Breaking: China Refuses to Apologize for Meme After Australia Demands Meme Apology

This is absolutely idiotic: the Australian government accused their own soldiers of committing “war crimes,” then China made a meme about this claim by the Australian government, and the Australian government demanded that China be censored for attacking their soldiers.

China isn’t apologizing.

NPR:

China is deepening its spat with Australia, refusing to apologize after a government official posted an altered image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to a young Afghan boy’s throat. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had asked for an apology; instead, a Chinese government representative excoriated Australia for its troops’ alleged brutality in Afghanistan.

“The Australian side has been reacting so strongly to my colleague’s tweet,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said during a briefing Monday. “Why is that? Do they think that their merciless killing of Afghan civilians is justified but the condemnation of such ruthless brutality is not? Afghan lives matter!”

Hua was referring to a tweet by Zhao Lijian, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson known for his controversial statements, in which Zhao posted the heavily manipulated image and wrote, “Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, &call for holding them accountable.”

Calling a meme a “heavily manipulated image” may be the single weirdest euphemism yet.

But I like it enough that my own personal meme folder is now labeled “heavily manipulated images.”

Zhao pinned the message to the top of his Twitter feed; the social media company has obscured the image with a warning that it contains “potentially sensitive content,” but it did not remove the tweet, as Morrison says he requested.

called the tweet repugnant, outrageous and offensive, adding, “The Chinese Government should be totally ashamed of this post.”

Morrison asked China to apologize, saying his government has conveyed its displeasure through China’s ambassador in Canberra, through foreign relations and trade channels and through Australia’s ambassador in Beijing.

Hua referred to “heinous crimes committed by some Australian soldiers in Afghanistan” and said Australia owes the Afghan people a formal apology. She did not mention that the head of the Australian Defence Force, Gen. Angus Campbell, apologized this month for his soldiers’ conduct when he announced the findings of a years-long investigation into alleged wartime abuses and crimes.

“I sincerely and unreservedly apologize for any wrongdoing by Australian soldiers,” Campbell said when the report was released. The military has also recommended a criminal investigation into 19 soldiers over their roles in the killing of 39 Afghans.

What a convoluted and confusing mess.

China played it really well. It doesn’t take much to show how absurdly hypocritical the West is when dealing with the Middle East, with China, or with their own soldiers. It’s so funny to see China wreaking havoc with memes.

I was outraged when Australia accused their own soldiers of war crimes. It’s such an absurd situation: the Australian government sends boys over to some shithole country to kill people for more or less no reason, then they come out and say: “you killed them too hard! You are pure evil!”

The war crimes are done by the Jews who start these wars in the first place. A young guy who is sent over to one of these shitholes to fight and die for Jews is just doing his best to stay alive. Individual soldiers on the ground should always be above reproach. If they kill someone too hard, it is the fault of somehow higher up the chain, period.

These boys didn’t start these wars, had no role in planning them on any level, and they have enough issues to deal with without some rich asshole in an office accusing them of not killing the enemies of the Jews gently enough.