By Tom Fowdy
Several days ago, Ukraine suddenly "discovered" the so-called presence of Chinese nationals on its territory fighting for Russia.
Kyiv, which is backed and informed by the full scope of US intelligence, made a vocal fuss out of the incident, summoned China's representative, and then later claimed that there were "155" Chinese nationals supporting the invading forces.
This is propaganda, obvious propaganda, and it should be immediately dismissed as the political opportunism that it is: Ukraine is trying to curry favour with the Trump administration and weaponise anti-China sentiment in order to receive continued support for aid and provisions in respect to Russia.
First of all, I need to be blunt: Ukraine lies about everything. While people may feel sympathy or solidarity for a desperate country that is being invaded, the reality is that Kyiv is not honest and has lied incessantly about every single aspect of the conflict, which is then presented to audiences by the Western media without any due scrutiny. I am not asking you to believe the Kremlin, but everything that comes out of Zelensky's mouth should be taken with a truckload of salt, whether it be from the grotesquely inflated figures of Russian losses, to the absurdist downplaying of their own, they have been able to successfully mislead western audiences for over three years.
If Chinese volunteers were suddenly in Ukraine, how is it they only and suddenly noticed it now? After all these years? We should be honest with ourselves that, because of the size of China's population, amounting to 1.4 billion, and not including giant overseas diaspora populations, it is perfectly possible on a mathematical scale that ethnic Chinese people might have volunteered for Russia. After all, individuals from many countries have done so for Ukraine.
However, such a possibility has nothing to do with China as a country or its policies, either directly or indirectly, and it is ludicrous to suggest so. People have choices. So, what does this mean? It means Ukraine is blatantly choosing to make a political issue out of this. China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson rightfully dismissed the allegations as "irresponsible," for as noted above, it is simply absurd to believe they would have only "discovered" it right now because Ukraine has the full backing of American and NATO intelligence that provides them everything they need to know about the conflict. Therefore, if something was going to be discovered, America would have discovered it first and probably long before now.
Thus, the decision to suddenly announce there are "Chinese fighters" in Ukraine is not only dishonest, but it is also a deliberate act of political propaganda. Ukraine wants to get brownie points with the White House. Kyiv, not happy with the flow in which Donald Trump has taken demands for peace, believes it can try and play to his approval by weaponizing a blame game against Beijing and throwing an anti-China spanner into the works, hoping that the President and his administration will find new excuses to put pressure on Beijing and force them to take a harder line against Russia.
In conclusion, because Ukraine has been invaded, we are often deceived by a binary narrative that they are the "good guys" and are completely spotless. However, for all intents and purposes, Ukrainian statecraft is still institutionally derived from the Soviet legacy and, although smaller, thus adopts many methodologies in its communications similar to Russia. Nobody wants to see their people suffer or their country destroyed, yet we have been all too willing to accept what they say without scrutiny as part of a coordinated war propaganda campaign. Zelensky has a free pass to essentially lie through a megaphone, and now he's playing the China card for obvious tactical reasons.
In politics, timing is everything, and when a given party suddenly "discovers" something that evidence suggests they in fact knew about all along, it's time to be sceptical.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
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