This morning, I saw this tweet on my timeline:
(rough translation) “The government has sent some people to the universities to guide us on where we stand on the Russia-Ukraine war and how we should talk about it. Our school requires all teachers to attend the meeting. No one can find excuses to avoid attendance. I am not sending the screenshot of the announcement. Because I am timid.”
Later he tweeted:
“Perhaps the world need to know that we are training people with knowledge and skills to be enemy of civilization.”
This method works, the party is delegating to the teachers brainwash and monitor of the students. Many people echoed him. One guy posted a screenshots of a Wechat group of parents of primary school students:
(rough translation): Calling for peace, against war, Putin is a stupid cunt. Oh Yeah. Then I was removed from the class Wechat group. People told me that the group went crazy afterwards. Not because I used dirty words, but because I insulted Putin.
The head teacher of the class called me later, told me to rejoin the group to apologize, and explain to the people, and told me what I said had a bad influence on the kids. Supposedly some kids asked his mom, “mom, is Putin a stupid cunt, is this uncle correct?”
Of course I would not give in, left alone apologize. I will not rejoin the group. I told the head teacher very clearly, Putin is a stupid cunt, mass murderer and a butcher. All of the kids should know that he is a stupid cunt and a devil. No words can be too dirty to be used on this kind of stupid cunt devil.
Another parent commented on Twitter:
“This is true, my kid in second grade asked me, why they always say that the Russia-Ukraine war was started by Ukraine.”
When top government officials from China and USA met in Rome to discuss where China stands on the war, many Chinese were holding their breath: will China break away from the “USA-China friendship” that was started by Mao and Nixon 50 years ago, and swing back to be an ally of USSR/Russia?
Until 2001, on the cusp of China joining the WTO, China was a very poor country. So poor that later CCP credited itself as being able to “lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty”. The propaganda works very well. Most of my foreign friends will repeat this line to give CCP credit. Unfortunately they only know half of the story, the half CCP wants everyone to know. The other half is: it was CCP that forbade people to make a living on their own. That was how the “hundreds of millions of people” got into “poverty” to begin with.
Older generation like me remember those dark days. The entire generation of young people whose lives were ruined by the cultural revolution were just a few years older than me. There is a China that we could potentially fall back into, and it is a very sad and scary place to be.
I imagine, the Ukrainians know something similar. What they have that Chinese people don’t have, is the complete memory of their history. They managed to change the statues on their streets and public squares to remind them of the true history of their nation. They had to fight bravely, many times, in the streets, to stay close to the West and EU. And this time, they chose, again, to fight bravely for their freedom.
China, on the other hand, had benefited from the good will of the West for the last 20 year, because the CCP leader took the historical opportunity right after 911. It led to close trade partnership with the USA and prosperity and pride. When dear supreme leader took over, he inherited a fortune, the world second largest economy. And of course, he thought he could reshape China to his own liking.
So, does he really want to anger the USA and invite sanctions?
From current domestic propaganda, it looks that way. But internationally, China was cautious, it doesn’t want to be seen as pro-Russia. In the General Assembly vote, they chose absentee. And when the two top government officials from China and USA met in Rome, China reminded the USA of Taiwan. It wants the USA to stop arming Taiwan. The meeting lasted 7 hours and there did not seem to have much agreement. The USA is closely monitoring China and has threatened with sanctions if China is ever found out supporting Russia militarily.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine visited Lviv today and praised the Ukrainians for “their solidarity” in fighting against the Russians. China also promised to be there to help the Ukrainians to rebuild their country. This gesture seems to have angered Russia.
No one knows what is the motivation of this speech: purely opportunistic for future investment? Or playing two faces to confuse the USA and its allies?
For now, China has not openly broken away from the West, despite domestic propaganda seeming to point at the opposite direction.
The economic effect of the sanction on Russia probably will play a very important role in China’s choice. This twitter thread by a political scientist based in St. Petersburg predicts what Russian economy will look like in the coming months:
“I have collected some thoughts on the immediate impact of sanctions on the Russian economy (a long thread). TL; DR: 30 years of economic development thrown into the bin.”
China is watching, I hope.