China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

Two things. a) Putin's actions in Ukraine (and who knows where else) have ideological justifications similar to China's justifications of their actions in Xinjiang and Tibet.

But also, the lines used by both regimes bear aesthetic resemblance to "anti-colonialist" and "anti-imperialist" narratives propagated by both the Stalinist and Maoist regimes in the past. Lots of "we're counteracting western aggression" [somewhat questionable here, Russia has never been under explicit military threat in this century] and "but the west does it too" [whataboutism, a diversion tactic]

They were hypocritical arguments back in the Soviet era, with the way the Soviets treated Poland or Afghanistan, etc. but are way more threadbare now, hollowed of any "substance" at all.

So I don't know how much of what is going on in China in regards to this is actually based on any geo-political strategy or how much of it is just reflexive fall-back to classic Maoist views of the west, a position against western imperialism.

Like, we want to see some global strategy here, but it's also quite likely that the people at the heads of these regimes are much more incompetent than we give them credit for, and playing a game infused with ideological grudges which are only partially understood in the west.

Clearly what is long-term good for China is continued peaceful trade with the west. Yes, there's tension around the basis of that, and how it is formulated. And "the west" certainly has its own aggressive colonialist and imperialist dominance which China feels compelled to counteract. But it seems to me there is no reason for China to toss the table over and stir up this level of chaos. It feels extremely ideological.

Putin's rambling speech before the invasion -- justifying it -- referenced old debates within the Soviet past... he directly referenced and attacked Lenin and Lenin's positions (and Trotsky's -- a Ukrainian Jew) on the "national question" and national self-determination. Essentially from his POV Ukraine "only existed" because of the early Bolshevik positions on ethnicities etc.

Classical Leninism, pre-Stalin, was concerned with granting federal independence to various Soviet ethnicities, to explicitly take apart Tsarist imperialism, and establish what they saw as a socialist federalism and this went along with an internationalist focus as well, as they hoped their revolution would spread to the west (and it did, sort of, in Germany and Hungary, but fizzled out.)

After the failure of revolution in the west, and after Lenin died, Stalin came to power, brutally purged most of the old Bolsheviks, and instituted a kind of revanchist policy and restored major aspects of the old Tsarist pre-revolutionary Russian bureaucracy and internal policies. He paid some lip service to Lenin's position on the national question but basically committed internal genocide (and forced relocations) on various minority populations in the USSR, and was responsible for millions of deaths in Ukraine. Sort of ironic given he himself was of a minority ethnicity (Georgian) origin.

Anyways, in Putin's speech he said explicitly that Lenin's position on national self-determination was incompatible with a functional state. And he's right. Lenin's position was explicitly against the kind of (authoritarian, Russo-supremacist) state Putin wants, and Stalin wanted, which is why Stalin had to murder all the old guard Bolsheviks while committing genocide against Ukrainians (and others) and Putin has to invade Ukraine and god knows who else next. Their image/fantasy of what Russia is or has to be, requires it. And given China's behaviour in Tibet and Xinjiang, they have similar perspectives.

>And here’s CGTN’s article

That's GlobalTimes. I know they are both state media, but we are talking CGTN here.

> citing Russia media outlets and officials

I bet I can find them quoting US or Ukrainian media outlets and officials too. Should media not report what countries fighting a war claim? It's not like Western media consistently gets it right (e.g. deaths on snake island) by reporting only the pro-Ukrainian side.

> They peddle Russia’s claim that US has bioweapons

Why link to Newsweek instead of the actual CGTN post? I am less interested what Western media claims CGTN says than proof of what they actually say.

Always chuckle when we talk corporate or western state-sponsored propaganda yet "we" still have shit like this. Collusion between the private companies and governments is fascism, by definition. Which is what China does in their country, and which is what we sometimes allow, willingly or not, in our countries through the internet.

I personally am against censorship of any kind. And while that in principle means allowing propaganda garbage from all sides, it also means not censoring domestic "propaganda"(which could be anything depending on your reference) or material. People dislike this because having a personal filter is hard, but the alternative is arguably worse if you only allow a certain side.(which goes back to the first point of fascism by collusion)

You are correct. The "Buy American Act" has some good features. We recently had to buy Anchor Chain for a gov vessel refirb and it literally took an act of congress to override and buy Chinese anchor chain. There is no one in USA who could provide it in a timely fashion. 52 week lead time is unsat.

China will trade Russia for wheat due to bad harvests. We are driving Russia into Chinese hands with currency and transactions. Too bad they have an dictator for life. He gambled and lost.

1: The international community probably doesn't care if they don't. It will still be seen as an invasion. 2: While Russia formally recognizes Ukraine as a country I don't believe they currently recognize its democratically elected government as legitimate which is the basis for their bogus Casus Belli.