By Riyaz ul Khaliq
ISTANBUL (AA) – Despite China’s isolated social media platforms, its public sphere has not been immune to the propaganda and disinformation being pushed by Israel during its ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, according to a Beijing-based observer.
“What worries me is that … some right-wing people … they are making a lot of propaganda in China,” said Liu Bo, a journalist who has been closely monitoring trends on Chinese social media platforms that are otherwise closed off to the world.
There are websites in China which “platform” Israeli propaganda, such as one called “Israel Project,” he told Anadolu.
“Information on that platform is basically Israeli propaganda to distort the whole history of Palestine,” said Liu.
“It just says that the Palestinian people have absolutely no right to this piece of land, and I can see many intellectuals are starting to believe in this kind of narrative. It is ridiculous.”
Since Oct. 7, the Gaza crisis has been among the top trends on Chinese social media platforms, such as Weibo, Weixin, TikTok, Bilibili, Zhihu, Little Red Book, and Douban, he said.
There have been “mixed reactions,” with popular opinion aligning with the government’s official position in favor of a two-state solution, he added.
“Social media platforms influencing people’s attitudes towards the Palestine-Israel conflict are mainly Weibo and Weixin,” according to Liu.
- ‘A double-edged sword’
Liu emphasized that the social media sphere remains a “double-edged sword.”
“On one hand, it has strengthened our understanding of the world. And it has helped develop China’s civil society,” said the Beijing-based journalist.
However, he warned of “fake news” that flooded Chinese social media sites such as Weibo following the election of Donald Trump as US president back in 2016.
“A lot of fake news that originated from the West came into China, and this has been poisonous for China, as far as China’s public sphere (is concerned),” he said.
In Liu’s assessment, a lot of Chinese people cannot “differentiate between what is true and what is just propaganda.”
In China, he said, “a lot of people came from the Cultural Revolution … a very far, far-left movement.”
“So, people began to get afraid of the left. But sometimes, very extreme Western far-right narratives came into China, and people are just vulnerable to these narratives. They cannot tell the difference between what is really happening and what is just the fake news,” the journalist said.
“It cuts in both ways. Social media is playing a very big role in distorting issues … about Islam, about Palestinians, the Middle East, Europe and America. It is distorting the normal public discourse on this issue.”
- Trends on Chinese social media
The Chinese government has traditionally supported the Palestinian cause, said Liu.
When the current flare-up began, he said many people viewed it as the Palestinian people fighting Israeli aggression.
“But, at the same time, some people on the right side of the ideological spectrum of China, they think like the Western governments,” he pointed out.
The line of thinking on that side is that Israel “has suffered a lot in this attack, and the fault is on the Palestinian side, Hamas and the ordinary Palestinian people,” he said.
Reiterating his view about the “mixed” reactions, Liu said: “I cannot see a uniform reaction by the ordinary people. Most people, their sympathy is on the Palestinian side.”
- Class war on social media
Liu’s observations reveal that China’s social media is witnessing a war between common netizens and the country’s “intellectual class.”
“In the intellectual circles, especially in the liberal intellectual circles, the sympathy is on the Israeli side because they think Israel is a civilized, Westernized nation. And they think Israel is adhering to the international law … and that they are minimizing the casualties there,” he said, drawing parallels in the response of Chinese and Western “liberal intellectuals.”
“Normally, they agree on many things,” he added.
The Chinese intellectual class, he added, “sometimes blindly accept the narratives made by the Israeli government and they do not look into it with a critical approach and … make a very simplified description of the conflict.”
“Many right-wing intellectuals and their supporters – I mean, the people who are more liberal-minded in China – they trust the narratives made by the Israeli government too much,” he said.
“They just think it is kind of civilization versus barbarianism.”
The westward leanings of the Chinese intellectual class “has something to do with China’s history,” according to Liu.
“Many of the liberal elites … hate the cultural revolutions very much. And so, after the reform and opening up in China, they started to identify with the West,” he explained.
This class thinks “they have a responsibility to make China a Westernized country,” he said.
“But in this process, they have not distinguished too much between the West and the Western civilization, democracy … and some bad things … some mistakes made by the West,” he pointed out.
These intellectuals and others who support them “think Israel is part of the West” and more “civilized than the Palestinian people,” he said, terming it a “wrong assertion.”
He said there are “even falsifications … fake news … basically blaming the whole thing on the Palestinians side.”
The fake news being circulated “is influencing a lot of people,” he said.
Liu said many people like him have been trying to raise awareness, but “we cannot fight against this very large amount of fake news on China's websites.”
- ‘No influence on government policies’
According to Liu, the Chinese government is supporting the “Palestinian cause … although China has diplomatic relations with Israel.”
Israel-China relations are growing “but at the same time, Chinese government’s official policy is a very, very good way to solve the conflict because China supports the two-state solution and to support the Palestinian people, including resolving the refugee problem,” he explained.
“There is no problem with the Chinese government’s policy, and the people who take information more from the government side, they tend to sympathize with Palestine,” Liu pointed out.
“For the intellectuals, it is just a kind of an ideological passion that drives them to support Israel.”
To a question, he said the division in opinions seen in the wake of the current Gaza crisis and “the pro-Israel narratives” have not been able to influence China’s official policy “for now.”
“That’s because the Chinese government is making their policy based on China’s national interest,” he stressed.
“China had a good reason to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in the 1990s, but at the same time it is very important for China to maintain a good relationship with the Arab and Islamic countries.”
He said the government position remains “very, very rational” and it does “not want to take sides with Israel.”
“Because on one hand, this is against China’s national interest. On the other hand, this is against the international consensus on the two-state solution.”