I’ve said for years that China and Russia were going to have to start playing the game that the West plays, and start getting involved in their business, making statements about the way Western countries abuse their own people.
For example:
- China is accused of censoring free speech. This one is very easy, as the West censors much more than China. China should call out the imprisonment of political dissidents in Europe, and the censoring and suing of dissidents in America.
- China is accused of human rights abuses. The West engages in torture in its prisons, and managed to turn Bradley Manning into a tranny. China should call out the brutality of the US prison system, and the bizarre way they’ve enforced this coronavirus hoax.
- China is accused of not having democracy. Well, we just had a completely fake election. Europe regularly outlaws political parties that oppose the system.
They haven’t started that yet, but they did just call out Australia for so-called “human rights abuses” in Afghanistan.
They posted a meme with an Australian soldier holding a knife to a Moslem kid’s throat, with the caption, “don’t be afraid, we are coming to bring you peace!”
Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, &call for holding them accountable. pic.twitter.com/GYOaucoL5D
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) November 30, 2020
That caption is obviously machine translated, and I would have went with something more like, “negate to skip the pond, I am the ocean breeze.” But the message is clear.
The meme comes as the Australian government is accusing its own soldiers (probably falsely) of committing various human rights abuses in Afghanistan.
Shockingly, the West attacked China for the meme itself.
A visibly angry Scott Morrison: “the Chinese government should be ashamed of this post”
PM says Australia is seeking an apology, wants China to remove it, and has contacted Twitter to have it removed
Calls it a “slur” https://t.co/sWs8fuN7ms pic.twitter.com/oxrXuWSsJo
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) November 30, 2020
Australian president Scott Morrison said: “It is a false image, and a terrible slur on our great defense forces and the men and women who’ve served in that uniform for over 100 years.” Remember: it is the Australian government who accused Australian troops of these crimes. The allegations did not originate in China.
He also demanded that Twitter, an American company, censor this post from the Chinese, a people that are constantly accused of censorship.
Hilariously, Scott Morrison attacked China over free speech just earlier this month.
There is a lot of layered idiocy involved here, frankly. While I do not agree with the Australian government’s decision to call out their own soldiers as human rights abusers, after it was the Australian government that sent them to Afghanistan to kill Moslems for the Jews, it was clearly morally wrong to go into Afghanistan and kill all these people. The soldiers didn’t start the war, but the war did happen. It’s still happening, in fact, nearly two decades later.
Then when China simply mentions these claims of the Australian government, Morrison hides behind the soldiers he himself had blamed for the Afghanistan war.
Publicly demanding that China’s political speech be censored on an international platform after having spent years attacking China for censoring political speech takes it into the realm of parody. It just makes it so blatant that these people are not arguing principles at all, but simply claiming that China should be required to allow foreign actors to spread anti-government propaganda in their country.
So: big win by the Chinese here.
If you’re wondering what the point of such a victory is: it’s mostly just signal jamming and creating chaos within the Western narrative machine, but along with that, it provides third parties an opportunity to back away. Right now, the narrative is that China and Russia are evil, and the reason this is the narrative is largely that China and Russia accept it as the narrative. The US government and its allies are a lot easier to frame as villainous than the Chinese government.
More than anything, I just want to see China call out the US on the free speech thing. It’s such an easy shot to take. “We restrict certain anti-government materials distributed by foreign actors, whilst you censor half your population for asking questions about an election!”