Protests in China and Western Hypocrisy
Western media and politicians decrying China’s restrictive mitigation measures is an incredibly brazen show of hypocrisy, and we should all be wary of the U.S. government infiltrating these protests
Recently, a wave of civil unrest has erupted in China as protests and demonstrations have taken place across the country. The protests are in retaliation to the Chinese government’s years-long authoritarian Covid-19 mitigation measures, and while this isn’t the first time the Chinese people have openly opposed their government’s response to the pandemic, these latest protests appear to be having more of an effect than did the previous attempts. Due to the protests, the Chinese government has somewhat eased up on some of their restrictions, but at the same time, they have also begun cracking down on the protesters.
Over the last three years, the Chinese government has maintained a strict “zero-Covid” policy, which means they’ve continued enforcing lockdowns and other harsh mitigation measures while claiming that tactic would eventually lead to the virus no longer circulating among the population; an idea that was always ridiculous and completely unrealistic. That policy led China to implement some of the most drastic lockdowns in the world (which is saying something, as nearly every country’s government enforced lockdowns in response to Covid-19), and it seems as though the Chinese people have grown tired of being forcibly locked down as most of the world has realized that, despite futile attempts by governments to mitigate it, this virus was always going to spread and will continue to do so.
Another notable aspect of China’s response to the pandemic is the Covid health app that citizens are required to install on their smartphones. That app tracks everyone who has downloaded it and is used as a way for the government to dictate who is allowed to travel, shop, work, and practically anything else, and who needs to isolate at home or be placed in a government-run quarantine facility. While that sounds like a dystopian nightmare that can only happen in an authoritarian country like China, the fact of the matter is similar systems were set up in some form or another in many “democratic” countries around the world. Some of those systems have since more or less been abandoned, but the infrastructure remains in place for whenever governments inevitably decide to return to them and the precedent for doing so has been set.
Unsurprisingly, the excessively restrictive policies the Chinese government has enacted over the last few years have failed to have the desired result, as China has recently experienced a large wave of infections. It turns out (as much of the world has learned over the last three years) wielding immense authority over average citizens has little effect on how a respiratory virus spreads. That didn’t prevent governments all over the world from doing just that, however, but western politicians and media have, in true Orwellian fashion, attempted to rewrite history and make it appear as though they have always morally objected to tactics such as lockdowns. This has been made evident from the way they have responded to the recent protests in China compared to how they’ve responded to previous protests elsewhere.
In 2020, mere months into the pandemic, anti-lockdown protests took place within the U.S., much to the disdain of western media, celebrities, public health officials, and politicians. Those protesters were ridiculed, mocked, and considered to be dangerous right-wing extremists who denied science and wanted to kill your grandma. Similar protests took place in many countries all around the world throughout the pandemic and when they weren’t criticizing those movements, the corporate press willfully ignored them instead.
One of the best examples of this hypocrisy was last year when truckers sparked massive protests in Canada against a mandate that required them to be vaccinated against Covid-19. As I wrote at the time, the protests “began as an industry-specific strike against a specific mandate” and quickly “turned into a much larger movement protesting the government overreach Canada has seen over the pandemic.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with the aid of the corporate media, tried to portray those protesters as racist misogynists and was notably unable to engage with them in discussions as he conveniently came down with Covid around the same time. His response to the protests in China has been in stark contrast with his response to the protests that took place within his own country. The same could also be said of President Joe Biden, who supported Trudeau’s handling of those protests but has also come out in support of the protesters in China.
In my opinion, all of these protests have been completely valid and appropriate, considering the drastic and authoritarian measures that preceded them. I empathize with the protesters in China and wholly support their right to demonstrate and make their voices heard, but it’s important to point out the disparity between the western media and political class's response to the current protests going on in China compared to the response they had to all the other anti-lockdown and anti-mandate protests that took place over the last few years. If measures such as lockdowns and mandates are considered to be draconian when countries like China enact them, then they should also be viewed that way when they’re done by “liberal democracies”. The question is, why does that disparity exist?
One reason could be that those sorts of policies have proven to be ineffective and extremely damaging to society, and those who supported them in the past are now trying to distance themselves from their mistakes. Another more devious reason, however, would be that China is a country that has long been targeted by the U.S. empire, and therefore western media and politicians will take any opportunity to portray them as an evil and tyrannical government. Doing so causes the average westerner to view China as more of a threat than it really is, which distracts from the tyranny of our own governments and helps to manufacture consent for the hawkish behavior the empire exhibits toward China.
It’s true, the Chinese government is horribly oppressive, but as I’ve written about before, one of the most effective forms of propaganda is spinning the truth in just the right way in order to manipulate the public to a desired end. The response the Chinese government has had to Covid-19 has been harsh, restrictive, and authoritarian, but the same could also be said of the way western governments responded. Considering that, it becomes obvious that our media and our politicians do not care about the Chinese people or their civil rights; they care about the U.S. maintaining global hegemony, and they see these protests as a way to manufacture consent for the U.S. empire’s continuous escalations against China.
The U.S. government has also routinely used civil unrest within targeted countries to its advantage as a way to bring about regime change. In an article I wrote a few weeks ago titled “Beware of Propaganda”, I made the argument that the recent protests in Iran could possibly be an example of that tactic being put to use. As I wrote at the time:
The basic idea is that you use the momentum of an organic populist uprising — possibly even support it by funneling money to the groups involved through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), for example — and then install a leader loyal to the U.S. empire once the previous regime has been overthrown. That may sound like conspiracy theory nonsense, but it’s well-documented that that tactic has been used time and time again.
We have every reason to assume that the U.S. government would attempt to do that very same thing with the current protests in China. As I previously stated, those protests are most certainly organic and for a valid cause, but that doesn’t mean the CIA and other western intelligence agencies won’t take advantage of them like they’ve done numerous times before in various countries.
A relevant example of this would be the protests that took place in Hong Kong back in 2019. While those protests were certainly organic and for a good reason, the groups involved were evidently funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an NGO that receives much of its funding from the U.S. government and does overtly what used to be “done covertly … by the CIA”, according to one of the NED’s founders, Allen Weinstein. The NED is essentially a CIA cutout and is publicly used to advance regime change operations all around the world. When you keep that in mind, it’s difficult to view protests like the ones that have recently taken place inside China (and Iran for that matter) without a level of skepticism.
All of this has occurred on top of the U.S. government, as well as intergovernmental organizations such as NATO, recently ramping up provocations against China. One example would be NATO adding China to its security concerns for the first time ever. (Isn’t it a little bit odd that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would focus its attention on China?) A few more examples would be the U.S. and India participating in military exercises near a disputed border between India and China, as well as the U.S. potentially shifting its stance on Taiwan and also possibly reopening a military base in the Philippines in order to counter China. The Pentagon’s recent National Defense Strategy also named China as a “top threat”, which provides even more credibility to the idea that the U.S. government would infiltrate the current protests in order to destabilize the Chinese government.
Again, the Chinese government is indeed a tyrannical and authoritarian regime, but so are many other governments that don’t get the same treatment from the collective west due to their alignment with the U.S. empire (Saudi Arabia and Israel come to mind). Let’s also not forget that governments all over the world initially reacted to Covid-19 in very similar ways as China, the difference being China has continued to enforce much of its harshest policies this entire time, whereas a lot of western countries have left a lot of their strictest measures behind them. The fact that western lockdowns and mandates only lasted one or two years instead of three is not as meaningful of a distinction as many people seemingly want to suggest.
To reiterate, I fully support the protesters within China who are risking their freedom in an attempt to put an end to China’s oppressive and ridiculous “zero-Covid” policy. However, western media and politicians decrying China’s restrictive mitigation measures is an incredibly brazen show of hypocrisy, and we should all remain wary of the possibility that the U.S. government and its client states may very well be infiltrating these protests in order to advance an imperial agenda.
One doesn’t need to apologize for China’s authoritarianism to oppose the U.S.’s potential involvement in this situation, and anyone being honest with themselves should also understand that the U.S. government is itself an extremely authoritarian regime that has no right to criticize other governments’ behavior. With that being said, I hope all those protesters who are truly advocating for freedom within China make some meaningful gains. Aside from moral support from afar, however, the U.S. should stay out of it and instead work to restore freedom here at home, as it’s our government that is the true threat to the American people.
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I completely agree with this analysis. While it's beneficial to sympathize with the protesters in China, we cannot ignore and forget what our own government did to us during the lockdown craze. It's imperative that we call out their hypocrisy.
It seems as if a good number of Americans are more concerned about freedom in China than they are with the freedom of Americans. Many have yet to realize that their own government is by far their greatest threat. Good work on this article.