US to offer millions in new funds to take on China

Mike Smith
3 years ago
Categories: China, Propaganda, us politics, war

This from SCMP columnist Alex Lo “If they look, swim and quack like US influence operations, they probably are US influence operations, especially when they come with an annual price tag of US$300 million to be authorised by law by the US Congress, of which US10 million has been earmarked especially for Hong Kong.”

Lo goes on to say:

When the Chinese do it, it’s propaganda. When Washington does it, it’s “investing in our values”. The last phrase is taken from the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, newly passed by the United States Senate and will soon become law. It aims squarely at China and enjoys bipartisan support.

I immediately thought of this from Stuff’s Thomas Manch in last Friday’s DomPost aka ‘WellingtonTelegraph’:

The Chinese Embassy in Wellington has rolled out a “propaganda” briefing about Xinjiang, attempting to disprove assertions that Beijing is committing human rights abuses of Uyghur Muslims.

The article did not provide much information about what was in the briefing, just went on to list more allegations.

In my opinion we are getting a very one-sided view about conditions in China. It is also clear that US influence operations are focused on human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. This is spelled out in the US Senate’s Strategic Competition Act of 2021, a Bill to address issues involving the People’s Republic of China, which mandates the funds mentioned by Alex Lo. More about it here. Talk about foreign interference!

Our media provides very little detail to balance the accusations. For example in relation to Hong Kong, I found these article by Law Professor Richard Cullen on US interference and Henry Litton, former judge of the Hong Kong Supreme Court, on common law procedures very interesting as they provide much needed background detail. In relation to Uyghur genocide in Xinjiang, Geoffrey Sachs notes that:

There are credible charges of human rights abuses against Uighurs, but those do not per se constitute genocide. And we must understand the context of the Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang, which had essentially the same motivation as America’s foray into the Middle East and Central Asia after the September 2001 attacks: to stop the terrorism of militant Islamic groups.

We’ve been through propaganda wars before, most recently regarding Iraq. They have two huge dangers, particularly when it comes to racial difference. Anglophone cultures do not have a good track record in that area, and demonising a country can easily lead to harmful consequences for its people wherever they are located. Also propaganda war can easily lead to kinetic war.

The real problem the US has with China is nothing to do with human rights. It is about strategic competition, and for the US that is a zero-sum game. Not one I see us winning.