It’s worth keeping track of China’s media these days to get the full measure of the moral and factual gulf that separates China from most of the rest of the world over the war in Ukraine. A few days ago, for example, when Russia was intensifying its attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine, the Global Times, the Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece, had this to say on the way the war is being waged by the Russians:
“They are a little hesitant between realizing military goals and preventing civilian casualties. They are very cautious about using heavy weapons as they don’t want to offer excuses for the West to accuse them of bombing civilian areas.”
That Vladimir Putin is “hesitant” to use heavy weapons, and is exercising humanitarian restraint to avoid civilian casualties, will no doubt be news to Ukrainians whose homes, schools and hospitals have been bombed, even as Russia has blocked evacuation routes for civilians trying to escape these bombardments.
Welcome to the parallel universe of the Chinese Communist Party, and the way the Ukraine war is being presented to its people. In most of the world — with a few exceptions — the war is being reported as a stark example of naked and unprovoked aggression; in China it’s described as a legitimate defensive response by Russia to the threat of NATO expansion, which is “the root cause” of the conflict. The Chinese media have not totally ignored the Russian bombing or the refugees fleeing their country, but its overwhelming stress is on matters such as the supposed existence of American biological warfare labs in Ukraine rather than on the sufferings of the Ukrainian civilian population.
The Chinese claim of ultimate American responsibility corresponds to the views of some western commentators that the aggressive expansion of NATO would be seen as an existential threat to Russia and was bound sooner or later to push it into a warlike response — and already did in Georgia and Crimea.
But if there’s a kernel of honest analysis to this element of China’s view of the war, it doesn’t explain or justify the Orwellian one-sidedness of the overall portrait of the horror in Ukraine that is being presented to the Chinese people.
So what else is new, one might say. This is just another example of China’s media doing what President Xi Jinping has called “a good job of telling China’s story,” which has always meant creating a moral and intellectual universe for the Chinese people distinct from the one in which the rest of us live. That’s what autocracies do. They are ventriloquists on high, requiring their media to mouth falsehoods and to repeat them as their patriotic duty.
But there’s a special feature to the Chinese media’s performance in the Ukrainian crisis, and this also relates to the underlying causes of China’s tense relations with the United States and the democratic West. One could argue that in the case of Ukraine, China ought to be a leading critic of Russia, not a parrot of the Russian point of view. Ukraine is an important part of China’s Belt and Road initiative, and the war there seriously impedes China’s goal of building trade networks with Europe.
In addition, the Russian invasion is a stark violation of one of the key principles of Chinese foreign relations: its insistence on national sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. There have been press reports speculating that Beijing is actually unhappy about the Russian invasion, and perhaps even has some regrets over the “no limits” strategic partnership that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin declared at their meeting during the winter Olympics — though the Chinese media has vehemently denied any such regrets.
But Beijing’s choice for Russia, its refusal to call an invasion an invasion, and its portrayal of Putin as a leader striving to avoid civilian casualties, all show what most fundamentally aligns the interests of the world’s two most powerful autocratic powers, China and Russia, against the United States and the West. Neither country can tell the truth about Ukraine: Because the truth is that Ukraine is a country whose demands represent the democratically-expressed will of its people. This is exactly what Russia cannot accept in Ukraine and what China cannot accept in its dealings with its supposed renegade province of Taiwan.
Neither [China nor Russia] can tell the truth about Ukraine: Because the truth is that Ukraine is a country whose demands represent the democratically-expressed will of its people.
There are, of course, other reasons for Sino-American tension — Taiwan, the South China Sea, Chinese trade practices and the like. The realist school of international relations holds that an existing hegemonic power, the United States, will always and inevitably go to great lengths to prevent an aspiring hegemon from becoming a “peer competitor,” no matter what its domestic arrangements may be.
According to this point of view, there would be disagreement over Taiwan even if China were a democracy. A democratic China, pursuing its national interest, would still want to put Taiwan under its control; and the U.S. would still oppose such a move because it would enormously enhance China’s power and erode American dominance.
Maybe so. But imagine how differently the issue would play out if China didn’t exercise the autocrat’s monopoly over information. First, Taiwan itself might be more receptive to unification with a democratic China. Second, a democratic China would be open to genuine debate, or possibly to some kind of system in which the wishes of the residents of Taiwan would be taken into account.
This might not guarantee a cordial settlement of the Taiwan issue; but if China were democratic, the odds in favor of one would be enhanced while the possibility of war would be diminished, as would tensions with the United States.
Similarly on Ukraine, think of the message the Chinese people would receive if it had a free press. They would see the heartrending pictures, such as those of the pregnant woman who died after a maternity hospital in Mariupol was bombed by Russia. They would hear that Russia’s action is an “invasion,” which can’t be admitted now because eventual Chinese military action against Taiwan might be seen as an invasion as well.
Most of all China’s people would know that Russia is violently crushing the aspirations of the Ukrainian people. They would hear President Zelensky’s defense of his country’s independence as part of the wider struggle of freedom and democracy against dictatorship. That defense has stirred people all over the world, and for that very reason, it’s a defense that China cannot allow its people to hear.
Richard Bernstein is a former reporter, culture critic, and foreign correspondent at TIME Magazine and The New York Times. He is also the author of nine books, most recently China 1945: Mao’s Revolution and America’s Fateful Choice.