The US-China Cold War — how propaganda is used as a weapon
For quite a long time now, since the start of the current downward spiral in the bi-lateral relationship between the US and China from around 2017, there is a concerted effort by western politicians and media to spread slanderous narratives about China.
The constant barrage of vicious accusations and smearings against China by the western politicians, media and China-haters will never cease, because true or false, they serve a purpose for them.
The west’s intent is to contain the further rise of China, who is perceived to be a threat to western hegemony and which will reduce the west’s dominating position in the world order. So the looming China threat must be stopped — at all cost.
Facts and reality do not matter and will not feature at all in their non-stop onslaught to demonise China through the smearings and accusations. The current flavours-of-the-day are genocide of Uyghurs, forced labour in Xinjiang, virus leak from Wuhan Lab, Hong Kong human rights abuse, to name a few.
The US knows that once a conspiracy is stirred up, trying to make it go away will not be easy. Any little doubts created by the slander will serve as valuable fodder to the western instigators to add to the narratives of an evil China, whom they have presumptively judged as guilty.
It is a Propaganda War that is being fought
The sad truth is that in such a war, truths and reality matters little. The Western instigators and accusers will stick to their narratives no matter what. Their die-hard anti-China supporter base, once fed with the lies, will not support any other counter-narratives. Their key narrative is that China is evil, so it is guilty, without any doubt.
Such malicious mud-slinging against China has achieved its expected objective. More and more Americans are holding a negative view of China. Last fall, a survey by the Pew Research Center shows a record 73% of Americans hold this negative view against the country and its Communist Party.
That is the grim and ugly reality at the battleground frontlines. The propaganda war‘s key objective is to capture the hearts and minds of the people and propaganda-spreading is a vicious and deadly weapon.
If the slanders are left alone to fester, they will poison the minds of the people further, harden their already-biased position and increase their hatred towards the other camp.
Will the Cold War Escalates ?
Hope for a re-set of the US-China relationship to a friendlier point has been effectively dashed after the Anchorage top-level encounter between the new Biden administration’s senior staff and China‘s senior representatives in March. The surprising unfriendly introduction at the meeting by US Secretary of State Blinken, which led to the sharp reciprocal retort by China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in return, has largely put paid to any possible warming of ties between these two nations.
The US obviously perceived itself to be under threat from China, Biden has pronounced as much that the US see the rise of a serious competitor in China. Biden’s administration has asserted that China “is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”
China’s more assertive responses to the US’ tough posturing has forced the US to take a even firmer stance. Recently, Biden’s hawkish advisers and military top brass have been rather vocal as well, calling for countermeasures to strike at China, militarily or otherwise.
Following Joe Biden’s recent visit to Geneva to hold a summit meeting with Russian’s Putin, there is now an expectation that a face-to-face meeting between Biden and Xi Jinping is on the card next, maybe over the coming few months, or during the G20 Summit in Italy during the month of October.
The ideal outcome, if the summit goes through, is that there will be a meeting of minds between these two leaders, to give priority to putting US-China relationship back on a more even keel. A commitment to a cooling of the temperature by both sides will be good, to refrain from using under-handed tactics, falsehoods, and conspiracies to attack each other.
The stakes are high for both sides. An escalation of the cold war will be to the detriment of the whole world.
In summary, I offer the following statement :
“ Propaganda, once released to spread, will have a life of their own ….. and they eat truth and morality for breakfast “
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