The New York Times - USA (2020-12-01)

MELBOURNE, Australia — La-
beling it a “disgusting slur,” Prime
Minister Scott Morrison of Aus-
tralia denounced on Monday what
he called a fabricated image
posted to Twitter by a Chinese offi-
cial that showed an Australian sol-
dier with a knife to the throat of an
Afghan child.
The post, by Zhao Lijian, a
spokesman for the Chinese Min-
istry of Foreign Affairs, followed a
damning investigation by the Aus-
tralian military that found that its
troops had unlawfully killed more
than three dozen Afghan civilians
and prisoners over an 11-year pe-
riod.
Mr. Zhao’s provocation raised
hostilities between the two na-
tions to a new boil. China, fueled
by a long list of grievances against
Australia, which has taken a lead-
ing role in an inquiry into the ori-
gins of the pandemic, has retali-
ated by firing off intensifying
threats and stifling its vast im-
ports of Australian products.
Mr. Morrison told journalists,
“There are undoubtedly tensions
that exist between China and Aus-

tralia. But this is not how you deal

with them,” adding that his coun-

try had demanded an apology.

“The Chinese government should

be totally ashamed of this post,”

he said. “It diminishes them in the

world’s eyes.”

The image, which depicts a sol-

dier holding a bloody knife to the

throat of a hooded child clutching

a lamb, was apparently first

posted on Nov. 23 by a user of the

Chinese social media platform

Weibo. The picture, with the cap-

tion “peaceful troops” and an

emoticon of a skeptical face, re-

ceived 20,000 likes.

Mr. Zhao, in his Twitter post,

which included the image, wrote

that the Chinese government was

“shocked by murder of Afghan ci-

vilians & prisoners by Australian

soldiers. We strongly condemn

such acts, &call for holding them

accountable.”

Asked on Monday about the

post during the Chinese Foreign

Ministry’s regular news confer-

ence, a spokeswoman, Hua Chun-

ying, portrayed the Australian re-

sponse as indifferent to the

killings.

“The Australian side is reacting

so strongly to my colleague’s

tweet. Does this mean they think

the cruel killing of Afghan lives is

justified?” Ms. Hua said.

“Afghan lives matter,” she add-

ed. “Shouldn’t the Australian sol-

diers feel ashamed?”

The Chinese officials’ remarks

came from a familiar playbook.

China, which has long bristled at

examination of its own human

rights record in places like Tibet

and the western region of Xin-

jiang, often tries to deflect such

criticism by focusing on abuses

abroad.

Human Rights Watch, in an an-

nual report, said this year that

China was remarkable for the ef-

fort it had made in attacking crit-

ics.

“No other government flexes its

political muscles with such vigor

and determination to undermine

the international human rights

standards and institutions that

could hold it to account,” Kenneth

Roth, the organization’s executive

director, wrote in early 2020.

Late last week, Mr. Zhao offered

a hint about his motivation for

lashing out at Australia when

asked by a Chinese reporter about

the killings in Afghanistan.

“The facts revealed by this re-

port fully exposed the hypocrisy

of the ‘human rights’ and ‘free-

dom’ these Western countries are

always chanting,” he said, urging

nations like Australia to “stop us-

ing human rights as a pretext to

engage in political manipulation.”

Many in Australia see hypocri-

sy in such statements. Australia’s

searing public accounting of its

forces’ wrongdoing was rare

among the world’s military pow-

ers. China, on the other hand, has

long stopped inquiries into the

crackdown on the Tiananmen pro-

test movement in 1989, when hun-

dreds, possibly thousands, of

demonstrators were killed by Chi-

nese troops in Beijing.

The Chinese authorities also

block efforts to document the sup-

pression and mass detention of

predominately Muslim minority

groups in Xinjiang, with journal-

ists visiting the region facing ex-

tensive harassment and surveil-

lance.

China has reacted particularly

sharply to cartoons and other im-

ages that distort national symbols

such as its flag, though the image

in Mr. Zhao’s tweet shows the Aus-

tralian flag being used to restrain

the child.

The Chinese Consulate in the

Australian city of Sydney com-

plained in April about a cartoon in

The Daily Telegraph, a tabloid

newspaper, that depicted China’s

national emblem as the coronavi-

rus, saying that it “gravely hurt

the feelings of the Chinese peo-

ple.”

Mr. Zhao is representative of a

group of “Wolf Warrior” Chinese

diplomats who in recent years

have grown much more vocal in

taking on China’s critics online.

In a series of tweets in March,

Mr. Zhao pushed an unfounded

theory suggesting that the co-

ronavirus, which first surfaced in

the Chinese city of Wuhan, had

been introduced by the American

military.

His latest Twitter post, though,

set a new bar for China’s long-run-

ning flouting of diplomatic

niceties, foreign policy experts

said.

“It was a deranged move by the

standards of modern diplomacy,”

said James Laurenceson, the di-

rector of the Australia-China Rela-

tions Institute at the University of

Technology Sydney.

Australia’s tensions with China

date back years, when it began to

push back on what it said was

meddling by Beijing in its govern-

ment, universities and other insti-

tutions.

Australia has passed tough

laws to deter foreign interference,

restricted foreign investment in

the country and beefed up its de-

fenses against cyberattacks. It

rarely names China as the target

of its actions, but the implication is

clear.

Last month, Chinese officials

responded by leaking a document

to the news media in Australia

that iaccused the country of “poi-

soning bilateral relations.” It

listed a set of grievances that in-

cluded Australia’s decision to fund

what it called “anti-China” re-

search, as well as to ban the tech-

nology company Huawei.

After the document was re-

leased, Chinese officials said they

also planned to draw attention to

Australia’s treatment of its Indige-

nous people and of older residents

in nursing homes — an answer to

Australia’s criticism of China’s

treatment of Uighurs, a Muslim

minority, and its crackdown on

Hong Kong.

In his remarks to reporters on

Monday, Mr. Morrison appeared

exasperated with what he seemed

to describe as an almost juvenile

approach to foreign policy by

China.

He said Australia had sought

“to address the tensions that exist

in our relationship in a mature

way, in a responsible way,” includ-

ing on “points that Australia feels

strongly about, in terms of our

own sovereignty.”

He said he hoped “that we can

sit down and start talking sensibly

about these issues.”

Australia Condemns Chinese Official’s ‘Disgusting Slur’ of Soldiers

By LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA

and AUSTIN RAMZY

Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, left, acknowledged tensions with China but said a post by Zhao Lijian, right, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, is “not how you deal with them.”

JOEL CARRETT/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK CARLOS GARCIA RAWLINS/REUTERS

Livia Albeck-Ripka reported from
Melbourne, and Austin Ramzy
from Hong Kong. Yan Zhuang con-
tributed reporting from Mel-
bourne.

A move seen as either

exposing hypocrisy or

changing the subject.

A14 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020

They believe that Mr. Biden, like
President Barack Obama, will
pursue accommodation rather
than confrontation in the face of
China’s assertive moves. And
their pro-Trump views have been
cemented by online misinforma-
tion, often delivered by dubious
news sources, that Mr. Biden is
working in tandem with commu-
nists or is a closet socialist sympa-
thizer.
“Biden is president, and it’s like
having Xi Jinping sitting in the
White House,” said Elmer Yuen, a
Hong Kong entrepreneur who has
posted YouTube videos criticizing
the Chinese Communist Party, or
C.C.P. “He wants to coexist with
China, and whoever coexists with
the C.C.P. loses.”
With Mr. Trump’s presidential
tenure in its twilight, these activ-
ists are calling for the administra-
tion to make a final stand against
Asian autocrats, similar to a last-
ditch effort to expand the border
wall with Mexico.
Secretary of State Mike Pom-
peo took a five-nation swing
through Asia in October in which
he abandoned politesse and de-
scribed the Chinese government
as a “predator,” “lawless and
threatening,” and “the gravest
threat to the future of religious
freedom.” The tour was meant as a
counterweight to China in a region
where Beijing’s dollar diplomacy
has bought significant influence.
Last month, Lobsang Sangay
became the first head of the Tibet-
an government-in-exile to visit
the White House; the provocative
invite infuriated Beijing, which
considers Mr. Sangay to be a sepa-
ratist.
In June, Mr. Pompeo attended a
virtual gathering with the Hong
Kong democracy leader Joshua
Wong and President Tsai Ing-wen
of Taiwan, both of whom are
loathed by the Chinese govern-
ment.
Mr. Trump’s popularity is par-
ticularly enduring among Chris-
tians, such as Chinese-born legal
scholars chafing against Commu-

nism’s atheist core and ethnic mi-

nority activists in Southeast Asia.

Mr. Pompeo and other Trump ad-

ministration officials, they be-

lieve, have been fulfilling a faith-

based mission overseas.

Last year, Mr. Trump met in the

White House with a group of reli-

gious leaders from across the

world, including Hkalam Samson,

the president of the Kachin Bap-

tist Convention, which represents

the persecuted Christian Kachin

minority in Myanmar.

“My experience in the White

House, when I was given one

minute to speak out about the Ka-

chin, meant a lot, and it also meant

that Trump cares about us,” Mr.

Samson said. “Trump is better for

the Kachin than Biden.”

Skepticism for Mr. Biden ex-

tends to those fighting for secular

political rights as well. The presi-

dent-elect’s embrace of diplomat-

ic custom will not work when only

one side is playing fairly, they say.

“For Biden’s policies toward

China, the part about making

China play by the international

rules, I think, is very hollow,” said

Wang Dan, who helped lead the

1989 Tiananmen protests as a uni-

versity student. “As we know, the

Chinese Communist Party hardly

abides by international rules.”

“The United States must realize

that there will be no improve-

ments on human rights issues in

China if there is no regime

change,” Mr. Wang added. He has

continued to question Mr. Trump’s

electoral loss, baseless claims

shared by other prominent Chi-

nese-born dissidents.

But others within the communi-

ty, particularly in Hong Kong and

China, said that backing Mr.

Trump was hypocritical at best

and dangerous at worst.

“Trump’s human rights record

— what he does to migrant chil-

dren, the Muslim ban, white su-

premacy, alternative truth — re-

moves him from my support, but

this is apparently not the popular

attitude among many dissidents

in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan,”

said Badiucao, a China-born politi-

cal artist who now lives in self-ex-

ile in Australia.

Mr. Badiucao, who is known by

a pseudonym to protect his family

in China, has skirmished online

with Mr. Wang and other well-

known dissidents and has made

the scuffle a topic for his art.

“These guys are utilitarian, and

they believe that if Trump is wag-

ing war against the C.C.P. then

he’s right for them,” Mr. Badiucao

said. “That mentality fits the

whole ‘America First’ ideology,

where it’s OK for other people to

suffer if your goal is met, and their

goal is overthrowing the C.C.P.”

Over the past 12 months, the

Trump administration has

stepped up its actions in Asia.

Late last year, the U.S. govern-

ment barred military leaders from

Myanmar from entering the coun-

try because of their role in what

Mr. Pompeo called “gross vio-

lations of human rights” of Ro-

hingya Muslims and other minor-

ity groups. Financial sanctions

were also placed on individuals in

Pakistan and Cambodia, among

other countries, where civil liber-

ties are under threat.

This summer, the Treasury De-

partment imposed sanctions on

Carrie Lam, the chief executive of

Hong Kong, and 10 others for “un-

dermining Hong Kong’s autono-

my and restricting the freedom of

expression or assembly of the citi-

zens of Hong Kong.” Four more of-

ficials were added to the sanctions

list last month.

In June, Mr. Trump signed leg-

islation that led to sanctions being

placed on Chinese officials who

have overseen the construction of

mass detention camps in the

northwestern region of Xinjiang,

where more than a million people,

mostly members of the Uighur

Muslim minority, have been im-

prisoned.

“The Trump administration by

far has done more to raise our is-

sue than all other countries com-

bined,” said Salih Hudayar, who

was born in Xinjiang and moved to

the United States as a child. “I’m

very skeptical of a Biden adminis-

tration because I am worried he

will allow China to go back to nor-

mal, which is a 21st-century geno-

cide of the Uighurs.”

During the presidential cam-

paign, Mr. Biden released a state-

ment calling the situation in Xin-

jiang a “genocide.” The Trump ad-

ministration has not used such a

designation, and a book by his for-

mer national security adviser said

that Mr. Trump told Mr. Xi that he

should continue building the de-

tention camps in Xinjiang.

Foreign policy advisers to Mr.

Biden say that it is unfair to pre-

sume that he will continue the

Obama administration’s moder-

ate stance. It is, they say, a differ-

ent era. The recent human rights

legislation championed by the

Trump administration has re-

ceived broad bipartisan support.

And some Asian dissidents ac-

knowledge that the antipathy to-

ward Mr. Biden is driven in part

by a deluge of online misinforma-

tion that paints the president-

elect as a secret socialist or con-

tends, without any proof, that for-

eign “communist money” turned

the election against Mr. Trump.

Such unsubstantiated claims have

been repeated by niche online

publications in Vietnamese, Chi-

nese and other languages.

“The crisis of democracy in the

world makes people, especially

activists, confused and suscepti-

ble to the influence of conspiracy

theories and information manipu-

lation,” said Nguyen Quang A, a

Vietnamese dissident who has

been detained multiple times for

his criticism of the country’s com-

munist leadership. “Vietnam

doesn’t have independent media,

and people, especially activists,

already hate mainstream media.”

One of the most influential

voices spreading false narratives

about Mr. Biden and the election

on Twitter is Ai Weiwei, the Chi-

nese contemporary artist who

now lives in overseas exile.

In an interview, Mr. Ai said that

he was not a fan of Mr. Trump. For

his art, he has posed at Trump

properties with his middle finger

raised. But Mr. Ai said that by

shutting off debate on his social

media feed, he would be no differ-

ent than an authoritarian govern-

ment like China’s.

“All over Asia, all over the

world, people don’t have the right

to speak,” he said. “In America,

left or right, you have personal

freedoms. This has to be pro-

tected.”

Asian Dissidents Mourn

Demise of Approach

Championed by Trump

From Page A

A protest at Causeway Bay in Hong Kong in July. Human rights leaders worry President-elect Biden will not keep autocrats in check.

LAM YIK FEI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

In his waning days,

a president makes a

last push against the

Communist Party.

Chau Doan contributed reporting
from Hanoi, Vietnam; Elaine Yu
from Hong Kong; and Saw Nang
from Yangon, Myanmar.