fact finder
In the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, China is trying to position itself as a mediator. At the same time, the USA and NATO are portrayed as warmongers. Is China Really Neutral?
“China stands for peace while the US is preventing the peace process”, “The actions of US-led NATO have brought Russia-Ukraine tensions to a head” or “Ukrainian ‘neo-Nazis’ have opened fire on Chinese students”. These are all statements 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 is giving the Kremlin “rhetorical backing,” according to the a study by the US American foundation German Marshal Fund. “Chinese officials and state media have openly supported and encouraged pro-Kremlin accounts of the war.” This has been the case since the beginning of the war.
Chinese state media have enabled voices close to the Kremlin, such as Russian state television employees, to present their positions to a global audience. The Chinese state media sites have more than a billion followers on Facebook alone – about ten times as many as the Russian state media sites combined.
China apparently gives according to the British newspaper “The Guardian” Billions for 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 comes to similar conclusions Asia Fact Check Lab study, which examined Chinese and Russian narratives during the first 100 days of the war of aggression in Ukraine. China has reproduced the Russian narratives about the invasion of Ukraine and there is little difference between the Chinese and Russian accounts 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. “In terms of the war in Ukraine, China is close to the Russian position,” agrees 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 as a result of the expansion of NATO. It is argued with a reversal of guilt that the aggressor is not an aggressor at all, but was provoked.”
That 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 CP and the Chinese media. “The opportune opportunity is being used to make NATO and the USA look bad,” says Alpermann. “On the other hand, China sees itself surrounded by the United States, 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 Marshal Fund. Narratives opposing the US 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 gun-filled dumpster with NATO signs off a cliff.
More false claims
Other conspiracy stories, such as that of the alleged US bio-labs in Ukraine, were also widely disseminated. For example, the Chinese Consul General in Auckland wrote on the short message service X that “dozens of biological laboratories are operated on behalf of the US Department of Defense” in Ukraine and that the USA has “invested more than $200 million in the activities of these laboratories”. This follows China’s claim that US bio-research labs are to blame for the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.
According to Asia Fact Check Lab, China has also adopted other false claims from Russia. For example, Chinese accounts spread false claims about the sanctions imposed on Russia and shared Russian claims that the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha by Russian soldiers in March 2022 was fabricated.
After Chinese media made less mention of Ukraine or Russia since May 2022, the number skyrocketed 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 taking on 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 publication of the Chinese “People’s Daily”. , which in turn is the official press organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CP).
In addition, China presented a twelve-point plan for peace negotiations and a ceasefire in February. Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said in a speech that China always takes an “objective and fair position” on the Ukraine issue and promotes peace talks rather than fueling the struggle or sending weapons onto the battlefield.
Russia and China expand partnership
But there are serious doubts about China’s neutral mediation role. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also said that he did not consider China to be credible in view of the supposedly neutral role of mediator. China has not condemned the illegal invasion and has also expanded its partnership with Russia.
Because 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.
Cooperation 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 have to stretch out their tentacles,” China’s state and party leader Xi Jinping said 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 so-called soft power in 2017, four billion more than in 2009.
China now operates online media, TV and radio stations in multiple 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 the provision of video material.
So Südwestrundfunk pulled one in 2020 Documentary about the outbreak of the corona pandemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan after it became known that footage was used by a sub-department of the Chinese State Council Information Office, which media reports also had an influence on the manuscript. Also on one joint broadcast by Norddeutscher Rundfunk with the English-language channel CGTN of 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 layout to the rest of the newspaper. Such advertorials with benevolent texts about China were placed in well-known newspapers all over the world, among others in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
Former politicians as multipliers
However, since these Chinese advances in Germany and other Western countries met with a lot of criticism, China is now trying more indirect ways, says Kristin Shi-Kupfer, Professor of Sinology at the University of Trier. “An attempt is made to find 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 others, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who in a Interview with the Reuters news agency among other things, described the reports of eyewitnesses about camps for the Uyghur minority in China as “chatter” and campaigned for closer cooperation with China.
Overall, Shi-Kupfer assesses the success of the Chinese efforts, at least in the liberal democracies, as low. Things are different, for example, in authoritarian or even totalitarian states. “Even countries that are disappointed, both materially and morally, with development aid from the West, which is often perceived as very colonialized, are more open to Chinese narratives.” A lot also depends on whether China’s economic investments in the country are perceived as beneficial overall.
The Chinese “soft power” strategy is particularly effective in the countries of the Global South. “A popular narrative in China is that the West uses double standards,” says Shi-Kupfer. “It has been said that while many liberal democracies like to criticize out of moral superiority, they also have a lot of dirt on their own.” This is very popular in some countries. As does the narrative that, unlike the West, China 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. According to the Chinese provider StarTimes, it has around 13 million subscribers in 30 countries on the African continent. According to reports, the Chinese channels are preferred to international channels such as the BBC in the package offers, for example because, unlike international competitors, 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 anchor a positive image of China in these journalists so that they can then spread the word.”
According to experts, it is difficult to measure how successful China’s measures are overall. “There are studies that show that there is a certain influence,” says Alpermann. “But it’s not as if the Chinese narratives are going to dominate opinion either.” A lot depends on how receptive the recipients are to these perspectives.