Over 10,000 Chinese were in Ukraine when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The “unlimited friendship” announced between the two countries by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping three weeks before the invasion did not prevent the Chinese people from suddenly finding themselves in a war zone. .
China’s leadership seemed as surprised by Russia’s aggression as the rest of the world, but the shock was not, then, nor is it now condemnation of Russia’s actions.
Days after the invasion, China’s state-owned newspaper, People’s Daily, posted a message on China’s social media platform, Weibo.
The People’s Daily, like most of China’s new media, was by then united behind Russia and its war in Ukraine.
More than a year later, Chinese media coverage of the war still strongly reflects the Moscow narrative, sometimes down to mere copy-paste of Russian war propaganda.
Yu-Ling Song*, 24, from Xiamen, told Al Jazeera:
Song said there is a version of the war reported by Chinese media and the Chinese and a very different version reported by Western media and her Western friends.
“It confused her a lot,” she added.
various media realities
Xingyi Lin from Shanghai hasn’t completely given up on trying to understand the situation in Ukraine. But she concluded that when it comes to war, China exists in an information bubble cut off from the rest of the world.
“I don’t think the majority of Chinese people are aware of it because they either don’t pay attention to the war or they only get news from the Chinese media,” she told Al Jazeera.
“But if you can look beyond the firewall, [a term used to describe China’s draconian censoring of the internet]we see the war being told very differently and reported very differently in the international and western media,” she told Al Jazeera.
Early in the invasion, China’s state broadcaster CCTV claimed the United States funded the development of biological weapons in Ukrainian laboratories. It was also reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fled Kiev following the first wave of Russian attacks.
Chinese media have since dug up Russia’s claims that reports of the torture and killing of Ukrainian civilians in the town of Bucha near Kiev were “fake news.”
All the while, the invasion was called a “special military operation”, as was the Russian media.
Despite repeated statements by Chinese leaders that China is a neutral country in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the country’s state media are far from unbiased observers of the conflict.
Originally from Guangzhou, Brian Tan gets his latest information about the war mainly through foreign media.
According to the 33-year-old man, this means he can’t discuss war with most people in his life. Because they mainly get their information from Chinese TV and Chinese online news. he has
“That means not only different opinions, but different realities,” says Tang.
“What’s the point?” he asked rhetorically.
“Your post could be censored and your account suspended, or worse.”
In the early days of the war, several Chinese celebrities and university professors shared critical views of the Russian aggression, but their posts were quickly censored and some had their social media accounts deleted.
A big goose becomes a weak goose
But despite the censorship and information bubble, Lin and Tang noticed a shift in how China’s social media dealt with the Russian aggression.
Lin saw some anti-war remarks on Chinese social media when the war broke out, but most of the posts she read were pro-Russian and anti-Western.
“I think there are more posts and comments that are critical of Russia now than there used to be, and they also take longer to be removed by censors,” Lin said.
Lin and Tan have also seen a shift in the online debate about war, with the term “weak goose” becoming more prevalent in posts and comments on Chinese platforms.China means “Russia” Russia is often unofficially referred to as the “big goose” in China due to the similarity between the word and the word meaning “goose”.
“When Russia first attacked Ukraine, people thought Russia was very strong and Ukraine very weak, so everyone heard that Russia would soon win,” Tan explained.
However, as the Russian attack soon stalled, it turned out that the “big goose” was not as powerful as had been imagined, and was in fact the “weak goose”.
With or without censorship, it’s clear to most people that the war isn’t going well for Russia, and some Chinese have given up support.
“They expected a short war, but now no one knows how long it will last,” she said.
As the war drags on, Tang believes that what is posted on Chinese social media or reported by Chinese news media will become less and less important.
“In the end, the Chinese would just want the war to end,” he said.
*The names of the interviewees have been changed to comply with the request for anonymity.
