Opinion | The US's new propaganda offensive

By Tom Fowdy

There are few coincidences in politics. The United States and the mainstream media its influences are the masters of depicting world events in a theatrical-like fashion. That is, the ability to create a stage show of a "problem" with amplified coverage, to manufacture outrage and attention, and then of course to parachute their own foreign policy proposals in as the solution. I have learned this through experience. It became obvious to me by 2020-2021 that the "leaks" of Xinjiang-related stories and content to the mainstream media, including the BBC, were always coincidentally coordinated by Foreign Policy priorities and goals pursued by the US government.

Such as for example, early that year the BBC released a feature story it pushed very aggressively alleging "rape" of Uyghur detainees, right in the run-up to the US's push for coordinated sanctions with the EU and allies against Xinjiang, with the specific objective of arousing opposition to the "Comprehensive Agreement on Investment" (CAI). Or alternatively, how the deliberate release of "forced labor" stories coincided with planned US bans on the import of Chinese-made solar panels and other goods, using this premise. In each instance, the US was coordinating the narrative deliberately and presenting the flow of events as a "theatrical show."

As a further example, when I was 18 years old, I remember how the mainstream media in Britain began excessively placing emphasis on Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and the emerging civil war (which was Western-backed). I remember how it created a buildup of fear over his planned military action against the city of Benghazi, accusing him of killing civilians and thus creating a "moral alarm" of "we need to act!" which not surprisingly, accumulated in the NATO-backed bombing campaign which was not a "no-fly zone to protect civilians" as marketed, but very much so an effort to oust his regime. For me, this moment was also a geopolitical turning point in history specifically because it was the last successful Western military regime change to occur, and exacerbated the distrust of Russia and China.

But going back to theatrics, again I observe the US has launched a new propaganda offensive against China. It might be added that through its unparalleled influence of the mainstream media, the US ultimately has control of the direction the relationship is "steered" in by creating the illusion of reality through these theatrics. If it wants to escalate, it will deliberately leak or amplify negative and tension-building stories, such as the Xinjiang ones as I mentioned, but if it wants to de-escalate such coverage is noticeably toned down. In doing so, the United States also has firm control of the political direction in which its allies take and uses the flow of "narrative" and "debate" to subsequently limit or contain their engagement with China to their own devices. Hence as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, what the 2021 Xinjiang propaganda offensive was about.

Therefore, this new "propaganda offensive" is tailored to a similar thing, which is targeted at Europe with the goal of undermining a new wave of engagement between Beijing and EU state leaders. Recently, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China. The US and its proxies find this kind of engagement disdainful as they are determined to push Berlin onto a different course. Soon, Italian Prime Minister Giorgina Meloni will also visit China, despite that the US had strongarmed Rome into withdrawing from the Belt & Road Initiative. Worse still for them, Xi Jinping is scheduled to make his first official visit to the European Union in years and will visit Paris. How does the US respond to this? The way it always does, by deliberately unleashing negative news and pushing narratives with the goal of driving a wedge into China's relations with these countries.

This time around, the US is pushing hard to frame China as a culpable backer and player in Russia's war in Ukraine. As always, there has been concerted press coverage focusing on the matter, such as Beijing's exports, while unsurprisingly these "leaks" have been backed up with political rhetoric from key figures such as Anthony Blinken and Kurt Campbell. Also, unusually, there has been a sudden surge of "spy scandal" stories, particularly in Germany, with people being arrested on accusations of colluding with Beijing. As I have said before, it is important to note in all circumstances that the definition of a "spy" is ambiguous and shifts in accordance with political boundaries and objectives. What may be tolerated in one context, may not be in another, and there is a grey zone between "spying" and "research" that authorities determine at their own discretion. The CIA after all, never gets prosecuted for its actions in Western countries, does it? So we might wonder why these stories have come to the surface at this specific moment. As I have stated, there are no coincidences in politics, it's all one big, theatrical game.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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