Propaganda pals

Universities in China have organ-ised classes so students can understand the war in Ukraine. The first step is to have teachers attend lectures on how to “unify thoughts and correctly guide students’ understanding” of the conflict.

- STEPHEN DAVIS

Those correct thoughts, of course, are that Russia is the victim of Western aggression.

This state-sponsored propaganda highlights the fact that China, for all the claims of its diplomats to uphold the international rules-based order, is happy to echo Russian disinformation campaigns and ignore the horrors of Bucha and Mariupol. The very idea that China is neutral is false.

It is relying on friendly commentators in the West to make excuses for its whitewashing.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors, Chinese officials have been studying a Communist Party-produced documentary that extols Russian President Vladimir Putin as a hero.

“The humiliating collapse of the Soviet Union, the video says, was the result of efforts by the United States to destroy its legitimacy. With swelling music and sunny scenes of present-day Moscow, the documentary praises Mr Putin for restoring Stalin’s standing as a great wartime leader and for renewing patriotic pride in Russia’s past,” the New York Times reported. “It describes Mr Putin as cleansing Russia of the political toxins that killed the Soviet Union.”