadres and people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang strongly express their condemnation and firm opposition!

Like the piece by “a commentator from this paper,” this commentary from the Xinjiang leadership tries to support its case by turning the accusations back on the United States, with a series of paragraphs beginning with the words, “Looking back at America . . . “ It concludes by dismissing the US bill as “ a piece of waste paper that will be swept onto the garbage heap by the force of justice!”

Also worthy of note is an official commentary from Xinhua News Agency in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. The piece accuses the US once again of “double standards,” and suggests that “the US side” is possessed by “Cold War thinking” and “ideological prejudice.”

People’s Daily Online is also hitting hard on the Xinjiang bill today, with a prominent headline at the top of the homepage announcing the re-broadcast of an official documentary on Xinjiang by state broadcaster CGTN. The documentary is called: “Tianshan Still Standing: Memories of Fighting Terrorism in Xinjiang.”

[Featured image of a mosque in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi, by Brett Vachon available at Flickr.com under CC license.]

Xi Jinping has emphasized on numerous occasions that the Chinese Communist Party must “tell the China story well.” The notion of the “China story,” which dates back to a high-level internal meeting on propaganda and ideology in August 2013, has come to encapsulate the Party’s conviction that it must redress global imbalances in “discourse power,” or huayuquan (话语权), that favor the West and impact China’s fundamental interests internationally.

In March 2019, Xi spoke of “an historic opportunity for Party-led media” to press China’s agenda more actively in the world. “We must strengthen our capacity, boost morale and persevere in telling the China story,” he said, “creating international discourse power befitting our country’s comprehensive national power.”

The global coronavirus pandemic might have had a catastrophic effect on China’s global image, given its sluggishness in grappling seriously with the crisis during the first half of January, and indications that the facts about Covid-19 were actively suppressed by authorities even earlier. But China has, to all appearances, managed to turn the story around. This is testament not, at least not clearly, to its supposedly robust and enlightened efforts to deal with the epidemic – that IS the official story – so much as to the megaphone volume at which China has pushed the glories of its response as an exemplar for all the world.

Even as Chinese diplomats and state media have railed against what they dismiss as efforts to “politicize” the pandemic by highlighting China’s role in the spread of the disease, they have vociferously politicized the crisis at every turn – portraying aid and even commercial shipments of medical supplies as benevolent gifts, and suggesting a loss of confidence in liberal democracy the West.

In late March, Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, spoke of a “global battle of narratives.” Public views, he said, were sure to change as the response to the epidemic evolved in Europe. “But we must be aware there is a geo-political component including a struggle for influence through spinning and the ‘politics of generosity,’” he warned. “Armed with facts, we need to defend Europe against its detractors.”

China has not just spoken loudly through diplomats and party-state media however. It has sought through concerted pressure on all fronts to quiet voices of dissent globally. In April, within weeks of Borrell’s remarks, it emerged that the Chinese government had exerted pressure on the European Union to soften already quite soft language in a report on the coronavirus pandemic. The original report noted: “China has continued to run a global disinformation campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak of the pandemic and improve its international image. Both overt and covert tactics have been observed.” China actively lobbied to block the document’s release, taking issue with this characterization of its international image campaign, and senior EU officials reportedly asked that the language be softened.

China’s unremitting effort to turn the story on Covid-19 around has reached a new distillation point with the government’s release on June 7 of a white paper called, “China’s Actions to Fight the Covid-19 Epidemic” (抗击新冠肺炎疫情的中国行动). This is essentially the authoritative Bible on how China wishes the coronavirus epidemic to be understood and written into the history books.

Fortunately, there is no need at the moment to delve too deeply into the text of this document of self-praise and self-aggrandizement – the “self” here referring to General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. The evolved narrative that the white paper represents was in fact summarized more succinctly – yet still quite grandiloquently – in a commentary published yesterday on page three of the official People’s Daily newspaper.

The commentary is attributed to “Zhong Sheng’ (钟声), a pen name used in the paper since November 2008 for important pieces on international affairs on which the leadership wishes to register its official view. The name, which literally translates “bell tone,” is a shortened version of the phrase “bell tone to warn the world,” or jingshi zhongsheng (警世钟声).

Many elements of the narrative will be familiar already to readers, including the idea that all the Chinese people came together (under the resolute leadership of Xi and the CCP) to defeat Covid-19 in what will go down in history as a great victory for China and the world; and that “China’s experiences and methods” in fighting the epidemic have gifted the international community with a Chinese model of health protection. On this point, the commentary quotes Robert Lawrence Kuhn, identified as the director of the Kuhn Foundation but more widely known as a figure regularly featured in Chinese state media programming as a go-to praise-China voice. The Kuhn quote (though you never know with state media quotes) translates: “In the future, historians will very likely see China’s process in fighting the Covid-19 epidemic as a global model for preventing infectious diseases.”

The commentary is structured around what might be called, drawing inspiration from the CCP fondness for numerical discourse formulas, the “three can-be-seens.” Each of the paragraphs that describes these clearly evident (according to the commentary) lessons to be derived from China’s epidemic response includes at the start the statement that “we can clearly see [_____]”. And each of these paragraphs, tellingly, is bolstered at its tail end with reference either to a foreign study or a foreign voice. This reliance on the foreign voice as authoritative is quite a typical feature of party-state propaganda, and one of its most interesting internal contradictions as it seeks to offset and deny other foreign viewpoints that are dis-favoured.

Another very important feature to note in the “Zhong Sheng” commentary is the way it defines the power of Xi Jinping and the CCP. Included in this distillation of the CCP narrative on Covid-19 is a clear stake to the claim that Xi is responsible for this unambiguous victory, and an elevation of his position as “leader,” or lingxiu (领袖). This, in fact, provides the first and most important of the three “can-be-seens.” The statement begins: “Through the timeline of China’s fight against the epidemic, we can clearly see the enlightened leadership and scientific decision-making of the CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core.” In the Chinese, however, Xi Jinping’s name comes first, and the reference to the Central Committee second.

Those who wish to understand both the tone – China’s Covid-19 response is “a magnificent scroll” – and the substance of the “China story” as it pertains to the global coronavirus pandemic could hardly find a better source. As such, I provide a (nearly) full translation of the “Zhong Sheng” commentary below.

____________

An Arduous Journey, Showing Great Strength (艰辛历程，彰显伟大力量)
Focussing Attention on China’s Actions to Fight the Covid-19 Epidemic (瞩目抗击新冠肺炎疫情的中国行动)
By “Zhong Sheng”（钟声)

People’s Daily
June 9, 2020
Page 3

The difficult struggle against the Covid-19 epidemic in China is now written into history. This is a glorious chapter for the Chinese people in the arduous struggle against epidemic [disease]. This is a magnificent scroll depicting the constant growth of the Chinese people through tribulation, their rise through misfortune. This is a powerful voice of the times speaking of the shared destiny of China and the world.

On June 7, the State Council Information Office issued a white paper running to 37,000 characters in length called, “China’s Actions to Fight the Covid-19 Epidemic” (抗击新冠肺炎疫情的中国行动), which recorded the grand course of the Chinese people’s fight against the Covid-19 epidemic, sharing with the international community China’s experiences and methods in fighting the epidemic, sharing the Chinese concept for the global anti-epidemic [effort] and China’s proposition (中国主张). At this critical moment in the global anti-epidemic effort, this important document transmits the confidence and strength to fight the epidemic through unity and cooperation, and international figures have praised it as “enlightening and inspiring the global anti-epidemic cause” and having “worldwide scientific value.”

The white paper makes a detailed timeline of how China has fought against the epidemic since an unexplained case of pneumonia was detected in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province. Point by point, it truly records the facts of 126 important nodes in time in 5 different stages, showing to the world China’s critical decisions in facing the major test of the epidemic, the critical measures it took, and the critical results it obtained. The concentrated and  clear timeline marks the arduous journey taken in China’s fight against the epidemic, and condenses the unforgettable shared memories of 1.4 billion Chinese people. China took just over a month to initially curb the epidemic’s spread, about two months to restrict the number of new cases in local areas to single digits, and three months to get decisive results in the obtain the war of defense in Wuhan, and the war of defense in Hubei. The major strategic results obtained in the battle of epidemic prevention and control  the decisive results of the war and the major strategic results of the epidemic prevention and control powerfully safeguarded the safety of people’s lives and health, and made important contributions to the maintenance of public health security both regionally and across the world. “Just as Robert Lawrence Kuhn, director of the Kuhn Foundation in the United States, has said: “In the future, historians will very likely see China’s process in fighting the Covid-19 epidemic as a global model for preventing infectious diseases.”

Through the timeline of China’s fight against the epidemic, we can clearly see the enlightened leadership and scientific decision-making of the CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core. General Secretary Xi Jinping personally commanded [the effort] and personally directed deployments, taking overall control for decisive decision-making, firmly establishing confidence for the Chinese people in the fight against the epidemic, bringing together strengths and pointing the direction. . . . As Bruce Aylward

, senior advisor to the director-general of the World Health Organization, has emphasized after having personally inspected the path of the coronavirus in China: “Behind every line are the excellent policies and decisions of China’s leaders.”

Through the timeline of China’s fight against the epidemic, we can see that everything the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government does is for the sake of the Chinese people, and all relies upon the feelings of the people and on governing concepts. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized “always putting the safety and health of the people first,” [that] “it is of top priority to do our utmost to save the lives of more patients,” [that] “winning the people’s war for epidemic prevention and control must rely on the people,” [and that] to overcome this epidemic, it is the Chinese people who give us strength and confidence.” The world has witnessed that under the bright light of the idea of putting life before all else, China has committed to the protection of the life and health of the people at all costs, resolutely determined to win the people’s war, [to win] the overall war, and [to win] the war of prevention and control. The Chinese people put a high degree of trust in the leader (领袖), and a high level of confidence in the Party and the government, which have consciously taken on the responsibilities and concerns of the nation. In the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer, the Chinese people’s confidence in China’s development in various areas steadily increased, and for the third year in a row China’s overall degree of confidence [among its population] was the highest in the world among major economies in the world, reflecting that the Chinese people, who have suffered through the epidemic, have more support and trust in the CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, and more confidence in the Chinese system.

Through the timeline of China’s fight against the epidemic, we can see China’s role and contribution in the global effort against Covid-19. China, with a law-abiding, open, transparent and responsible attitude, reported the epidemic situation at the earliest moment to the World Health Organization, and to relevant national and regional [offices]. At the earliest moment, it shared the gene sequence of the new coronavirus. At the earliest moment is carried out international cooperation in the effort to control and prevent the epidemic, and without reservation it shared its experiences in fighting and controlling the epidemic with various parties. The irrefutable facts show that China issued clear and definite information with the international community at the beginning of the epidemic; and the ‘scraping of the pot’ by certain countries to push off responsibility with accusations of [China’s] “delays” and “concealment” are outright nonsense. A number of international academic publications including the journals Nature, Science and The Lancet, have continuously for several months assessed anti-epidemic measures in China, finding that China effectively controls the epidemic situation, providing an encouraging example to other countries. The international community generally believes that China has demonstrated the role of a truly responsible major power.

The difficult struggle against the Covid-19 epidemic in China is now written into history. This is a glorious chapter for the Chinese people in the arduous struggle against epidemic [disease]. This is a magnificent scroll depicting the constant growth of the Chinese people through tribulation, their rise through misfortune. This is a powerful voice of the times speaking of the shared destiny of China and the world. The great force running through this arduous journey has been transformed into China’s firm confidence and powerful will to overcome difficult challenges, holding up China’s beautiful hope to treasure together with the world the lives and health of the people of all countries, together to treasure our common human home on earth, and together to build a community of common health for mankind (人类卫生健康共同体).  As the white paper says: “The Covid-19 epidemic has deeply impacted the progress of human development, but the longing of the people to pursue better lives has not changed, and the historical wheel of peaceful development and win-win cooperation continues to roll forward.” The Chinese people will forever remember this period in history, and will constantly draw from it wisdom and strength, working with people of all countries to create a better future for human development.

[Featured image by Gauthier Delecroix available at Flickr.com under CC license.]