China has emerged as a strong source of information and propaganda in the Kremlin for its invasion of Ukraine in February, when Beijing officials and state media echoed the Kremlin's apology for the war and often lied about the incidents while ignoring comments from Kyiv.
But Chinese state news agency Xinhua made the unusual move on April 30 to give Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba an illegal opening to criticize the Kremlin. It also allowed him to push China to play a bigger role in bringing Russia to the negotiating table and to warn of Beijing's global consequences of sticking to Moscow amid rising international pressure and collapse.
"Russia threatens the Belt and Road Initiative of Chinese leaders," Kuleba said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping's project to sign foreign policy. “This war is not in line with China's interests. The global food crisis and the economic crisis will pose a serious threat to China's economy. ”
The conversation with Kuleba came a short time later on the same day as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in which he pushed for common Russian points to talk about Ukraine driven by extremists and involved in a proxy war led by the West and Moscow.
But while separate talks do not suggest a radical change in Chinese policy, word-of-mouth publication - where they paint Russia as a threat to international stability and the unreliable Beijing coalition - marks the emerging line of Chinese propaganda during the Ukrainian crisis that gradually incorporates Ukrainian ideology while targeting the United States as the originator of the conflict.
Strengthened nearly a decade of international media cooperation including pledges signed by Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2013 and deep cooperation against the West with both leaders seen as "unlimited" friendship in February, Chinese-controlled shops helped spread the Moscow war story to their many viewers at home and abroad.
The strictly controlled Chinese media do not refer to the war as a Russian offensive and instead use the Kremlin name, calling it "special military operations." Elsewhere, Chinese stations have pushed Russian false allegations that the United States conducts bioweapons labs in Ukraine, asserted that the bombing of Mariupol Children's Hospital and the illegal killings in the city of Bucha are false, and have suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was led by US millionaire George Soros.
The Changing Line
China has one of the world's most restricted media outlets and is largely made up of government-sponsored stores, with internet and social media platforms monitored by a large screening machine that removes any information that is considered sensitive.
Since the Russian invasion on February 24, China has gone the extra mile and looked to distance itself from the Moscow war while avoiding any criticism of its actions.
Although experts say it is unlikely that Beijing will abandon Moscow as its allies, they acknowledge that Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the resulting economic and political recession are not going down well with China and that Beijing is likely to look to show growing dissatisfaction as the war shows no end signs.
But any speculation about the strength of Moscow's Beijing support seems unjustified when it comes to pro-Russian slant in China's report.
Chinese media continue to borrow its platforms to promote Russian propaganda, often citing Kremlin officials and Russian-controlled media as media, according to China Digital Times, a US-based group that monitors online analysis and Chinese interviews, too notes that stores receive standard country guidelines that guide their availability.
Beijing has remained unwavering since the beginning of the war with its line that NATO and the United States in particular are guilty of inciting Russia to attack its neighbor.
But the nature of the merger has changed during the 10 weeks of conflict. Other Chinese reports and social media posts have reported similar stories from Western media, pointing to rising humanitarian costs of the war and international organizations' efforts such as the United Nations to provide assistance. But this line is less accepted. The state-run CCTV, for example, did not mention the deaths from the Russian invasion until the third week of the war. Although Zelenskiy's criticism was minimal, so too there is talk of a Ukrainian leader. His regular speeches in Western parliaments and nighttime speeches in his country received little publicity in the state-run media instead of quoting Zelenskiy only when he criticized Western allies due to lack of power sanctions or consistent military support.
Chinese media also began to focus more on warnings about neo-Nazis in Ukraine, which has been a major part of the Kremlin's motive for the attacks. According to a website created by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a group that monitors the disinformation of China and Russia, Chinese politicians and state media have tweeted more often about neo-Nazis since the war began than six months ago. In another noteworthy example, Li Yang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, posted on Twitter a doctor's note in early April showing a group of neo-Nazis holding a swastika banner near Ukrainian and American flags. "Amazingly, the United States sided with the new Nazis! ” Yang wrote above the photo, which had a swastika flag replaced by the U.S in the first picture. That focus on the United States during the Ukrainian war has been a feature of Chinese news from the beginning, but it also seems to be the most dominant thread.
Among the reports of Russian military brutality in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, the Global Times, a state-run state newspaper, is looking to free Russia from murder and instead lay charges in Washington.
"It is unfortunate that after the disclosure of the 'Bucha incident,' [the United States], the originator of the Ukrainian crisis, showed no signs of promoting peace and dialogue, but was ready to escalate tensions between Russia and Ukraine. ”Said the editor.
Beyond the War of Words
Although the full extent of any direct conflict between China and Russia over the Ukrainian war propaganda is unclear, Beijing's support for Moscow has left it under pressure from the European Union and the United States, its two largest allies.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman accused Chinese state media of "opposing the Kremlin's disinformation" and spreading conspiracy theories in late April when the EU warned Xi and other Chinese officials during a conference in late March that its support for Russia could jeopardize the economy contact with Brussels.
China has so far shown no signs of evading Western sanctions or rushing to close the gap left by Western companies from Russia and U.S. officials told Reuters recently that they were "released" that China's economic and military support did not happen during the war.
Writing in the US Foreign Affairs article on May 2, Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at Beijing's elite Tsinghua University, wrote that the Moscow war has created a "critical situation" for China due to the escalation of international conflicts and the disruption of billions of Chinese trade dollars, but that Beijing may still remain in the Russian camp.
"China accuses the United States of offending Russia with its support for the NATO expansion and concerns that Washington will seek to extend the Ukrainian conflict to end Russia," he wrote. "Beijing sees little benefit in joining the international congress criticizing Moscow."
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