If Russian President Vladimir Putin is looking for approval for his invasion of Ukraine, he need look no further than the Chinese Internet. While the world overwhelmingly condemns Russia’s assault, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been pushing for an alternative reality with pro-Russia, pro-Putin, pro-war propaganda on its social media platforms.
However, a group of Chinese dissidents is revealing to the world Beijing’s zealous support of Russia. Naming its social media campaign the Great Translation movement, the anonymous members created a Twitter account to collect messages containing pro-Russia sentiment from state-run China Central Television, Sina Weibo and WeChat, among others, and offer translations in languages including English, Japanese and Korean.
“One could argue that the [Bucha massacre] was staged. After all, [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy is an actor doing what actors are trained to do,” one translated message said.
“At the beginning of the war, Ukrainians pretended to be corpses falling to the ground with makeup. So I am not surprised about it,” another said.
Subscribers to the dissidents’ Twitter account are encouraged to participate in the campaign by forwarding or reposting the messages on the platform of their choice. A month after its creation, the account has attracted more than 100,000 followers.
The Great Translation Movement is significant, for it unveils the CCP’s pernicious narratives, offers non-Chinese speakers an opportunity to examine many ludicrous propaganda efforts and puts a spotlight on the outcomes of CCP messaging.
The CCP aims its propaganda to international and domestic audiences. To non-Chinese speakers in the West, China is a closed book, and any discourse issued by Beijing often portrays its government as a “benevolent” and “magnanimous” entity. For those who are not familiar with the darker side of Beijing’s state propaganda, they could be misled into believing disinformation composed of obfuscation, concealment and hyperbole.
The Great Translation Movement is popping a hole in that bubble. It is exposing the true colors of the CCP’s ideologies and narratives to a worldwide audience. As social media platforms are heavily censored in China, comments and discourses that are allowed to remain online either align with the party’s ideology or work in favor of the party’s image.
However, messages discussing “sheltering Ukrainian women,” “Putin the Great” and “Ukraine deserved to be invaded” shed light on the CCP’s nationalistic ideology and anti-US stances as Beijing denies providing assistance to Russia.
Such extreme statements disclose the hard truth that China’s cyberspace only allows voices that are approved by and supportive of the CCP, while “dissident” voices are erased. Many Chinese who disagree with their government cannot make their voices heard for fear of reprisal, turning the Chinese Internet into an echo chamber, a space where the CCP’s ideology is only praised, reinforced and disseminated.
The Great Translation Movement is exposing the dark side of the CCP. It can also serve to remind people of the highly manipulative nature of online information, and how it can affect matters closer to home.
Chinese-backed platforms were spreading propaganda in favor of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) during the 2020 presidential election. To prevent such efforts from being effective in November’s mayoral elections, Taiwanese should read between the lines and beware of pro-China sentiments embedded in social media messages.
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
When China passed its “Anti-Secession” Law in 2005, much of the democratic world saw it as yet another sign of Beijing’s authoritarianism, its contempt for international law and its aggressive posture toward Taiwan. Rightly so — on the surface. However, this move, often dismissed as a uniquely Chinese form of legal intimidation, echoes a legal and historical precedent rooted not in authoritarian tradition, but in US constitutional history. The Chinese “Anti-Secession” Law, a domestic statute threatening the use of force should Taiwan formally declare independence, is widely interpreted as an emblem of the Chinese Communist Party’s disregard for international norms. Critics