Media Archives - Friends of Socialist China

China: what’s real and what’s American propaganda

FoSC co-editor Danny Haiphong appeared on the Revolutionary Blackout Network to dissect anti-China propaganda. The discussion spent ample time on the complexities of censorship and free speech, two allegations against China often employed by the West to undermine its socialist project.

How two US athletes effortlessly subverted information war against the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Our Co-Editor Danny Haiphong, in a piece originally published on The Chronicles of Haiphong, deftly takes down the malicious coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics by the US media, from the overtly white supremacist to the supposedly liberal and progressive. He shows how two honest US sportspeople, Tessa Maud and Aaron Blunk, without making any overtly political comments, but simply by telling the truth and honestly relating their own experiences, have rendered a great service to the cause of peace and friendship among peoples. As Danny notes: “Humanizing China represents a direct threat to the New Cold War agenda.”

Few events have been more politicized than the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. New cold warriors and atrocity propagandists led by the United States did everything in their power to generate popular support for a full boycott of the Games. NED-backed organizations formed a coalition for the cause, the corporate media engaged in a full-scale “China bad” propaganda blitz, and the political establishment got busy crafting several pieces of legislation to respond to the so-called “China threat.” Their efforts failed. To save face, the U.S. implemented a non-consequential “diplomatic boycott” that found support from only a handful of junior partners in the West.

However, failure didn’t put an end to the U.S.-led information war at the heart of the boycott campaign. American and Western mainstream journalists attending the Games have used the opportunity to intensify the spread of anti-China propaganda. Chinese American skier Eileen Gu has been repeatedly targeted for choosing to represent China. Her decision triggered an intense backlash rooted in racist attitudes which are prevalent across the U.S. political spectrum. Eileen Gu was repeatedly labeled a traitor to the United States and even The Nation, a so-called “progressive” media outlet, was willing to publish an article citing a literal white supremacist organization just to defame her.

Danny Haiphong and Richard Medhurst explode anti-China myths

In this detailed interview with independent journalist Richard Medhurst, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong explores the intense anti-China propaganda surrounding the Beijing Winter Olympics. Danny connects this propaganda to the broader context of the US-led New Cold War, being waged in large part to contain China and to prevent the emergence of a multipolar, democratic system of international relations in which the US can no longer maintain its political and economic hegemony. Danny and Richard specifically address the accusations around cultural genocide in Xinjiang; Eileen Gu’s decision to represent China at the Olympics; the so-called disappearance of Peng Shuai; and China’s Zero Covid strategy.

Bigotry Unbound: the US media’s anti-China propaganda blitz

We are pleased to republish this article from US novelist and journalist Eve Ottenberg, originally carried on Counterpunch, in which she exposes how the racist, anti-communist, and at times downright fascist anti-China propaganda of important sections of the US media fuels both murderous racism at home and the danger of catastrophic war abroad.

Hate crimes against Asian Americans mushroomed over the past two years. According to the Guardian, they jumped 567 percent in San Francisco since 2021, and you don’t have to look far to find out why. The main reason is, quite simply, incessant China-bashing in the mainstream media. This propaganda campaign was kicked off by Trump in his last year in office with absurd, dangerous and bombastic claims that China, perhaps deliberately, caused covid. The anti-China hysteria spread like measles. Now the American right-wing deploys Nazi tropes against the Chinese – a repulsive example was a January 25 Washington Times article headlined “Chinese Communist Party Termites Are Everywhere in the U.S.” With Nazi poison like this circulating through red-blooded American veins, can war fever be far behind?

Meanwhile news industry giants, many serving as pentagon mouthpieces, are totally onboard with this media blitzkrieg. One of the most atrocious instigators is the New York Times. Take its so-called coverage of China’s superior covid policies, “reporting” so slanted you could roll a truckload of innuendos down it.

Unlike the incompetent, murderous, free-market, anti-public health non-system in the U.S., which has killed 900,000 people in a population of 330 million, China, population 1.4 billion, has contained covid deaths to a mere several thousand. These statistics reflect very poorly on our vaunted capitalist arrangement. Indeed, many Americans have been shocked by the comparison of their inept, homicidal health care scheme to communism’s stellar success. So, in jumps the Times January 13 with a crude philippic, trashing China for saving lives from the virus and, drumroll… you got it, suggesting China’s Zero Covid policy can be compared to the Holocaust.

The US Left’s China exception: the case of Dave Zirin

We are very pleased to publish this important article by our co-editor Danny Haiphong, originally published on The Chronicles of Haiphong. Using the Beijing Winter Olympics as his starting point, Danny outlines how even some of the most respected voices on the American left have a tendency to drop their progressive values when it comes to China. Danny identifies this as the China Exception. Whilst doubtless a play on the concept of American Exceptionalism, the phenomenon identified and analysed by Danny can also be seen in other imperialist countries, not least in Britain.

I like Dave Zirin. I really do. Zirin is one of the few journalists who analyzes sports from a leftists perspective. His work generally brings a refreshing take on the ways race and class impact one of the most widely consumed areas of popular culture. This article is not a polemic of Zirin’s body of work but rather a demonstration of a troubling trend.

With that said, Zirin and his colleague Jules Boykoff at The Nation have repeatedly demonstrated what I call the China Exception on the American Left. The China Exception is the tendency for even principled left activists and journalists to make critical concessions to the U.S. establishment on the question of China. Those who commit to the China Exception repeat the subtle yet dangerous aspects of the U.S.’s New Cold War propaganda while claiming to be opposed to a “hot war” with China. The conclusion is always that is bad and doesn’t deserve solidarity from the American Left—not even in the form of concrete opposition to U.S. aggression.

Eileen Gu doesn’t care what you think – and no one else should, either

We are pleased to republish this article by Ian Goodrum, originally published in China Daily on 9 February 2022, comprehensively exposing the stark hypocrisy of those criticising Eileen Gu (Gu Ailing) for choosing to compete for China in the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Since she was 15, Eileen Gu (Gu Ailing) has had a target on her back.

The US-born freestyle skier of Chinese heritage announced in 2019 she would be competing for the People’s Republic at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, a decision met with enthusiasm in China — for obvious reasons — but intense animosity on the other side of the Pacific. On social media, vile comments flooded in calling her every name under the sun. Gu was ungrateful, they said, and had spurned the country they felt was entitled to her labor.

That already venomous response shifted into overdrive this week, when Gu, now 18, won gold in women’s freeski big air. Her miraculous run included a career-first 1620 in competition, barely edging out her nearest opponent and sending her name into the stratosphere.

Book review: Uyghurs – to put an end to fake news

We are pleased to republish this summary of the French-language book, ‘Uyghurs: To put an end to fake news’, reviewed by Roger Keenan on the website Marxism-Leninism Today. Written by Maxime Vivas, a writer, journalist and former postal worker, the book refutes new cold war propaganda and presents the true situation, based on the author’s research as well as his travel to Xinjiang.

The United States government is ratcheting up a cold war against China. The Biden administration’s agreement to supply Australia with nuclear submarines, its decision to create a new department in the CIA aimed at countering China, and its recent decision to impose a diplomatic boycott on the Chinese Winter Olympics are just three recent signs of the aggressive posture taken by the U.S. in the new cold war. A key part of the new cold war is a tidal wave of ideological attacks on China aimed at showing that China is a threat—to human rights, democracy, women’s rights, labor rights, and American security. All of this is geared to justify American belligerence toward China and generate support for this belligerence and a frightened public’s willingness to pay for it. (Recently the Senate passed a bill previously passed by the House calling for $768 billion appropriation of Defense Department, $24 billion more than either Biden or the Pentagon sought.) A centerpiece of this ideological offensive that the mass media amplifies on a daily basis is that China is committing genocide against its Moslem Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang autonomous region.

Even though most politicians, as well as the general population, have no idea who the Uyghurs are, where Xinjiang is on a map, what Chinese policy toward the Uyghurs is, or even how to pronounce Uyghur, they buy the idea of Uyghur genocide. The widespread ignorance makes Maxime Vivas’s book so valuable. Vivas not only provides a primer on the Uyghurs and Xinjiang, but also explains the Chinese policy in Xinjiang, and makes a forceful argument that the charge of genocide is of apiece with other lies like those about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that serve to justify American imperial belligerence.

Justin Podur: Why comparing Chinese Africa investment to Western colonialism Is no joke

We are very pleased to reproduce this article from FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) in which Justin Podur dissects a recent broadcast by South African comedian Trevor Noah, which made facile claims that China was colonising Africa. Whilst not hesitating to acknowledge shortcomings and mistakes, Podur presents a detailed refutation of Noah’s claims and, in so doing, draws apt comparisons between China’s contributions to Africa’s development and the truly murderous and rapacious history of imperialism and colonialism on the continent.

“Why China Is in Africa” (12/16/21) is a question Trevor Noah took up last month for Comedy Central‘s Daily Show. As with many of the topics taken up by the Daily Show, the issue is no joke: China has a large and growing economic presence in many African countries. The China/Africa deals cry out for analysis: Are they different from the deals on offer from Western countries like the US, Britain or France?

Post-independence Africa’s economic relationship with the West has been mediated through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Funding for projects comes with a range of conditionalities; when Western loans come due, the IMF demands painful cuts to health and education programs as the price of refinancing. In the past, the IMF has taken outright control of African governments. At other times, the US has sponsored coups, assassinated leaders and fomented civil wars on the continent.

US media attacks China’s Covid-19 policies for saving lives, while Americans die

Republished below is a detailed and valuable article by Joe Scholten comparing the Covid-19 suppression strategies employed in the US and China, and exposing the absurdity of the US media which, instead of trying to learn something from China’s success in saving millions of lives, disparages and condemns it. This article first appeared in Multipolarista.

The People’s Republic of China has a population of more than 1.4 billion people, yet has had fewer than 6,000 Covid-19 deaths in the entirety of its territory. The Western press corps insists this is a bad thing.

The New York Times published an opinion piece on January 25 titled “China’s Zero Covid Policy is a Pandemic Waiting to Happen.” In this article, the authors argue that the pandemic will inevitably become endemic, and that the Chinese policy of eradicating Covid has “set the nation up for disaster.”

This proposal made in the New York Times opinion page is lunacy. In the two weeks leading up to the opinion piece, there were two days in which the United States saw more than a million daily Covid cases (January 18 and 24). From January 4 to 31, the US did not have a seven-day average below half a million cases.

While China successfully battles Covid, the US targets China and loses the battle against Covid

We are pleased to republish this article by Scott Scheffer in Struggle/La Lucha, cutting through the anti-China propaganda in relation to the struggle against Covid-19. Scott focuses on the story of Zhang Zhan, an anti-communist crusader and cause celebre of the Western media, who wilfully spread malicious slander about the Wuhan lockdown. Journalists and politicians in the West have leveraged this slander to vilify China’s dynamic Zero Covid strategy – a strategy that has saved several millions of lives in China and that countries such as the US and Britain could and should have learned from.

The U.S. media is spreading a message that the omicron variant of COVID-19 may be the final wave in the pandemic that has taken 5.63 million lives globally, and 875,000 in the U.S. – the U.S. has the highest death toll in the world.

Even as the death count in areas of the U.S. is rising as predicted by epidemiologists and virologists, a pro-business push to herd people back to work and students back to in-person classes is underway. The push has been embraced by the Centers for Disease Control, and by Biden’s Chief Medical Adviser, Anthony Fauci.

While omicron’s symptoms may be less severe than the delta variant, it is still a killer and is currently averaging 2,200 deaths per day throughout the country. Because it infects people so much more efficiently than previous variants, according to a Jan. 24 Reuters article, “The omicron death toll has now surpassed the height of deaths caused by the more severe delta variant when the seven-day average peaked at 2,078 on Sept. 23 last year.”

NYT equates China’s health workers with Adolf Eichmann

In the infamous words of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

It would seem that this maxim has been taken to heart by the editors of the New York Times. Every day, this dependable mouthpiece of the US ruling class pumps out a steady diet of increasingly deranged anti-China articles. However, on 13th January, they excelled themselves with a new low – a front page story despicably comparing the public health and medical personnel, who have been bravely fighting an outbreak of Covid in the Chinese city of Xian, to Adolf Eichmann, a key architect of the Holocaust.

We are pleased to publish this excellent and succinct rebuttal of this ‘big lie’ by John Walsh, originally carried by Asia Times. John was until recently a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the US.

In a article on the front page of The New York Times on January 13, reporter Li Yuan equated the public health and medical personnel behind China’s successful battle against Covid-19 in the city of Xian to Adolf Eichmann, a principal architect of the Holocaust. The article’s opening sentence views these personnel as typical of “the millions of people who work diligently toward” containing Covid-19 in China.

The anti-Covid campaign in Xian, a city of 13 million, has terminated the spread of Covid-19 without a single death and limited its spread to about 2,000 cases. The Nazi Holocaust designed and managed by Eichmann resulted in the extermination of millions of Jews.

The piece takes aim at the millions of Chinese who have worked tirelessly to do the rapid mass testing, tracing, quarantining and vaccinations and to staffing the lockdowns including ensuring that those under lockdown were supplied with necessities of life.

How to satisfy the US Empire: smear the left, demonize China

In this article, first published on The Chronicles of Haiphong, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong responds to David Klion’s latest report in The Nation, which seeks to demonize China and smear the Western anti-imperialist and pro-socialist movement, within a supposedly left-liberal framework. Danny notes correctly: “Real leftists understand that the American Empire is the biggest obstacle in the way of human progress. They don’t ask, ‘what should the Left do about China?’ Rather, they pose the question, ‘How can the Left develop solidarity with China and the Chinese people in the global struggle against imperialism and oppression of all kinds?'”

Many on the so-called “left” view China and the U.S. as equally oppressive and imperialist in character. This is a historic trend dating back to the Cold War which divided the Western left into a variety of camps. One of these camps was the “Neither Washington nor Moscow” consortium of social democrats and liberals who saw the Soviet Union as an imperialist force unworthy of defense from U.S. aggression. Such a position fit neatly into Washington’s larger imperialist designs and provided cover for the ideological onslaught of anti-communism.

A recent report in The Nation demonstrates how the slogan “Neither Washington nor Moscow” has been replaced with “Neither Washington nor Beijing.” The author, David Klion, concludes that leftists are currently divided into two camps on the question of China: those “apologists” who prioritize peace and critics of China who prioritize “human rights.” Klion closes with a citation from Lausan, a collective that supposedly supports a “decolonial” framework on Hong Kong yet has routinely characterized any leftist opposition to the Western narrative on China as “fascist” or “tankie.”

Quote: The detention of Julian Assange shows the reality of ‘freedom of speech’ in the West

It seems that anyone can enjoy freedom of the press and freedom of speech as long as they refrain from criticizing or disclosing the unspeakable crimes committed by the US. Otherwise, they may end up behind bars like Julian Assange. When the US next calls for safeguarding freedom of the press and freedom of speech, people will remember what happened to Mr Assange.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on December 13, 2021

Wang Wenbin speaks on Julian Assange and the outrageous hypocrisy of the West's freedom of speech narrative.

"It seems anyone can enjoy freedom of the press and freedom of speech as long as they refrain from criticizing or disclosing the unspeakable crimes committed by the US." pic.twitter.com/1WCbaueK43
— Friends of Socialist China (@socialist_china) December 13, 2021

‘The country that bombed you is your friend. The one that built your new railway is your enemy’

We are pleased to republish this article by Tom Fowdy, originally carried by RT. The author calls out the grotesque hypocrisy of imperialist criticism of China for having built a high speed railway to Vientiane, the capital of Socialist Laos – a small country on which the United States dropped more bombs than were dropped in the whole of World War II, killing some 10% of the population and making it the most bombed country in history.

This is the Western media’s bizarre messaging to the people of Laos, a nation that was carpet bombed by America, and which is now being vilified for accepting a new $9 billion railway line paid for by China.

Thursday was National Day in Laos, a celebration marking 46 years since the landlocked Southeast Asian nation deposed its monarchy and became a revolutionary communist state, an effort which was supported by Vietnam.

This year, the anniversary had added significance, as it saw the opening of a major new project, an electrified high-speed and freight railway system connecting the capital city, Vientiane with its northern neighbour, China.

Danny Haiphong: The fake Peng Shuai scandal is part of US efforts to disrupt Beijing Winter Olympics

The following article by Danny Haiphong, originally published in MintPress News, takes a detailed look at the recent story of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, who was alleged to have ‘disappeared’ in early November after posting allegations of sexual assault against former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. Danny exposes the absurdly sensationalized version of the story that appeared in the Western press, and shows how it is feeding into US efforts to demonize China and disrupt the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

The New York Times reported on November 3 that Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai had published allegations of sexual assault against former Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China Zhang Gaoli on the social media platform Weibo. Peng’s post was deleted within 24 hours. This led to a firestorm of speculation in U.S. corporate media about Shuai’s “safety” and whether the tennis star had gone missing. The hashtag #WhereisPengShuai went viral 10 days later after the CEO of the World Tennis Association (WTA), Steve Simon, called on Chinese authorities to investigate the situation. Prominent celebrities and tennis players such as Serena Williams also went public with their concern for Peng.

Lee Camp interviews Li Jingjing on Western misconceptions about China

Comedian and activist Lee Camp interviewed CGTN journalist and vlogger Li Jingjing on his program Redacted Tonight about common Western misconceptions about China. Highlighted in the interview is the importance of Chinese voices in countering the propaganda war and how these voices have been silenced and ignored by Western media.

Chen Weihua: US should correct wrongs by ending propaganda war against China

We are pleased to republish this article by Chen Weihua, chief of China Daily EU Bureau, originally published in China Daily on 15 October 2021. The article is based on the author’s speech at our recent webinar, The Propaganda War Against China. The video of the speech is embedded below the article.

For decades, US politicians have been engaging in smear campaigns against China, an apt example being the reckless China bashing in almost every presidential campaign. The propaganda war against China escalated after the Donald Trump administration took power and further intensified when it launched all-out trade, tech and ideological wars against China, reversing decades of US policy.

The Joe Biden administration has not withdrawn those disastrous Trump policies despite criticizing them during his presidential campaign. Although the Biden administration comprises many officials from the Barack Obama administration, its China policy resembles more that of the Trump era than Obama’s presidency. And it includes the relentless propaganda war against China.

Danny Haiphong on the collapse of the ‘Uyghur genocide’ narrative

On October 10th, the Associated Press released a report that walked back Western media claims of a “genocide” in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In the video embedded below, FoSC co-editor Danny Haiphong reviews this and other sensational claims about human rights in China to set the record straight.

Event report: Oppose the propaganda war against China

On Saturday 9 October, Friends of Socialist China held a webinar focused on opposing the propaganda warfare being waged by the US and its allies against the People’s Republic of China. The event was co-sponsored by the Morning Star, the Grayzone, Pivot to Peace, the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, the International Manifesto Group, and Qiao Collective. The full webinar (along with individual speech videos) can be watched on our YouTube channel. Below we provide a summary of the proceedings, written by Carlos Martinez.

Introducing the event, Radhika Desai (Professor of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group) pointed out that, on the left, the most fundamental lie about China is that it is not building socialism but rather that it is just another capitalist country, indeed a particularly brutal capitalist country. Once this untruth is accepted, China can be treated as an enemy of progressive humanity – successes can be ignored, weaknesses exaggerated and accusations hurled.

For decades, the West constructively engaged with China at an economic and diplomatic level. But the capitalist powers were suffering under two illusions: first, that the Communist Party of China would transform itself into a social democratic or even a neoliberal party that would lead China towards the type of financialised, neoliberal, unproductive capitalism that prevails in the West; second, that China would remain on the bottom rung of the global economic ladder, providing low-cost manufacturing for goods consumed in the West.

Charles McKelvey summary of the ‘Propaganda War against China’ webinar

Many thanks to Charles McKelvey for attending and taking detailed notes on our recent webinar, The Propaganda War Against China. We reproduce his blog post below.

On October 9, the Friends of Socialist China sponsored a zoom event on the Propaganda War against China. The event was co-sponsored by Morning Star, the Grayzone, Pivot to Peace, the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, the International Manifesto Group, and the Qiao Collective.

The event was moderated by Radhika Desai, Professor of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada; and Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group. In her introduction to the panel, she noted that propaganda is dehumanizing, in that it portrays peoples and nations in ways that deny their humanity. Propaganda is always based on lies, and the biggest lie about China is the denial of the fundamental fact that China has been developing with continuity its socialist project for seven decades. The anti-China propaganda disseminates the false claim that, with the Reform and Opening that was initiated in 1978, China abandoned socialism for capitalism.