China and Europe seem to be taking a more pragmatic approach to their relationship as the Trump administration alienates US allies, but big differences remain over trade and Ukraine.
The South China Morning Post is one of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda media outlets owned by Alibaba Group. This “article” comes essentially from the dictatorship’s office.
Yep, so what’s their motive in publishing this?
As an addition to what I have already written in this thread (and having read your other comments here), the question is rather what your motive is in publishing this Chinese and Russian authoritarian propaganda like SCMP and Dugin.
My motive is to analyse our adversaries. I am European, and I am a fervent believer in a united Europe, and anybody who is trying to break us apart is my enemy.
It is a propaganda outlet, so their motive to publish is to spread the fascist and totalitarian propaganda to support their dictatorial policy. The same policy, you know, that decisively support Russia in its war against Ukraine and, therefore, is threatening Europe’s security. Something from such a ‘source’ should not be posted here.
But we have to deal with them. They are a superpower, a rival to the USA. I’m not saying we should believe what they say, but analyse why they are saying it. We cannot just ignore them as Europeans.
We have to discuss everything, but there should be no content posted from any extremist right-wing (or left-wing) sources, no propaganda outlets, let alone if the governments behind actively threaten European security. China is the same unreliable and authoritarian dictatorship we have seen already before this Florida man took over across the Herring Pond. Such a source should not be posted imo.
It’s one of the few English speaking sources from China. That fact alone makes it already clear that it is a propaganda outlet mostly aimed at foreigners, but if you are aware of that, it can be a legitimate source to see how the Chinese government wants to spin a certain topic in the eyes of a foreign audience.
It’s one of the few English speaking sources from China.
China’s Global Times is an English-language propaganda outlet in English. The Chinese Communist Party’s news agency Xinhua publishes in English (as well as in German, French, and many other languages). And then there are many propaganda outlets in English and other languages in the world.
Sometimes these are openly influenced by China. The Chinese government has been spending billions of dollars (in the single-digit billions, if I recall correctly) over the last decade or so to establish a network of such propaganda outlets all across the globe (publishing news in English and other local languages), all of them collaborating with the so-called “International Communication Centers” inside China for fine-tuning Chinese anti-democratic narratives.
Other propaganda outlets are hiding their connections to the Chinese Communist Party, the recent most prominent example likely being “NewsBreak”, that was once (or still is?) the most downloaded US news app, and in 2024 turned out to be of Chinese origin, and spreading AI generated ‘fiction’ and Beijing’s propaganda.
Your statement is absolutely baseless and even downright naive if it comes from a moderator dealing with such content.
[Edit for clarity.]
Well, there is a huge difference between an officially state run news agency, a genuine Chinese source like the newspaper linked above (obviously not independent), and covert propaganda efforts.
Not seeing that difference is naive and group-think to ban anything with a relationship to a foreign govermment also doesn’t help.
And anyways, this kind of propaganda is among the least worse, as it is pretty obvious and doesn’t hide its intentions.
First, not all here are supposedly aware that this media outlet is propaganda, but even if so, there is no need for this garbage imo. And, second, the same user cited Alexandr Dugin, one of Putin’s most derailed propaganda figures (who supports Russia’s invasion because, according to Dugin, all Ukrainians are ‘nazis’ - Dugin is one of the Russian figures from whom this and other repugnant slurs come from, used by Russia to justify the war).
That aside, you and me (together wirh a couple of others if I remember that right) had a discussion in another thread some time ago. Back then you, poVoq, argued to explicitly allow propaganda, so I am -unfortunately- not surprised here.
The argument was more nuanced. Using moderation to suppress differing opinions (which, yes, tend to be influenced by propaganda), usually just results in people switching to pure propaganda bubbles, which is much worse.
Pointing out here in the comments that SCMP is a Chinese propaganda outlet is fine. That way even people unaware of it previously can come to their own conclusions.
Tensions between China and Europe aren’t all that high compared to what they could be. I think even maintaining the status quo is gonna be a challenge.
I’ve read on a few websites specializing in geopolitics that the trump administration is attempting something called a ‘reverse nixon’, to try and drive russia and china apart. Is this a factor in the EU trying to form a closer relationship with china?
Trumps adoration and wish to mimic anti-democratic dictators has long preceded the closing ties of China and Russia.
Geopolitical analysts are trying to rationalize the actions of a megalomanic narcissist who has no interests beyond making himself look good. It is a case of “If Your Only Tool Is a Hammer Then Every Problem Looks Like a Nail”.
This is a case for a psycoanalyst, not geopolitical analysts. Trump is not trying to do some grand strategic reverse-Nixon, he just has a bro-crush on Putin and wants to be like him and be his friend.
EU and China are just acting as two rational geopolitical actors: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. It should be noted that EU doesn’t have any territorial beefs with China, it is all economics and trade issues. Which both are interested in solving or hitting pause on while they deal with Trump who contests territorial claims of both EU and China.
If anything, Trump is doing an inverted-Nixon, pushing US allies closer to China, and pulling Russia closer to US. Not in the interests of USA, but in all in an attempt to make himself look good and to live up to his dream of being a land-conquering dictator like Putin.
That my analysis anyway.
In ‘The Foundation Of Geopolitcs’ by Aleksandr Dugin, he says
The People’s Republic of China, which represents an extreme geopolitical danger as an ideological enemy to the independent Russian Federation, “must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
The Ukraine war has forged a relationship between russia and china that the USA wants an end to.
Just trying to understand what’s going on and Europe’s geopolitical maneuvers.
You won’t find what Trump is thinking by analyzing the works of Alexandr Dugin, nor the intentions of Europe/EU. Please don’t read that extremist propaganda, it will not do you any good. He is probably clinically insane.
While Putin does like some of what he is writing, I am absolutely certain he is cherrypicking what he likes from it and ignores the rest. But Putin is probably also clinically insane, so that doesn’t really help…
Also, Putin and by tradition Russia considers EVERYONE an existential threat, unless they completely submit to Russia and Putin. The Russians have a saying: “Russia only has two allies, the army and the navy.” That probably tells you everything you need to know.
What is more interesting to me is what China thinks of Russia and EU. If you can find a credible work on that, I’d be interested.
What are you doing here?
Alexandr Dugin is a strong supporter of Vladimir Putin who is often referred to as “Putin’s brain”. Putin’s politics and his propganda content echoes Dugin’s “philosophy” to a large part. Dugin vocally supported the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, and since 2022 has supported its full invasion of Ukraine as representing a battle against “absolute Evil, embodied in Western civilisation, its liberal-totalitarian hegemony and in Ukrainian Nazism”.
What this man is saying is the worst of extremist and derailed propganda.
Hotznplotzn wrote:
“What are you doing here?”
I’m trying to analyse our adversaries. Dugin says China must be dismantled aswell as he believes they are a grave geopolitical threat to Russia.
