Is China really neutral when it comes to the war in Ukraine?

"China advocates for peace while the US obstructs the peace process", "US-led NATO actions have led to the height of tensions between Russia and Ukraine" or "Ukrainian 'neo-Nazis' have opened fire on Chinese students" - these are all statements Chinese state media or government officials connected to Russia's war against Ukraine.

Although Beijing presents itself as a neutral actor that respects the "sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations", China gives the Kremlin "rhetorical support", according to a study by the American German Marshal Fund. The study states that Chinese officials and state media openly supported and encouraged reports of the war in line with Kremlin policy. This has been the case, according to the study, since the very beginning of the war.

Chinese state media has allowed voices close to the Kremlin, such as employees of Russian state television, to present their views to a global audience. Chinese state media sites have more than a billion followers on Facebook alone - roughly ten times more than Russian state media sites combined.

According to the British The Guardian, China is apparently spending billions on Russian propaganda about the war. "The Chinese state is repeating and promoting exactly the same arguments for the war in Ukraine as the Putin regime," said James Rubin, head of the Global Engagement Center, which deals with foreign propaganda. A study by Asia Fact Check Labs, which examined Chinese and Russian reports during the first 100 days of war of aggression against Ukraine, comes to similar conclusions. "China has reproduced Russian narratives about the invasion of Ukraine, and there is little difference between Chinese and Russian accounts of the war," the study said.

 

"China close to Russia's position"

 

According to the German Marshall Fund, China does not talk about war or invasion, but always uses terms such as "conflict", "special operation" or "situation", similar to what the Kremlin has done for a long time. "When it comes to the war in Ukraine, China is close to Russia's position," says Björn Alpermann, head of the chair for contemporary Chinese studies at the University of Würzburg. "The war, which in China is usually called a crisis or a conflict, broke out as a result of the expansion of NATO. By reversing the roles, it is argued that the aggressor is not an aggressor at all, but that he was provoked," says Alpermann.

This fits well with the Chinese narrative for two reasons, says Alpermann. Because anti-Western and, above all, anti-American theses are constantly being spread by the Communist Party and the Chinese media. "Opportunities are being used to portray NATO and the US in a bad light," says Alpermann. "On the other hand, China sees itself surrounded by the presence of the United States of America, similar to Russia. It is not only about Ukraine, he says, but of course also about China's security interests.

 

This is confirmed by the assessment of the German Marshal Fund. Narratives opposing the US and NATO are central to China's disinformation strategy and are sometimes not very subtle, according to the organization. As further reported, among the posts that were most shared and liked, there is an animation showing children pushing a container full of NATO-marked weapons off a cliff.

 

Other false claims

 

Other stories of conspiracy theories, such as the one about alleged US bio-labs in Ukraine, are also widely circulated. For example, the Chinese Consul General in Auckland, New Zealand, wrote on the short message service X (formerly Twitter) that "dozens of biological laboratories work on behalf of the US Department of Defense" in Ukraine and that the US "invested more than 200 million dollars in activities in those laboratories". This follows Chinese claims that US biological research laboratories are to blame for the coronavirus outbreak.

 

According to Asia Fact Check Lab, China has also taken other false claims from Russia. For example, Chinese social media users spread false claims about sanctions imposed on Russia and shared Russian claims that the mass killing of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha by Russian soldiers in March 2022 was fabricated.

 

After the Chinese media mentioned Ukraine or Russia less since May 2022, the figure rose sharply from February to April 2023, according to Asia Fact Check. And that with a new emphasis on "China as a peacemaker that prevents the warmongering United States from prolonging the conflict in Ukraine".

 

China presents itself as neutral

 

Nevertheless, Beijing presents itself as a neutral party: "As far as the Ukraine crisis is concerned, China has always been on the side of peace," says an article in the English edition of "Global Times", a media outlet belonging to Narodni List, which is the official mouthpiece of the Central Committee. Communist Party (KP).

 

In addition, China unveiled a twelve-point plan for peace talks and a ceasefire in February. Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, said in a speech that China always takes an "objective and honest position" on the Ukraine issue and encourages peace talks instead of inciting fighting or sending weapons to the battlefield.

 

Russia and China are expanding their partnership

But there are serious doubts about China's neutral mediating role. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also said that he does not find China credible when it comes to the supposed neutral role of mediator. "China has not condemned the illegal invasion and has also expanded its partnership with Russia," he said.

China and Russia strengthened their economic relations as a result of Western sanctions against Russia. According to data from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, goods worth around 178 billion euros were exchanged last year alone.

 

Cooperation with established media

 

In order to spread its own stories on the international level, China developed a special strategy many years ago. "Wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are, propaganda reports must extend their tentacles," said Chinese state and party leader Xi Jinping in February 2016. A report by the non-governmental organization Freedom House states that China spent up to ten billion US dollars in 2017 to strengthen the so-called soft power, four billion more than in 2009.

China now operates online media, TV and radio stations in multiple languages, including English, Spanish and French. In addition, the Chinese government is also trying to integrate its own views into foreign media, for example through cooperation or providing video material, the report says.

In 2020, the German public broadcaster Südwestrundfunk pulled a documentary on the outbreak of the corona pandemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan after it was discovered that the footage was used by a subsection of the Information Office of the State Council of China, which, according to media reports, also influenced the text of the documentary.

There was also criticism of a joint broadcast by the public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk with the English-language channel CGTN of China Central Television (CCTV) in 2017.

China has also tried to spread its own views in print media - so-called advertorials, that is, advertisements in the form of newspaper articles that have a similar design to the rest of the newspaper. Such advertisements with well-intentioned texts about China were published by well-known world newspapers, including the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".

 

Former politicians as multipliers

 

However, given that these Chinese actions have met with a lot of criticism in Germany and other Western countries, China is now trying to spread its propaganda in more indirect ways, according to Kristin Shi-Kupfer, a professor of sinology at the University of Trier. "They try to find advocates who have a certain reputation in the German public, for example former politicians," she says. Beijing, she says, hopes that these multipliers will win over the German public, or at least certain groups, to pro-government positions.

The Freedom House report mentions, among other things, former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who in an interview with the Reuters news agency, among other things, described witness reports about camps for the Uyghur minority in China as "chatter" and advocated closer cooperation with China.

Overall, Shi-Kupfer rates the success of China's efforts, at least in liberal democracies, as relatively weak. It looks different, he says, for example, in authoritarian or even totalitarian states. "And countries that are disillusioned, both materially and morally, with development aid from the West, which is often perceived as very colonial support, are more open to Chinese attitudes," says Shi-Kupfer. A lot, he says, also depends on whether they are considered Chinese economic investments in the country are encouraging.

China's "soft power" strategy is particularly effective, he says, in the countries of the global south. "The popular narrative in China is that the West uses double standards," says Shi-Kupfer. "They say that while many liberal democracies like to criticize from a position of moral superiority, they also have a lot of 'dirty laundry' themselves," says Shi-Kupfer. This, he says, finds great support in some countries. The same goes for the claim that, unlike the West, China really cares about the Global South.

 

Chinese companies build infrastructure

Chinese companies are also significantly involved in expanding the media infrastructure, especially in African countries. According to data from the Chinese TV channel StarTimes, it has about 13 million subscribers in 30 countries of the African continent. According to reports, Chinese channels have an advantage over international channels such as the BBC in the package offering, partly because, unlike international competition, they are already included in cheaper basic subscription packages.

"China also offers education and training for journalists from countries in the Global South," says Alpermann. "We are also trying to strengthen the positive image of China among these journalists so that they can then spread it further," says Alepermann.

According to experts, it is difficult to measure how successful China's measures are overall. "There are studies that show there is some impact," says Alpermann. "But it's not like Chinese views dominate opinion either," says Alpermann. A lot, he says, depends on how ready the recipients are for those perspectives.