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China is trying to position itself as an arbitrator in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. At the same time, the USA and NATO are portrayed as warmongers. Is China neutral?
“China stands for peace while the US is preventing the peace process”, “The actions of the US-led NATO have brought Russia-Ukraine tensions to a peak” or “Ukrainian ‘neo-Nazis’ have opened fire on Chinese students”. These are all statements made by Chinese state media or government officials regarding Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
Although Beijing presents itself as a neutral actor that respects the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations,” China provides “rhetorical support” to the Kremlin, it says a study by the US German Marshal Fund. “Chinese officials and state media have openly supported and promoted pro-Kremlin narratives about the war.” This has been the case since the beginning of the war.
Chinese state media has enabled voices close to the Kremlin, such as employees of Russian state television, to present their positions to a global audience. Chinese state media sites have more than a billion followers on Facebook alone – about ten times as many as Russian state media sites overall.
China apparently gives according to the British newspaper “The Guardian” Billions spent on Russian propaganda about the war. The Chinese state is repeating and spreading exactly the same arguments for the Ukraine war as Putin’s regime, says James Rubin, head of the Global Engagement Center, which deals with foreign propaganda. One also comes to similar results Study by the Asia Fact Check Lab, which examined Chinese and Russian narratives during the first 100 days of the war of aggression against Ukraine. China has reproduced the Russian narrative about the invasion of Ukraine and there is little difference between the Chinese and Russian representations of the war.
“China close to Russian position”
According to the German Marshall Fund, China does not speak of war or invasion, but always uses terms such as “conflict”, “special operation” or “situation”, similar to what the Kremlin did for a long time. “With regard to the war in Ukraine, China is close to the Russian position,” says Björn Alpermann, chair of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Würzburg. “The war, which is usually called a crisis or conflict in China, broke out due to NATO’s expansion. The argument is that the aggressor is not an aggressor at all, but was provoked, using a reversal of blame.”
This fits well into the Chinese narrative for two reasons, says Alpermann. Because anti-Western and, above all, anti-American narratives are constantly being spread by the Communist Party and the Chinese media. “The opportune opportunity is being used to make NATO and the USA look bad,” says Alpermann. “And on the other hand, China sees itself surrounded by the USA, similar to Russia. It’s not just about Ukraine, but of course it’s also about its own security interests.”
This is also confirmed by the evaluation of the German Marshall Fund. Narratives that oppose the USA and NATO are central to China’s disinformation strategy and are sometimes not exactly subtle. Among the most-posted and liked posts was a cartoon showing children pushing a dumpster filled with weapons with NATO signs off a cliff.
More false claims
Other conspiracy stories, such as those about the alleged US biolaboratories in Ukraine, were also widely spread. For example, the Chinese Consul General in Auckland wrote on the short message service This follows China’s claim that US bioresearch laboratories are responsible for the COVID-19 virus outbreak.
According to Asia Fact Check Lab, China has also adopted other false claims from Russia. Chinese accounts spread false claims about the sanctions imposed against Russia and shared Russia’s claims that the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha by Russian soldiers in March 2022 was faked.
After Chinese media made less mention of Ukraine or Russia since May 2022, the number jumped from February to April 2023, according to Asia Fact Check – with a new emphasis on China as a peacemaker preventing the warmongering United States from escalating the Ukraine conflict extend.
Anti-American narratives, like this Global Times cartoon, are a central part of China’s disinformation and communications strategy.
China is neutral
Nevertheless, Beijing presents itself as a neutral party: “As far as the Ukraine crisis is concerned, China has always been on the side of peace,” says an article in the English-language edition of the “Global Times”, a subsidiary of the Chinese “People’s Daily” , which in turn is the official press organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CP).
In February, China also presented a twelve-point plan for peace negotiations and a ceasefire. Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Office, emphasized in a speech that China always takes an “objective and fair position” on the Ukraine issue and promotes peace talks rather than inflaming the fighting or sending weapons to the battlefield.
Russia and China expand partnership
But there are considerable doubts about China’s neutral mediating role. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also said that he does not consider China to be credible given its supposedly neutral mediating role. China did not condemn the illegal invasion and also expanded its partnership with Russia.
China and Russia have strengthened their economic relations as a result of Western sanctions against Russia. According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, goods worth around 178 billion euros were traded last year alone.
“The opportune opportunity is being used to make NATO and the USA look bad,” says Alpermann. Cartoons like this one from the “Global Times” are exemplary.
Cooperations with established media
In order to spread its own narratives internationally, China developed a strategy years ago. “Wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are, that’s where propaganda reports must extend their tentacles,” said China’s state and party leader Xi Jinping in February 2016 Report by the non-governmental organization Freedom House It is said that China spent up to ten billion US dollars on strengthening its so-called soft power in 2017, four billion more than in 2009.
China now operates online media, TV and radio stations in several languages, including English, Spanish and French. According to the report, the Chinese government is also trying to integrate its own views into foreign media, for example through cooperation or by providing video material.
So Südwestrundfunk pulled one in 2020 Documentation about the outbreak of the corona pandemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan after it became known that film material was used by a subdivision of the Chinese State Council Information Office, which, according to media reports, also influenced the manuscript. Also on one Joint broadcast by Norddeutscher Rundfunk and the English-language channel CGTN of the Chinese state television China Central Television (CCTV) in 2017 there was criticism.
China also tried to spread its own narratives in print media – with so-called advertorials, i.e. advertising in the form of newspaper articles that have a similar format to the rest of the newspaper. Such advertorials with benevolent texts about China were published in renowned newspapers around the world, among others in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
Former politicians as Multipliers
However, since these Chinese advances met with a lot of criticism in Germany and other Western countries, China is now trying to do so more indirectly, says Kristin Shi-Kupfer, professor of Chinese studies at the University of Trier. “An attempt is being made to look for advocates who have a certain standing in the German public, for example former politicians.” It is hoped that these multipliers will win over the German public or at least certain groups to pro-government narratives.
The Freedom House report mentions, among other things, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who was in one Interview with the Reuters news agency Among other things, he described eyewitness reports about camps for the Uyghur minority in China as “gossip” and called for closer cooperation with China.
Overall, Shi-Kupfer assesses the success of China’s efforts as low, at least in liberal democracies. Things look different, for example, in authoritarian or even totalitarian states. “Even countries that are disappointed both materially and ideally by Western development aid, which is often perceived as very colonized, are more open to the Chinese narrative.” A lot also depends on whether China’s economic investments in the country as a whole are perceived as beneficial.
The Chinese “soft power” strategy is particularly problematic in the countries of the global south. “A popular narrative in China is that the West has double standards,” says Shi-Kupfer. “It is said that many liberal democracies like to criticize out of a moral high ground, but they themselves also have a lot of dirt on their hands.” This is very popular in some countries. As is the narrative that China, in contrast to the West, really cares about the global south.
Chinese companies are building infrastructure
Chinese companies are also significantly involved in expanding the media infrastructure, especially in African countries. The Chinese provider StarTimes says it has around 13 million subscribers in 30 countries on the African continent. According to reports, the package offers give preference to Chinese channels over international channels such as the BBC, for example because, in contrast to the international competition, they are already included in the cheaper basic packages.
“China also offers education and training for journalists from countries in the global south,” says Alpermann. “And there is also an attempt to establish a positive image of China among these journalists so that they can then spread it further.”
According to experts, it is difficult to measure how successful China’s measures are overall. “There are studies that show that there is already a certain influence,” says Alpermann. “But it’s not as if the Chinese narratives are now dominating opinion.” A lot depends on how receptive the recipients are to these perspectives.