What does Putin’s invasion of Ukraine look like in China? Angeli Datt on the Beijing edit.

As Russian troops press further into Ukraine, and Ukrainian citizens join with their army to fight back, reactions around the world have been emphatic. On Saturday, the United States, the United Kingdom, and their European allies followed up on previously announced sanctions with new measures to punish Moscow by kicking Russian financial institutions out of the SWIFT banking system. As Western news organizations continue to follow events on the ground, Western media is streaming with critical analysis and loud with condemnation. Globally, protestors have taken to the streets in support of Ukraine, and public authorities have responded, lighting up iconic landmarks—including the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, and the Brandenburg Gate—in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. Sports authorities have canceled major events scheduled to take place in Russia, while throughout the English Premier League, Saturday’s football games began——among tens of thousands and beamed to hundreds of millions——with displays of solidarity, as across the jumbotron in London’s Selhurst Park: WE STAND WITH UKRAINE. None of this extends to China, however, where business continues as usual and newspapers, TV, and the internet present a conflict full of complexity but driven ultimately by legitimate Russian security concerns. Why?

Angeli Datt is a senior research analyst at Freedom House, where she focuses on China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and works on the organization’s China Media Bulletin. According to Datt, Beijing is trying to strike a delicate balance in shaping Chinese media coverage of the Russian invasion: supporting Russia without endorsing the invasion—or even referring to it as an invasion—while advancing anti-Western narratives … and without fully alienating the United States or the European Union. Datt sees Chinese state media casting Beijing as a responsible actor on the world stage, with President Xi Jinping calling for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. For now, she says, Chinese social media is allowing a little more free-flowing discussion about the attack on Ukraine than it would permit about issues more directly related to China. But Beijing’s sophisticated system of information control ensures that even news from Eastern Europe will be carefully curated and censored for the Chinese people in the considered interests of the Chinese government.

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Graham Vyse: How is all the invasion playing in Chinese media?

Angeli Datt: China has accused the U.S. of fanning the flames of this conflict and has long had a very anti-NATO stance, since NATO bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. China consistently says NATO owes it a blood debt.

Since this invasion of Ukraine started, Chinese media has taken some time to formulate its response, but it’s beginning to crystalize. Recently, we’ve been seeing the Chinese government develop a deepening relationship with Russia. Putin made a high-level visit to this month’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, and China and Russia have declared a “no limits” partnership. The invasion effectively began the day after Olympics’ closing ceremony, with Beijing taking a position in support of Moscow while trying to maintain China’s longstanding positions on territorial integrity and sovereignty—which are difficult positions to be holding right now. China is saying that Russia has legitimate security concerns and that what’s happening isn’t an invasion but rather, as Russia’s described it, a “special military operation.” That’s the message Chinese state media is pushing.

Vyse: And how’s it pushing that message?

Datt: You have People’s Daily, which is the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, Xinhua, and CCTV [China Central Television], where you’ll get the government’s message clearly and dryly. You have other media usually controlled or owned in some way by the state, and the party sends them media directives—avoid this, emphasize that—that they have to abide by, making them de facto state media, pushing a government line. You also of course have direct censorship—certain perspectives deleted on social media, for instance.

With the invasion of Ukraine, a Chinese media outlet called Horizon News, which is part of Beijing News, accidentally posted the directive they’d received from authorities about how to cover the situation on social media. That directive illustrates how China is framing its thinking at the outset of this conflict. It says not to post anything unfavorable to Russia or anything pro-Western. Everything needs to be reviewed by an editor, who’s usually a Party member. Comments sections need to be curated and reviewed. So right now, you mainly see pro-Russian and anti-Western comments in Chinese media, because the government is effectively controlling the comments section.

More from Angeli Datt at The Signal:

“Certain hashtags are censored. If you try to search the Chinese social-media platform Weibo for #RussiaInvadesUkraine, you get a message saying that—according to relevant laws, regulations, and policies—that page cannot be found. Social-media comments are curated, but there’s still more discussion of Ukraine than there would be of Chinese domestic affairs. There’s some discussion favorable to Ukraine—or not explicitly pro-Russian. The Weibo account for the Ukrainian embassy in China is still active, posting the Ukrainian government’s message in Chinese, which Chinese users can see, even as some of the top comments are things like, You’re killing yourself if you join NATO, or, You should surrender for peace. On some posts, comments have been disabled. The Chinese information-control system is very good at adapting—allowing some discussion, seeing where it goes, and knowing when to cut it off.”

“Analysts who’ve been tracking this closely have found that one of the biggest ways people are supporting Ukraine on Chinese social media is through thumbs-up emojis or liking posts rather than commenting. The Ukrainian embassy’s Weibo account has a lot of likes on certain posts, including the one with their statement to the United Nations. So the embassy and others are trying to engage with Chinese users, getting messages through the firewall, even if it doesn’t yield the kind of back-and-forth you’d see on Twitter—and there are subtle ways Chinese people can show their support.”

“As of Friday, state media was emphasizing Xi Jinping’s phone call with Putin—and Xi Jinping’s role in calling for mediation and negotiation while supporting Russia. They’re trying to send the message that China is a responsible player in the international community. They’re republishing some of what Russian state media and the Russian Defense Ministry have put out—that Moscow is open to negotiation but engaged in a legitimate act for Russian security. Meanwhile, at least on Chinese social media, there’s an emphasis on the Ukrainian president’s statements about how no one is helping Ukrainians—suggesting that the West fanned the flames of this conflict and then abandoned Ukraine. They’re trying to smear the West and, as Kyiv is bombed, Chinese state media is saying that Russia is assuring China it wouldn’t bomb cities and would protect civilians.”