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On Chinese social media, netizens are torn apart by their different views on the Ukrainian war, but under the control of the Internet, the two opinions are very different. The mainstream remarks have turned to Russia, and local people believe that this is the result of anti-American sentiment and official guidance of public opinion. The official guide has also recently posted frivolous posts on the Chinese Internet showing off the harvest of young Ukrainian beauties, causing anger and hatred in the Ukrainian society. The Chinese Internet hastily changed the trend, adding to the many Chinese people’s love for Ukraine and helping Ukraine. Posts, highlighting the lead The wind direction is rough.
The Russian-Ukrainian war has made Chinese netizens confront each other, and there are traces of speech control everywhere. According to a report by the Central News Agency today, since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, there have been hundreds to thousands of comments under each post on the official Weibo of the U.S. Embassy in China, many of which attack the United States and NATO. . They either believe that the attack on Ukraine was “harmed” by the United States, or they simply review the past attacks on Iraq by the United States. There is no shortage of errors or over-simplified information in these messages, and netizens don’t seem to mind. The focus is on venting their dissatisfaction with the United States.
The Russian-Ukrainian war is a popular topic among Chinese people, and relevant discussions can be heard on the subway and in restaurants. Recently, a video appeared on the Internet. In Shanghai Fuxing Park, two retirees started a fight for Russia and Ukraine, which they supported, and alerted the police to intervene. When a citizen shared his views on the Russian-Ukrainian war with reporters, his 86-year-old mother also sent a message, accusing the United States of “making war money” by selling weapons.
Several people in Shanghai told a reporter from the Central News Agency that during the Russian-Ukrainian war, opinions supporting Russia were indeed in the majority, and “there were many people who said what others said”; Or being surrounded and suppressed by other netizens, most of them will only appear in groups with common ideas.
Some people think that in recent years, the Sino-US trade war, the new crown pneumonia virus epidemic, coupled with the instigation of the “wolf warrior” language of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the people’s sentiment of “enemy of the United States” has increased. Affected by this, they will also think that “Russia can’t lose”.
On the Internet, many postings expressly opposing Russian aggression or criticizing Russia have been deleted. Liu Yu, an associate professor of the Department of Political Science of Tsinghua University in Beijing, wrote an old article “What brought Russia to this point”, talking about Russia’s “undemocratic democracy”. Deleted above. After some high school teachers forwarded the above article on WeChat, their students immediately left a message asking whether the teacher supported Ukraine.
The respondents believe that although the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not yet clearly supported Russia’s military operations, “the official direction of public opinion is very clear.”
On Weibo, there were several posts with the same content, using different accounts, explaining why they chose to support Russia despite their sympathy for Ukraine.
In the limited coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian war in Chinese state media, material selections very different from those of the West and pro-Western countries were also presented. For example, “Russian media article: What kind of economic retaliation from Russia scares the West”, “Russian Presidential Secretary: Putin is not an actor” and so on.
The interviewed people also noticed that after the war was not as “quick and quick” as Russia had expected, the network administrators were somewhat relaxed about supporting Ukraine’s remarks. The possible reasons for this, in addition to observing the “wind direction”, may be “the government does not want China to be clear-cut.” land in opposition to the Western world“.
The Central News Agency commented that, however, as long as speech control still plays an important role on social platforms, it means that the true public opinion in China cannot be fully presented.