China’s state-run Global Times propaganda newspaper fretted on Tuesday that President Donald Trump may use a nuclear weapon against rioters destroying neighborhoods in the nation’s biggest cities, declaring America a “failed state.”
The Chinese Communist Party has used its propaganda arms in the past week to denounce not just President Trump, but American democracy as an inferior system to Chinese authoritarianism and promote the claim that only iron-fisted one-party rule will result in racial harmony in the United States. None of the articles on racism in state media have mentioned that Chinese businesses in Guangzhou, one of the country’s largest cities, banned black-skinned people from hotels, restaurants, and other locales last month after the Communist Party perpetuated the claim that only foreigners could infect people with Chinese coronavirus.
Instead, the Global Times claimed in one article that the riots throughout America “expose a ‘failed state'” under the “weak, irresponsible, and incompetent leadership of President Trump. Riots have targeted impoverished neighborhoods in many cities, beginning in Minneapolis, after a police offered killed Minnesota resident George Floyd on video. Floyd was unarmed and did not appear to be resisting arrest, instead pleading with the officer to let him breathe. The officer has been charged with third-degree murder.
“The protests exposed long-standing issues in the US, including racial inequality, discrimination and a polarized society, which have been amplified under the Trump administration, some Chinese and U.S. observers said,” the propaganda outlet, which has published multiple bigoted columns against Americans and others in the Western Hemisphere, asserted. It went on to blame Trump for “using the racial problem to polarize American society.”
The article also claimed that Chinese people witnessing the riots from afar “were shocked, not ‘satisfied,’ because the U.S. image in their minds has been ruined.” That claim directly contradicts the Global Times‘ coverage from Monday, where it proclaimed that Chinese “netizens” were “cheering” in response to the riots, celebrating them as retribution for American officials supporting peaceful pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Another column published Tuesday by the Times unfavorably compared China’s reaction to peaceful protests in Hong Kong – including widespread, filmed violence and accusations of racism and murder – to police action in the United States, which has largely allowed unchecked rioting and looting in many cities. Despite the reality of this contrast, the propaganda magazine asserted the Americans were “ruthless” compared to the communist state.
“As we all know, no violent protesters were killed on the spot during riots that have engulfed Hong Kong since summer of 2019,” the newspaper claimed, falsely referring to the peaceful protests as riots and not acknowledging deaths that protesters have accused police of perpetrating, as well as rape and torture. “But demonstrator [sic] has been killed only one week after the unrest began in the U.S.”
“How ruthless these U.S. politicians are! They talk about humanity, justice, and morality all the time. They condemned Hong Kong police simply for the latter’s use of tear gas and water cannon against violent rioters. The U.S. unrest just began a few days ago, but police already fired shots at protesters before efforts for peaceful dialogue were even made,” the newspaper continued.
“Where are the human rights? Where is their respect for life? The US politicians show zero tolerance to unrest, but they launched countless attacks on other countries’ efforts to safeguard the rule of law,” the column concluded. “If this was organized subversion, what would they do? Will they drop an atomic bomb?”
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement returned to the streets after a brief Chinese coronavirus-triggered hiatus last month. In protests last week, Hong Kong police arrested over 300 people, among them about 100 children. Images of the arrests showed police forcing protesters, previously socially distancing peacefully while marching, to huddle together on the ground in close quarters, potentially exacerbating the spread of the coronavirus.
In other violent incidents in the city through the past year, protesters have said that some among them have died mysterious deaths that the police has chosen not to investigate. An unnamed woman accused the police force of gang rape, resulting in police seeking her arrest but not investigating the claims.
Protests began again after a year of Hong Kong residents accusing the Communist Party of breaking with the “One Country, Two Systems” policy Beijing agreed to when it took over Hong Kong in 1997. In May, the Communist Party’s National People’s Congress (NPC), its lawmaking body, passed a “national security” law that would enable the arrest and punishment of anyone present in Hong Kong if considered to be engaging in “secession” or acts against the national security of the Communist Party. Protesters contend that this effectively nullifies Hong Kong laws that prevent violations of freedom of expression and assembly, and thus violates “One Country, Two Systems.”
Protests throughout the past year objected to a proposed law in Hong Kong that would allow the extradition of anyone in the city if accused of violating Chinese law. Hong Kong tabled the bill, but the NPC law effectively imposes the same police action it would have permitted.
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