As Afghan uncertainty swirls and the world raised fingers on the US fall-out from Afghanistan, China has ratcheted up its anti-US propaganda through series of statements by its officials.
China’s foreign Minister Wang Yi said last week that the US “hasty” pullout from Afghanistan has caused a “serious negative impact ” and have brought to question US credibility and its counter-terrorism measures. Also some hawkish government figures in Beijing and state media have gone one step further to discredit the US image and fan anti-US propaganda.
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Drawing parallels with Fall of Saigon
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian has repeatedly compared US muddled exit from its 20 years engagement in Afghanistan to the fall of Saigon. His colleague Hua Chunying called the US “destructive”, adding that “wherever the US sets foot… we see turbulence, division, broken families, deaths and other scars in the mess it has left.”
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Taiwan should stop “bonding” with the US
Nationalist tabloid Global Times carried an editorial urging Taiwan to stop “bonding themselves to the anti-Chinese mainland chariot of the US”, arguing that the US would not bother waging a costly war with China over Taiwan. Also, with the US manifestation of deserting its Afghan allies, relying on US support has its costs.
Taiwan, which buys weapons from the US, considers itself as an independent country, but China sees it as a renegade province that must be reclaimed even by force.
The island has fought back in recent days by repeatedly likening China to the Taliban. Premier Su Tseng-chang said last week that “foreign forces” who wanted to invade Taiwan were “deluded”.
The foreign minister Joseph Wu asserted that Taiwan does not have a defense treaty with the US and has only implicit security guarantees. Though Biden equated the alliance with Taiwan to their alliances with South Korea and Japan, Taiwan should remember that there is no formal agreement and that US support in this regard is vague.
US officials later said their “strategic ambiguity” policy on Taiwan had not changed, but the incident only gave Chinese state media more fodder.
After the fall of the Kabul regime, the Taiwan authorities must be trembling. Don’t look forward to the US to protect them. Taipei officials need to quietly mail-order a Five-Star Red Flag from the Chinese mainland. It will be useful one day when they surrender to the PLA.😁
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) August 16, 2021
US Afghan exit; an opportune time to fan anti-US rhetoric
Experts say that the Afghanistan exit, in other words, has been a golden opportunity for China to convince the Asian public that the US cannot be trusted.
“The whole point of this propaganda is to increase public pressure on governments that have close cooperation with US, and weaken that relationship,” said Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science with the National University of Singapore.
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